I emailed Senator Stabenow’s office with the following message this morning:
Hello Senator,
I would like to add my voice to the growing number of people who hope that the current Senate talks on health insurance will include advocates for single-payer insurance.
I’m one of many young women who have struggled to pay health insurance premiums. While my current employer generously contributes to my health insurance, my previous employer did not. This time last year I was making approximately $1500/month at my main job, spending half of that on rent, and paying another $150/month out of pocket for basic health insurance to cover emergencies and regular doctor visits necessary to maintain my medications. This insurance did not include prescription coverage.
Young women with children are at an even greater disadvantage.
I understand that there are many issues facing the legislature today. However, I feel that including any options that relieve Americans from some of the burden of paying for what should be a basic human right should be a priority, and should be included in the conversation about health care.
Thank you for your service, and for considering the opinions of your constituents.
I do not agree with Obama 100% on his policies. But 75-80% is a lot better than 0%. Welcome, President Obama.
If you don’t have a teevee or are at work, ReadWriteWeb has a list of places to watch the festivities streaming on the internets. Scroll down to “Where to Watch the Inauguration Online”: ReadWriteWeb Guide to Celebrating Inauguration Day
I tooted about this a couple of days ago, but I wanted to have a place for the video to live. Unfortunately, the full video from PBS’s site is not embeddable, but the interview is chunked on Youtube.
Greenwald is my favorite political blogger. His commentary is based on a decade of constitutional law practice. He pulls no punches and gives no one a pass. I don’t watch TV, but most people do, and I hope this is the beginning of a larger audience for him.
Bill Moyers also has to be given a great deal of credit for knowing how to do an interview, and actually letting people he interviews talk.
Pardon my relative quiet this month. It’s been a downward spiral of decadence, ink, firearms, and (most frightening of all) furniture ownership. And I’ve made more time to read, as you’ll have seen from the ever-changing “Reading” section in the sidebar.
I hadn’t checked my tumblr dashboard for a while, and when I did yesterday, I discovered that Filled with Chocolate Pudding!, one of my favorite tumblogs, had linked to Faces of Unsolved Mysteries. Traffic on Thursday went up 583.33% (to 35 people)! So I hastily updated, and will have to soon make a trip to the library for more delights to share. This is a public service to you.
I was largely well-behaved online during the presidential election. But I cannot ignore this. “This” being a video of Sarah Palin being interviewed for an Alaskan TV station after the annual gubernatorial turkey pardon. She talks for 3 minutes about total bullshit, wearing a Burberry scarf and drinking Starbucks, and then there is a dude in the background slaghtering a turkey. You cannot make this shit up.
As you doubtlessly know, I’m not one for advertising, image-heaviness, etc. But I added the Strange Bedfellows link in the sidebar because I think it’s important.
Accountability Now PAC is a coalition of liberal and libertarian political writers and activists that wants to end unlawful surveillance of Americans. The group is collecting pledges to contribute to a “moneybomb” on August 8 (the anniversary of Nixon’s resignation) to send a message to our politicians that this must stop. The goal of the organization is to become a fixture in Washington, to make it clear to our elected officials that they—regardless of party affiliation or voting record—will be held accountable for upholding our civil liberties.
I’d be interested to hear your feedback on this; I’ve tried to largely keep this blog apolitical, but I feel this is too important an issue not to endorse, since it impacts everyone’s ability to communicate freely.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote to my Representative and Senators about the FISA Bill.
Carl Levin, Democratic Senator for Michigan, has issued a very well written email sent, presumably, to those constituents who urged representatives to vote no on the bill.
The email:
Thank you for contacting me regarding modifications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). I appreciate hearing your thoughts on this very serious matter.
On August 5, 2007, the President signed into law a temporary bill, the Protect America Act (P.L.110-55). This law contained a six month time limit in order to give Congress the opportunity to carry out a thorough, thoughtful examination of how to utilize complicated new technologies in the surveillance of suspected terrorists without invading the privacy of innocent Americans. In the months following the signing of P.L.110-55, Congress worked in a bipartisan manner to consider the best course forward to make permanent changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
On January 23, 2008, the Senate began consideration of the FISA Amendments Act (S.2248). Title I of this bill would provide the Intelligence Community with the necessary authority to collect intelligence information on suspected terrorists. I supported this section of the bill because the collection of that intelligence is important to securing our national security. Title I is based on an amendment Senator Rockefeller and I introduced during consideration of the Protect America Act, which was filibustered at that time.
Title II of S.2248, however, would grant retroactive immunity to telecommunication providers who disclosed customers’ communications and other confidential information at the request of government officials. This would eliminate accountability for such unlawful actions after the fact. Title II also would require the dismissal of lawsuits brought by persons claiming injury from interception and disclosure of their communications, even if the disclosure violated the constitutional rights of individuals whose personal information was illegally disclosed. Unlike Title I, there is no bipartisan agreement on Title II.
Retroactive immunity is not fair because it leaves American citizens who may have been harmed by the alleged unlawful conduct of these providers without any legal remedy. Many have expressed deep concern that if Congress were to agree to immunize private parties who participated in a program that appears to have been illegal, others might be encouraged to engage in such illicit activities in the future. In a free society, illegal activity cannot be excused on the grounds that government officials asked you to carry it out. There must be accountability for illegal acts.
There is, however, a way to protect telecommunication providers, who acted in good faith, based on the assurances of appropriate administration officials, without depriving American citizens of a legal remedy. I cosponsored an amendment to S.2248 that would have substituted the United States for the telecommunications providers as the defendant in lawsuits based on the actions of those providers. It is appropriate that the Government be liable rather than the telecommunications providers, since the disclosures were allegedly made in these cases at the request of senior executive branch officials to help safeguard U.S. security with assurances that the providers would be protected from liability regardless of the requirements of law.
This amendment would have protected the telecommunications providers from liability just as effectively as the retroactive immunity language in Title II of the bill. However, unlike the retroactive immunity language of Title II, it would not have left those who can prove they were victims of unlawful actions without a remedy. Unfortunately, this amendment was defeated in the Senate.
Although I supported Title I, of the FISA Amendments Act, I voted against the because it included retroactive immunity for telecommunications providers. The Senate passed S.2248 on February 12, 2008. The House is currently working on its own version of the bill. Any differences between the House and Senate versions will need to be reconciled.
Thank you again for contacting me.
Sincerely,
Carl Levin
Thank you, Senator Levin, for your candor on this issue.
Thanks also to Senator Dodd of Connecticut for his work to prevent this bill and other legislation like it from being passed.
Politicians: These men should be your models on this most fundamental of issues.
A post at Celcias.com, a site and project about global warming, sustainability, and related issues, provides this answer for us.
Long story short, almost 75% of farm subsidies for 1995-2005 were for meat and dairy production, and less than 1% were for vegetables and fruits. Throw in a shitty economy, and you get people who can afford to feed their families at McDonald’s but can’t afford to buy fresh, vitamin-rich produce at the grocery store. Tada!
Hi. This blog is by Devon Persing. She mostly writes about work (information science and publishing), food, and crafts. You can write to her, if you'd like. You can also follow her on twitter or check out things she saves on delicious.
