Stop Stupak
Posted by Michelle Moquin on November 22nd, 2009
Hello…
What a day it was yesterday. I’m glad it is over. Although last night was a victory for the Democrats as they united to beat the republicans from filibustering. We got the 60 votes and we are that much closer to health care reform! But it isn’t over yet. And just as important as health care reform, we need to address the Stupak Amendment, and petition its place in the health bill to ensure that it is not part of the final health care bill.
I received the below e-mail from Barbara Boxer as I am sure many of you did.
Ten days ago, the House passed the Stupak Amendment, which would be one of the biggest setbacks to women’s health in recent decades — unless we stand together and stop it.
That’s why we are launching a petition at www.FightForWomensHealth.com, because women must not be denied access to safe and legal medical procedures.
For decades, a very difficult and delicate compromise has held firm: Women can use their own private funds for legal reproductive health care procedures, but federal funds cannot be used for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother.
But in a stunning turn of events, anti-choice House members passed the Stupak Amendment as part of the health care reform bill and shattered that compromise.
The House amendment would tell women who participate in the new health insurance exchange that they can’t even use their own funds to buy a policy that includes abortion coverage.
In short, the Stupak Amendment would take away health insurance coverage that women already have. This would be a huge step back for women’s health.
You know I will be there speaking out on this issue at every stage of the process and everywhere I can. But as the details of the Senate’s health care bill are worked out, we need to be sure that all our voices are heard clearly on this issue.
Please stand with us to protect women’s health and help remove the Stupak Amendment from the final health care bill. Sign our petition now.
www.FightForWomensHealth.com
The Stupak Amendment is dangerous and unnecessary.
The original health reform bill did not change current abortion policy and already had a prohibition on the use of federal funds to pay for abortion services.
But that wasn’t good enough for the anti-choice forces. They want to use health care reform as an excuse to turn back the clock on women’s health. We need to speak out now.
How can we tell women that they will lose coverage that they already have? How can we tell women that they can’t buy insurance coverage for a legal health care procedure, even if it’s paid for with their own money?
The Stupak Amendment is discriminatory, extreme, and just plain wrong.
We cannot let it stand. Sign our petition now.
Thank you so much for joining us in this critical fight for women’s health.
In friendship,
Barbara Boxer
Readers: If you haven’t signed the petition, I am encouraging you to do so. If you click on any of the links above which takes you to a page to sign the petition, all of my info will be in the fields. I could not delete my info so please delete and add your info into the fields – thank you!
Ruth: Have I had that conversation with my mother? You bet I have. Did I include those exact words that you mentioned this time? Not exactly, but more or less. Will support of women into office be a topic that is broached again? Yes, over and over.
You haven’t been reading my blog long enough to know that I have blogged these sort of conversations that I have had with my mother before. My mother is one who has given deference to men for many years, as powerful as she is. But she has seen the light, so to speak…or should I say she has seen the ‘white’. Old ‘white’ men that is, telling us what we can and can not do with our bodies.
When Hillary was running for president, my mother told me that she was not sure she thought a woman would be a good president. Oh…That was the wrong thing for her to say to me. I went off, in a gentle but firm way, of course; she is my mother. :)
After pointing out the lack of competency in men that ‘we’ve elected’, and the past administration(s), and asking her several questions such as, “What attributes or intelligence does any man possess, that a woman can’t compete with that would make her less of a candidate for the president of the U.S., than the lame ducks of the past? After my passionate grilling, she stared at me and said, ‘I never thought about it like that, but you are absolutely right.’ It was quite a moment…a revelation, a clarity, that I witnessed in her eyes, like she had just woken up from a deep sleep. And from that point on my mother rode the Hillary train and rallied up her girlfriends too. And to this day she still talks about that conversation as well as a few other eye-opening moments that we have shared in regards to men and women.
But these conversations are ones that need to be had quite frequently. Although, my mother is a smart woman, and eventually gets it, her attention span is quite limited, and her revelations are short-lived.
How are you and the girls doing?
Carrie: You got that right. There is always enough money in the budget for war, yet health care in general, and women’s health more specifically, is not a priority. You are absolutely right and worth repeating: “Women need to make electing women to political office that put women’s issues on the top of the list a priority.”
Lora: Perfectly said. Great quote worthy words.
Brenda: Reading your comment got me fired up. I too am passionate about the issue, and I thank you and Carrie, Ruth, and Lora, for bringing up again how important it is for us to elect women into office…women who will make women’s concerns a priority. Men certainly make their concerns a priority. The only way we are ever going to get ahead is to lead, and that means more women in office. It really is that simple. And totally doable, as long as women ‘woman up’ and start supporting women who support women.
Anna: As I had mentioned, I have several girlfriends who have breast cancer and they are in their 40′s. This over 50 BS, is an issue that should never even be on the table, in my opinion. What limitations are there out there that prevents men from getting care until a certain age? Are there any? I don’t know of any.
Larry: You do the best you can for you and for men; not women. How obvious is that? Obviously not obvious enough for some of the women to wake up and do something about it. For those that see through your self-centeredness: Watch out; we are a powerful bunch. Your day will come.
Billy: How are you? Good to hear from you again. Here’s one for you: ‘Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat.’
Peace out.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: Your Bad Ass Bitch Editor
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November 22nd, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Carrots, Eggs & Coffee
A carrot, an egg, and a cup of coffee… You will never look at a cup of coffee the same way again.
A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.
Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil; without saying a word.
In about fifteen minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, ‘ Tell me what you see.’
‘Carrots, eggs, and coffee,’ she replied.
Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg.
Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma. The daughter then asked, ‘What does it mean, mother?’
Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water.
Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.
‘Which are you?’ she asked her daughter. ‘When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?
Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?
Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with
a stiff spirit and hardened heart?
Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance
that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you.
When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?
May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human and enough hope to make you happy.
The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.
The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past; you can’t go forward in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.
When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling.
Live your life so at the end, you’re the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Michelle
The girls, for the most part are doing fine.
Thank you for asking
Ruth
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:38 pm
I found this:
—————
Doctors love treating diabetes with insulin and meds – it’s easier than doing the real work of helping a patient overcome their condition naturally.
But maybe the tide is turning at last – even if it’s because patients are finally taking matters into their own hands.
I was thrilled enough when I read a profile in the Los Angeles Times of diabetics who control their condition without meds… but I was ecstatic when I saw the latest study in The Lancet, which found that weight loss and exercise are BETTER than meds for prediabetics.
Researchers followed 3,234 overweight or obese adults at risk for diabetes and followed them for a full decade. Some were given metformin to control their blood sugar levels, some a placebo, and the rest were told to lose weight and get some exercise.
At the end of that decade, 2,766 remained in the study. The group with the lifestyle changes had lowered their risk of diabetes by 34 percent versus the placebo… while those who took drugs had reduced their risk by barely half of that – 18 percent versus the placebo.
One more win for lifestyle changes.
Too bad most of the 24 million diabetics and 57 million more overweight adults with dangerously high blood-sugar levels never get the full story when it comes to the power of these changes.
No, they’re given drugs… which as this study shows aren’t very good at preventing the condition. And once those fail, they’re thrown to the wolves of insulin injections and even more drugs.
And believe me, Big Pharma wants to keep it that way.
They’re even looking for ways to get MORE people on these drugs. Already, many prediabetics take diabetes drugs – and just watch as they try to sell this new med as a weight- loss drug for everyone.
Please, spare us already. I’m sure the side effects like nausea and vomiting helped contribute to the modest weight loss patients on these drugs might get.
Instead, get your diet under control and start moving around. It’s simple, really – so simple that once you’ve gotten yourself into the rhythm of a healthy lifestyle you’ll wonder why it’s taken you so long.
The diabetics in the Los Angeles Times article all managed to ditch their insulin with these lifestyle changes, and many of them don’t need any meds at all.
For them, it started with the simple recognition that a life of insulin injections and diabetes meds would be harder than a life of healthy living. So they made a commitment. They’re eating right – some are doing very well on low-carbohydrate diets.
And they’re exercising.
But you don’t need to be a diabetic to benefit from their example.
Cut the sugar from you own life and start getting out a little more. Ideally, 20-30 minutes of exercise per day is all it takes – just be consistent. Start with a walk. Maybe that will turn into a jog or a run, but if it doesn’t, don’t worry. Just keep walking… or dancing… or hiking… or swimming… or doing whatever it is that gets your muscles moving.
You can do that, right? Of course you can.
On a mission for your health,
Ed Martin
Editor, House Calls
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Hafa adai
The push to make prostitution legal obviously doesn’t have the same effect on the catholic church on Guam as abortion does. They have been strangely silent on this issue.
____________________________
It appears efforts by the Guam Hotel and Restaurant Association to establish a red light district outside of Tumon are making progress. Discussions have been ongoing between lawmakers, business owners, and GHRA members with the Guam Land Use Commission that may assist in finding a suitable location to move adult entertainment and massage parlors.
GHRA and the Guam Visitors Bureau have expressed concerns that the growing number of strip clubs and massage parlors that are allowing prostitution are creating a non-family friendly image for the tourists who visit the island. GHRA President Mary Torre says she’s hopeful the GLUC will put the issue back on their agenda when they meet next week.
“We will continue to work through it and we hope the Commission will consider it again,” said Torre, “so we can start to move forward and start working together to collaborate and ensure we do our part to really develop this area as a tourist destination.”
____________________________________
When the thousands of new troops arrive, I guess we will be ready with plenty of women to meet their needs.
I think it is disgusting to turn our women into prostitutes for money.
Peter
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Some more republican propaganda bulls**t. Bucchannan at his worst.
The cat is out of the bag… under Pelosi-Care, American citizens who refuse to purchase an Obama-approved health insurance plan will face fines of up to 250,000 dollars and up to five years in jail.
When asked what gave Congress the right to institute such a tyrannical mandate, Democratic Senator Jack Reed actually had the nerve to tell CNS News that it was constitutionally justified.
Why? Because, according to Reed, it was no different than making people “sign up for the draft.”
Got that?
As far as Nancy Pelosi and Barack Hussein Obama and Jack Reed and radical leftists in Congress are concerned, they have every right to force you to purchase a Pelosi-Obama-approved health care plan under penalty of law.
And apparently, like the draft, it’s your solemn duty to purchase their so-called health care plan… or else.
If you cross them… if you are not covered by a health care plan that has the Obama-Pelosi Seal Of Approval, the IRS will assess a penalty of up to 2.5 percent of your income and if you resist paying this penalty, you can go to jail for up to five years and/or be fined up to 250,000 dollars.
Congressman Dave Camp, the Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee, put it this way:
“This is the ultimate example of the Democrats’ command-and-control style of governing – buy what we tell you or go to jail.”
Specifically, when asked for the justification, under the Constitution, for Congress to make the draconian requirement, Reed told CNS News:
“Let me see… I would have to check the specific sections, so I’ll have to get back to you on the specific section. But it is not unusual that the Congress has required individuals to do things, like sign up for the draft and do many other things too, which I don’t think are explicitly contained [in the Constitution].”
“Get back to you?” … on the Constitution? … Is this man actually a United States Senator? … it should be obvious, Reed has no idea what’s in the Constitution. And it should be equally obvious that leftists like Reed and Pelosi and Barack Hussein Obama have little regard, if any, for the Constitution anyway.
And lastly, it should be painfully obvious exactly why Pelosi-Care (the spawn of ObamaCare) must be stopped.
Oh… one more thing just recently became obvious… it seems Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will try to ram Pelosi- Care down our throats before we even know what hit us after all.
Right after some Senior Democrats claimed last week that so-called “health care reform” would not be resolved in the Senate this year, Reid immediately (and quietly) moved to bring Pelosi-Care to the Senate floor.
Debate will start on Tuesday… even though Reid has not even finalized the Senate version of the legislation.
Whoa… just last week, Reid said, “They want us to do this the right way, not the fast way.”
What a turnaround…. Why the rush Harry?
If we’re going to stop Pelosi-Care, we must act now, because time is short.
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:14 am
Here is another reply the H. Post refused to print
request is being processed…
Rep. Patrick Kennedy Banned From Receiving Communion By Bishop Thomas Tobin
Etherealechidna I’m a Fan of Etherealechidna permalink
Hear me out, opinions of a Catholic~??The Catholic Church asserts that abortion is killing the most innocent among us, so one would assume the Church would hold this issue as a priority above others, let their position not be misinterpreted, they see abortion as killing innocent human life, because they believe life begins at conception… This isn’t a matter of women’s rights to the catholic church, to them it’s a matter of protecting life.. So if one as Biden/Pelosi/Kennedy call themselves Catholic they cannot condone killing life (according to the church) Now they can easily get around this by ceasing to be Catholics, why don’t they? Now I’m not exempting those priggish little republican senators who have affairs, and say they’re “family Catholics” They are just as bad.. Same is true for pro death penalty “Catholic” buffoons, they shouldn’t receive communion because the Church has always said mankind is not to take life..The point is if your faith is what it says it is and if you don’t like it, don’t state that you are a member of that faith
Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 11:02 PM on 11/22/2009
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lizr I’m a Fan of lizr 236 fans permalink
except MOST Catholics dont follow that dogma.
Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 11:06 PM on 11/22/2009
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billythekidd permalink
This comment is pending approval and won’t be displayed until it is approved.
I heard you Etherealechidna, except the catholic doesn’t follow that doctrine.
??Does the words Inquisition, Crusades, Pedophilia bring any thoughts of hypocrisy to mind?
??The catholic church is anti abortion because its history was one of preserving the birth of males. A woman dying during the childbirth of a male heir was sanctioned by the early church when the privileged were marrying and impregnating children with a pelvic barely able to pass a baby through. ??
If the catholic church was so concerned about the sanctity of life would they be so determined to protect the priests that molest “the most innocent among us?”
??Has the Church refused communion to any of the priests that were guilty, or any of the higher ups who knew about their foul deeds and did nothing about it or shielded them from justice?
??Who is the “it” you are referring to that is supposed to be telling this catholic what his faith is?
My faith is in God, not what some man says God says.
??God has not told me that a woman who has an abortion is ‘killing the most innocent among us.” A man has determined that an aborted fetus is a living entity.
Not believing that man does nothing to my faith. ??Paying no attention to a man who says I am excommunicated does nothing to my faith either. My faith is in God not some man who proclaims he speaks for God.
Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 12:08 AM on 11/23/2009