Democracy In Suffrage

Action Needed

2010-03-17T11:13:00.004-04:00

ERA In Florida NOW

No Excuses !

1)
Florida's House Speaker Larry Cretul plans to stop us in our tracks again: He's

refusing to hold a hearing on ERA's HCR 8003. You know that if HOUSE doesn't hear ERA, SENATE won't. ERA NEEDS A VOTE IN COMMITTEES. This is the EIGHTH YEAR the House has done this to us! UNACCEPTABLE!

* RIGHT NOW--and for the next 2 weeks, Speaker needs to get thousands of postal cards saying HOLD A HEARING (VOTE) ON HCR 8003, THE ERA. Find his address and what to say (or give it your own "kick') at www.RatifyERAflorida.net, CLICK ON the "Postcarding" button at top of page for the whole enchilada!

2)
Clog his phones, too, unceasingly: 850 488-0887 (Tally), 352 873-6564 (Ocala),

352 955-6407 (Gainesville). Ya'll did a GREAT JOB LAST YEAR. LET'S DO IT AGAIN, BUT BIGGER!
PITCH IN. DO YOUR PART FOR ERA. DO IT NOW AND THROUGHOUT THE NEXT 2 WEEKS until it IS heard the 3rd week in March. Shucks, WHY NOT COME WITH US TO LOBBY ?! WE can sure use the extra help.

Our staffers are phoning every legislator. All 160 have already received at least one flyer reminder to co-sponsor ERA. ERA already has a combined 20 co-sponsors (29 to go, for our usual 49).

GO GET 'EM, ERA ACTIVISTS
3)

ALSO, ERA needs YOU to make phone calls NOW to the following members of its
first committee. TELL THEM you want them to co-sponsor ERA and URGE A FAIR HEARING--8 YEARS IS TOOO LONG TO WAIT FOR EQUALITY WHICH SHOULD BE OUR BIRTHRIGHT. We only have TWO WEEKS to BE EFFECTIVE SO THE BILL CAN BE HEARD
HARD WORK WORKS!! ERA IS WORTH IT, RIGHT? Scroll down.
Civil Justice &Courts Policy Committee Members
TALLAHASSEE DISTRICT OFFICE
Domino, Carl J. (R) Chair 850 488-0322 JUNO BCH: 561 625-5176
Weinstein, Michael B. (R) Vice Chair 850 488-1304 ORANGE PK : 904 213-3005
Soto, Darren (D) Dem Ranking Membr 850 488-9240 ORLANDO: 407 249-4743
Eisnaugle, Eric (R) 850 488-9770 ORLANDO: 407 893=3141
Fetterman, Adam M. (D) 850 488-8749 PT. ST. LUCIE : 772 873-6500
Flores, Anitere (R) 850 488-2831 MIAMI: 305 227-7626
Frishe, James C. (R) 850 488-9960 BELLAIR BLUFFS/BCHS: 727 518-3902
Gibson, Audrey (D) 850 488-7417 JAX: 904 353-2180
Gonzalez, Eduardo (R) 850 488-1683 HIALEAH/MIAMI: 305 364-3066
Grady, Tom (R) 850 488-4487 NAPLES: 239 417-6200
McKeel, Seth (R) 850 488-9890 LAKELAND: 863 647-4896
Murzin, Dave (R) 850 488-8278 PENSACOLA: 850 494-7330
O'Toole, H. Marlene (R) 850 488-5991 THE VILLAGES: 352 750-1671
Poppell, Ralph (R) 850 488-3006 TITUSVILLE: 321 383-5151, SEBASTIAN 772 770-670

THIS HARD WORK, WORKS. IT TAKES ALL OF US TO DO IT. PLEASE !

LET'S PUT THE ERA IN THE CONSTITUTION

THIS YEAR!

KEEP US POSTED,
sandyo
P.S. FYI, To Tempt You-following is

a listof our blog contents found at www.RatifyERAflorida.net , updated nearly daily! Stuff you won't likely find elsewhere. Even if you just OPEN our site, it moves us up the Google foodchain ! Our petty goal is to leapfrog Phyllis Schlafly's site there!!

ERABlogNews 4 YOU Archive

2010 (15)

March (4)
" WAL-MART in KY SettlesSmall Suit (NOT the HUGE one...
" Women are Human, Not Vestal Virgins
" Pres. Obama Launches Cabinet Council for Women,Gir...
" From The Source, Article on The Military's Progre...
February (3)
" SERVICEWOMEN TO BE ASSIGNED TO SUBS, COMBAT !
" Why hasn't ERA passed in Florida, and thus, the Na...
" FLORIDA ERA BILLS are MOVING !
January (8)
" Gloria Steinem: As long as women are possessions not people, o...
" CEDAW, Unfinished Business, Along With ERA
" Equal Rights Alliance IS HONORED TO PRESENT OUR ER...
" LAUNCHING REVOLUTION -- Equal Rights Amendment wor...
" ERA Stance of Rep. Evan Jenne, House Bill Sponsor ...
" New Streamlined 2010 Florida Equal Rights Amendmen...
" In response to the New York Times article, 1-18-20...
" New Bulletted TALKING POINTS
2009 (3)

xxx sandyo, ERA Inc

Katie Reyes

2009-08-29T14:38:00.004-04:00

Katie Reyes this is your day young lady and we celebrate you. Why is it since 1984 when young ladies were permitted to play in the Little League, we have only seen fifteen so far in the World Series. Still are daughters are told they are lesser than, that to play in sports dominated males. This fine young lady has proven yes there are women out there who are more than comparable. I say we need to encourage are young women they to can excel at sports also. Maybe in some way it would show them that plastic surgery and slut wear is not the only way to rank in this society, because that is the message that is being pushed to our daughters out there...
My two cents...

She Plays Ball Like A Girl, In the Little League World Series
Katie Reyes is being hailed as "the first girl game-winner" in a Little League World Series game. Katie became the hero with a two-run single that won the game for Canada!

Obviously, precious few girls have been permitted to play. Since 1984, that would be all of 15 girls playing in the Little League World Series. This year, there were all of 2 girls.As far as we know, the first girl to play in the LLWS was Kathryn Johnston. Back in 1950, she passed as a boy by tucking her hair under her hat and using the nickname "Tubby."''They didn't know I was a girl, and my brother didn't say anything,'' she said. ''If I had told them my real name, they wouldn't have let me play. So I told them my name was Tubby, from the male character in the cartoon strip 'Little Lulu.'''I played a couple of weeks and then I talked to my coach. I said: 'I really need to tell you something. I'm not a boy. I'm a girl.' He said, 'That's O.K., you're a darned good player.' So I ended up playing the whole season at first base and became sort of a drawing card, because everybody wanted to see a girl play.''
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk0TLzZYLH8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fguerillawomentn%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded

Women Equality Day & Whole Foods

2009-08-28T11:40:00.004-04:00

“Once again no fan fare” for Womens Equality Day ( of course were is the true equality )
Not even an amendment to say women are equal...
August 26th came and went with out even a cheer or should I say a small cry...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZxAH7aI13w

Now I am making a plea to all to support Whole Foods, the CEO John Makey hear him out...
By

JOHN MACKEY
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."
—Margaret Thatcher
With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people's money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.
While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:
View Full Image
Chad Crowe
• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees' Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.
Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan's costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.
• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.
• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.
• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.
• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?
• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.
• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?
Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America
Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.
Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor's Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.
At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an "intrinsic right to health care"? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.
Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.
Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.
Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.
Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.
Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.

NOW

2009-07-21T17:48:00.004-04:00

I myself boycotted the NOW convention in Indianapolis this year. I was a member but thought that NOW has loss touch with the real issue of women and feminism. President Kim Gandy put the knives in the average womans back, and did not step up to the plate when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was attacked, or Governor Sarah Palin. Women's rights and activism is not about age or race but a matter of reaching out and including all. President Kim Gandy lost that. This is the reason the endorsed candidate Latifa Lyles lost, she represented more of the same. "Please" with the idea that just because a woman is black that she can offer something more than a white candidate, it is only proving that you yourself is racist, and if your banking on the fact because she is young and black she can bring a whole different demographic is just kidding yourself. "Quality" & an instilling candidate can do that...

Ms.Matthews

NOW elects Maryland woman its next president
(AP) – Jun 21, 2009
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The National Organization for Women has elected a 56-year-old Maryland woman as its next president in a close win over a rival who had been endorsed by the group's current president.
NOW said Terry O'Neill, who is white, defeated Latifa Lyles, a 33-year-old African-American woman from Washington, D.C., during the organization's three-day national conference in Indianapolis. The group did not release totals from Saturday's vote.
Lyles had been enthusiastically endorsed by current NOW President Kim Gandy, who retires from NOW on July 20 after eight years as the group's president.
Gandy had said Lyles, who would have been NOW's youngest president ever, would "take NOW to a different level" by recognizing the nation's "generational shift."
Lyles had said she could help give NOW, with a mostly white and over-40 membership, a new image of youth and diversity that would appeal to younger feminists.
O'Neill, who is one of the oldest at the start of a term, said in a prepared statement that she was "honored and eager" to lead NOW.
"My experience with domestic violence, as an abused wife left me humiliated and embarrassed. I only began to talk about this publicly five years ago as I realized that to keep quiet was to continue the abuse. I want to empower women and telling my story does just that," she said.
NOW press secretary Mai Shiozakiis referred calls on Saturday's vote tally to O'Neill, who declined Sunday to be interviewed. She referred calls about the vote totals to her spokeswoman.
"It's been quite a whirlwind and I don't have those," O'Neill said.
O'Neill's spokeswoman, Hannah Olanoff, said Sunday that the vote totals were not immediately available but she said it was a "close election," as had been expected.
She said NOW would hold a news conference at the end of the week to discuss the election.
O'Neill, who has taught law at Tulane University, was NOW's vice president for membership from 2001-05. Most recently, she has been chief of staff for a county council member in Maryland's Montgomery County.

"Remember Her Name"

2009-07-21T15:43:00.002-04:00

Irena Sendler - who recently died at 98 years of age, was a 2008 Nobel Peace Prize NomineeDuring WWII, Irena was given permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a plumbing/sewer specialist. She had an ulterior motive. Being German, Irena knew what the Nazi plan was for Jews. Irena smuggled out infants in the bottom of a tool box she carried in the back of her truck. She used a burlap sack for bigger children. She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers wanted nothing to do with her dog.. The barking covered noises of the infants and children.Irena managed to smuggle out and save 2500 infants and children, before she was caught! The Nazi's broke both her legs and arms, and beat her severely. Irena kept a record in a jar buried under a tree in her back yard of all the children she smuggled out. After the war, she tried to locate all parents that may have survived to reunite families, but most had been gassed. The children she could not reunite were placed with foster families or adopted. Irena was nominated for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize. She was not selected. Al Gore won for a slide show on Global Warming. Help send this email around the world so that this 'noble' lady is remembered for her bravery.

"Happy Independence Day"

2009-07-04T12:12:00.007-04:00

Democracy In Suffrage would like to wish everyone a Happy Independence Day to everyone. We honor the women & men who gave their life to give Independence and birth to a nation such as ours...
But in these grave times that the “Bill of Rights” & “The Constitution” our being ignored, not upheld and trampled on by the very women & men we sent to Washington to uphold these laws...
“Elections” that equal to third world countries where accountability is no more. Were the great women of this land after over two hundred years are still second class citizen. Washington has representation by only 17% women, yet we are over half the population. Earn still less for the same work as men, shackled with our reproductive rights held over are head and threatened every election to vote for one joker after another. Divided by are own ranks instead of putting aside our difference, and uniting...

Is 2009 the year women celebrate their Independence Day? “Don't know, but is it not time women lead the charge to take back our government, like every other great movement in this country...

Letterman Once Again

2009-06-23T16:26:00.006-04:00

When I ask? Sexual misogynistic attacks going to stop on women, and when are they going to stop attacking Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, or Governor Sarah Palin. Why don't the male counterparts receive this to this end degree, and why is it so excepting in are culture to either attack women on a lesser than or reduced to crude sexual innuendo...
“Letterman”

“Palin dressed in her sleazy Airline Stewardess”
what all Airline Stewardess sluts & whore and deserve to be ridiculed by you? Like your the guru of style Letterman...
or a lame excuse he did not realize she had her fourteen year old daughter with her, she was all over the New York News Dave were where you?
“Liar Dave” when are we as a nation going to stand up and say enough to the battery of women on the National Television...
I think this no better or worse than “Don Imus” or is white women fair game nope I have seen on all races of women...
“Please Contact CBS or your local CBS affiliate and the New York office scream foul scream enough. Let's start boycotting the products that endorse Letterman like “Olive Garden” contact there headquarters and let them know why...
CBS Television Network51 West 52nd Street New York, NY 10019
Main Number:(212) 975-4321
"Olive Garden"
Darden Restaurants
dardeninfo@darden.com
Mailing Address:
5900 Lake Ellenor Drive Orlando, FL 32809
407-245-4000
P.O. Box 593330 Orlando, FL 32859-3330

This Letterman guy just doesn't get the message! "Did you hear this? Hillary Clinton busted her elbow. Apparently, she slipped and hit the floor when she … went home to her husband early, unannounced." http://hillary.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/06/23/hillary_news_tidbits

"Violence & The Victim Who?"

2009-06-23T11:58:00.005-04:00

Domestic violence; till this is no longer tolerated by all women. Women set aside there difference and come together. We will continue to be victims...

When an estrange husband can attack his sick frail wife who is battling cancer with a hammer, smashing her in the face and head, and walks out of a jail in less than three months. This is the problem...
Why is it this man who was not held for attempted murder. Why ? Because she is a woman plain and simple. Now as for him he shows back up at this woman's home tries to kill her mother and the likes, shoots half of this woman's sister face off, who latter dies. This all occurred in less than a six month period.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/12/lodi_man_accused_of_shooting_s.html http://democracyinsuffrage.blogspot.com/2008/12/violence-against-women-failures-of.html
http://democracyinsuffrage.blogspot.com/2008/12/violence-against-women-failures-of.html
Women we are apart of the blame? Also when are we going to stand arm and arm, stand true, stand together. When we talk about "Ole Boy" network it is because men stick together. Women will follow blindly behind because we are told as little girls we are suppose to...
"Only" we can stop the violence but we got to stand up and say foul, and demand that we are first protected under the Constitution as equal, second demand not just tougher laws but to enforce the laws that are on the books...
I hear women say any women can run for political office today, women don't want to. Well sister let me tell you to get on the playing field is allot tougher than you will ever know, because you care not to support your brethren...
I am actually exhausted telling women call your political party's, let them know you want my support, then put more women on the ballot, write them an email, a letter. Actually the pen is mightier than the sword, trust me it is the best way if you want to be heard...
I urge each and everyone of us to get involved, or it may be your mother, grandmother, or like Betty Jean her Daughter...
Sincerely Je'Amour
Man Arrested After Girl Says 'Daddy Killed Mommy'
Tuesday, June 23, 2009

BROWNSBURG, Ind. - An Indiana man arrested Monday night was accused of stabbing his estranged wife to death while his two daughters, 12 and 8, hid in a closet. Authorities said the older girl called 911 and told a dispatcher, "Daddy killed Mommy."
Joseph L. Warnock, 41, was arrested about 9 p.m. in the same neighborhood of Brownsburg where he had once lived with his wife, Angela Warnock, 38, said Lt. Roger Call of the Hendricks County Sheriff's Department.
The wife was found stabbed in her bed at home on Sunday night. Investigators say the couple was going through a divorce and she had a protective order requiring him to stay away from her and their daughters.
The killing came two days after the wife obtained a two-year extension on the order.
Detective Sgt. Charles Morefield said Warnock forced his way into the home through a patio door just before midnight Sunday and went to a bedroom where his wife was sleeping with the girls.
Police said that when he began stabbing his wife, the girls ran into a closet and hid there for at least 15 minutes while their father was in the home.
When he left, the 12-year-old girl called 911 and told a dispatcher "Daddy stabbed Mommy."
His arrest came after police scoured the area Monday around the couple's home just west of Indianapolis. Instead of driving to the subdivision, police said Warnock parked his car in a church parking lot and walked across a field to get to the house.
Warnock was being held in the county jail in Danville. It was not immediately known if he had an attorney.

http://freemenow.wordpress.com/
http://democracyinsuffrage.blogspot.com/

"Geena Davis Bates College"

2009-06-05T01:06:00.005-04:00

I am making a plea to all women to please send this on to watch. I am pleading to all men pass this on and show that they can too stand up and say women need to be counted and as men need to know the realities that yes the United States of America ranks in at 68 at female representation ( this puts us down with third world country's ) . I know I will not see equality for women in my life time but at this pace to quote Ms. Davis it will take five hundred years. I make this plea now for all to watch... Pass this on...Sincerely Ms. Matthews

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfghrTLGfnQ&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fguerillawomentn%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded

2009-06-03T19:44:00.003-04:00

The German Chancellor socks it to them she was adamant that the European Central Bank & The Federal Reserve needs to be booted. That it has caused the crisis at current hand, and will down the road. Here is excerpt...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a rare public rebuke of central banks, suggested the European Central Bank and its counterparts in the U.S. and Britain have gone too far in fighting the financial crisis and may be laying the groundwork for another financial blowup.
"I view with great skepticism the powers of the Fed, for example, and also how, within Europe, the Bank of England has carved out its own small line," Ms. Merkel said in a speech in Berlin. "We must return together to an independent central-bank policy and to a policy of reason, otherwise we will be in exactly the same situation in 10 years' time."

"Read The Rest Here"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124398546796379239.html

Kudo's Chancellor I couls say it no better. I urge each and everyone of you if your Congress Representative is not on this list, then take the time to encourage them to do so. Remember the Federal Reserve is not a Government Agency they act as an independent banking system of the United States, is it not time the United States gets a bank statement, Would you yourself stay with a bank that does not get audited once in awhile and does not have transparency when it comes to your money. Ask your Congress Representative to cosponser H.R.1207...

COSPONSORS(124), BY DATE [order is left to right]: (Sort: alphabetical order)
Rep Kagen, Steve [WI-8] - 2/26/2009
Rep Bachmann, Michele [MN-6] - 2/26/2009
Rep Bartlett, Roscoe G. [MD-6] - 2/26/2009
Rep Jones, Walter B., Jr. [NC-3] - 2/26/2009
Rep Rehberg, Denny [MT] - 2/26/2009
Rep Posey, Bill [FL-15] - 2/26/2009
Rep Broun, Paul C. [GA-10] - 2/26/2009
Rep Poe, Ted [TX-2] - 2/26/2009
Rep Burton, Dan [IN-5] - 2/26/2009
Rep Abercrombie, Neil [HI-1] - 2/26/2009
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. [CA-6] - 2/26/2009
Rep Garrett, Scott [NJ-5] - 3/5/2009
Rep Chaffetz, Jason [UT-3] - 3/6/2009
Rep Kingston, Jack [GA-1] - 3/6/2009
Rep Young, Don [AK] - 3/6/2009
Rep Rohrabacher, Dana [CA-46] - 3/6/2009
Rep Stearns, Cliff [FL-6] - 3/6/2009
Rep McClintock, Tom [CA-4] - 3/6/2009
Rep Heller, Dean [NV-2] - 3/6/2009
Rep Duncan, John J., Jr. [TN-2] - 3/6/2009
Rep Taylor, Gene [MS-4] - 3/6/2009
Rep DeFazio, Peter A. [OR-4] - 3/9/2009
Rep Alexander, Rodney [LA-5] - 3/10/2009
Rep Price, Tom [GA-6] - 3/10/2009
Rep Petri, Thomas E. [WI-6] - 3/10/2009
Rep Foxx, Virginia [NC-5] - 3/10/2009
Rep Grayson, Alan [FL-8] - 3/11/2009
Rep Marchant, Kenny [TX-24] - 3/11/2009
Rep Wamp, Zach [TN-3] - 3/16/2009
Rep Blackburn, Marsha [TN-7] - 3/16/2009
Rep Buchanan, Vern [FL-13] - 3/17/2009
Rep Castle, Michael N. [DE] - 3/17/2009
Rep Fleming, John [LA-4] - 3/18/2009
Rep Akin, W. Todd [MO-2] - 3/19/2009
Rep Platts, Todd Russell [PA-19] - 3/19/2009
Rep Peterson, Collin C. [MN-7] - 3/19/2009
Rep McCotter, Thaddeus G. [MI-11] - 3/19/2009
Rep Lummis, Cynthia M. [WY] - 3/19/2009
Rep Burgess, Michael C. [TX-26] - 3/19/2009
Rep Sessions, Pete [TX-32] - 3/23/2009
Rep Deal, Nathan [GA-9] - 3/23/2009
Rep Franks, Trent [AZ-2] - 3/23/2009
Rep Miller, Jeff [FL-1] - 3/24/2009
Rep Blunt, Roy [MO-7] - 3/24/2009
Rep Stark, Fortney Pete [CA-13] - 3/26/2009
Rep Culberson, John Abney [TX-7] - 3/26/2009
Rep Paulsen, Erik [MN-3] - 3/30/2009
Rep Gingrey, Phil [GA-11] - 3/30/2009
Rep Terry, Lee [NE-2] - 3/30/2009
Rep Carter, John R. [TX-31] - 3/31/2009
Rep Capito, Shelley Moore [WV-2] - 4/1/2009
Rep Wittman, Robert J. [VA-1] - 4/1/2009
Rep Fallin, Mary [OK-5] - 4/2/2009
Rep Smith, Lamar [TX-21] - 4/2/2009
Rep Westmoreland, Lynn A. [GA-3] - 4/2/2009
Rep Lucas, Frank D. [OK-3] - 4/21/2009
Rep Lamborn, Doug [CO-5] - 4/21/2009
Rep Ehlers, Vernon J. [MI-3] - 4/21/2009
Rep Bilbray, Brian P. [CA-50] - 4/21/2009
Rep Pence, Mike [IN-6] - 4/21/2009
Rep Manzullo, Donald A. [IL-16] - 4/21/2009
Rep McCaul, Michael T. [TX-10] - 4/21/2009
Rep Cole, Tom [OK-4] - 4/21/2009
Rep Roe, David P. [TN-1] - 4/21/2009
Rep Herger, Wally [CA-2] - 4/21/2009
Rep Bishop, Rob [UT-1] - 4/21/2009
Rep Baldwin, Tammy [WI-2] - 4/21/2009
Rep Olson, Pete [TX-22] - 4/21/2009
Rep Latham, Tom [IA-4] - 4/21/2009
Rep Luetkemeyer, Blaine [MO-9] - 4/21/2009
Rep Doggett, Lloyd [TX-25] - 4/21/2009
Rep Rooney, Thomas J. [FL-16] - 4/22/2009
Rep Massa, Eric J. J. [NY-29] - 4/22/2009
Rep Johnson, Sam [TX-3] - 4/22/2009
Rep Thompson, Glenn [PA-5] - 4/22/2009
Rep Brady, Kevin [TX-8] - 4/22/2009
Rep Smith, Adam [WA-9] - 4/22/2009
Rep Shimkus, John [IL-19] - 4/22/2009
Rep Graves, Sam [MO-6] - 4/22/2009
Rep Jenkins, Lynn [KS-2] - 4/23/2009
Rep Gohmert, Louie [TX-1] - 4/23/2009
Rep Inglis, Bob [SC-4] - 4/23/2009
Rep Kaptur, Marcy [OH-9] - 4/23/2009
Rep Johnson, Timothy V. [IL-15] - 4/23/2009
Rep Brown, Henry E., Jr. [SC-1] - 4/28/2009
Rep Biggert, Judy [IL-13] - 4/28/2009
Rep Pitts, Joseph R. [PA-16] - 4/28/2009
Rep Tiahrt, Todd [KS-4] - 4/28/2009
Rep Myrick, Sue Wilkins [NC-9] - 4/28/2009
Rep Putnam, Adam H. [FL-12] - 4/28/2009
Rep LaTourette, Steven C. [OH-14] - 4/28/2009
Rep Tiberi, Patrick J. [OH-12] - 4/28/2009
Rep Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana [FL-18] - 4/28/2009
Rep Hoekstra, Peter [MI-2] - 4/28/2009
Rep Miller, Candice S. [MI-10] - 4/28/2009
Rep Granger, Kay [TX-12] - 4/28/2009
Rep Simpson, Michael K. [ID-2] - 4/28/2009
Rep Barrett, J. Gresham [SC-3] - 4/28/2009
Rep Goodlatte, Bob [VA-6] - 4/28/2009
Rep Smith, Adrian [NE-3] - 4/28/2009
Rep Wilson, Joe [SC-2] - 4/29/2009
Rep Hall, Ralph M. [TX-4] - 4/29/2009
Rep Kline, John [MN-2] - 4/29/2009
Rep Bono Mack, Mary [CA-45] - 4/29/2009
Rep Murphy, Tim [PA-18] - 4/29/2009
Rep Calvert, Ken [CA-44] - 4/29/2009
Rep McDermott, Jim [WA-7] - 4/29/2009
Rep Upton, Fred [MI-6] - 4/29/2009
Rep Bachus, Spencer [AL-6] - 4/29/2009
Rep Buyer, Steve [IN-4] - 4/30/2009
Rep Neugebauer, Randy [TX-19] - 4/30/2009
Rep McHenry, Patrick T. [NC-10] - 4/30/2009
Rep McCarthy, Kevin [CA-22] - 5/4/2009
Rep Barton, Joe [TX-6] - 5/4/2009
Rep Hensarling, Jeb [TX-5] - 5/4/2009
Rep McMorris Rodgers, Cathy [WA-5] - 5/4/2009
Rep Bilirakis, Gus M. [FL-9] - 5/4/2009
Rep Moran, Jerry [KS-1] - 5/4/2009
Rep Cassidy, Bill [LA-6] - 5/4/2009
Rep Walden, Greg [OR-2] - 5/4/2009
Rep Crenshaw, Ander [FL-4] - 5/4/2009
Rep Campbell, John [CA-48] - 5/4/2009
Rep LoBiondo, Frank A. [NJ-2] - 5/4/2009
Rep McHugh, John M. [NY-23] - 5/4/2009

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-1207

Stop The Drive Through Mastectomies

2009-06-03T19:11:00.004-04:00

Breast Cancer Petition
Protect Breast Cancer Patients from "Drive-Through" Mastectomies

The Bipartisan Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act Needs Your Support!Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-Connecticut) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Senators Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) recently re-introduced the bipartisan Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act in Congress. Thanks to its viewers, Lifetime has so far collected more than 23 million online petition signatures urging Congress to pass this critical legislation, which would end the practice of so-called "drive-through" mastectomies when women are forced out of the hospital only hours after invasive breast cancer surgery. Help restore patient and consumer rights to breast cancer patients and their families:
Sign Lifetime's growing petition. Lifetime will continue to deliver the signatures to Congress and make your voice heard.
Share your story. If you or someone you love has experienced a drive-through mastectomy, we want to know. Tell us in the official Breast Cancer Survivor community discussion.
Call or write your members of Congress and ask them to support the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act. You may reach your member of Congress by calling the U.S. House of Representatives switchboard at 202-225-3121. To find your representative in Congress, go to: http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml. (The information you provide here is intended for this petition only. We will pass the information along to Congress. Lifetime will not use the information for any commercial or other purpose. However, Lifetime cannot be responsible for the use of this information by Congress.) I support the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act.

http://www.mylifetime.com/my-lifetime-commitment/breast-cancer/petition/breast-cancer-petition

"Tsunami Media Alert"

2009-06-03T13:06:00.003-04:00

TSUNAMI MEDIA ALERT
May 29, 2009
The Latest Czar to Regulate Far More than Cars www.WAMAction.org
A long-forecast and dreaded announcement came this morning from the head of the “Change” Administration himself. The astonishing sequence of end-runs, by the “Change” Adminisitration – around traditional and critical structures which preserve the U.S. Constitution- and its balance of powers – seems about to take its greatest toll to date. The protections provided by the 3 American branches of government have continued to erode via Obama’s unprecedented installation of “Czars” – i,e, politically hand-picked individuals who are given enormous powers over free enterprise – and whom report directly to the Chief Excutive himself. This newly invented system for expanding Executive branch authority, among its other dangers, eliminates the need for Congressional approval or involvement with these power-packed new authority figures. It also short circuits Capitol Hill oversight of the activities which they undertake.
Obama has made public today his plan to take control of the Internet – directly from the White House – on behalf of preserving “cyber-security.” This strategy to expand his authority to encroach further on Americans right to privacy – with warrantless supervision of online activity – has been in the works since the Inauguration. The timing of its current announcement holds notable coincidence to the Chief Executive’s recent decline in public opinion polls (along with the downhill slide of popularity among his key Congressional leadership (Pelosi, Reid and Dodd.)
Former Democratic activists who worked against Obama’s nomination are among those most aware of the alarm bells this current move to suppress opposition sets off. His online primary campaign, which generated maximum impact via use of high tech applications-is recalled by many for its brutality and vicious conduct against web opponents in 2008. Several reported personal threats while many more indicated repeated disruption of their blogs and large-scale attacks on their forums. Throughout the campaign season, an online army of campaign-paid web thugs were hired for these intrusions, as reported and verified by FOX News. Intimidation, verbal threats, gutter language and even obscene images were the order of the day.
Those in the know, then are acutely aware, then, that the “threats to security” listed by this Head of State in his televised speech today ironically coincide with tactics similar to some his own campaign used to get elected. An Obama small-dollar-on-line donor even reported receiving a phone call on his unlisted cell phone to remind him of a “Meet Up” in his own neighborhood – this despite the fact that the donor had not supplied the campaign with either his cell number nor his physical address! At least one Nigerian husband and wife both confessed last year to using their executive positions with international tech corporations to obtain personal records of U.S. citizens for use in harassment by the “Change” campaign.
In the meantime, while specifics of the new leader’s rationale remain to be seen, it’s already foreshadowed they will be as far-reaching as possible. Obama’s sweeping statements about the urgent need to protect everything from banking records, to online purchases to information exchange. Rumors have indicated that the NSA is also disturbed that this new report-to-President only position would also circumvent this agency’s normal role in cyber-watching. Further evidence of the long-term planning of this eradication of online privacy plan lies in the fact that Senators Rockfeller and Snowe introduced a bill in Congress on April 1st to give the White House these cyber-space powers.
One could ask: How does the rest of Congress feel about turning over their responsibility and authority to the Executive Branch? Also, if the right to online privacy is allowed follow the path of warrantless phone wire-tapping what does Big Brother have in mind next? And lest we wonder who might be put on the Cyber Czar’s Watch List, just remember the recent Homeland Security Warning that “right wing extremists” (ie any citizens identified as”Change administration opponents) are now a grave threat. Even a child could connect quickly connect the dots between that recent DHS Alert and the press conference on cyber-security threats today! it’s not hard to guage whose “security” seems to feel most threatened. The only question that remains is how much more terror – against free enterprise and freedom of speech – will We the People permit the “Change” Administration to undertake?!
For quick valuable information on other current events, come to Wake Up America Movement at: http://WAMAction.org/NewsRoom.html

Judge Sotomayor & Peg Lusik Two Cents

2009-06-02T14:24:00.005-04:00

I have thought long and hard about the Supreme Court Justice nominee, Judge Sotomayer. I was not exactly won over by her, but was pleased a woman was selected as a nominee. I started digging myself, and starting forming my own opinion, I keep going back to this painting all white men one way, and how is it that this women thinks all Latino Women got this edge on being most just. I believe in my heart that your experience of who you are can influence and change your perspective on life in general. I was mulling it about and I know she will probably be confirmed. Then I stumble across what Peg Lusik posted on her campaign site ( Republican candidate for Senate) . For me it hit the nail right on the head. I cannot say for sure yet I am on board for this candidate. I had a lovely afternoon getting to know her better at Janice mothers house, and she is very insightful. I like her stance on education, Federal government should stay out of education other than some lose guidelines for the States they should let it up to the States. Federal Reserve needs audited and booted. I agree with a lot of things she said. I know she is pro-life (no Senator can abolish a right for a woman to choose only the Supreme Court can...) and will let you know in a heart beat she is a Christian. Peg herself said though that their needs to be a separation of Church and State. From the pack running so far I believe I will support her. “Now” her two cents on Judge Sotomayer...

Giving Sight to the Blind
June 2, 2009
Judge Sotomayer, President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, has been widely quoted as saying that Latino women would make better decisions than white men. Her statements in this area have raised a storm of controversy, with some defending and others calling for apologies.

In the final analysis, Americans are free to think, and speak, whatever they believe. Justice Sotomayer does not lose any of her personal rights in this area as a result of her nomination. The issue is not that she has personal opinions – everyone does. The issue is how her personal opinions will affect her decisions as a judge.

To answer that, we first need to have a better understanding of exactly what those opinions are.

We know that the Judge believes that ethnicity and gender affect one’s ability to make sound decisions. We don’t know how, exactly, each ethnicity/gender combination fits into her hierarchy of ability. She has, to this point, only explained the relationship between two such groups.

The media frenzy does not help us to completely understand her parameters for making judgments about the relative intelligence or worth of the various ethnic and gender groups in America. Well-developed questioning will.

So in her confirmation hearings, Judge Sotomayer’s belief that some groups of people are more able than others is the “given” of the discussion. The goal of the hearings should be to help us understand that belief clearly and completely before we entrust her with a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

For example, does the Judge believe that Latino women and white women are equally able to make good decisions? What about Latino women and Latino men? Or white men and white women? Or white women and Latino men? In other words, does she believe that women are more able than men, or that Latinos are more able than whites? Or both?

She did not mention other races or ethnic groups. How do they fit into her hierarchy of ability? Where do African American women, or men, fit in relationship to Latino or white men and women? Or Asian men and women? Does the Judge believe that those of Irish, or Polish, or Russian, or native American descent have differing levels of ability? How large is the difference? Does it always apply, or can a person in one of the “lesser ability” groups rise above their presumed station to make decisions equal to someone in a more able group?

Will this hierarchy affect Judge Sotomayer’s interaction with other judges, or attorneys, or plaintiffs, or defendants? How will that difference occur, and to what extent will it affect her decisions? If Judge Sotomayer perceives, for example, a white male attorney as less able than a female Latino attorney by virtue of his ethnicity and gender, will his arguments before her be given the same level of consideration
as those of his opponent? Or will the Judge’s hierarchal screen of ethnicity/gender differences affect the way she receives, and evaluates, the information?

The saying, “Justice is blind,” is more than an old adage. It means that the provisions of law do not change with the background of the person. It means that on the scales of justice, each person is judged as an individual – no matter what “group” he might belong to.

Judge Sotomayer has told us that, for her, the group matters. She has, in effect, removed the blindfold from Lady Justice.

In this case, sight is not better.

http://pegluksik.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nncw5K-Xgt4&feature=channel_page

Judge Sotomayor will be Justice

2009-05-26T15:51:00.005-04:00

Sonia Sotomayor (born June 25, 1954) is a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. On May 26, 2009, Obama nominated Judge Sotomayor for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice David Souter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor

http://judgepedia.org/index.php/Sonia_Sotomayor

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=45d56e6f-f497-4b19-9c63-04e10199a085

http://www.abanet.org/publiced/hispanic_s.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/05/01/2009-05-01_president_obama_bronx_judge_sonia_sotomayor.html

Justice Sonia Sotomayor is Obama choice for Supreme Court. I cannot agree more with his choice of this woman but lets look at the bigger picture...
The voting block of women in this country is a little over 52%, and populace wise a little over 51%. Nine members of the Supreme Court all men but one. Obama had no choice but to elect a woman, the many women who either supported him or have gotten involved after the media feeding frenzy of bashing women including the Obama campaign...
Obama has come under allot of pressure because of campaign promises he failed to deliver on or flat out decided were now not worthy, DADT, to name one, making college education more affordable then cutting funding to black colleges, sadly I heard people say he knows he will be one term President, so he will do exactly what he wants, I believe his ego will drive him further...
Senator Barbara Boxer California and Senator Olympia Snow Maine stressed and wrote to Obama to pick a women for the Supreme Court;
Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) wrote a letter to Obama urging him to appoint a woman and reminding him that: Women make up 51% of our nation's population. Yet only 17% of the seats in Congress are held by women. Only 3% of corporate CEOs are women. And just one out of nine Supreme Court justices is a woman. When 96 percent of all Supreme Court Justices throughout our history have been men, clearly it is evident that we need another woman on the Court. When asked recently how it felt to be the only woman on the Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg simply replied, "Lonely."
Let's see what happens next, and he is going to have to appoint another Justice shortly down the road we can only hope it will be another women. Supreme Court Justice Ginsberg is said to be the next Justice to retire...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfC99LrrM2Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkjoIVh5xs8

"Prop 8 Madness"

2009-05-26T15:12:00.003-04:00

Pictured en banc in the Supreme Court Courtroom in Sacramento are the court's seven justices, from left to right: Associate Justice Carlos R. Moreno, Associate Justice Joyce L. Kennard, Associate Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, Chief Justice Ronald M. George, Associate Justice Ming W. Chin, Associate Justice Marvin R. Baxter, and Associate Justice Carol A. Corrigan. (Photo: Sirlin Photographers)
Supreme Court has over stepped their bounds by first allowing for a vote on the ballot of "Prop 8". Our Constitution is based on individual rights, our Electoral College is design so everyone one has a voice and that we don't have a majority ruled society. The people of California had decided that the Gays could marry, then the Supreme Court of California backed it up, then they turned around spit on the Constitution by allowing it to go to a ballot for a majority rules vote. I am sadden this is the day Democracy died in California. As a feminist, a woman, heterosexual, I have suffered discrimination at the hands of others, and I know other women with open eye's has also. I am asking each and everyone of you to open your mouths and scream foul. Womens rights are human rights, if you do not agree with this then you yourself are blind sighted and apart of the oppression, or mislead.
Main Location and Mailing Address Supreme Court of California 350 McAllister Street San Francisco, CA 94102-4797 Office of the Clerk Telephone: 415-865-7000
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/supreme/
I ask each and everyone of you to write a letter, and let these Justices Know they over stepped their bounds...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfxlNypoLxo&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fguerillawomentn%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKVAsKPtd14&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RE_P8lsbj0&feature=related

“This is what a Feminist looks like”

2009-05-22T03:33:00.002-04:00

“This is what a Feminist looks like”
I have always admired the tenacity of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Here is a brave speech she gave at the commencement at Barnard University. The Secretary urge women to support other women. I know in my heart this woman would have been one of our best President. Robed of the nomination, she is still driven...

commencement 2009
Remarks from U.S. Secretary of State HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
Thank you so much. I am thrilled to be here and to participate in this important commencement of this great university – this great college, because I, too, am a graduate of a women's college – and I think it's the best investment that I and my parents ever made. It is my honor, therefore, to join you in celebrating. And I want to congratulate all of the student speakers, who I thought did an excellent job in expressing the feelings and the aspirations of this class. I am honored to be in the company of my fellow honorees, each of whom has so well deserved this medal. And I want to congratulate your president on a brilliant first year as the head of Barnard. And I want to thank another woman who has had not only an impact on this college over the years, but on me personally, and that is the wise and wonderful Anna Quindlen. Her writing has helped to shape the public debate on issues affecting women, families, and all Americans. Her final column, which ran this week, was about making way for the next generation. And as always, Anna's message rings true, especially as we honor this class of graduates.We are meeting at a time of unprecedented opportunity and achievement for women. As you've already heard, women are serving at the highest levels of government here in the United States and around the world, in business, in academia, in the professions. We are presiding over companies and colleges, running philanthropies and laboratories, and breaking new ground as artists and activists and athletes.We're even seeing gender barriers broken at the racetrack. I don't know about you, but I personally felt vindicated when Rachel Alexandra won the Preakness, went where no filly has gone in 85 years up against 8 stallions. I can't say I exactly identified with her – but I was very pleased that she brought home the Black-Eyed Susans.Today, we are celebrating a class and an institution that is always ahead of the rest. This is a milestone of 120 years of educating women, of furthering scholarship, and serving the City of New York, and the people of the world.Now, it is easy to forget that when Barnard first opened its doors in 1889, higher education for women was viewed with great suspicion. And many women and men labored for years to make this college possible. And even after Barnard finally came into being, they had to spend even more years convincing the world there was nothing to fear about women's education and that the work being done here was truly a good thing.Now, rumors still flew for decades about what exactly went on at Barnard. Finally, in 1912, the New York Times decided to investigate. It had published a long interview with the great dean of Barnard, Virginia Gildersleeve, which ran under the headline – and I quote – "College Girls Are Healthy, Normal American Girls." I'm sure that the readers of the Times found that reassuring. And a few decades later, the editors and reporters did as well.In fact, Dr. Gildersleeve made a persuasive case for why Barnard – and women's education in general – is actually crucial to our society. She talked about how the college broadened its students, exposed them to new ideas and perspectives, introduced them to people from different backgrounds. She said that was a force not only for good for these women but for their communities. As she put it, "We do not teach manners. But we do teach manner. Poise, interest, tolerance and understanding – these are the things that college life teaches."Now, the context may have been different then, but the vision behind it is much the same. Just as those early Barnard students were being prepared for a world beyond their personal horizons, you have been prepared for global citizenship in the interconnected world of the 21st century.You are coming of age at a time of unprecedented challenges: war and terrorism, climate change and economic recession, extreme poverty and extreme ideologies, the proliferation of disease and nuclear weapons. These challenges transcend borders and oceans, politics and ideology, and they affect us all. But the same interconnectedness that amplifies these global challenges also makes it possible for us to solve them, and for you to help lead us to the solutions.When I graduated from college, diplomacy was mainly conducted by experts behind closed doors. They were primarily men. And very little of what they did was really visible to the rest of us. Today, diplomacy is no longer confined to the State Department or to diplomats in pin-striped suits. In this global age, we are engaging in 21st century statecraft, and it is carried out beyond the halls of government – in barrios and rural villages, in corporate boardrooms and halls of government as well, but also church basements, hospitals, union halls, civic and cultural centers, and even in the dorms and classrooms of colleges like this.The diplomacy of this age is fueled by personal engagement and interpersonal connections. And that's where all of you come in. With new tools and technologies and with the first-rate education you've received, you now have the capacity to influence events in ways that no previous generation ever has.But of course with that opportunity does come responsibility, because this new era of diplomacy requires a new commitment to global service – a continuing effort from each of you to help us tackle the most urgent problems we face. Just as we have special envoys for climate change or peace in the Middle East, so too must each of you be a special envoy of your ideals. Use your skill and talent with these new tools to help shape and reshape the future.I want to talk about a particular area where I think you can, you should, and you must make a difference. It's important to me personally and it's especially important in my new job, and that is the plight of women and girls around the world. As women with strong voices and strong values, you are in a unique position to support women worldwide who don't have the resources you do, but whose lives and dreams are just as worthy as yours and mine. I have concluded after traveling many miles and visiting many places in the last decades that talent is universally distributed, but opportunity is not. The futures of these women and girls will affect yours and mine. And therefore, it is not only the right thing to do, but also the smart thing.Although not always acknowledged by governments, businesses, or society overall, women and girls bear a disproportionate burden of most of the problems we face today. In the midst of this global economic crisis, women who are already the majority of the world's poor are driven deeper into poverty. In places where food is scarce, women and girls are often the last to eat, and eat the least. In regions torn apart by war and conflict, women are more likely to be refugees or targets of sexual violence.And just yesterday in a column by one of the former honorees by Barnard, Nick Kristof, we learned that one of the most dangerous places for women to be in the world is in childbirth. Meanwhile, in some places, girls are deliberately denied an education, even subjected to abuse and violence if they attempt to go to school, as we have seen too frequently over the last weeks in Afghanistan.Now let me be clear: women around the world lead varied lives, and for many women, religion and culture are important sources of spiritual growth, identity, and pride. But the retrograde regimes around the world that pervert religion and culture to perpetuate violence and stand in the way of freedom and make women their primary targets are a different story. The subjugation of women – the denial of their rights as human beings – is not an expression of religion or of God's will. It is a betrayal of both. And women's progress is more than a matter of morality. It is a political, economic, social and security imperative for the United States and for every nation represented in this graduating class. If you want to know how stable, healthy, and democratic a country is, look at its women, look at its girls.When I went to the United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing back in 1995, I made the point, which seemed to me to be pretty obvious, that women's rights are human rights, and human rights are women's rights. Well, I was gratified but somewhat shocked at the reaction it produced. And as I have traveled in the years since, I have met so many women who took such heart from that simple statement. They understood deep in their gut that they had to be supported, that their struggles had to be acknowledged for them to gain a foothold, to gain that space, whether it be on the subway or back in a marketplace.There are signs of hope and progress. Just this weekend, the people of Kuwait elected women to their parliament for the first time in history. This did not come easily or quickly. Starting in the 1990s, I supported the women who were brave enough to stand up and say women should be able to serve. It took a long struggle. But the election of four women this Saturday is a major step forward for Kuwait, the region, and I would argue, the world.And yet the marginalization of women and girls goes on. It is one of humankind's oldest problems. But what is different today is that we have 21st century tools to combat it. Think of the women in Eastern Congo, a place of such violence, despair and chaos, who are using radio airwaves to warn other women and to send out the message to the world how this war, these militias are destroying their communities. Think of the women in Afghanistan who, against such great odds, started a single school that has grown into a network of schools, or the domestic violence center they began, which now serves thousands of women and girls. Or the women in Cambodia who were sold into sex slavery as girls, but who escaped and are now organizing raids of brothels throughout Southeast Asia to rescue girls and give them a chance at an education and a new life.Some months ago here in New York, I had the privilege of meeting a young girl from Yemen. Her name is Nujood Ali. When she was nine years old, her family offered her into marriage with a much older man who turned out to be violent and abusive. At ten years old, desperate to escape her circumstances, she left her home and made her way to the local courthouse where she sat against a wall all day long until she was finally noticed, thankfully, by a woman lawyer named Shada Nasser, who asked this little girl what she was doing there. And the little girl said she came to get a divorce. And thanks to this lawyer, she did.Now in another time, the story of her individual courage and her equally brave lawyer would not have been covered in the news even in her own country. But now, it is beamed worldwide by satellites, shared on blogs, posted on Twitter, celebrated in gatherings. Today, women are finding their voices, and those voices are being heard far beyond their own narrow circumstances. And here's what each of you can do. You can visit the website of a nonprofit called Kiva, K-i-v-a, and send a microloan to an entrepreneur like Blanca, who wants to expand her small grocery store in Peru. You can send children's books to a library in Namibia by purchasing items off an Amazon.com wish list. You can sit in your dorm room, or soon your new apartment, and use the web to plant trees across Africa through Wangari Maathai's Green Belt movement.And with these social networking tools that you use every day to tell people you've gone to get a latte or you're going to be running late, you can unite your friends through Facebook to fight human trafficking or child marriage, like the two recent college graduates in Colombia – the country – who organized 14 million people into the largest anti-terrorism demonstration in history, doing as much damage to the FARC terrorist network in a few weeks than had been done in years of military action. And you can organize through Twitter, like the undergraduates at Northwestern who launched a global fast to bring attention to Iran's imprisonment of an American journalist. And we have two young women journalists right now in prison in North Korea, and you can get busy on the internet and let the North Koreans know that we find that absolutely unacceptable. These new tools are available for everyone. They are democratizing diplomacy. So over the next year, we will be creating Virtual Student Foreign Service Internships to partner American students with our embassies abroad to conduct digital diplomacy. And you can learn more about this initiative on the State Department website.This is an opportunity for all of us to ask ourselves: What can I do? I'm heading off to my first job or I may be going to travel for a while or I have some other ideas that I'm exploring. But no matter what you're doing, you can be a citizen activist and a citizen diplomat. You've already begun to make the connections and partnerships that will give you support throughout your lives. And therefore, I invite you to forge those connections beyond this class.You've learned here at Barnard that in spite of our differences, we are all connected. And we need to be looking for ways to find inspiration from our daily lives. Just a few weeks ago, I read President Spar's column in the Wall Street Journal, in which she bravely attempted to write her own application essay for Barnard. She described a typical day in her life, one that involved coordinating her kids' carpooling, fixing dinner, answering emails, dealing with a mischievous cat, writing a speech on – what else – women and leadership. As I read about the controlled chaos of your president's life, I thought this sure sounds familiar. And as I look out in the audience today, I see a lot of mothers and grandmothers and fathers and grandfathers and family members and friends, and I know that you too have had these experiences.But no matter how we come to this commencement, we leave knowing that another class of extraordinary young women, who will have the manner and the education to go and not only pursue their own dreams but help bring along others as well, has occurred within this remarkable institution. We all have an opportunity today to do so much more than I even dreamed possible when I sat where you are sitting all those years ago.As I was listening to Sarah Besnoff's address and how she was talking about her mother, I had to smile because I often say that in my next life I'm going to come back as my daughter. And I felt a remarkable kinship with Sarah's mother and with other mothers of my generation and those who came before, like my own mother, who was born before women could vote, that no matter how satisfying our lives have been, how we have put together pieces that add up to a whole that is so important to us and has given meaning to this journey we are on, we look at young women and we think to ourselves: This is a future that women in the history of the world have never been able to imagine, that you leave here empowered in a way that women and girls have never been before. It's exciting, but it's daunting. But I know you're up to it.Serving the people of the world does not have to be your life's calling, but I urge you to make it a part of your life, to include it in whatever you decide to do as you start out on this adventure. You are certainly well-prepared, and I wish for each and every one of you an adventure that gives you the same sense of meaning and purpose that you are looking for, and an understanding of how much more you can do with the gifts you have been given, and to decide that you too will try to be those special envoys of the ideals that you believe in.Godspeed and congratulations.

“Did These Dead People Vote To”

2009-05-22T03:17:00.003-04:00

Amazing to find out dead people are getting Stimulus Checks.
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/your_money/consumer/090514_Dead_People_Get_Stimulus_Checks

I wonder if they voted also. It seems my experience on the campaign trail of the rumors and story's of dead people were rampant. I like to know how our board of elections can certify a vote count when exceeded the number of eligible voters in that precinct. One campaign worker I was on the campaign trail with checked her sisters house where she had been living and a woman who was long dead, no longer owned the home had a better voting record than the sister and the campaign worker. I wonder how many you can cross reference with Accorn and the dead voters, and Democrats & Republicans don't think election reform is the ticket. Amazing how the electronic voting machine where the answer and come to find out more voter fraud than ever with them...
http://www.texaswatchdog.org/2008/10/dead-voters-still-registered-in-harris-county/

2009-05-05T23:21:00.002-04:00

I as a Democrat feminist was floored when newly self pronounced Democrat Senator Arlen Specter said recently that the courts of Minnesota should be sending Republican Senator Coleman back to the Senate, I actually have to agree. I am no fan of Senator Coleman but you know how can Franken claim victory with a little over three hundred votes and thier are precinct showing 115% voted and then some. What do you think...

Marilyn French, feminist and novelist, dies at 79

2009-05-05T23:02:00.002-04:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090505/ap_en_ot/us_obit_french

By VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press Writer Verena Dobnik, Associated Press Writer – Tue May 5, 3:48 pm ET
NEW YORK – Marilyn French, the writer and feminist whose novel "The Women's Room" sold more than 20 million copies and transformed her into a leading figure in the women's movement, has died at 79.
French died of heart failure Saturday at a Manhattan hospital, said Carol Jenkins, a friend and president of New York's Women's Media Center.
Her 1977 first novel, "The Women's Room," transformed the college teacher into a feminist leader whose aim was "to change the entire social and economic structure of Western civilization, to make it a feminist world," she once said.
The landmark novel, which was translated into 20 languages, details the journey to independence of a 1950s housewife who gets divorced and goes to graduate school. The book mirrored aspects of French's own life experiences, including the rape of her daughter.
She was called anti-male after a character in the novel says: "All men are rapists, and that's all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, and their codes."
"Those words came from a character, and she was not a man-hater, and never said that in her personal life," Jenkins said. "But she wanted men to accept their part in the domination of women."
Still, the novel "connected with millions of women who had no way before of claiming their anger and discontent," Jenkins said.
The male subjugation of women is the main theme of French's novels, essays, literary criticism and her four-volume, nonfictional "From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women."
A Brooklyn native, French graduated from Long Island's Hofstra University with a master's degree, studying philosophy and English literature. She taught there in the 1960s. After her divorce, she earned a doctorate from Harvard and was an English professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.
A smoker, she survived a battle with esophageal cancer in 1992 that included a 10-day coma she described in "Season in Hell: A Memoir."
Her last novel is to be published this fall, and she was also working on a memoir.
French is survived by her son, Robert French, of East Brunswick, N.J., and daughter Jamie French, of Cambridge, Mass.
A memorial is planned for June in New York.

"Miss California Star's They Made Me Comment"

2009-05-05T13:29:00.005-04:00

I am hating the fact I have to comment on the Ms. California debacle. I want to say the media and components of this argument is really horrible, but let's look at some factors...
This a contest judge on by your looks foremost
1.)

If you are not natural you will be picked apart, hence forth the saline plastic bags shoved under her mammary glands ( right or wrong this has happened in the past)
2.)

Answering question & make your own personal stand on what issue you care about (this is most laughable cause they spend more time doing what they can to get the prize) contestants of the past have been picked apart for this also.

3.)

“Must" I remind you this women has to be crazy or cunning as a fox to get up in front of a flaming Homosexual and answer that question that way ( well what do you know she is now riding high on a spokeswomen position $$$ of hate, way to go Anita Bryant Jr. )
I know I will have to say more about this dime store Barbie doll in the future because the hate mongers are riding a high of the evil Homo's are taking over the world, from advertisement to lobbyist. “Can” someone pie this women in the face like Anita. Maybe since boycotts ran so well with getting rid of Anita maybe we can do the same to get rid of these beauty pageants, or at least this ship wreck Ms. Carrie Prejean...

Interview and more controversy

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/entertainment/Miss_California__I_ll_fight_on_despite_nude_photos.html

Miss California: I’ll Fight on Despite Nude Photos
By MIKE CELIZIC
Updated 8:45 AM PDT, Tue, May 5, 2009
AP
The website the dirty.com claimed that it had six pictures of Prejean that could "clearly strip her of her Miss California crown.

With partially nude photos of her popping up on Web sites questioning her Christian credentials, Miss California USA Carrie Prejean has fired back, claiming the racy pictures are just modeling shots and vowing to continue her battle against same-sex marriage.
“I am a Christian, and I am a model,” Prejean said in a statement released overnight to the media. “Models pose for pictures, including lingerie and swimwear photos. Recently, photos taken of me as a teenager have been released surreptitiously to a tabloid Web site that openly mocks me for my Christian faith. I am not perfect, and I will never claim to be.”
But Alicia Jacobs, a judge at the April 19 Miss USA pageant during which Prejean made her highly publicized statement opposing same-sex marriage, said the pictures go beyond what the Miss California pageant says are appropriate.
“I can assure you they were quite inappropriate, and certainly not photos befitting a beauty queen,” Jacobs, a reporter for NBC’s Las Vegas affiliate, told NBC News.The images may also hurt her status as a spokeswoman for conservative causes. “She can continue to advocate for causes, but I don't think these causes are going to advocate for her.” Ken Baker of E! News told NBC.
Six revealing photos The Web site the dirty.com claimed that it had six pictures of Prejean. As of Tuesday morning, it had posted one on its site. The picture shows Prejean wearing nothing but a pair of revealing pink panties and smiling over her shoulder at the camera. Her breasts are covered by her arm.
The picture was deemed too racy to be shown on the TODAY Show.
It and the others in the set may also be too revealing for the Miss California pageant, according to a report filed for TODAY by NBC News’ Miguel Almaguer, who reported that Prejean’s contract with the pageant prohibits her from being photographed “in a state of partial or total nudity.”
Prejean finished second in the Miss USA pageant to Miss North Carolina Kristen Dalton.
In 1984, Vanessa Williams had to resign her Miss America crown after revealing photos she had posed for in 1982 were leaked to reporters.
The controversy over the 21-year-old Prejean began during the April 19 Miss USA pageant. During the interview segment of the competition, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, who is openly gay, asked Prejean for her views on legalizing same-sex marriage.
"I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage," Prejean said. "And you know what? I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."
On his blog the next day, Hilton called Prejean a vulgar name and said that Miss USA is supposed to be help unite Americans, not divide them. He suggested her response may have cost her the Miss USA crown.
Vow to fight on The following Sunday, Prejean was greeted as a hero by the congregation at her San Diego-area mega church, the Rock Church. Shortly after, she signed on to be a spokesperson for the National Organization for Marriage’s campaign against same-sex marriage.
“I was attacked for giving my own opinion on the stage of the Miss USA contest. And I’m going to do whatever it takes to protect marriage. It’s something that is very dear to my heart,” Prejean told TODAY’s Matt Lauer after agreeing to work with the organization.
In her statement to the media Tuesday, Prejean vowed to continue her fight against gay marriage.
“We live in a great country; a nation that was built on freedom of speech and freedom of religion,” she said in the statement. “Yet my comments defending traditional marriage have led to intimidation tactics that seek to undermine my reputation and somehow silence me and my beliefs, as if opinion is only a one-way street.”
Although Prejean said the pictures were taken when she was 17, others have alleged that they seem to have been taken after she underwent breast-enhancement surgery six weeks prior to the Miss USA pageant. That surgery was paid for by the Miss California pageant.

This is hate, and as a feminist I believe in the Constitution & Bill of Rights, Women's Rights are human rights, stop the bashing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRlhmdp2tJM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpjPzhSjPqQ&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV8-F4jfD1c&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS91gT3XT_A&feature=PlayList&p=1F3259A444DC4EDD&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=42

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5YMyVAd9WY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fguerillawomentn%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmJUdLUo8HQ

I guess in the end an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth...

( what screwed up thinking )

I like what Harvey Milk said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pvfexvihri8&feature=PlayList&p=1F3259A444DC4EDD&index=44&playnext=3&playnext_from=PL

Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009

2009-05-05T04:46:00.003-04:00

Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009
To provide Federal assistance to States, local jurisdictions, and Indian tribes to prosecute hate crimes, and for other purposes.
Hide Other Bill TitlesOfficial: To provide Federal assistance to States, local jurisdictions, and Indian tribes to prosecute hate crimes, and for other purposes. as introduced.
Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 - Authorizes the Attorney General to provide technical, forensic, prosecutorial, or other assistance in the criminal investigation or prosecution of any crime that: April 29, 2009
Roll call number 223 in the House 4/2/2009–Introduced.
Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 - Authorizes the Attorney General to provide technical, forensic, prosecutorial, or other assistance in the criminal investigation or prosecution of any crime that:
constitutes a crime of violence under federal law or a felony under state, local, or Indian tribal law; and (2) is motivated by prejudice based on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim, or is a violation of the state, local, or tribal hate crime laws.
Directs the Attorney General to give priority for assistance to crimes committed by offenders who have committed crimes in more than one state and to rural jurisdictions that have difficulty covering the extraordinary investigation or prosecution expenses. Authorizes the Attorney General to award grants to assist state, local, and Indian law enforcement agencies with such extraordinary expenses. Directs the Office of Justice Programs to: (1) work closely with funded jurisdictions to ensure that the concerns and needs of all affected parties are addressed; and (2) award grants to state and local programs designed to combat hate crimes committed by juveniles. Amends the federal criminal code to prohibit willfully causing bodily injury to any person because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of such person.
Amends the Hate Crimes Statistics Act to expand data collection and reporting requirements under such Act to include: (1) crimes manifesting prejudice based on gender and gender identity; and (2) hate crimes committed by and against juveniles. Declares that nothing in this Act shall be construed to prohibit the exercise of constitutionally-protected free speech.
April 29, 2009 H.R.1913 Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009On Passage: H R 1913 Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act Aye 249 Nay 175 Passed See Vote
April 29, 2009H.R.1913 Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009On Motion to Recommit with Instructions: H R 1913 Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act Aye 185 Nay 241 Failed See Vote
Democrats Voting ‘Abstain’
Close
Rep. Robert Berry [D, AR-1]Rep. George Butterfield [D, NC-1]Rep. George Miller [D, CA-7]Rep. John Murtha [D, PA-12]Rep. Thomas Perriello [D, VA-5]Rep. C.A. Ruppersberger [D, MD-2]Rep. Fortney Stark [D, CA-13]Rep. Harry Teague [D, NM-2]
Close
Republicans Voting ‘Abstain’
Close
Rep. Michael Burgess [R, TX-26]Rep. Kay Granger [R, TX-12]

Wise Words From Sitara

2009-04-28T12:24:00.003-04:00

Ever since I discovered this path (or rather, put a name to the path I was on) back in my teens, there have been people who have preached and pondered and pined for the "world to end" and for things to go back to how they were in "olden days". It's a pastoral dream of most earth-centered spirituality folks I've met. we all have our fantasies of winning the lottery and opening the most awesomest pagan playground/gathering site/spiritual retreat/self-sustaining commune EVAH! (Come on, now. you know you've done it at least once, maybe even aloud) .There is something that disturbs me though about the amount of energy that people put into wishing for an apocalyptic end to modern society.Some of it is simply the lack of responsibility with one's own thoughts. I mean, as people who understand the power of the mind and visualization, if enough of us keep hungering for the end of days, we are energetically contributing to the unraveling of society. Sure, things are messed up in various ways all over the place. But a complete unraveling is going to mean a lot of hungry people, a lot of sick people, a lot of scared and angry people, and ultimately, a lot of dead people. Putting energy towards anarchy and destruction is like deciding to drown the baby before throwing out the bathwater. Put another way - in Nature, change that comes suddenly is devastating, cataclysmic. For example, the tide coming in and going out is a HUGE natural change on the face of the planet, and it happens regularly and repeatedly without havoc because the tide flows in and ebbs out and then flows in a little farther next time. If the tide just suddenly shifted, it would devastate the shore, the life forms in that ecosystem, and make the area uninhabitable. Cataclysmic change brings about destruction on a massive scale with high casualties. Wishing for a breakdown of the system is wishing for massive destruction and all the collateral damage that comes with it. I find that to be far from ethically responsible.Some of the wishing for the end times just makes me laugh. Pagans are some of the most techno-savvy people you'll meet. We do more networking online than perhaps any religious faith (by percentage) that I can name. Most pagans I know love their trinkets and can be as materialistic as any regular citizen. I know of too many pagans that eat out way too often and who spend more time playing video games than doing anything that would be useful in an "back to the good old days" scenario. And I don't know of anyone that doesn't groan when there's no toilet paper in the outhouse at a gathering (if this doesn't bother you, I really don't want to know about it, okay) . So, let's say the end times happen, society collapses, people panic and it's all lost. No computers to keep up those social networks. Social interactions have to be face to face and, well, drat. We've lost the skills to communicate that way because we don't have avatars and keyboards to hide behind. We have to deal with problems face to face and not through email or online blogs. Goodbye toilet paper and easy access food. Goodbye free time and the electronic teat of virtual reality. And while I'm at it, let's say goodbye to access to drugs that treat diseases like diabetes, MS, thyroid conditions, heart conditions. No more Novocain or nitrous for tooth jobs. No more epidurals. No more birth control - it's rhythm method, homosexuality, oral sex ONLY, or abstinence for YOU! Oh yeah. the end times sound REALLY fun, y'all.What I have discovered is that you can only be where you are, and where you are now is no accident. That applies to both human beings as individuals and the larger society as well. Certainly I'm worried that humans have pushed things to a point that we will not be able to fix them. Truth is, there's no going back. only forward. At the same time, I have seen some amazing discoveries in the fields of science, medicine, living history, and metaphysics that have propelled us in huge leaps forward. We are indeed on the cusp of realizing some very fundamental and life-altering truths that will transform our world in the next three decades. So where we are now is where we're meant to be. On the precipice of failure is where man's greatest capacity for change lies.We are aboard a ship called Gaia. She's a worthy vessel, sailing through the Milky Way, Mars and Venus gleaming port and starboard by her side. This vessel is manned by a crew of 6 billion people, give or a take a few million. Sadly, most of us don't know where the ship's going. Some haven't even figured out they're seasick yet because they haven't learned to move WITH Gaia in her steady course across the sky. So, as you might imagine, there's a lot of vomit to be mopped up and avoided from people made sick by consumerism, ignorance, apathy, mental laziness, selfishness, and the illusion of polarity that causes us to divide instead of unify.I've been aboard the Gaia for almost 36 years now. I've seen the Captain of this ship. so have other people, but the funny thing is, not everyone sees the same thing. A lot of us talk about where we're going, and that can cause some real arguments because, as everyone knows, a ship can only go ONE direction at a time, and it's very important that you're the one that's right (or at least some people think it's like that) . The thing I'm not sure everyone understands is that there are a lot of jobs that have to be done onboard to man this ship and get us to where we're supposed to go. There are a lot of folks that don't seem to know that. They think they booked a pleasure cruise and it's all about them.I have faith in the Captain, but I also know the Captain has faith in me to do what I can here on deck. We're headed in a direction that makes the other crewmembers nervous. We've got to turn this baby around, but it's a gradual thing. Too fast and we risk going down with a total loss. No, it takes small adjustments to change course and plot our voyage towards a new star and a brighter horizon.Point is, we have to work together. We don't go forward by decimating everything and going backward. It's not an EITHER / OR situation unless you are so rigid in your mind that all you can see is BLACK or WHITE. The path of the Wise, the Craft, is the Middle Way. It is the path of Balanced Action, Balanced Thought, and Balanced Existence. It needs no apocalypse to find redemption. It simply needs the small and steady adjustments of a few more awake and aware people pulling on the sails to catch the strong winds of change to bring Gaia into sheltered waters.Instead of wishing or warning that the boat's going to sink, get off your ass. Recycle. Turn off your lights. Buy organic. Contribute to your local economy. Learn some useful skills that don't involve getting video-game thumb. Enjoy THIS reality instead of escaping to a fake one you like better. Have real relationships, FACE-TO-FACE, and remember how to get along with people instead of telling them to get out of your life the minute you don't like something they do. Develop some ethics and integrity and accountability. And stop wishing for the end of the world already.If I am you and you are me and we are all One, then stop being suicidal on my behalf. I'm not quitting so haul sail!

Sitara Haye is a Craft author and Wiccan High Priestess with 20 years of Craft experience. Founder of OldeForest Craft Tradition and multi-talented singer/songwriter. You can follow her via her websites: Serpent's Daughter (http://serpentsdaughter.blogspot.com) and Wonderlust (http://nefersitara.wordpress.com). Sitara Haye is a regular contributor to Witchvox and has written articles for a number of other pagan periodicals both in the US and abroad. She currently lives with her 9-year-old daughter and their two cats in the beautiful Scenic City of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

"Marita Garrett"

2009-04-24T13:09:00.006-04:00

"Beautiful Marita Garrett" strength & praise to you

Beverly Garett ever constant strength

I want to take a moment of time to give praise and commended a courageous and beautiful woman Marita. I had the honor to meet this young woman on the campaign trail last year. All I can say is a bright light shines from this young woman. I hope people pass this on far and wide and take a moment in time to read her story, and support her in the Pittsburgh Marathon...

Hello Everyone.My daughter, Marita Garrett, is running in the 2009 Pittsburgh Marathon on May 3, 2009 <http://www.pittsburghmarathon.com/>.
Marita is a 2 year cancer survivor and is running to raise funds for the Gilda's Club charity
<http://www.gildasclubwesternpa.org/>
Her goal is to raise $1000. Click on the link to read what Marita has to say and donate
< http://www.firstgiving.com/maritagarrett>
Read more about Marita's journey to wellness. <http://www.ourfamily4life.com/marita.html>
Please donate. No amount is too small.
Thank you.Beverly Garrett
BE WONDERFUL TO EACH OTHER

Separation of Church & State

2009-04-24T12:55:00.009-04:00

Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann
Minnesota 6th district
Washington D.C. Office107 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-2331 Fax: (202) 225-6475
I am so unabashed anger by this Congresswoman."Our Country" was founded by people escaping religious persecution Constitution of the United States was drafted that their was a separation of Church and State, and latter down the road had to add an amendment to remind people of this. In the last hundred years "God" was added to money & our pledge on the gist that it would make Americans more moral. This was a utmost offense to the Constitution. I cannot except Obama as President for I know he is not eligible under the rules and Constitution of this great land. I will say I am proud he is not mixing government or representing the nation as a certain sect or denomination. Government should keep out of religion and morality does not come from the Christian faith. One of the most moral faith on the earth is the Tibetan Buddhist so are we changing every thing to that?

We need to ask these Representatives if they support the Constitution, and separation of church and state; if not we need to vote them out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bapmmx7d16g&feature=ytn:mptnews

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Bachmann

"Warning For All"

2009-04-21T10:20:00.004-04:00

from Johns-Hopkins

Bottled water in your car is very dangerous!
On the Ellen show, Sheryl Crow said this is what caused her breast cancer. It has been identified as the most common cause of the high levels of dioxin in breast cancer tissue. Sheryl Crow's oncologist told her:
women should not drink bottled water that has been left in a car. The heat reacts with the chemicals in the plastic of the bottle which releases dioxin into the water. Dioxin is a toxin increasingly found in breast cancer tissue. So please be careful and do not drink bottled water that has been

left in a car. Pass this on to all the women in your life.
This information is the kind we need to know that just might save us! Use a stainless steel canteen or a glass bottle instead of plastic!LET EVERYONE WHO HAS A WIFE / GIRLFRIEND / DAUGHTER KNOW PLEASE!This information is also being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center

No plastic containers in microwave.
No water bottles in freezer
No plastic wrap in microwave.

A dioxin chemical causes cancer, especially breast cancer.
Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies. Don't freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic. Recently, Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital , was on a TV program to explain this health hazard.
He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us.
He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers...
This especially applies to foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat,=2 0 and plastic releases dioxin
into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body...
Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food.. You get the same results, only without the dioxin.So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc.,
should be removed from the container and heated in something else.
Paper isn't bad but you don't know what is in the paper. It's just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc.
He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons...
Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran wrap, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food.
Cover food with a paper towel instead.
This is an article that should be sent to anyone important in "Your life"!

Feminist at The Tea Party April 11, 2009

2009-04-20T21:42:00.004-04:00

Pictured is Janice, Janice Mom & Zuri

"Tea Parties"
April 11, 2009
Yes the feminist was their and Democracy In Suffrage was represented...

"End The Federal Reserve Rally"

2009-04-20T19:54:00.006-04:00

I am sending a shout out to everyone that here in Pittsburgh their will be a big rally to End The Federal Reserve. I ask all to support these efforts , some may agree or disagree with Ron Paul position, but this is one thing everyone should agree on. More information here
Go here to find a Rally in your town pluss to get more information...

http://endthefedusa.ning.com/groups

April 25Saturday
ETF Rally @ Noon @ the Federal Reserve building. http://www.meetup.com/ronpaul-97/calendar/10023219/

So the plan is, since it's really the closest free parking, meet at 11:30 at St. Stanislaus Kostka church and march through the Strip before the ETF event.

http://www.meetup.com/ronpaul-97/calendar/10188816/

"Yay Feminist"

2009-04-20T15:35:00.001-04:00

Feminists Don Beards to Protest Sexism at Male Dominated L'Oreal
Why should women buy products from L'Oreal if the company doesn't hire women? That's what feminists in Paris want to know.So feminist activists staged a bearded protest to call attention to the sexist hiring practices at the male dominated L'Oreal.Feminists demonstrating against sex discrimination? What an extraordinary idea!PARIS (AFP) — Feminist activists wearing fake beards staged a bizarre protest against L'Oreal in central Paris on Thursday, saying the company did not have enough women managers despite being a cosmetics producer. . . Mimicking L'Oreal's famous advertising slogan, activists handed out a leaflet entitled "Because you're worth it" and held up placards with photos of company directors all with beards scrawled on their faces, including the women.Related: L'Oréal found out for hiring only white shampoo-promoters (July 2007)

"The Pennsylvania Tea Party's Alert"

2009-04-10T13:30:00.008-04:00

"The Pennsylvania Tea Party Alert"
Saturday April 11 2009
Allegheny Landing
Pittsburgh Pennsylvania
Time 12:00 Noon
"With"
Dr. Alan Keyes Speaking

This is a peaceful rally to show the Government that We The People will no longer stand for the abuse of unjust taxation, pork belly spending, stimulus package, and the like...( more trickle down economic theory in their pocket package)
Let Us Show Them The Constitution Is The Law Of The Land And We Want Them To Abide By IT!!!“Bring Tea Bags & Your Best Patriotic Garb”

More Info Here http://www.pennsylvaniateaparty.com/webcontent/home?opendocument

"Is that it you ask?"
Now on to the National Tea Party Held April 15, 2009
At Market Square Pittsburgh, PA
Time 12:00 Noon

You are encouraged to bring your own signs (please keep it clean) and a tea bag to the rallies. It is time, we the people stand together, and defend our constitutional rights as American citizens. There is no greater power, than that of a free people united as one.

"Others Across"

" The State of Pennsylvania"

————-City: BrookvilleWhen: April 15, 3:00pm - 6:00pmWhere: Next to Jefferson County Courthouse on Pickering St.Contact: EMAILPhone:Other Info: WEBSITEFacebook Group:
————-
City: EastonWhen: April 15, 6:00 pm - 7:00 pmWhere: Northampton County CourthouseContact: EMAIL
————-
City: ErieWhen: April 15, 5:15 pm - 7:00 pmWhere: Griswold Park / 123 West 14th StreetContact: EMAILPhone: 814.218.0563Other Info:Facebook Group: Coming Soon!
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City: GreensburgWhen: April 15, 12:00 NoonWhere: County Court House Main St and Pittsburgh AveContact: EMAILPhone:Other Info:Facebook Group: Coming Soon!
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City: HarrisburgWhen: April 15, NoonWhere: West steps of the Capitol buildingContact: EMAILPhone:717.671.1901Other Info: http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/Facebook Group: Click Here
————-City: HazletonWhen: April 15, 5:00pm - 7:30pmWhere: Hazleton City Hall, 40 N Church StContact: EMAILOther Info:Facebook Group: ————-City: HendersonWhen: April 15, 5:00pm - 8:00pmWhere: TBAContact: EMAILOther Info:Facebook Group:
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City: Hollidaysburg (Blair County)When: April 15, Noon - 2:00 pmWhere: Blair County CourthouseContact: EMAILPhone: 814.207.0011Other Info: www.blaircountyteaparty.comFacebook Group: Coming Soon!
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City: HonesdaleWhen: April 15, Noon - 12:00 NoonWhere: Courthouse LawnContact: EMAILPhone:Other Info:Facebook Group: Coming Soon!
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City: LancasterWhen: April 15, 4:00 pm - 7:00 pmWhere: Musser ParkContact: EMAILPhone:Other Info: http://www.lancasterpateaparty.com/Facebook Group: Coming Soon!
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City: LehightonWhen: April 15, 12:00 noon - 5:00 pmWhere: Lehighton Square Lower ParkContact: EMAILPhone:Other Info:Facebook Group: Coming Soon!
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City: Matamoras (Pike County)When: April 15, 6:00 pm - 7:30 pmWhere: Mid-Delaware Bridge (Port Jervis-Matamoras Bridge), Pennsylvania AvenueContact: EMAILPhone:Other Info:Facebook Group: Click Here
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City: MeadvilleWhen: April 15, 3:30 pm - 5:00 pmWhere: Arch Street US Post OfficeContact: EMAILPhone:Other Info:Facebook Group: Coming Soon————-
City: NazarethWhen: April 15, 10:00amWhere: 9 North Main Street, In front of Nazareth Post Office/Town CircleContact: EMAILOther Info:Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=65587907650
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City: PhiladelphiaWhen: April 15, 12:00 pm - 2:00 pmWhere: Downtown Philadelphia, LOVE Park located between 15th and 16th and JFK Blvd.Contact:EMAILPhone:215.361.3094Other Info:Facebook Group: CLICK HERE!————-
City: PhoenixvilleWhen: April 15, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pmWhere: Main Street and Bridge Street.Contact:EMAILPhone:Other Info:Facebook Group: Coming Soon!————-

City: ScrantonWhen: April 15, 12:00pm - 2:00pmWhere: Lackawanna County Court House SquareContact: EmailPhone:Other Info:Facebook Group:————-
City: SharonWhen: April 15, 12:00pm - 2:30pmWhere: Downtown Sharon, On the Bridge overlooking the River on State St.Contact: EmailPhone:Other Info:PatriotsInAction.qlubb.com/publicFacebook Group: Coming Soon!
————-City: State CollegeWhen: April 15, 4:00pm - 7:00pmWhere: near the post office on S. Fraser StreetContact: EmailOther Info:http://wesurroundthemcentrecounty.ning.com/Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1566801860&ref=profile#/event.php?eid=66316394836
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City: StroudsburgWhen: April 15, 12:00pm - 2:00pmWhere: Courthouse Square (7th & Monroe Streets)Contact: EmailPhone: 570.421.4656 or 908.328.7078Other Info:Facebook Group: Coming Soon!
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City: StroudsburgWhen: April 15, 12:00pm - 2:00pmWhere: Courthouse Square (7th & Monroe Streets)Contact: EmailPhone: 570.421.4656 or 908.328.7078Other Info:Facebook Group: Coming Soon!
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City: WashingtonWhen: April 15, 5:00pmWhere: Washington Courthouse on Main StreetContact: EmailOther Info:Facebook Group:
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City: Wilkes-BarreWhen: April 15, 4:00 pm - 7:00 pmWhere: Wilkes Barre on Public SquareContact:EMAILPhone:Other Info: Click HereFacebook Group: CLICK HERE!

A National Disgrace

2009-04-10T13:07:00.005-04:00

A National Disgrace: Stop Sexual Assault in the Military

Countless military women and military spouses are victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. It is estimated that rates of marital abuse in the military are two to five times higher than civilian rates of domestic violence. Moreover, one in three women in the military will be sexually assaulted during their tour of duty. Ending sexual violence against women in the military must start now!

Action Needed:

Act now to support the Military Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Response Act to address this national epidemic and stop the violence against military women and military families!

Take action NOW!

Background:

On Feb. 3, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) reintroduced the Military Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Response Act (H.R.840). The bill works to reduce violence against military personnel and their families by enhancing programs of prevention and deterrence, improving victim services, and strengthening provisions for prosecution of assailants.

If passed, this law will establish a Victims' Advocate Office within the Department of Defense (DoD) which will be responsible for assessing the services provided to military personnel who are victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking. In addition, the bill directs the Secretary of Defense to ensure that every branch of the military provides victims' advocate programs and violence prevention training.

The Military Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Response Act protects victims by prohibiting retaliation for reporting assaults and calls for the employment of a sexual assault nurse examiner, psychiatrist, and clinical team at each DoD treatment facility. It also provides court-martial punishment for violations of "no contact" orders or protective orders.

Take action NOW!

Please contact your U.S. Representative and urge immediate sponsorship of the Military Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Response Act (H.R.840). The bill currently has 30 House sponsors and we need to at least triple this number so that the bill can have a committee hearing and proceed to the House floor for a vote. The passage of this legislation is a crucial step towards ensuring the safety and wellbeing of military personnel and their families, so take action now!

Tea Party Time

2009-04-01T14:15:00.001-04:00

Actually I was talking to a dear Friend I reminded her how the Allegheny Seneca Falls Society is having a first joint meeting with Democracy In Suffrage, I said it probably just be a few people in Attendance if she like to come, she is going to try to make it. ( Meeting Saturday fourth of April 1:00pm email for location and if you will make it, Tea Party discussion ) The conversation turned and I talked how I like to focus the blog D.I.S. just on feminism and great women of the past and actions of such, and we both said at the same thing, political climate is going to interfere. She actually agree with me that we should be stock piling food and water, at least for a few weeks supply. That the times are so frightening. I have been stifled what to do I am at a loss and now I am thankful I have people who are dear to the cause giving me updates everyday what is up. So here it is again me asking and requesting that each and everyone of us write the Senator expressing your concerns and to defeat the give act. I have read it? I believe their are great things in it, in concept but their are many things that have direct conflict against the Constitution and would effect the way of life in this country. 1388 passes and I am sad to say it is going to effect each of differently and be another chink in the down fall of this nation. Now the question is now that it did pass, why was these Senators not their to vote, and why it, was just a few Republicans that had the few Nay's and the ones who did vote well I got one thing to say traitors. I want people to write and ask their Representative and ask them to please to read the Constitution and refrain from supporting and voting against it. That they are Representing us and are suppose defend the Constitution and we will no longer tolerate the blatant disregard of it by them. That for once we are going to stand proud and fight against anyone not defending her. This means working against them in a re election, going to protest which current legislation that made that more difficult. Rallies,Tea Parties anyway to get the word out. Republicans and Democrats should be on alert that we will no longer tolerate a Totalitarian Society they created, that we will not be spoon fed this pabulum. I believe as citizen we the people have the duty to up hold the constitution of the land and defend it to the end. That the day of kindly standing by as our Legislature runs rickshaw over us is no more. "Send" these Representatives in the Senate and Congress a tea bag, and let them know the selling off the United States of America is over. That the Constitution will stand again as law of the land...Defend her now or lose what way of life we know, and let future generations know we did not go down with out a fight. I ask all Americans to do their duty and make these bums accountable or throw them out...Arm your tea bags and write...

Not Voting - 11 Begich (D-AK)Boxer (D-CA)Cornyn (R-TX)Enzi (R-WY)Harkin (D-IA)Inouye (D-HI)Landrieu (D-LA)Martinez (R-FL)Nelson (D-FL)Pryor (D-AR)Vitter (R-LA)

YEAs ---74Akaka (D-HI)Alexander (R-TN)Barrasso (R-WY)Baucus (D-MT)Bayh (D-IN)Bennet (D-CO)Bennett (R-UT)Bingaman (D-NM)Bond (R-MO)Brown (D-OH)Burr (R-NC)Burris (D-IL)Byrd (D-WV)Cantwell (D-WA)Cardin (D-MD)Carper (D-DE)Casey (D-PA)Chambliss (R-GA)Cochran (R-MS)Collins (R-ME)Conrad (D-ND)Corker (R-TN)Dodd (D-CT)Dorgan (D-ND)Durbin (D-IL)Feingold (D-WI)Feinstein (D-CA)Gillibrand (D-NY)Graham (R-SC)Grassley (R-IA)Gregg (R-NH)Hagan (D-NC)Hatch (R-UT)Hutchison (R-TX)Isakson (R-GA)Johanns (R-NE)Johnson (D-SD)Kaufman (D-DE)Kennedy (D-MA)Kerry (D-MA)Klobuchar (D-MN)Kohl (D-WI)Lautenberg (D-NJ)Leahy (D-VT)Levin (D-MI)Lieberman (ID-CT)Lincoln (D-AR)Lugar (R-IN)McCain (R-AZ)McCaskill (D-MO)Menendez (D-NJ)Merkley (D-OR)Mikulski (D-MD)Murkowski (R-AK)Murray (D-WA)Nelson (D-NE)Reed (D-RI)Reid (D-NV)Rockefeller (D-WV)Sanders (I-VT)Schumer (D-NY)Shaheen (D-NH)Snowe (R-ME)Specter (R-PA)Stabenow (D-MI)Tester (D-MT)Udall (D-CO)Udall (D-NM)Voinovich (R-OH)Warner (D-VA)Webb (D-VA)Whitehouse (D-RI)Wicker (R-MS)Wyden (D-OR)

NAYs ---14 Brownback (R-KS)Bunning (R-KY)Coburn (R-OK)Crapo (R-ID)DeMint (R-SC)Ensign (R-NV)Inhofe (R-OK)Kyl (R-AZ)McConnell (R-KY)Risch (R-ID)Roberts (R-KS)Sessions (R-AL)Shelby (R-AL)Thune (R-SD)

http://www.blogger.com/

http://www.blogger.com/

The Give Act Some Clarification

2009-03-24T12:43:00.002-04:00

Provided by Christina

Some Clarification on the amendment:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r111:1:./temp/~r1114cKDeo:e90541:
Section 125 (42 U.S.C. 12575) is amended to read as follows: [Page: H3605] GPO's PDF
``SEC. 125. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.
``(a) Prohibited Activities.--A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not engage in the following activities:
``(1) Attempting to influence legislation.
``(2) Organizing or engaging in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes.
``(3) Assisting, promoting, or deterring union organizing.
``(4) Impairing existing contracts for services or collective bargaining agreements.
``(5) Engaging in partisan political activities, or other activities designed to influence the outcome of an election to any public office.
``(6) Participating in, or endorsing, events or activities that are likely to include advocacy for or against political parties, political platforms, political candidates, proposed legislation, or elected officials.
``(7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.
``(8) Providing a direct benefit to--
``(A) a business organized for profit;
``(B) a labor organization;
``(C) a partisan political organization;
``(D) a nonprofit organization that fails to comply with the restrictions contained in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 except that nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent participants from engaging in advocacy activities undertaken at their own initiative; and
``(E) an organization engaged in the religious activities described in paragraph (7), unless Corporation assistance is not used to support those religious activities.
``(9) Conducting a voter registration drive or using Corporation funds to conduct a voter registration drive.
``(10) Such other activities as the Corporation may prohibit.
``(b) Ineligible Organizations.--No assistance provided under this subtitle may be provided to the following types of organizations (including the participation of a participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle in activities conducted by such organizations) or to organizations that are co-located on the same premises as the following organizations:
``(1) Organizations that provide or promote abortion services, including referral for such services.
``(2) For-profit organizations, political parties, labor organizations, or organizations engaged in political or legislative advocacy.
``(3) Organizations that have been indicted for voter fraud.
``(c) Nondisplacement of Employed Workers or Other Volunteers.--A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not perform any services or duties or engage in activities which--
``(1) would otherwise be performed by an employed worker as part of his or her assigned duties as an employee or by another volunteer who is not a participant in an approved national service position; or
``(2) will supplant the hiring of employed workers or work of such other volunteers.''.
Amend the table of contents in section 1(b) by striking the item relating to section 1304 and inserting the following:
Sec..1304..Prohibited activities and ineligible organizations.
Amend the table of contents of the National and Community Service Act of 1990 (as proposed to be amended by section 4101 of the bill) by striking the item relating to section 125 and inserting the following:
``Sec..125..Prohibited activities and ineligible organizations.''.
Ms. FOXX (during the reading). I ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from North Carolina?
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from North Carolina is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, this motion to recommit codifies current regulations with regard to activities and organizations ineligible for grants from the Corporation for National and Community Service and AmeriCorps volunteers.
The activities include lobbying, protesting, union organizing, engaging in partisan political activities or religious instruction, conducting voter registration, or providing direct benefits to for-profit businesses, labor unions or political parties.
It also adds to the list of organizations, those that promote or provide abortions, as well as for-profit organizations, political parties, labor organizations, lobbyists, and those indicted for voter fraud. Organizations are also prohibited from receiving funds under these instructions if they are also co-located with an organization that engages in prohibited activities.
Finally, no organization that receives funds under this bill may displace current employed workers or volunteers.
Madam Speaker, the overriding principle here is that money is fungible. Funds must be used for the purpose of service and encouraging others to serve within their communities. They must not be allowed to be used for prohibited activities.
Groups that might be eligible for these grants and volunteers, if this motion to recommit were not to pass, include a laundry list of organizations that engage in activities that many Americans do not support.
For example, ACORN employees and supervisors have been indicted for voter fraud in recent history. During the 2008 election, proof surfaced that voter registration by the group was, in the words of the New York Times, ``vastly overstated,'' including registrations for Disney characters and Dallas Cowboy football players. Experts say that instances of inaccurate registration and fraud are greater when volunteers receive payment for their services. The American taxpayer should not be forced to pay for fraudulent behavior in the name of promoting community service.
For the current 2008-2009 AmeriCorps service year, Oregon Planned Parenthood has listed position for a paid volunteer. This AmeriCorps volunteer would be responsible for ``providing, promoting and protecting access to reproductive sexual health care for the women, men, and teens.''
While individuals should be aware of how to access health care services within their communities, the Federal Government prohibits use of Federal funds to be used for abortion as a form of family planning. Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the U.S. Federal taxpayer dollars should not be used to fund volunteers at organizations such as this.
Volunteerism plays a critical role in meeting many needs in our society. However, the Federal Government should not be paying individuals to volunteer their time at locations that are prohibited from receiving taxpayer dollars, especially when Americans are already facing budget constraints from all the demands they face. This is not acceptable.
This motion to recommit ensures that taxpayer dollars are not directed toward programs that are politically divisive and morally objectionable. It also ensures that AmeriCorps volunteers and recipients of corporation grants do not disrupt current volunteer activities and employee responsibilities.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I am against it, but I will not oppose it.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Members of the House, I want to begin by thanking all of you for your support for this legislation, for the bipartisan support we have received throughout the committee deliberations in our committee, and the support that we received both in the Rules Committee and on the floor today.
As we went through the amendment process, Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle spoke in favor of this most important American value, and that is service to our country, service to our neighbors, service to our communities, and that's what's reflected in this legislation. It is a rather remarkable mosaic of organizations and individuals from every corner of this country, from large cities to small rural towns that have responded to the needs of others, and they have responded without question. They have responded with their skills, their talents, and they have come forth to build a stronger America and a better community.
Earlier today at an event that we had with many of the volunteers to discuss this legislation, we were honored with the presence of Captain Scott Quilty, who retired from the Army after 10 years of service as a decorated infantry captain and Army Ranger during his tour in Iraq, where he led a platoon assigned to train, assess and build the operational capacity of a 460-man element of the Iraqi Army. [Page: H3606] GPO's PDF
In that tour of duty, he lost an arm and a leg. When he returned to America, as if he hadn't given enough service to America, he immediately joined the organization of Survivor Corps to help our returning vets when they come back to this country after serving in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places around the world, to reintegrate with their families, their communities, their schools, their jobs, their friends, their neighbors.
We were honored with Scott Quilty. And at that very same service, a gentleman walked up to me and handed me these, many of us see this when we tour our Army bases or our Air Force Bases or meet with the troops, it's called the Young Marines, and they do much of the same service. They give their time to our veterans. But they are not the only ones. We have senior grandparents, we have Teach For America, we have Jumpstart, we have Americans doing all of this.
We have Americans in the AmeriCorps that organized over 300,000 hours of volunteer service when the floods hit Iowa. They were there first. They came with their first responders in California with the wildfires and with the floods. They showed up early and they stayed late with Katrina and Rita.
This is what we celebrate with this legislation, and I want to thank you for your support and your good words on behalf of these people, Americans all, who step forward every time one of us needs them or the community needs them.
This legislation will strengthen and enable more Americans to be able to do so. It will tie in an educational benefit so that young children can have a service experience in middle school and high school and schools will become the center of service for young people in their communities.
Now let me get to the motion to recommit. I think, as we have only seen it for a few minutes, I think most of the motion to recommit is, in fact, already covered in statutes, regulations and the grant agreements that are issued. We are well aware of these issues. The Members on both sides of the aisle have spoken to them, and they have offered statutes, not only in this act, but in other acts, making sure that people who get these grants don't engage in activities that they should not be.
So we plan to accept this amendment. I appreciate the gentlewoman offering it, and we will take it to conference.
But, again, I want to thank you for supporting this legislation in advance of your support, and I would ask that you feel free to vote for the motion to recommit.
Again, I ask for passage of the bill.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is ordered on the motion to recommit.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it.
RECORDED VOTE
Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 9 of rule XX, the Chair will reduce to 5 minutes the minimum time for any electronic vote on the question of passage.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 318, noes 105, not voting 8, as follows:
[Roll No. 139]

Feminist Quote Of The Day

2009-03-24T02:05:00.001-04:00

Catherine speaks out about religion being involved In our government, and the importance of separation of church and state.

"Organized religion is the Illuminati's biggest weapon to control the masses and guess what people they take your money through taxes then you give your money to Jesus (who never see's a dime!) instead of helping the poor they erect temples and palaces and inflict their beliefs into the personal lives of other citizens. The reverend Billy Graham whom I dearly loved said it well "If the churches did their part in this country there would'nt be any need for welfare".

The Give Act

2009-03-24T01:58:00.005-04:00

HR 1388 The Give Act I will not waste much time explaining it I will show you one amendment to it...Just read highlighted in red, then call your rep. in Washington...This goes against the Constitution of the United States...
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1388/show
sign petition here
http://www.wam08.org/GIVEpetition.html

Committees
House Education and Labor
Amendments
This bill has 12 amendments. See All Amendments Hide All Amendments
Amendments to H.R.1388
Number Status Purpose H.Amdt 38 Offered
Amendment numbered 1 printed in House Report 110-39 to make certain technical changes; allow interagency agreements between Federal agencies to support national service programs by approving the use of service positions in projects carried out by other agencies; clarify that the goal of reaching 250,000 volunteers is throughout all national service positions, not just AmeriCorps; and clarify that the Corporation should promote efficiency and eliminate duplicative requirements in applications and report back to the authorizing committees on its progress in doing so. Adds language to promote community based efforts to reduce crime and recruit public safety officers into service opportunities. Adds "severely economically distressed community" as a new definition. Includes a new activity under the Opportunity Corps focused on a musician and artists corps program that helps meet educational needs in low income communities. Incorporates language that would increase access to and participation in federally supported nutrition programs.
H.Amdt39 Pass
Amendment numbered 2 printed in House Report 110-39 to add to the list of approved Clean Energy Corps activities the development of clean energy programs designed to meet the needs of rural communities.
H.Amdt40 Pass
Amendment numbered 3 printed in House Report 110-39 to remove veteran's educational benefits from being taken into account when calculating the maximum award an individual could receive for participating in one of the national service programs.
H.Amdt41 Pass
Amendment numbered 4 printed in House Report 110-39 to authorize a new grant program, the Volunteer Generation Fund, to be administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service.
H.Amdt42 Offered
Amendment numbered 5 printed in House Report 111-39 to set an authorization for AmeriCorps, the Trust, Innovative programs, audits and evaluations at the FY 2008 level for FY 2010, and as such sums as may be necessary for fiscal years 2011 through 2014.
H.Amdt43 Pass
Amendment numbered 6 printed in House Report 111-39 to provide volunteers to supervise physical education classes at elementary and secondary schools, provide nutrition education to students, and supervise, organize, and manage after school physical activity/education programs. The amendment would also provide services to these elderly people through food deliveries, legal and medical services provided in the home, and transportation.
H.Amdt44 Pass
Amendment numbered 7 printed in House Report 111-39 to require all authorized programs to be reviewed by the OMB's Program Assessment Rating Tool; require GAO to do a study on the National Civilian Community Corps program; and, amend the underlying legislation to continue the annual evaluation requirement for the National Civilian Community Corps, not a single evaluation by 2014.
H.Amdt45 Pass
Amendment numbered 8 printed in House Report 111-39 to increase the operational support given to organizations for full-time individuals enrolled in an approved national service position. The amendment proposes increasing the support from $600 to $800 and from $800 to $1000 if program supports at least 50 percent disadvantaged youth.
H.Amdt46 Pass
Amendment numbered 9 printed in House Report 111-39 to denote that sending care packages to soldiers deployed in combat zones overseas is included as an eligible service program.
H.Amdt47 Pass
Amendment numbered 10 printed in House Report 111-39 to aid veterans in their pursuit of education and professional opportunities, help veterans with the claims process, and assist rural, disabled, and unemployed veterans with transportation needs.
H.Amdt48 Pass
Amendment numbered 10 printed in House Report 111-39 to create a National Service Reserve Corps and requires an annual service requirement of at least 10 hours and/or annual training. A member of the National Service Reserve Corps is one who has completed a term of national service, fulfilled training, and will respond to national disasters and other emergencies. These individuals will be listed in a national database for the ease of immediate deployment in case of emergency.
H.Amdt49 Pass
Amendment to prohibit organizations from attempting to influence legislation; organize or engage in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes; and assist, promote, or deter union organizing.

Death of a Son

2009-03-23T13:31:00.008-04:00

Sadly one of the beauty's of life is death at least to me...
Birth is life and living, death is renewal transition...
Suicide to me is a person who truly wants to be free, but it so sad they have to go to such extreme to achieve it...
Sylvia Plath left her wonderful children and a cultivating garden in the arts of writing..
Her writings were the gifts that she gave so freely...
Sadly on March 16, 2009 Sylvia Plath son followed in her foot steps and hung himself...
I hope Nicholas Hughes ( Plath son ) and Sylvia find themselves in a better place and together again.
Heart breaking is that he was just a baby when Sylvia left us...
Maybe time heals all wounds but their is nothing but scar tissue here...
Tonight I think I need to read some of Plath poetry...
Nick and the Candlestick, to her baby son: "O love, how did you get here? O embryo... In you, ruby... The pain you wake to is not yours ... You are the one."

Nicholas Hughes (January 17, 1962 - March 16, 2009)

thank you for your article Tennessee Guerrilla Woman...

http://guerillawomentn.blogspot.com/

BBC article

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7958876.stm

MSN NEWS

http://entertainment.msn.com/news/article.aspx?news=358303&affid=100055

"A Woman To Be Noted "

2009-03-22T12:54:00.005-04:00

Former home of Anna J. Cooper in the LeDroit Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The home is located beside Anna J. Cooper Circle

Writen By Janice

Women's history tidbit for today 3/22 Anna Julia Cooper born into slavery. At 9 years of age entered a Normal School in North Carolina. The school was set up to train teachers to educate formerly enslaved people. She went on to Columbia U. and Paris U. . This woman wrote about women of color as the hope for African- Americans to evolve and aspire their potential not by holding onto anger and victimization. But by revering that which springs life and nurtures it... woman. Ms. Cooper also saw hope in America. " And here let me say parenthetically that our satisfaction in American institutions rests not on the fruition we now enjoy, but springs rather from the possibilities and promise that are inherent in the system, though as yet, perhaps, far in the future". She did not wait for others to create what only she could do. Thank-You Anna Julia Cooper.. a hero for all humankind.

"Reminder of Local Boston Tea Party"

2009-03-14T01:43:00.006-04:00

Pittsburgh Pennsylvania
Boston Tea Party
April 11, 2009 Allegheny Landing, Pittsburgh PA., time 12 noon. This is a peaceful rally to show the Government that We The People will no longer stand for the abuse of unjust taxation, pork belly spending, stimulus package, and the like...
( more trickle down economic theory in their pocket package)

Let Us Show Them The Constitution Is The Law Of The Land And We Want Them To Abide By IT!!!
“Bring Tea Bags & Your Best Patriotic Garb”

More Info Here http://www.pennsylvaniateaparty.com/webcontent/home?opendocument

President Brack Hussein Obama signed an executive order to create White House Womens Council he names Valerie Jarret to head it

2009-03-11T18:35:00.007-04:00

President Brack Hussein Obama signed an executive order to create White House Women's Council he names Valerie Jarret to head it. "Remember" Valerie Jarrett was behind many personal attacks against Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during the 2008 Primary. Tell us what you think?

Washington Post Writer Chris Cilliza wrote this...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2009/03/obama_creates_white_house_wome.html?wprss=thefix%22,,0,0,,,,

Obama Creates White House Women's Council
Valerie Jarrett will head a new White House women's council. AP photo by Evan Vucci
President Obama will sign an executive order tomorrow to establish a White House Council on Women and Girls, according to an administration official familiar with the move.
The Council will be chaired by Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser and personal friend to the president, and the day-to-day operations will be run Tina Tchen, who is currently director of the White House Office of Public Liaison and was a major fundraiser for Obama during the campaign.
"The mission of the Council will be to provide a coordinated federal response to the challenges confronted by women and girls to ensure that all Cabinet and Cabinet-level agencies consider how their policies and programs impact women and families," reads a memo describing the move and obtained by The Fix.
The announcement is designed to coincide with the celebration of national women's history month.
Obama has both personal -- his wife and two daughters -- and political reasons to make this sort of high profile move to ensure that women's needs are being addressed by his administration.
In 2008, 53 percent of the electorate was female and Obama carried that group 56 percent to 44 percent over Arizona Sen. John McCain. That is a significant improvement from Sen. John Kerry's (D-Mass.) performance in 2004 when women made up 54 percent of the electorate and the Democrat won them by only three points.
Obama and his team know that if he can maintain his 2008 margin among women in his reelection race in three years time, he will be sitting pretty. Expect then more symbolic moves like the establishment of the Council to demonstrate Obama's commitment to women and women's issues.

No Quarter had this article about Jarrett, written by Lena Grove

http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/11/15/valerie-jarrett/

Valerie Jarrett

By Lena Grove aka nasuS closeAuthor: Lena Grove aka nasuS Name: Lena GroveEmail: nomail@nomail.comSite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_in_AugustAbout: See Authors Posts (31) on November 15, 2008 at 11:30 AM in Allison Davis, Chicago Mansion, Chicago politics, Crown family, Current Affairs, Maytag, Michelle Obama, Richard Daley, Tony Rezko, Valerie Jarrett

From the NYTimes Caucus Blog, via Times Mark Halperin: Nearly two decades ago, Valerie Jarrett hired a young lawyer named Michelle Obama for a job at Chicago's City Hall. Now President-elect Barack Obama has hired Ms. Jarrett for a senior role in the White House.
Ms. Jarrett's role will be threefold, as is her title: White House Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Relations and Public Liaison.

A longstanding member of Barack Obama's tiny core of top advisers, she will continue providing him with counsel on a wide-ranging set of issues, she said Friday evening. Second, she will serve as the White House point person for business with state and local officials. Additionally, she will supervise the Office of Public Liaison, a relatively quiet office which she hopes to turn into a more active channel for government-citizen collaboration.â€ (Read all. Italics mine.)
* * * * *
When you've done as much opposition research on Obama as has this blog, it is amazing what can be found right HERE about a woman about whom most American are Who's she” at the very same moment that all of you veteran NoQuarter readers are saying, Oh yeah. Her. It figures.
Here, in chronological order, are snippet' from many of our stories that refer to Valerie Jarrett. Even with our handy administrative-section search engine, this took a while, but it is worth it:
(1) From the great investigative story by City Nell, a true must-read, How to Buy a Mansion You Can't Afford, February 4, 2008 (edited brilliantly by Truthteller) which, besides pointing out Jarrett's significant role in the trajectory of Michelle's career path, also explains how Michelle Obama became aware of the availability of the historic mansion:
In 1996, she left the Public Allies to help create a student volunteer program at The University of Chicago. By the time of this interview, she was the Executive Director of Community Affairs for The University of Chicago Hospitals. This is how Michelle portrays her change of career:
She was devastated when her father died from MS complications. That's when I started analyzing my life, sitting in a firm, she recalls, adding that in that same year she also lost one of her best friends from college to cancer. She soon left the firm to pursue a much lower-paying path in the public sector.The fact is Michelle was actively recruited for City Hall by a close friend, Valerie Jarrett, who was Mayor Daley's Deputy Chief of Staff at that time. Valerie later became the Finance Chair of Obama's 2004 US Senate campaign and then First Treasurer of Barack's political action committee, Hope fund.
It helps to have friends at City Hall. Among other positions, Michelle was appointed twice to sit on the board of the Commission of Chicago Landmarks for two consecutive terms. Michelle maintained this board seat from 1998 to March 2005, although normally a member only serves one 4 year term.
* * * * *
(2) From NoQuarter's story (formerly known as nasuS), Obama's 2006 Earmarks & the Crown Family, March 13, 2008 (aided, as always, by Truthteller considerable knowledge of all things Chicago and by Andy, a reader who sent me great tips for a long time):
Lynn Sweet, a Chicago Sun-Times columnist, has more on Michelle Obama and Obama's other earmarks:
Obama sought money for the University of Chicago Hospitals. Wife Michelle works for the University of Chicago Hospitals, appointed in spring 2005 as vice president for community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals. She is now on leave from the job to campaign for her husband. Top campaign adviser and friend Valerie Jarrett is the Chair of the University of Chicago Medical Center Board and also Chair of the Executive Committee of that board. She has also been named Vice-Chair of the University's Board of Trustees. Obama taught at the U. of Chicago law school and the Obama's two daughters attend school there. [bold mine]
Here's an FYI digression: My March 13th story begins with the significance of the Crown family's money to Obama's "rise ” Larry Johnson has correctly tagged the billionaire Crown and Pritzker families as of the highest influence to both Barack Obama and his aide-de-camp Rahm Emanuel and a cautionary tale for those KoolAid dipsomaniacs:
Do you remember the Crown family? Do you remember the Crown patriarch who sits on the board of Maytag? Do you recall that Barack Obama, as a U.S. Senate candidate, met with Maytag workers, asked for their donations and promised them he help save their jobs, and that he then went to the Crown family and took their large donations, but never said a word to Crown about saving the jobs of the Maytag workers?
* * * * *
(3) From Larry Johnson's story, Let's Help Barack Fight the Smears, June 12, 2008, which answered his critics taunting him about the whitey tape:
Now, are you ready for the shocker? Look at the next paragraph of [Time magazine reporter Karen Tumulty's] piece:
When the Obama campaign got wind of the rumor in April, Michelle's close friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett asked Michelle if there could be anything to it; the candidate's wife dismissed it out of hand.
I did not hear about the tape until MAY. REPEAT. I DID NOT HEAR ABOUT THE TAPE UNTIL MAY. Yet, the Obama campaign knew about the tape in April. Got it? And I am the one responsible for the so called rumor?
* * * * *
(4) From Un coup de dess story, Boston Globe Expos, Part I: Introducing Cecil Butler, Obama's West Side Slumlord Patron, June 27, 2008, a stunning and sickening story of how Obama abetted his greedy friends in making millions from taxpayers by privatizing public housing and letting it go to ruin or driving out the poor. You will see that Valerie Jarrett had a DIRECT ROLE and MADE MILLIONS from taxpayers monies while making the inhabitants of public housing criminally miserable. If you've never read this story, you simply must do so. If only the MSM had picked up this courageous investigative report by the Boston Globe and given it the play it deserved, Barack Obama would likely not be president-elect. That is how devastating this story is.
It is stomach-churning that Valerie Garrett had ANY role in this cruel, corrupt, and calamitously consumptive plundering of public monies.
First, a brief introduction from the No Quarter story is in order:
This is the first of a series of articles to be written on a lengthy expos published in the Boston Globe entitled Grim Proving Ground for Obama's Housing Policy.The 27 JUN 2008 investigative report is required reading for all No Quarter users.
Now, here is first of the bizarre, baffling and bold sections that describe some of Valerie Jarrett's plundering and political moves:
Campaign finance records show that six prominent developers - including Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko - collectively contributed more than $175,000 to Obama's campaigns over the last decade and raised hundreds of thousands more from other donors. Rezko alone raised at least $200,000, by Obama's own accounting.
One of those contributors, Cecil Butler, controlled Lawndale Restoration, the largest subsidized complex in Chicago, which was seized by the government in 2006 after city inspectors found more than 1,800 code violations.
Similar to Rezko, Cecil Butler is a developer who profited from the privatization of low income, public housing in Chicago during the 1990s. Butler is also not coincidentally a major supporter of Barack Obama whose low income tenements were ultimately seized by the government for multiple building code violations.
The Boston Globe provides a description and a brief history of Butlers Lawndale Restoration.
[...]
And yet more:
Who helped Cecil Butler secure government funds for Woodlawn Restoration? Barack Obama, of course: the same Barack Obama who wrote letters on behalf of Rezko's slum properties the same year residents of Rezko's tenements were complaining of lack of heat and sanitation services. For the Executive Vice President of Habitat Co., the company who helped Butler manage his deteriorating warren of slums, was Valerie Jarrett, another Obama contributor who develops low income housing and serves as a top advisor to the Obama for President campaign. The Boston Globe explains how Obama exploited his position as state Senator to assist Jarrett and Cecil Butler. I quote:
Obama translated that belief into legislative action as a state senator. In 2001, Obama and a Republican colleague, William Peterson, sponsored a successful bill that increased state subsidies for private developers. The law let developers designated by the state raise up to $26 million a year by selling tax credits to Illinois residents. For each $1 in credits purchased, the buyer was allowed to decrease his taxable income by 50 cents.
This No Quarter story ends thusly:
A disturbing pattern emerges, and it can be summarized as follows:
Obama secured funds for developers who desired to earn profits off of low income housing during the privitization scheme of the Chicago Housing Authority that occurred during Barack Obama's tenure as a state Senator. Those developers include Tony Rezko, Valerie Jarrett and Cecil Butler.
These public-private partnerships failed, leaving many in squalor.
Barack Obama remained silent, but he accepted contributions from Rezko, Jarrett, Butler and others.
Rezko is not an isolated case. Obama also colluded with the likes of Cecil Butler, whose negligence inspired African-American residents of the Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side to organize support for radical Republican Alan Keyes during Obama's 2004 Senate bid.
Obama's desire to privatize public housing has resulted in a series of failed projects that have left the indigent in squalor.
But Obama accepted the political contributions of these unscrupulous developers nonetheless.
Flineo created a video entitled Obama's Forgotten People,and I publish it again, as there is a new group of low income housing residents on the West Side of Chicago Obama we can add to the group on the South Side Obama abandoned in order to climb the political and social ladder.
[...]
Nothing, in my opinion, is more deplorable than a career politician who exploited African-Americans in low income housing for political and personal gain. And Obama did it again and again in inner city Chicago. Now he has manipulated African-Americans across the country to view his candidacy as the empowerment of the very people Obama ignored in order to line the pockets of his slumlord friends and contributors. Progressives and ostensible Democrats may forget, but those of us who are concerned with social justice will continue to serve as the true muckrakers this election cycle.
The edifices reproduced in this essay are buildings managed by Cecil Butler. The restoration project that followed in the wake of Cecil Butlers mismanagement of Lawndale Restoration is described in this document.
"Also To Note"
Valerie Jarrett
Who Am I?
Chicago Medical Center As Well." (Jay Newton-Small, "Campaign Insider," Time, 4/7/08)
"Chicago Is In The Running For The 2016 Olympics and One Of Obama's Top Advisers, Valerie Jarrett, Is The Vice Chair Of Chicago's Bid Committee." (Lynn Sweet, "McCain, Obama, Clinton All Push Bush On China Games," Chicago Sun-Times, 4/10/08)
Under A Plan Devised By The City Of Chicago And Habitat Co., "The City Has Lost More Than 13,000 Housing Units For The Poor." (Jason Grotto and Laurie Cohen, "Obama Adviser Shapes City Housing Policy," Chicago Tribune, 7/5/08)
"Habitat Has Earned $6.8 Million In Fees And $10.8 Million In Administrative Expenses Since The Plan Started In 2000, According To The U.S. Department Of Housing And Urban Development." (Jason Grotto and Laurie Cohen, "Obama Adviser Shapes City Housing Policy," Chicago Tribune, 7/5/08)
"Jarrett Is The Chief Executive Of Habitat Co., Which Managed Grove Parc Plaza From 2001 Until This Winter And Co-Managed An Even Larger Subsidized Complex In Chicago That Was Seized By The Federal Government In 2006, After City Inspectors Found Widespread Problems." (Binyamin Appelbaum, "Grim Proving Ground For Obama's Housing Policy," The Boston Globe, 6/27/08)
"In 2006, Federal Inspectors Graded The Condition Of [Grove Parc] An 11 On A 100-Point Scale - A Score So Bad The Buildings Now Face Demolition." (Binyamin Appelbaum, "Grim Proving Ground For Obama's Housing Policy," The Boston Globe, 6/27/08)
"[Jarrett] Has Also Served As Chair Of Both The Chicago Transit Board And The Chicago Stock Exchange." (Jay Newton-Small, "Campaign Insider," Time, 4/7/08)
"[M]ayor Richard Daley Thursday Announced The Merger Of The City's Planning Department And Economic Development Department, To Be Headed By Valerie Jarrett, His Former Deputy Chief Of Staff." (Robert Davis, "Daley Merges Planning, Economic Development Staffs," Chicago Tribune, 10/11/91)
"Jarrett, Then Deputy Chief Of Staff, Remembers Interviewing Michelle For An Assistant's Job In The Chief Of Staff's Office." (Rosalind Rossi, "The Woman Behind Obama," Chicago Sun-Times, 1/20/07)
Jarrett Is A Trustee Of The University Of Chicago And The University Of Chicago Medical Center. (The University Of Chicago Web site, trustees.uchicago.edu, Accessed 8/11/08)
"[Jarrett] Has Also Served As Chair Of Both The Chicago Transit Board And The Chicago Stock Exchange." (Jay Newton-Small, "Campaign Insider," Time, 4/7/08)
Facts About Me and Barack
Valerie Jarrett Is A "High-Level Unpaid Adviser" Who "Bridges Obama's Political And Personal Lives And Is Close To His Wife, Michelle." (Lynn Sweet, "The Inner Circle," Chicago Sun-Times, 3/9/08)
Jarrett Was Present In The Obama Household During Many Of The Discussions Leading Up To His Decision To Run For President. (Rebecca Johnson, "The Natural," Vogue, 9/07)
"[Jarrett] Also Served As Finance Chair For U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's 2004 Campaign." ("Remember, Celebrate, Act," Hyde Park Citizen, 1/11/06)
Jarrett Is The "Liaison Between Obama's Private Life And Campaign Life." (Shailagh Murray, "In Obama's Circle, Chicago Remains The Tie That Binds," The Washington Post, 7/14/08)
In 1991, Jarrett Interviewed Michelle Obama For Her Position In Mayor Richard Daley's (D-IL) Office. (Rosalind Rossi, "The Woman Behind Obama," Chicago Sun-Times, 1/20/07)
In 2006, Obama Requested A Total Of $5.5 Million In Earmarks For Chicago's Museum Of Science And Industry; Jarrett Serves On The Museum's Board Of Directors. (Obama For America Web site, answercenter.barackobama.com, Accessed 6/3/08; Chicago Museum Of Science And Industry, Internal Revenue Service Form 990, 2006)
"Indeed, From The Start, Obama's Inner Circle Included Valerie Jarrett And Penny Pritzker, Powerful And Well-Connected Chicago Businesswomen." (Carrie Budoff Brown, "Obama Campaign Adds Women To Top Ranks," Politico, 6/20/08)
My Donations and Bundling for Barack
Valerie Jarrett Is A Bundler For Obama's Presidential Campaign And Has Committed To Raising $100,000 To $200,000. (Obama For America Web site, www.barackobama.com, Accessed 7/17/08)
Since 2002, Jarrett Has Contributed At Least $21,300 To Obama's PAC And Campaigns. (CQ Money Line Web site, cqmoneyline.com, Accessed 7/31/08)
What Barack Says About Me
Obama: "I Trust Her Completely." (Don Terry, "'In The Path Of Lightning'," Chicago Tribune, 7/27/08)
Obama: "She participates in every conversation we have in the campaign. She is involved in broad strategic decisions about our message and how we approach the campaign, and she's involved in the details of managing the organization. She's really a great utility player." (Don Terry, "'In The Path Of Lightning'," Chicago Tribune, 7/27/08)
"'She's Always Very Insistent On Me Trusting My Instincts,' Obama Told Me. 'One Of The Dangers In Running For High Office Is You Get So Much Chatter In Your Ear That You Stop Listening To Yourself.'" (Don Terry, "'In The Path Of Lightning'," Chicago

Personal Friends

Jim Crown

Mayor Richard M. Daley

The Joyce Foundation

Martin Nesbitt

Barack Obama

David Plouffe

Penny Pritzker

Dr. Eric Whitaker

The Woods Fund of Chicago

Maybe People In This Nation Are Taking Governor Sarah Palin & Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton More Serious

2009-03-11T14:49:00.005-04:00

"Sold Out"

2nd edition printing comming
If you thought Hillary Clinton was a controversial female force, just wait until you get a good look at Sarah Palin! Bluewater Productions proudly presents a critical examination of the life and times of John McCain's running mate in the next part of their examination of important female individuals.From high school basketball star to Governor of the state of Alaska, Sarah Palin's rise to the halls of power has led her from her hometown of Wasilla to the campaign trail as a Vice Presidential candidate. Shaped by her family and her faith, discover how Sarah Palin became a national political force to be reckoned with!

http://www.tfaw.com/Profile/Female-Force-Sarah-Palin-%282nd-Printing%29___344257 From her beginnings at Wellesley to the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, Hillary Clinton has from the outset raised critical issues of feminism, politics, and philosophy. Telling the story of her life, Hillary Clinton will explore the former First Lady and current Senator from the state of New York, from her detractors and how they view her to those in her party who are inspired by her and would nominate her.

http://www.tfaw.com/Comics/Profile/Female-Force-Hillary-Clinton-(2nd-Printing)___344256

"New Group"

2009-03-11T14:39:00.005-04:00

"New Sister Group on Yahoo Groups"

Allegheny Seneca Falls Society

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DemocracyInSuffrage/

Also Democracy In Suffrage has a My Space Page

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=429818729

"Govenor Ed Rendell Tomorrow"

2009-03-10T14:56:00.001-04:00

Come and see Governor Rendell live in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, March 11th at 11:45 a.m. at Brashear High School, 590 Crane Ave., as he delivers a "Policy Address to the State" on Pennsylvania's Economic Relief and Recovery.
If you cannot be in Pittsburgh, the Governor's address will also be shown live via an internet stream at six locations across the state: Allentown, Altoona/Johnstown, Erie, Harrisburg, Philadelphia and Scranton.
Click here to view the event flyer for exact locations.
For more information or to RSVP, contact anakis@state.pa.us or call (717) 265-7552.

"March 8 International Womens Day"

2009-03-09T11:57:00.004-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-iQi3wZMaM&feature=related

Maureen Dowd I have a famous quote for you; their is a place reserved in hell for women who don't support other women ( Madeline Albright ). Dowd was once quoted as saying Hillary was not a Feminist (we should call her on that )

Women's Rights Are Human Rights by Hillary Rodham Clinton

First Lady of the United States from Jan. 1993 - Jan. 2001

U.S. Senator from New York: Jan. 2001 - Jan. 2009

U.S. Presidential Candidate - 2008

U.S. Secretary of State 2009

Remarks while First Lady to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, Plenary Session in Beijing, China: 5 September 1995.
Mrs. Mongella, Under Secretary Kittani, distinguished delegates and guests:
I would like to thank the Secretary General of the United Nations for inviting me to be part of the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. This is truly a celebration - a celebration of the contributions women make in every aspect of life: in the home, on the job, in their communities, as mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, learners, workers, citizens and leaders.
It is also a coming together, much the way women come together every day in every country.
We come together in fields and in factories. In village markets and supermarkets. In living rooms and board rooms.
Whether it is while playing with our children in the park, or washing clothes in a river, or taking a break at the office water cooler, we come together and talk about our aspirations and concerns. And time and again, our talk turns to our children and our families. However different we may be, there is far more that unites us than divides us. We share a common future. And we are here to find common ground so that we may help bring new dignity and respect to women and girls all over the world - and in so doing, bring new strength and stability to families as well.
By gathering in Beijing, we are focusing world attention on issues that matter most in the lives of women and their families: access to education, health care, jobs and credit, the chance to enjoy basic legal and human rights and participate fully in the political life of their countries.
There are some who question the reason for this conference.
Let them listen to the voices of women in their homes, neighborhoods, and workplaces.
There are some who wonder whether the lives of women and girls matter to economic and political progress around the globe.
Let them look at the women gathered here and at Huairou - the homemakers, nurses, teachers, lawyers, policymakers, and women who run their own businesses.
It is conferences like this that compel governments and people everywhere to listen, look and face the world's most pressing problems.
Wasn't it after the women's conference in Nairobi ten years ago that the world focused for the first time on the crisis of domestic violence?
Earlier today, I participated in a World Health Organization forum, where government officials, NGOs, and individual citizens are working on ways to address the health problems of women and girls.
Tomorrow, I will attend a gathering of the United Nations Development Fund for Women. There, the discussion will focus on local - and highly successful - programs that give hard-working women access to credit so they can improve their own lives and the lives of their families.
What we are learning around the world is that if women are healthy and educated, their families will flourish. If women are free from violence, their families will flourish. If women have a chance to work and earn as full and equal partners in society, their families will flourish.
And when families flourish, communities and nations will flourish.
That is why every woman, every man, every child, every family, and every nation on our planet has a stake in the discussion that takes place here.
Over the past 25 years, I have worked persistently on issues relating to women, children and families. Over the past two-and-a-half years, I have had the opportunity to learn more about the challenges facing women in my own country and around the world.
I have met new mothers in Jojakarta, Indonesia, who come together regularly in their village to discuss nutrition, family planning, and baby care.
I have met working parents in Denmark who talk about the comfort they feel in knowing that their children can be cared for in creative, safe, and nurturing after-school centers.
I have met women in South Africa who helped lead the struggle to end apartheid and are now helping build a new democracy.
I have met with the leading women of the Western Hemisphere who are working every day to promote literacy and better health care for the children of their countries.
I have met women in India and Bangladesh who are taking out small loans to buy milk cows, rickshaws, thread and other materials to create a livelihood for themselves and their families.
I have met doctors and nurses in Belarus and Ukraine who are trying to keep children alive in the aftermath of Chernobyl.
The great challenge of this Conference is to give voice to women everywhere whose experiences go unnoticed, whose words go unheard.
Women comprise more than half the world's population. Women are 70% percent of the world's poor, and two-thirds of those who are not taught to read and write.
Women are the primary caretakers for most of the world's children and elderly. Yet much of the work we do is not valued - not by economists, not by historians, not by popular culture, not by government leaders.
At this very moment, as we sit here, women around the world are giving birth, raising children, cooking meals, washing clothes, cleaning houses, planting crops, working on assembly lines, running companies, and running countries.
Women also are dying from diseases that should have been prevented or treated; they are watching their children succumb to malnutrition caused by poverty and economic deprivation; they are being denied the right to go to school by their own fathers and brothers; they are being forced into prostitution, and they are being barred from the bank lending office and banned from the ballot box.
Those of us who have the opportunity to be here have the responsibility to speak for those who could not.
As an American, I want to speak up for women in my own country - women who are raising children on the minimum wage, women who can't afford health care or child care, women whose lives are threatened by violence, including violence in their own homes.
I want to speak up for mothers who are fighting for good schools, safe neighborhoods, clean air and clean airwaves; for older women, some of them widows, who have raised their families and now find that their skills and life experiences are not valued in the workplace; for women who are working all night as nurses, hotel clerks, and fast food cooks so that they can be at home during the day with their kids; and for women everywhere who simply don't have time to do everything they are called upon to do each day.
Speaking to you today, I speak for them, just as each of us speaks for women around the world who are denied the chance to go to school, or see a doctor, or own property, or have a say about the direction of their lives, simply because they are women. The truth is that most women around the world work both inside and outside the home, usually by necessity.
We need to understand that there is no formula for how women should lead their lives. That is why we must respect the choices that each woman makes for herself and her family. Every woman deserves the chance to realize her God-given potential.
We also must recognize that women will never gain full dignity until their human rights are respected and protected.
Our goals for this Conference, to strengthen families and societies by empowering women to take greater control over their own destinies, cannot be fully achieved unless all governments - here and around the world - accept their responsibility to protect and promote internationally recognized human rights.
The international community has long acknowledged - and recently affirmed at Vienna - that both women and men are entitled to a range of protections and personal freedoms, from the right of personal security to the right to determine freely the number and spacing of the children they bear.
No one should be forced to remain silent for fear of religious or political persecution, arrest, abuse or torture.
Tragically, women are most often the ones whose human rights are violated.
Even in the late 20th century, the rape of women continues to be used as an instrument of armed conflict. Women and children make up a large majority of the world's refugees. When women are excluded from the political process, they become even more vulnerable to abuse.
I believe that, on the eve of a new millennium, it is time to break our silence. It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights.
These abuses have continued because, for too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.
The voices of this conference and of the women at Huairou must be heard loud and clear: It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.
It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution.
It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.
It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.
It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes.
It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.
It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.
If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are women's rights - and women's rights are human rights. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely - and the right to be heard.
Women must enjoy the right to participate fully in the social and political lives of their countries if we want freedom and democracy to thrive and endure.
It is indefensible that many women in nongovernmental organizations who wished to participate in this conference have not been able to attend - or have been prohibited from fully taking part.
Let me be clear. Freedom means the right of people to assemble, organize, and debate openly. It means respecting the views of those who may disagree with the views of their governments. It means not taking citizens away from their loved ones and jailing them, mistreating them, or denying them their freedom or dignity because of the peaceful expression of their ideas and opinions.
In my country, we recently celebrated the 75th anniversary of women's suffrage. It took 150 years after the signing of our Declaration of Independence for women to win the right to vote.
It took 72 years of organized struggle on the part of many courageous women and men. It was one of America's most divisive philosophical wars. But it was also a bloodless war. Suffrage was achieved without a shot being fired.
We have also been reminded, in V-1 Day observances last weekend, of the good that comes when men and women join together to combat the forces of tyranny and build a better world.
We have seen peace prevail in most places for a half century. We have avoided another world war.
But we have not solved older, deeply-rooted problems that continue to diminish the potential of half the world's population.
Now it is time to act on behalf of women everywhere. If we take bold steps to better the lives of women, we will be taking bold steps to better the lives of children and families too.
Families rely on mothers and wives for emotional support and care; families rely on women for labor in the home; and increasingly, families rely on women for income needed to raise healthy children and care for other relatives.
As long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace around the world - as long as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last, overworked, underpaid, not schooled and subjected to violence in and out of their homes - the potential of the human family to create a peaceful, prosperous world will not be realized.
Let this Conference be our - and the world's - call to action.
And let us heed the call so that we can create a world in which every woman is treated with respect and dignity, every boy and girl is loved and cared for equally, and every family has the hope of a strong and stable future.
Thank you very much.
God's blessings on you, your work and all who will benefit from it.

Reported in
The Independent
(article)

Secretary of state Hillary Clinton op-ed celebrating international women’s day March 8, 2009
Saturday, 07 March 2009 19:14 By The Independent Reporter

US MISSION - KAMPALA

Secretary of state Hillary Clinton On a trip to China eleven years ago, I met with women activists who told me about their efforts to advance conditions for women in their country. They offered a vivid portrait of the challenges women faced: employment discrimination, inadequate health care, domestic violence, antiquated laws that hindered women’s progress.
I met some of those women again a few weeks ago, during my first trip to Asia as Secretary of State. This time, I heard about the progress that has been made in the past decade. But even with some important steps forward, these Chinese women left no doubt that obstacles and inequities still remain, much as they do in many parts of the world.
I’ve heard stories like theirs on every continent, as women seek opportunities to participate fully in the political, economic and cultural lives of their countries. And on March 8, as we celebrate International Women’s Day, we have a chance to take stock of both the progress we’ve made and the challenges that remain—and to think about the vital role that women must play in helping to solve the complex global challenges of the 21st century.
Today, more women are leading governments, businesses, and non-governmental organizations than in previous generations. But that good news has a flip side. Women still comprise the majority of the world’s poor, unfed and unschooled. They are still subjected to rape as a tactic of war and exploited by traffickers globally in a billion dollar criminal business.
Honor killings, maiming, female genital mutilation, and other violent and degrading practices that target women are still tolerated in too many places today. Just a few months ago, a young girl in Afghanistan was on her way to school when a group of men threw acid in her face, permanently damaging her eyes, because they objected to her seeking an education. Their attempt to terrorize the girl and her family failed. She said, “My parents told me to keep coming to school even if I am killed.”
That young girl’s courage and resolve should serve as an inspiration to all of us—women and men—to continue to work as hard as we can to ensure that girls and women are accorded the rights and opportunities they deserve.
Global problems are too big and too complex to be solved without the full participation of women. Strengthening women’s rights is not only a continuing moral obligation—it is also a necessity as we face a global economic crisis, the spread of terrorism and nuclear weapons, regional conflicts that threaten families and communities, and climate change and the dangers it presents to the world’s health and security.
These challenges demand everything we’ve got. We will not solve them through half measures. And yet too often, on these issues and many more, half the world is left behind.
Especially in the midst of this financial crisis, we must remember what a growing body of research tells us: Supporting women is a high-yield investment, resulting in stronger economies, more vibrant civil societies, healthier communities, and greater peace and stability. And investing in women is a way to support future generations; women spend much more of their incomes on food, medicine and schooling for children.
Even in developed nations, the full economic power of women is far from being realized. Women in many countries continue to earn much less than men for doing the same jobs—a gap that President Obama took a step toward closing in the United States this year, when he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which strengthens women's ability to challenge unequal pay.
Women need to be given the chance to work for fair wages, access credit and launch businesses. They deserve equity in the political sphere, with equal access at the voting booth and the freedom to petition their government and run for office. They have a right to health care for themselves and their families, and a right to send their children to school—their sons and their daughters. And they have a vital role to play in establishing peace and stability worldwide. In regions torn apart by war, it is often the women who find a way to reach across differences and discover common ground.
As I travel around the world in my new role, I will keep in mind the women I’ve already met on every continent—women who have struggled against extraordinary odds to change laws so they can own property, have rights in marriage, go to school, support their families—even serve as peacekeepers.
And I will be a vocal advocate—working with my counterparts in other nations, as well as non-governmental organizations, businesses and individuals—to keep pressing forward on these issues, so that the world will move closer to finally realizing the full promise of women and girls.

Sad Time for Activist Grieving Daughters Death

2009-03-08T17:55:00.006-04:00

Sad to say one of our Patriots and fellow feminist activist lost her daughter who battle long and hard with cancer. Denise Anne Richards, who survived an attack by her estrange husband this summer when he attacked her with a hammer to get her pain med's please send out condolence to Betty Jean at Free-Us-Now
bj@free-us-now.com

We here at Democracy In Suffrage are beside ourselves...

"Feminist Quote of the Day"

2009-03-07T11:27:00.002-05:00

I did see this on another Blog but had to pass it on how true...

Meryl Streep: Feminist Quote of the Day
“Three of the nominated films this year have 26 men and one woman — ‘Slumdog‘ and ‘Milk,’ and ‘Frost/Nixon.’ You know, we accept it. It’s not unusual. But we would go nuts if three of the nominated films had 26 women and one man. It would be a very, very unusual thing. We’re still not telling everybody’s story in our country and that’s where we are.”
-- Meryl Streep

"Another ACORN" does not fall far from the tree....

2009-03-06T11:24:00.009-05:00

Once again who is going to defend our Constitution. Were was US Rep. Marcy Kaptur when Congress and Senate, members and lending financial institution hash out these loan programs. It was Congress and the Senate who rolled back allot of these regulations that gave you variable rate mortgages, and the like. Once again go to ACORN loan program, it makes your hair stand, like we are so reasonable because you don't have to qualify for mortgage insurance, just read. Now this is who your President, Congress, Senate. want to give money to ACORN. I feel for anyone who got into these loans and are losing their homes. Look at this aspect of the number of illegal in our country with mortgages. "Most in the Hispanic loan program was IL- legals" why are we giving loans to IL-legals. Just about half of the sub-prime mortages failed were illegals. Write to Congresswomen Marcy Kaptur ask why is she telling people to break the law and ask her is she going to pay for their legal defense fund? When the Sherif comes and set them out on the street is she going to give them a place to stay?
Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur is the longest serving female, maybe that should change, what do you think? Just read...

Congresswomen Marcy Kaptur Ohio's Ninth District

Washington Office2186 Rayburn Bldg. Washington, DC 20515Tel: (202) 225-4146Fax: (202) 225-7711
Ohio OfficeOne Maritime Plaza - Sixth FloorToledo, Ohio 43604(800)964-4699 Tel: (419) 259-7500Fax: (419) 255-9623

ACORN'S Inspiration
February 24th, 2009Posted: 8:57 am by Babs

One has to wonder where ACORN gets its hudspah. It could be from the President, and partially is, according to their website. But also according to their website, the credit goes to other lawmakers as well.
In an article posted under "Press Releases" on the group's website, I ran across this tidbit of information while reading about their efforts in Arizona.
"According to ACORN local lead organizer Kristy Theilen, the Tucson fight against foreclosures was inspired by Ohio Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, who advised her constituents in early February to stay put and squat-what ACORN also calls homesteading. ACORN is recruiting volunteers to help people who refuse to leave, either at the house or on the courthouse steps during foreclosure auctions."
Let's take a look at this Congresswoman who would encourage ACORN to break the law she's elected to uphold.

Marcy Kaptur of Ohio is the longest-serving Democratic congresswoman in U.S. history. In an interview with Amy Goodman on Feb. 4th, this is what Ms. Kaptur's advice was to homeowners facing foreclosure:
Now, she is recommending a radical foreclosure solution from the floor of the U.S. Congress: "So I say to the American people, you be squatters in your own homes. Don't you leave."
She criticizes the bailout's failure to protect homeowners facing foreclosure. Her advice to "squat" cleverly exploits a legal technicality within the subprime-mortgage crisis. These mortgages were made, then bundled into securities and sold and resold repeatedly, by the very Wall Street banks that are now benefiting from TARP (the Troubled Asset Relief Program). The banks foreclosing on families very often can't locate the actual loan note that binds the homeowner to the bad loan. "Produce the note," Kaptur recommends those facing foreclosure demands of the banks.
"[P]ossession is nine-tenths of the law," Rep. Kaptur told me. "Therefore, stay in your property. Get proper legal representation . [if] Wall Street cannot produce the deed nor the mortgage audit trail . you should stay in your home. It is your castle. It's more than a piece of property. . Most people don't even think about getting representation, because they get a piece of paper from the bank, and they go, 'Oh, it's the bank,' and they become fearful, rather than saying: 'This is contract law. The mortgage is a contract. I am one party. There is another party. What are my legal rights under the law as a property owner?' "If you look at the bad paper, if you look at where there's trouble, 95 to 98 percent of the paper really has moved to five institutions: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wachovia, Citigroup and HSBC. They have this country held by the neck."
Kaptur recommends calling the local Legal Aid Society, Bar Association or 888-995-4673 for legal assistance.
This may not be bad advice if you're in the negotiation portion of the process that she seems to be referring to, although it would appear she's merely offering a legal technical battle of "Produce the note". But it would seem all ACORN heard of this was the "squat" part. I don't see where Ms. Kaptur said at any point that you should break and enter to regain a house that has already been officially foreclosed on - and certainly not resold. In fact, Ms. Kaptur says just the opposite:
The onerous duty of physically evicting people and dragging their possessions to the curb typically falls on the local sheriff. Kaptur conditions her squatting advice, saying, "If it's a sheriff's eviction, if it's reached that point, that is almost impossible."
ACORN officials can certainly read, but can they comprehend what they read and translate it into anything lawful? It wouldn't appear so. I would be interested in hearing Ms. Kaptur's response to ACORN's laying their lawbreaking efforts at her feet.

Kaptur advises owners facing eviction to stay

By TOM TROYBLADE POLITICS WRITER
U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) is advocating home-owners threatened with foreclosure exercise squatter's rights in trying to stave off the loss of their house.
"I'm saying to them possession is 99 percent of the law; you stay in your house," Miss Kaptur said yesterday, continuing a crusade she started several weeks ago in Congress and CNN picked up Thursday night.
She said she believes that many so-called predatory and subprime loans - those made to borrowers who did not qualify for a conventional mortgage - may have been illegal.
She urged homeowners not to panic and leave their home just because they receive a foreclosure notice from their lender, and she said they should demand that the mortgage-holder produce a mortgage audit.
"I say to the American people, you be squatters in your own homes. Don't you leave," she said during a speech in Congress earlier this month.
Miss Kaptur was interviewed Thursday night on CNN by Lou Dobbs, and a CNN report cited a woman who lives on Cass Road in South Toledo as an example of the trend of homeowners ignoring foreclosure notices from their lender.
But Jim Moody, a Realtor who is running for mayor of Toledo as a Republican, said Miss Kaptur may be misleading people into thinking they can stop a legal foreclosure once a judge has issued an order.
"I think those are dangerous statements," Mr. Moody said. "What's she going to say when the sheriff comes and puts all their stuff on the street when they didn't leave because Marcy Kaptur said they could stay and become a squatter?
"I think she's clueless. This is goofy. Of course, the attorneys file the proper paperwork," Mr. Moody said.
Allen Seelenbinder, a Toledo-based mortgage banker with Main Street Financial, said the only audit the borrower is entitled to is an audit of the borrower's payments.
Asked if the mortgage lender is required to prove that its loan was made properly and that the borrower was qualified to sign the loan, he said, "absolutely not - you're under a contract that you both signed.
"The only audit they're required to provide to you is that the payments that you made are made correctly. It's a transaction history," he said.
But Sandusky lawyer Dan McGookle, who is representing a homeowner trying to have a predatory loan rescinded, said mortgage firms may not be able to prove they complied with truth-in-lending laws and other state and federal procedures.
"We have strong reason to believe that a majority of the mortgage loans made in the last 10 years are defective - unenforceable for various reasons," Mr. McGookle said.
Ironically, Mr. Moody agreed that people threatened with foreclosure should try to work out a solution and should stay in the home as long as possible.
Cathleen Tillman, director of the Lucas County Sheriff's Department's civil section, which carries out court-ordered foreclosures and evictions, also said people should remain in the homes until the deed has been transferred, and not to abandon a home that is still listed in their name.
"The foreclosure takes a long time," she said. More than 4,000 foreclosure actions were filed in 2008 in Lucas County, and the sheriff's department carried out 85 foreclosure-related evictions.
Miss Kaptur said she started advocating that homeowners fight foreclosure by staying their home after it became clear that the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry passed last year was not working as intended by Congress.

ACORN And Obama: Together Again
Posted 2009-02-21By Michelle Malkin

MICHELLE MALKIN
FRESH OFF THE trillion-dollar porkulus bill signing in Denver, President Obama immediately launched into his next New Raw Deal expansion: a massive mortgage entitlement program forcing lenders to refinance at an initial cost of $50 billion to $100 billion. That's in addition to the bipartisan-supported $50 billion in the "stimulus" bill to bail out homeowners underwater on their mortgages and the $2 billion in "neighborhood stabilization" funds to alleviate the foreclosure crisis.
In tandem with the White House Bad Borrowers Bailout, Obama's old friends at the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) are launching a new campaign of their own: the "Home Savers" campaign. What a coinky-dinky, huh?
As with most of the bully tactics of the radical left-wing group, it ain't gonna be pretty. They are the shock troops on the streets doing the dirty work while the Community Organizer-in-Chief keeps his delicate hands clean.
Trumpets ACORN: "On Feb. 19, ACORN members will launch a new tactic in fighting foreclosures: civil disobedience. Participants in the ACORN Home Savers campaign nationwide will simply refuse to move out of foreclosed homes, or in some cases, will move back in. ACORN homesteaders intend to squat in their homes until a comprehensive, federal solution for people facing foreclosure is put in place."
ACORN's foot soldiers, funded with your tax dollars, will scream, pound their fists, chain themselves to buildings, padlock the doors and engage in illegal behavior until they get what they want. It's a recipe for anarchy. Threatens Baltimore ACORN's Louis Beverly, who calls himself a "Foreclosure Fighter": "After you've used all your legal options, your last resort is civil disobedience. We're talking about families who have been in their homes 20 or 30 years. People who are assets in the community, who look out for the elderly, who have community associations, and these are the people being kicked out of the community."
We can all sympathize with good folks who can't pay their bills. But as I've said repeatedly in my criticism of the mortgage entitlement mentality embraced by both parties in Washington, home ownership is not a civil right - and neither is home retention. Artificially propping up the housing market will only result in more of the same costly borrow-spend-panic-repeat cycles that got us into this mess in the first place. Failing corporations need to fail. So do failing home borrowers. This is borrowing from frugal renter Peter to pay profligate Paul's home loan.
Now that's the kind of theft that should be the subject of civil disobedience.
Instead, ACORN offices, funded with your tax dollars, are training teams of "Home Savers" - described as "people ready and willing to mobilize on short notice to defend the homesteaders against attempts to evict them." Ready, willing and able to mobilize on short notice because they are either unemployed or employed full time as ACORN shakedown artists.
Guess who's encouraging them to defy the law. Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, who told them: "Stay in your homes. If the American people, anybody out there is being foreclosed, don't leave." The housing bullies will be assisted by left-wing propaganda documentarians at the Brave New Foundation, headed up by Hollywood lib Robert Greenwald, who will disseminate sob stories to crank up pressure while Obama pushes his housing entitlement plan.
ACORN is targeting the following cities: Tucson, Ariz.; Oakland, Calif.; Los Angeles, Calif.; Contra Costa County, Calif.; Orlando, Fla.; Baltimore, Md.; New York, N.Y.; Houston, Texas; San Mateo County, Calif.; Denver, Colo.; Bridgeport, Conn.; Wilmington, Del.; Broward County, Fla.; Boston, Mass.; Flint, Mich.; Detroit, Mich.; Minneapolis, Minn.; Raleigh, N.C.; Durham, N.C.; Albany, N.Y.; Cincinnati, Ohio; Cleveland, Ohio; Pittsburgh, Pa.; and Dallas, Texas.
ACORN has waited three decades for this moment in the sun. And as Obama promised ACORN members at a forum in December 2007, "We're going to be calling all of you in to help us shape the agenda. We're gonna be having meetings all across the country . so that you have input into the agenda." The moment is nigh. Prepare for lawlessness.
Creators Syndicate, 2009.

"Janice Rant & I Can't Agree More

2009-02-26T18:26:00.002-05:00

On the day that Eric Holder leveled the charge of racial cowardice against America I wanted to throw up. I am sick of the destructive politics of victimization. I wonder where Mr. Holder fits into his theory of our " national racial cowardice" ? Does he, an accomplished attorney educated and practicing in America, feel victimized? Does he feel that Barack Hussein Obama has been the victim of racial inequity? I would argue that B.O. has experienced racial preference and that he has learned to use the race card for his own personal achievements.
Getting back to Holder,the elitist, the person who defended Chiquita Bananas in their use of terrorists to quell locals around their plantations.This is the same individual who now plays the race card on Americans? Why doesn't Holder criticize his boss, a Black man,when states ravaged by Katrina have been left out of the stimulus/spending bill? Because Holder his elitist friends and employer require victims. They prey on the feeling of helplessness and insecurity that comes with the acceptance of victimization.They turn the feelings of despair into anger in order to control the mindless masses. Why is there no criticizing for the many transgressions ,against the very population they claim to represent, committed by this new administration.? Because the left has lost all integrity. Because they are fakes, only seeking power and money. They feed on keeping, those who will accept it, stuck in the past. They have lost integrity and do not want unification. They feed on division so that they may continue to lead their "victimized" population around by the nose. All the while they profit and the nation remains split... I wanted to run this by you as a possible blog post? Janice

"Gold Star" of the day Congressman Walt Minnick

2009-02-11T16:15:00.003-05:00

Someone stood up to the machine proposing to gut the Stimulus Package to a few hundred billion from the almost trillion dollar original, we need call and write and give this man thanks....

Freshman Congressman Walt Minnick Idaho
He can be reached at (202) 225-6611
1517 Longworth HOB Washington, DC 20515

Happy Birthday Sarah Palin

2009-02-10T21:24:00.004-05:00

Febuary 11, we celebrate Sarah Palin Birthday,

"I urge everone to send a greeting"

Juneau Office Alaska State Capitol Building Third Floor

Mailing Address:P.O. Box 110001Juneau, AK 99811-0001

Telephone Inquiries:Phone (907) 465-3500

Fax (907) 465-3532

Anchorage Office550 West 7th Avenue, Suite 1700

Anchorage, AK 99501

Phone (907) 269-7450Fax (907) 269-7461

Email http://gov.state.ak.us/govmail.php