cherydactyl

From Credo, previously known as Working Assets:

Dear Friend,

Last year, the Senate failed to get the 60 votes necessary to force an up-or-down vote on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would mandate that women receive equal pay for equal work. Now, with a new session of Congress in place, the House is ready to take up the fight again.

With President-elect Obama soon to take office, we now have a real chance to pass this legislation that could do so much for so many American women. There will be a battle in the Senate, and the best way to come out of the gate strong is for the bill to pass by an overwhelming majority in the House.

Women across America are counting on Congress - I just took action to tell my member of Congress to support the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. I hope you will, too.

Please have a look and take action.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/support_ledbetter/?r_by=2085-231554-4pN43Gx&rc=paste

Thanks!

via anderyn, I took the American Civic Literacy Quiz

You answered 32 out of 33 correctly — 96.97 %

Average score for this quiz during November: 78.1%
Average score: 78.1%

The only one I got wrong was about what Roosevelt threatened in response to the assertion that parts of the New Deal were unconstitutional. In fairness, a few of the questions were about economics more than politics IMO.

Interestingly, elected officials are supposedly *less* knowledgeable than the general public on these topics. See table citation about that assertion.

Maybe you saw my previous posts on the Dalai Lama paper doll. Maybe you didn't.

In any case, Dover publications has been promoting McCain and Obama paper doll books as collectibles this season. It's kind of quirky and cool, if you're at all into that sort of thing.

Only, well, take a look at this:

vs.

Your assignment: compare and contrast their poses. Anything you notice?

http://slackeruprising.com/

Michael Moore's latest movie project will be available to download from the above site for a limited time beginning on September 23.

I'm reposting this piece posted by fierce_femme21, because I think it's important.

An Open Letter to Gov. Sarah Palin on Women's Rights
By Lynn Paltrow, National Advocates for Pregnant Women, posted on September 4, 2008.

Dear Governor Sarah Palin:
Many Americans agree with your position regarding abortion -- they do this as a matter of faith, ethics, personal experience and sometimes politics. I am just wondering though, if you have thought about what would happen if you succeeded in getting your position -- that fetuses have a right to life -- established as the law of the land? Did you know that it not only threatens the lives, health and freedom of women who might want or need someday to end their pregnancies, it would also give the government the power to control the lives of women -- like you who -- go to term?
Your last pregnancy, the one that has become the topic of widespread discussion and speculation provides an important opportunity to demonstrate how this could be true.
According to press reports your water broke while you were giving a keynote speech in Texas at the Republican Governors' Energy Conference. You did not immediately go to the hospital -- instead you gave your speech and then waited at least 11 hours to get to a hospital. You evaluated the risks, made a choice, and were able to carry on your life without state interference. Texas Governor Rick Perry worried about your pregnancy but didn't stop you from speaking or take you into custody to protect the rights of the fetus.
After Ayesha Madyun's water broke, she went to the hospital where she hoped and planned to have a vaginal birth. When she didn't give birth in a time-frame comfortable to her doctors, they argued that she should have a C-section. The doctors asserted that the fetus faced a 50-75 percent chance of infection if not delivered surgically. (Risks of infection are believed by some health care providers to increase with each hour after a woman's water has broken and she hasn't delivered).
The court, believing like you that fetuses have a right to life, said, "[a]ll that stood between the Madyun fetus and its independent existence, separate from its mother, was put simply, a doctor's scalpel." With that, the court granted the order and the scalpel sliced through Ms. Madyun's flesh, the muscles of her abdominal wall, and her uterus. The core principle justifying an end to legal abortion in the U.S. provided the same grounds used to deprive this pregnant and laboring woman of her rights to due process, bodily integrity, and physical liberty. When the procedure was done, there was no evidence of infection.
According to the press reports, instead of going straight to a hospital you chose to get on a long airplane flight back to Alaska.
When Pamela Rae Stewart, allegedly, didn't get to the hospital quickly enough on the day of her delivery, she was arrested in California on the theory that she had violated the rights of her fetus.
When Laura Pemberton chose to give birth at home in Florida, a Sheriff came to her house. Doctors believed that she was posing a risk to the life of her unborn child by having a vaginal birth after having had a previous c-section and were in the process of getting a court order to force her to have a c-section. The sheriff took her into custody during active labor, strapped her legs together and forced her to go to a hospital where an emergency hearing was taking place to determine the rights of her fetus. She was "allowed" to represent herself. A lawyer was appointed for the fetus. This woman, who vehemently opposes abortion, nevertheless believed in her right to evaluate medical risks and benefits to herself and her unborn child. She was forced to have the unnecessary surgery and when she later sued for violations of her civil rights, was told fetal rights outweighed hers.
You chose to continue working throughout your pregnancy -- even during your labor. Until 1991 women who worked in high paying blue color jobs that provided health benefits were being fired based on "fetal rights" policies that claimed if the woman became pregnant she would expose the unborn child to workplace health risks. Eventually, the Supreme Court said employers covered by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (the PDA) could not do this. But, millions of American women work part time or for small employers who are not covered by the PDA. If your political position on abortion is accepted -- all of these women could be forced to give up their jobs because an employer, family member, or state agent believed it necessary to ensure the health and rights of their unborn child.
Governor Palin, you have led an extraordinary life, balancing work and family, public service and private family obligations. We hope you know though that your freedom relies on exactly the same legal principals that guarantee that American women can choose to have an abortion when they need and want one.
Sixty one percent of women who have abortions are already mothers. Eighty-four percent of these will be mothers by the time they are in their forties. As a proud mother of five beautiful children, we hope you will recognize that the issue isn't abortion -- it is ensuring the lives, dignity and freedom of all pregnant women and their families.
Lynn Paltrow
Executive Director
National Advocates for Pregnant Women

via gillan

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/07/15/hhs-moves-define-contraception-abortion

Apparently, the Health and Human Services agency has a draft proposal to redefine major forms of contraception, including the pill, patch, and IUD, as abortion, based on the not-proven notion that these forms of contraception are really abortifacient in their action (that they work only or primarily by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg). The above article provides a link to a copy of the leaked draft proposal. The proposal would do this action mainly by defining pregnancy as starting when there is a fertilized egg present, as opposed to the AMA's usual definition of established (ie implanted and progressing) pregnancy. The most insidious thing about this is that under that definition, no woman of reproductive age could ever prove she was not pregnant. (Would this change eventually result in women of fertile age not receiving or being made to delay services like diagnostic x-rays or needed C-class drugs because they "might" be pregnant??) It appears that the idea is to allow service providers to deny contraception, and perhaps allow insurers to not pay for contraception, on the basis that it is abortion. I am beyond appalled. It makes me realize that Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale isn't as far-fetched as I might like it to be.

...and I am thinking about not participating.

See, most of the Democratic candidates have withdrawn their names, and did not follow the procedure to have write-in votes for them count. Because of Michigan's moving the primary earlier than Super Tuesday, the national Democratic Party has stripped Michigan of its convention delegates. The Michigan Dems seems to think the Party is joking, or will cave later, or something. Therefore several candidates fulfilled a pledge to the national party and withdrew their names from the Michigan primary. A few didn't, though in at least one case, that is actually because he blew the deadline for doing so (Kucinich).

Therefore I can either vote for Clinton, for Chris Dodd (who has withdrawn),for "uncommitted," or for Dennis Kucinich or Mike Gravel, and it may not even count except as a straw poll.

In the online surveys I have taken, I end up with either Gravel or Kucinich. [Yes, I am a liberal. Sue me.] Neither of them seem very viable, of course, in these right-leaning times. In those same online surveys, Clinton ends up at the bottom of the list Dems for how they align with me. The only merit I see in voting for her is the glass ceiling factor. This is admittedly not inconsiderable, from my point of view.

Even worse, however, is that the law that moved the primary into January had a provision that the list of who asked for which party's ballot becomes information compiled by the state and given EXCLUSIVELY to the two major parties. That is, the Dems and Republicans will know that I voted and which ballot I voted on. (Michigan's primary is open...you don't have to declare a party preference anymore, but you do have to ask for only one of the major party ballots and vote only the one ballot.) This has been challenged, most recently in a lawsuit filed late last week by the ACLU. They want to either make the who-voted-which-ballot-list completely public or deny it to anybody. As of right now, anybody but the parties having and using those lists is a criminal violation, even for reporters, or other political parties. Using public resources to gain info for private political organizations AND ENFORCE IT IN THE CRIMINAL CODE seems pretty blatantly a violation of the constitution to me. But, the actual outcome of this is unknown at this moment.

So I can vote for a limited slate of candidates, get my name on a list that may be given to the major parties exclusively, and not have my vote count.

Gee, where do I sign up?