Seriously, stop with all the awesome, I’m trying to work!
I love that the people shown here didn’t get mad and seemed to genuinely think about the question and the implications of the answer.
And this one is just good fun.
You go, Mister President, Sir. You smoke that cigarette!
Act on Principles is a group promoting “Full LGBT civil rights now. No delay. No excuses.” The group is currently attempting to get the American Equality Bill (AEB) filed in the Senate. The AEB would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as federally protected statuses.
Queer SOS is an activist project of the Act on Principles group that is focusing their attention on Senator Gillibrand of New York. Queer SOS wants Sen. Gillibrand to file the proposed American Equality Bill. Last Friday Queer SOS hosted “Flash Mob: Homophobia Kills Die-In” in Grand Central Station:
Aside from hosting energizing flash mob art-performances-with-a-message, Queer SOS is demonstrating daily outside of Sen. Gillibrand’s offices. This is part of the the communication that the AEB Project sent to Sen. Gillibrand on 9/17/10 (bolding is original):
Dear Senator Gillibrand,
I’m writing to request again that you commit to and file a Civil Rights bill for our community immediately.
As you know, it is the prime duty of Government to protect its citizens from discrimination and Congress has failed over 30 million LGBTQ people in this regard.
We can not wait any longer for action to redress this.
To press this issue, activists will be launching a daily, friendly vigil outside your campaign offices starting Sept. 27th until the American Equality Bill (AEB) is filed. If no bill is filed as of October 11th we plan to go 24/7, and then on Nov. 2nd to begin group fasting.
This is a very serious matter as people will be risking their health standing outside and fasting for basic human justice. We should not have to take these steps, but talking about this has failed and there is no other option.
We will broadcast our work daily, seek as much media attention as possible, and try to join you at other public campaign appearances.
Please know that this is not an opposition action in any way and that we are very happy your campaign is doing so well! But we NEED YOUR HELP now! We need this bill to organize around and there is no excuse for not filing it immediately.
rest of letter omitted
I support public demonstrations that do not harm or unduly inconvenience the audience to the point where they are coerced into taking action. Get out there, make your message known, go first amendment-protected speech!
But group fasting?
It appears to me that threatening a fast is a coercive action – Hey Senator, I’m going to hurt myself unless you do what I want you to do. I support the goals of this group and I want to support the group itself, but I have reservations about fasting as a political statement. I know that hunger strikes aren’t new, but why are they okay? Why is holding one’s health hostage an acceptable means of political pressure? Can anyone tell me why hunger strikes are appropriate, or give me arguments about why they are not?
Via Joe.My.God.
The Health Reform bill’s birthday would be March 23, 2010, which is the day President Obama signed it into law. But today does mark a major milestone of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
Today on September 23, 2010 the American people can say hello to new rules for playing the game of health insurance coverage, and the new rules are definitely in our favor. 15 new provisions of the PPACA go into effect TODAY.
This is a lovely video that explains the challenges of the old health care system, all of the things that went into effect immediately after President Obama signed the PPACA this past March, all of the changes that happen today (Phase I), and it provides an overview of the changes that are slated to go into place in 2014 when Phase II is rolled out.
It’s worth nine minutes of your time to see all of the wonderful advances in health insurance that have been earned for the American people. And while it is a cartoon, I believe that this video simplifies the subject without dumbing it down.
There is also an easy to navigate White House website devoted to health reform, which I enjoyed browsing last night. There is a section containing personal stories of people who are benefitting right now from changes made to health insurance and medical coverage. There is an entire page that lists myths and facts of health reform – what it is and isn’t, what it can and can’t do.
Damn it.
From Ed O’Keefe at the Washington Post:
Efforts to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” suffered a near-fatal blow on Tuesday as senators fell short of earning the 60 votes necessary to start debate on the annual defense policy bill by a vote of 56 to 43.
Tuesday’s vote does not end efforts to lift the military’s 17-year ban on gays serving openly in uniform, but makes it almost impossible to ensure a repeal is included in the final House-Senate compromise version of the defense bill that lawmakers may vote on during a lame-duck session after November’s midterm elections.
The vote’s fate was sealed early Tuesday, when Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who supports repealing “don’t ask,” said she disagreed with Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid’s decision to restrict the number of amendments to the bill.
This is an except from a larger article. Read the full article here.
If you’re not familiar with DADT, or if you only know that Lady Gaga seems really interested with it, I encourage you to visit the ServiceMembers Legal Defense Network. They explain what DADT is, the controversy around DADT, and they lay out why repealing DADT is a crucial matter of national security as well as a civil rights issue.
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UPDATE: Check out Joe.My.God for a very good collection of reporting and video about the defeat of the Senate DADT vote.
Clicking on the image will open a new window and take you to a Christine O’Donnell Greatest Hits compilation by Keith Olbermann
“I was an English major, so break it down: ‘-ist’ means ‘one who celebrates’… As a femin-ist, I celebrate my femininity.”
No it doesn’t. According to Mirriam-Webster, the suffix “-ist” is defined as:
Also according to Mirriam-Webster, the definition of feminism is:
Christine O’Donnell – as someone who thinks that women in the military are a distraction, that co-ed dorms will lead to orgy rooms, and that women should submit to their husbands – is not a feminist.
Of course, the fact that candidate O’Donnell is lying to herself and her audience about being a feminist, and her misconception of the meaning of the suffix “-ist”, are some of the lesser icky moments in this video.
Do want! I must check cheapflights.com for flights to D.C. immediately!
Everything below is copy-pasted from CNN – click the link for the full article at CNN.com
Two Comedy Central funnymen are apparently entering into the partisan political fray with rallies of their own in the nation’s capital.
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have set October 30 as the date for their respective rallies.
On Thursday night’s airing of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” the comedian announced plans for a “Rally to Restore Sanity.”
“See you October 30 on the National Mall to spread the timeless message, ‘Take it down a notch for America,’ ” he said.
Stewart dubbed the event a “clarion call for rationality.”
“A million moderate march, where we take to the streets to send a message to our leaders and our national media that says, ‘We are here! We … are only here until 6 though, because we have a sitter,'” he said.
On “The Colbert Report,” which airs immediately after Stewart’s show, Colbert fired back with plans for his “March to Keep Fear Alive.”
“Now is not the time to take it down a notch. Now is the time for all good men to freak out for freedom,” Colbert said.
Stewart said on his Thursday show that he had reserved a spot on the National Mall.
“The forms have been filled out, the checks have been written,” he said.
[portion of original article omitted]
The announcements come less than three weeks after conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck hosted a much-publicized “Restoring Honor” rally on the National Mall, urging large crowds to “turn back to God” and return America to the values on which it was founded.
That event drew criticism for its timing and location — on the 47th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered in the same place.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson told CNN at the time that Beck was mimicking King and “humiliating the tradition.” And other civil rights activists gathered nearby with the Rev. Al Sharpton and his National Action Network in a “Reclaim the Dream” rally.
Stewart first publicly floated the idea of a counter-rally in a profile in the September 12 edition of New York magazine.
“Maybe we would do a ‘March of the Reasonable,’ on a date of no particular significance,” Stewart says in the article.
The website logos and icons created for the Colbert and Stewart rallies mimic Beck’s, using identical typography and similar stylized images.
“We’re looking for the people who think shouting is annoying, counterproductive, and terrible for your throat; who feel that the loudest voices shouldn’t be the only ones that get heard,” the website for the “Rally to Restore Sanity” says.
The “March to Keep Fear Alive” site takes a more alarmist approach: “Never forget — ‘Reason’ is just one letter away from ‘Treason.’ Coincidence? Reasonable people would say it is, but America can’t afford to take that chance.”
Thanks to Freethought Radio (9/11/10 episode) for reminding me of this wonderful speech, given by John F. Kennedy to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in Houston, Texas on September 12, 1960.
This is just one excerpt, but there is a wonderful page completely devoted to this speech at the American Rhetoric website*, where you can find the speech in its entirety, as well as video, audio and several different downloadable document types of JFK’s speech.
“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President — should he be Catholic — how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.”
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The American Rhetoric website has an awesome tagline: “Rationalize rhetoric and it speaks to your mind; personify her and she speaks to your soul.”
These statistics predict….more money than last election term.
This graph came out of the Washington Post. It is called a Bartels Chart (Larry Bartels is a political scientist and author of several books), and it was shown on the Rachel Maddow Show.
Income percentile – This is roughly how much money you make compared to the rest of Americans. If you’re in the 95th percentile, you make a LOT. If you’re in the lower 20th, you don’t make as much.
Income Growth Rate – This is how much more or less money you make over some time or event.
Another way to look at this data is this:
I found this chart on Dani Rodrik’s weblog American political economics in one picture. In his article he explains the chart and its implications.
When a Republican president is in power, people at the top of the income distribution experience much larger real income gains than those at the bottom–a difference of 1.5 percent per year going from the bottom to the top quintile in the income distribution. The situation is reversed when a Democrat is in power: those who benefit the most are the lower income groups.
And then I found this graph on the Rachel Maddow Show Blog. It goes a few steps further than the first two Bartel’s charts because it breaks the data down into President and Congressional majorities.
This graph shows the average income growth rate on the y-axis and the income percentile on the x-axis. Each bar of the graph describes growth under either a Republican majority
Under a Republican majority of ANY of these groups, the income percentile on the right (i.e., the richest Americans) usually experienced the largest growth rate over all other brackets. The exception appears to be when a Republican President is governing with a Democratic majority in both the House and Senate.
The second graph (blue) shows that when there’s a Democrat President plus a Democrat majority in the House and/or Senate, the income percentile on the left (i.e., the poorest Americans) experience the largest growth rate over all other brackets. ALSO, when ANY Democrat majority holds sway in the House or Senate or White House, EVERYONE has at least a 0.5 positive growth rate over any Republican majority.
I am annoyed with Glenn Beck and his recent “restoring honor” rally which took place in Washington DC this past weekend. The gross thing about Glenn Beck is that he exploits peoples’ fears and encourages the stoopid.
On Cafe Witteveen‘s blog I watched this video interview of some of the rally’s attendees, and the stoopid just hurt. And made me laugh. And gasp. And gape. But mostly it just hurt. Some of my favorite of the attendees’ statements included:
On Islam and its subversive effects:
When the reporter asked how far away from Ground Zero would it be appropriate to build the Park51 Islamic center:
In reference to immigration:
In reference to our down economy:
*sigh* As one of the commenters, Jude, wrote: “I despair for our species.”
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This is leaping across the interwebs like wildfire in response to the fact that Glenn Beck’s “restoring honor” rally was scheduled on the anniversary of, and in the same location as, Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The Other 98% has put together this lovely infographic comparing MLK’s and Glenn Beck’s credentials as civil right’s leaders.
This work by Biodork is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
This license means that you can show off my stuff elsewhere (thanks so very much for wanting to!) and even lets you remix, tweak, and build upon my stuff non-commercially, as long as you credit me and license the stuff you make from my stuff under the identical terms.
Because let's face it - it's AWESOME to see your work appreciated by others, but it's no fun if someone figures out a way to make a bazillion and ten dollars off your work without cutting you in, right?
Biodork 
