Progress For America’s Women
Posted by Michelle Moquin on October 28th, 2010
If you’re a woman, I hope that you’re voting with the Democrats this November. Why? Because women will suffer if the balance of power shifts.
A report released last Thursday by the White House makes an excellent case that women have benefited greatly from the policies and programs advanced by the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress. Also see Speaker Pelosi’s report released Friday, highlighting the top 5 gains for women in the 111th Congress and how few Republicans voted for each. By inference, women will suffer if the November elections shift the balance of power between the parties. Unfortunately, many women, leaders included, probably do not know just how much women have benefited from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as the economic stimulus, the Affordable Care Act (health care reform), and other policy changes in the past 22 months.
-Heidi Hartman, President, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Huff Po
Have any doubt? This is Pelosi’s report:
Progress For America’s Women
10/22/2010
The Democratic-led 111th Congress has been enacting key measures to improve the lives of America’s women and their families; in sharp contrast, Republicans are out-of-touch with women’s concerns and have consistently opposed these gains.
America is moving forward, and Democrats will continue to focus on creating good jobs for women, expanding opportunities for women-owned small businesses, better supporting working women at home and in their jobs, protecting Medicare from Republican voucher schemes, and preserving Social Security from Republican plans to privatize and cut it. Protecting Social Security is key for women; 58% of Social Security recipients are women and for a majority of women over 65, Social Security provides more than half of their income.
TOP 5 ACTIONS IN THE 111TH CONGRESS
EQUAL PAY FOR WOMEN
One of the very top issues for American women is equal pay for equal work. The first substantive bill enacted into law in the 111th Congress was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. It restored the right of women and other workers to challenge unfair pay—by reversing the May 2007 Ledbetter v Goodyear Supreme Court decision that overturned precedent and made it much more difficult for workers to pursue pay discrimination claims. The bill restored prior law—allowing a complaint to be filed within 180 days of a discriminatory paycheck, not of an employer’s first decision to discriminate. The bill was supported by many groups, including AAUW, Business and Professional Women, and the Women’s Chamber of Commerce. 98% of House Republicans voted NO, including the House GOP Leadership.
CREATING AND SAVING GOOD JOBS FOR WOMEN
As with all Americans, American women want a fair shot at getting and keeping a good job—during a struggling economy caused by the Bush recession. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Recovery Act has been responsible for up to 3.3 million jobs nationwide through June 2010. The Recovery Act included numerous provisions to expand job opportunities and job training for women, including in non-traditional careers like hundreds of thousands of new clean energy jobs and skills training and expanded opportunities for women in the transportation industry. An independent report by two prominent economists, including an advisor to the McCain for President campaign,concluded that the Recovery Act and certain actions by the Federal Reserve helped prevent a second Great Depression—and that, without them, we would have lost an additional 8 million jobs and unemployment today would be over 16%. That would have been a disaster for American women and their families. 100% of House Republicans voted NO, including the House GOP Leadership.
Millions of American women own a small business—and have had trouble getting critical access to credit in the Bush recession. The Small Business Jobs Act unlocked up to $300 billion in private sector lending to them and included 8 new small business tax cuts, worth $12 billion. 99% of House Republicans voted NO, including the House GOP Leadership.
PROTECTING CHILDREN & TEENS FROM TOBACCO AND UNSAFE FOOD
Protecting our children from health dangers is a primary responsibility of government—and this Congress has made great strides to protect children from the dangers of smoking and from the nightmare of contaminated food.
Every day, more than 3,500 children try a cigarette for the first time, and another 1,000 will become new, regular daily smokers. One-third of these youth will eventually die prematurely as a result. The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, enacted in 2009, grants the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate the advertising, marketing, and manufacturing of tobacco products, including banning all outdoor tobacco advertising within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds; restricting vending machines and self-service displays to adult-only facilities; requiring retailers to verify age for all over-the-counter sales; and providing for federal enforcement and penalties against retailers who sell to minors. 56% of House Republicans voted NO, including the House GOP Leadership.
Each year, more than 325,000 Americans are hospitalized and 5,000 die from consuming contaminated food. In just the last few years, there has been a string of food-borne illness outbreaks in foods consumed by millions of Americans each day—from spinach to peppers to peanut butter. The House passed a landmark food safety bill, the Food Safety Enhancement Act, that makes several long-overdue repairs to our broken food safety system—giving the FDA new powers and tools to ensure our food is safe. It requires more frequent inspections of food processing facilities; gives FDA the authority to order a food recall if a company fails to do so when requested; and takes steps to ensure that imported foods meet safety standards. 69% of House Republicans voted NO on this bill, including the House GOP Leadership—and the bill has been held up in the Senate by threats of Republican obstruction.
BEING A WOMAN WILL NO LONGER BE A “PRE-EXISTING CONDITION”
Under the abusive practices of many health insurers, being a woman has essentially been treated as a pre-existing condition. In the individual insurance market, where millions of woman purchase coverage every year, women have suffered enormous discrimination for decades—many health insurers have treated pregnancy, having had a C-section, and even being the victim of domestic violence as a pre-existing condition. These health insurers have also used “gender rating”—charging women more than men for the same coverage. The Affordable Care Act requires health insurance companies to stop discriminating against women when reforms are fully implemented in 2014—eliminating pre-existing conditions and stopping insurers from being able to charge women more than men for the same coverage. 100% of House Republicans voted NO on this bill, including the House GOP Leadership. House Republican Leader Boehner has continually vowed that the number-one priority of a Republican Majority would be to repeal the health reform bill.
BANNING DISCRIMINATION AGAINST SICK CHILDREN & ENSURING COVERAGE FOR AT LEAST 11 MILLION CHILDREN
All American children deserve to have a healthy start in life. One of the cruelest practices of America’s health insurance industry has been denying children with pre-existing conditions coverage—or dropping them from coverage when they get sick. TheAffordable Care Act ended those practices for new plan years starting in September under the new Patient’s Bill of Rights. It also gives comfort to parents of adult children under the age of 26—who can finally stay on their parents’ insurance policy if they need it. 100% of House Republicans voted NO—and they threaten to repeal these historic gains.
The second substantive bill enacted into law in the 111th Congress provided health care coverage for 11 million children. The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Reauthorization Act preserved coverage for 7 million children covered by CHIP and extended coverage to 4 million uninsured children who are eligible for, but not yet enrolled in, CHIP and Medicaid. The bill was fully paid for by increasing the tobacco tax. 77% of House Republicans voted NO, including the House GOP Leadership—opposing legislation which simply strengthened the popular, bipartisan Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
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Girls: Just when Congress has been enacting key measures to improve our lives and the lives of our families, we many lose our momentum this November. You can see how the Republicans are voting. They certainly aren’t on our side when it comes to our health, our livelihood, our concerns. We can keep the momentum going if we get out and vote Democratic, and encourage our girlfriends to stick together and do the same.
Don’t you think we have had enough? Aren’t you tired of being considered a second class citizen? When will women get a clue? Men just don’t care enough about us as they do each other. It’s really that simple, and it’s really the truth. At least with the Democrats we have a chance…a voice. With the Republicans, “the party of no“, we girls stand little chance of being heard.
So…stop standing behind your man, and stand beside your sisters. You girls know who I am talking to.
I long for the day when women support women, the way men have always supported men. I’m envious of the camaraderie that men have amongst each other. If there is one thing that we can learn from men, it is how loyal they are to each other. And they have shown us that they can be ruthlessly loyal when it comes to putting others aside, and sticking by each other’s side.
I’m not asking to be ruthless, although maybe we should. I’m only asking for simple loyalty, simple support amongst us girls. How about making that day this November 2nd…and beyond? We have the numbers – Stick with the Dems. Let’s do it.
Zen Lill: This afternoon should be good. Call me in my office when you have the time.
Peace & Love: “Live it, Give it”
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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October 28th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
So sorry Misch, long day, had a fire to put out today : ) all bodies will be buried in the backyard or ashes scattered by 4-5pm mañana : ) so does that work for you to chat? And I get my computer back in the am, although they could not recover my address book so it just occurred to me, I no longer have contact info for you. Please email it to my gmail or att.net account ok? Thanks.
Luv, Zen Lill
October 29th, 2010 at 6:46 am
Michelle
I read your blog yesterday about time travel. I showed it to Adam he just smiled and walked away. It always amazes me how he can be so absorbed in the history of a planet and not be particularly concerned about the present state of that planet.
His only interest in a planet’s present state he says is in the predictability of that state based on its past behavior. And the future state of that planet based on the TAO’s interference in its Present.
He has charts that he uses to predict future behavior. It seems that Adam is a scientist researching anomalies. An anomaly is an event that occurs when one interferes with a Past or Present event of a planet.
If he can discover how to prevent anomalies he will be able to show the TAO how to use a planet’s past to aid its future. And how much the TAO can tamper with it Present before a catastrophic anomaly would occur.
Adam is studying how to identify the beginnings of an anomaly and all the complicated stuff about the how, why, what, one does or does not do.
So, while I am enjoying the show, he is tracking the implications of changing events. Not so much as to change the Past, as it is to discover the presence of an anomaly if we change the future by changing an event in the Present.
Like Michelle allowing democrats to win that would have lost if the republicans had their way. What anomalies will occur and to what extent would the planet suffer or benefit?
We do not actually travel to the past. I mean if what you mean by traveling to the past is that we can interact with the individuals. That would be too dangerous because of the possibility of creating an anomaly that would destroy the planet’s present as we knew it.
If that happened we couldn’t get back. Adam says it would be like traveling on a freeway that no longer exists as to its destination or construction in the first place. In their “movies” for example vampires would be beings that traveled into a planets past and was trapped their because they changed the time period from which they came and hence could not travel back along that line to reach their point of origin.
That would occur if a material part of the planet’s Past was changed as to alter the Present period from which we traveled to this point. Think of traveling across a bridge spanning the Grand Canyon.
If when you reached the other side and the bridge was destroyed, you wouldn’t be able to return to the other side using that route or the vehicle you used to travel it. Hence if an interaction between you and a being of that Past caused the bridge not to be constructed, you could not return.
If it caused it to be constructed but along a different route, you would have to find the location of that route and attempt to repeat your vector to your original destination. It would be like trying to find the exact line you drew in the sand if the wind blew away your original. You would be lost in the desert of time never being able to reach your destination.
Time quakes would occur to destroy that part of the Past/Present/Future that no longer exist. Only those on the planet’s surface would survive. As soon as the time wave hit the ship it would cease to exist because it never left a point of origin that no longer exist. Only those on the planet’s surface and now part of the planet’s new Present would exist.
They would live for the life of their suits. The life they made for themselves would depend on their survival skills in utilizing their mental and physical superiority to the social inhabitants.
What about me you say? Well Adam says that since I no longer existed past my murder, plucking me from my time period just before my demise and allowing it to appear that I was murdered was okay as long as I was removed from that period.
According to Adam, as long as I was not returned into the population until he returned to his point of origin no anomaly would have been created.
So you see when we travel to the Past we do so to view the Past, not to mingle with its inhabitants.
How do we do it you ask?
Adam says we find a view that we like and match its light speed. When we are viewing the image as it occurs, we accelerate a fraction of a second faster and enter its Past and allow its light speed and the physical forces created by it to drag us into its sphere. Now we are experiencing what we see as we are seeing it.
Once inside the light show if we don’t exit into the solid plane of the light, but remain in the bubble of the beam itself. We can observe the events as they happen without being seen or heard.
We are seeing things through a prism that shows in one lens a fraction of a second after they have occurred and in the other a fraction of a second before they have occurred. This simultaneous viewing allows us to be there and not be there at the same time. Hence we become part of the light in which the event(s) is happening.
AH
October 29th, 2010 at 7:01 am
The Art of Learning
Josh Waitzkin
Josh Waitzkin was an eight-time National Chess Champion in his youth. As a young adult, Waitzkin switched from chess to martial arts, becoming a Tai Chi Chuan world title holder.
Waitzkin’s leap from the cerebral world of chess to the physical world of martial arts might seem a remarkable transition, but to Waitzkin, success in any field is built on the same foundation — the ability to learn.
Personal asked Waitzkin to share what he has learned about learning…
You’ve proved yourself to be an extraordinary learner. What do you think is the best way to learn?
There is no one set path for everybody to follow. I believe the single most pervasive error in the learning process, and in our educational system, is that teachers and other authority figures tend to jam students into cookie-cutter molds which just don’t fit them. The result is a disconnect from the growth process.
People become passive receptors for information instead of creative learners. If I’ve gleaned anything from a lifetime of competition, it’s that at a high level, those who succeed are the ones who have built games, repertoires and styles around their unique nuance of character.
They are relentlessly introspective, always taking on their weaknesses and learning in a manner that is tapped into the way their mind works best.
With this approach, the walls break down between play and work, which leads to a fully engaged performer… and a learner who loves every step of the journey.
What advice do you have for maximizing learning?
I believe in learning the macro from the micro. Instead of tackling everything at once and drowning in complexity, plunge deeply into a small pool of information.
Spend days, weeks or even months gaining a feel for the operating principles of a limited amount of material. Once you feel those principles deeply, you can take on more complicated material armed with an understanding of what makes it tick.
The same axioms that govern wild complexity can be explored in relative simplicity, and so it is better to learn one thing with quality than 100 things without quality. But do not confuse finding quality with perfection.
What’s wrong with perfection?
I think the concept of perfection is terribly dangerous. It paralyzes learners. When we believe that we have achieved perfection, we lose our beginner’s mind — our willingness and ability to absorb new information.
We stop acknowledging our mistakes and instead justify our decisions against all evidence. This can be disastrous on both a personal and a cultural level.
You’re not saying that we should want to lose, are you?
No. I think we should always try our very hardest to succeed, but we should do so with a healthy understanding of the long-term growth process.
Losing my first National Chess Championship as an eight-year-old was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. It was a heartbreaker, but it made me who I am today.
Had I won, I might have associated success with natural talent. Because I lost, I came to associate winning with hard work, loving the game and overcoming adversity. In my book, I talk about “Investment in Loss” — releasing our strengths and being willing to look bad for a while in order to take in new information.
We often need to lose to win, but we are not investing in loss unless we really invest ourselves in what we are doing.
Personal interviewed Josh Waitzkin, a former national chess champion who now is a martial arts world champion, New York City.
His childhood years as a chess prodigy were chronicled in the book and movie Searching for Bobby Fischer. He is author of The Art of Learning (Free Press). http://www.joshwaitzkin.com.
October 29th, 2010 at 7:04 am
You are wasting your breath Michelle. White women are as dumb as the proverbial box of rocks.
They have had the majority in the voting field for years and they continue to elect men to the offices of political power and proceed to beg them to consider a woman’s needs.
Charlie
October 29th, 2010 at 7:42 am
Charlie you may be right but I will speak for myself – women of MM blog, even if you don’t like anything on the Dem agenda try to remember that repug males have pulled a psychological gotcha on you once again. And just bc you or your bunny make a lot of money that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care about other women who are nit as fortunate. Think about others’ lives nit just your own. That’s it, please just do it. Vote. Vote Dem and vote for women who help women. -ZL
PS THAT’S A BEG NOT A REQUEST : )
October 29th, 2010 at 7:43 am
AH great narrative on time travel thank you. Questions will be forthcoming : ) -ZL