jen on the net

[mirkokosmos]

[riotsnotdiets]

[like-air-i-rise]

“Women are not in the wrong when they decline to accept the rules laid down for them, since the men make these rules without consulting them.”

Michel de Montaigne, quoted by Simone de Beauvoir in the introduction to The Second Sex (via like-air-i-rise)

[jenonthenet]

Christians among you, it's important that you watch this with an open heart.

[reasonedoverreaction]

[breakingnews]

Gabrielle Giffords, Mark Kelly scale French Alps

Reuters: Former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords traveled to the French Alps on Monday with her astronaut husband Mark Kelly.

Giffords, still recovering from wounds after being shot last year, was on her first trip outside the United States since the January 2011 shooting.

Photo: Giffords, center, stands with her husband Mark Kelly, right, and mountain guide Vincent Lameyre (Denis Balibouse / Reuters)

[liberalsarecool]

#two_terms #nov6

[anachronistique]

I heard a peal of delight and turned around — that’s the picture at the top of this post. Hilary Matfess, a young policy analyst, was jumping up and down, yelling out details.

“The mandate is constitutional! It was upheld! Roberts went for the swing vote! Yes! Oh my God! The individual mandate survives as a tax!”

Did you work on passing the bill? I asked.

“No!” said Matfess. “I just have lupus!”

[anachronistique]

- David Weigel at Slate

[politics-war]

[jenonthenet]

Let's get one thing straight...

Employers and Corporations did not feel generous and decide to give you two days off every week to have a social/personal life. (We now call them weekends). Corporations did not just feel like being nice one day and give their employees paid vacations. CEOs didn't get together in a board room and say "Let's give our employees more rights at work" or "Maybe there should be laws to limit our power over an employee".

Virtually ALL the benefits you have at work, whether you work in the public or private sector, all of the benefits and rights you enjoy everyday are there because unions fought hard and long for them against big business who did everything they could to prevent giving you your rights. Many union leaders and members even lost their lives for things we take for granted today.

The right-wing attack on unions is nothing more than ignorance, lack of education, and propaganda.

If republicans would rather support corporations instead of organized groups of workers working to secure a fair work environment A.K.A a union, I ask them to walk the walk as well. Give up every benefit and right that you use that unions are responsible for.

Complete trust and submit yourself to the corporate agenda you fight for. Play by their rules with no influence from democrats or labor unions to try to force rights among the workers of this country. Dedicate your life to their life goal of making your company more money than the year before. Just understand that this may mean sacrificing the union fought rights you enjoy everyday. I mean, you don't want to be a hypocrite, do you? Like bashing unions on your union fought lunch break? Which means if you practice what you preach, you don't get a lunch break.

Corporations use to work employees 80+ hours a week, offer no breaks, hire children, offer horrid, unsanitary work conditions, paid literally next to nothing, and even murder. Not murder with a pen like they do today, but actual murder. They basically did whatever they wanted.

This is what they were like before unions. Don't take my word for it, look it up. (Links at bottom of page). If we rid the world of unions tomorrow, who is to say that they won't go right back to the way they were merely 70 years ago? The GOP governor of Maine signed a bill to repeal child labor laws this year, maybe they are going back to their roots whether we have unions or not.

So conservatives, please practice what you preach and give up all these rights and leave the umbrella of these laws for they were brought to you by unions...

36 Reasons Why You Should Thank a Union

Weekends All Breaks at Work, including your Lunch Breaks Paid Vacation FMLA Sick Leave Social Security Minimum Wage Civil Rights Act/Title VII (Prohibits Employer Discrimination) 8-Hour Work Day Overtime Pay Child Labor Laws Occupational Safety & Health Act (OSHA) 40 Hour Work Week Worker's Compensation (Worker's Comp) Unemployment Insurance Pensions Workplace Safety Standards and Regulations Employer Health Care Insurance Collective Bargaining Rights for Employees Wrongful Termination Laws Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 Whistleblower Protection Laws Employee Polygraph Protect Act (Prohibits Employer from using a lie detector test on an employee) Veteran's Employment and Training Services (VETS) Compensation increases and Evaluations (Raises) Sexual Harassment Laws Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) Holiday Pay Employer Dental, Life, and Vision Insurance Privacy Rights Pregnancy and Parental Leave Military Leave The Right to Strike Public Education for Children Equal Pay Acts of 1963 & 2011 (Requires employers pay men and women equally for the same amount of work) Laws Ending Sweatshops in the United States

So will conservatives give up all 36 of these union fought rights? Will they stand by their rhetoric that unions are thugs and refuse to take benefits from these "thugs" or will they hypocritically carry on the diatribe that unions are ruining this country while enjoying their weekends and paid vacations?

Or...

Maybe they could just admit that while not perfect, like anything else, unions have done great things for working people that they use and benefit from everyday of their lives?

Maybe a conservative union-hating family got to have some of the best moments of their lives while on vacation from work, and they still got to come to a job still there waiting for them, because of unions?

Maybe a conservative can't wait for their lunch break at work so they can turn on the radio and listen to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Back talk about how horrible unions are?

If you don't want to give up all your union fought rights and benefits at work, I understand. I don't want to either, that's why I'm pro-union and vote Democrat.

But maybe you could just admit that unions are not demons spawned from hell, and admit the FACT that they have improved your life in more ways than one?

Or am I asking too much?

[from Daily Kos]

[barackobama]

Nothing to see here, just the president high-fiving an adorable little boy in a tie-dyed rainbow t-shirt.

[stfueverything-deactivated20230]

[think-progress]

All men are created equal. No matter how hard they try, they can never erase those words. That is what America is about.

Harvey Milk (via think-progress)

[jenonthenet]

Excerpt from the article:

Always will be unintended pregancies

The lives that we lead are complicated: often wonderful, often terrible, with many twists and turns along the way.  There will always circumstances that result in unintended pregnancies. Sadly, there will always be ectopic pregnancies and fetal anomalies, no matter how wanted or planned the pregnancy is. And, I fear, our society will always have to deal with the risk of rape, and I am loath  to imagine a woman forced through a pregnancy under such circumstances.

I have heard many of these stories from women themselves. When I first started my work in the reproductive rights community, I was startled when people began to tell me their stories. I now find it to be one of the most rewarding parts of my job, and I take their sacred stories to heart. 

These stories remind me that a woman and her physician — not politicians — should make health-care decisions.  As part of my job, I lobby members of the state Legislature. I hear some struggle to pronounce “ectopic pregnancy” or incorrectly repeat the name of the fetal anomaly a woman described in her public testimony, all while assuring her that her baby “would have been fine just fine.” This experience has strengthened my resolve.

Incomplete rhetoric

The legislators speaking at the hearings I referenced are working hard to outlaw aborion, but they are silent on what comes next.  It is almost as if we are to believe that if abortion is outlawed, it will simply cease to exist. 

I told the young student interviewer that women have been here before, that there was a time before safe, legal abortion. The need to access abortion services remains even when it is deemed “illegal.” For example, even though abortion is illegal in Brazil, it has a higher abortion rate than the United States. And, for women in Brazil, the leading cause of maternal death is unsafe abortion. In 2005, IPAS Brasil reported that nearly 100 percent of the 250,000 maternal deaths due to unsafe abortion could have been prevented had care been provided in a safe, legal setting.

I shifted the conversation from Brazil to talk about  closer to home. This year in Minnesota, the state’s largest anti-choice organization worked to pass two bills. One would single out abortion providers for onerous licensing  requirements that other health-care providers don’t have to follow. The other bill would ban the use of telemedicine to provide medical-abortion care. This bill would restrict abortion care for women in rural Minnesota who rely on telemedicine networks to talk to their doctor.

From the comments:

What a well-reasoned & sensible article about the challenges that face women & their families from the so-called pro-life movement. The information about Brazil is telling. In contrast, the Netherlands has some of the most liberal abortion laws in the world, excellent sexuality education, and access to contraception for anyone who wants it. It's no surprise that they also have one of the lowest rates of abortion in the world. If we truly want fewer abortions, we know how to accomplish that. But then those who believe that women cannot be trusted to make their own reproductive health care decisions would have to give up making political points with women's lives.

We are fortunate to have wise women like you, & a wise leader in Gov. Dayton, who frame the issues so well for us. I'm proud to call you colleague!

Rev. Kelli Clement Board Co-Chair Minnesota Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice www.mnrcrc.org

[keepyourbsoutofmyuterus-blog]

From my other blog…

My friend is pretty far into her first pregnancy at this point and wrote me this message:

Also this: on reproductive rights. I want to give birth in a freestanding birth center. I am moving to the only state that has outlawed them (and one of over a dozen states that has made it illegal for cpm’s [Certified Professional Midwives] to attend homebirths … And so, made homebirth less safe). I have always been pro-choice regarding prevention and termination of pregnancy, but never have I felt personally victimized (having never had an unwanted pregnancy … Or the need to terminate a unwanted one) … Until now. Choice should include birth. Contemplating childbirth is a scary thing and I can’t even begin to explain how the fear is compounded by my anger that I can’t give birth where (and, consequently, how (want a waterbirth, no IV, and very minimal monitoring and cervical checks, etc. etc.) I feel the most safe! 

There’s more at the link.

[marpotish]

When a living, air-breathing human being actually comes into the world, being “pro-life” becomes infinitely harder. This requires you to actually care about people. The sort of care that takes a critical mind, patience, and self awareness. The sort of care that requires figuring out why things are the way they are so that you can work toward actually fixing them. The sort of care that takes compassion and an unending dedication to a better for life for all humans. The sort of care that marching around, waving huge dead baby posters, and calling women murderers is completely and utterly devoid of.

—Laci Green

http://lacigreen.tv/sexplus/gender/4668-prolifemovement#more-4668

[fakemikemitchell]

What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.

Albert Einstein

(via sirmitchell)