Aug 262016
 

Actually, I'll mention two days you probably didn't know about – with a tip of the hat to Lona the Napster.

First – August 26 was designated by Congress as Women's Equality Day by Congress in 1971 at the behest of Bella Abzug (remember her?)  The date was chosen because it was the day in 1920 that Congress certified the Nineteenth Amendment, giving women the right to vote (and incidentally to hold public office).

Second – August 26 is also National Dog Day.  National Dog Day was founded in 2004 by Animal Advocate Colleen Paige, who chose August 26 because it was the date that her family adopted her first dog "Sheltie" when she was ten.  Colleen is also the founder of National Puppy Day, National Mutt Day, National Cat Day, and other national days to bring attention to, and encourage adoption of, animals.  I hadn't planned to include this, but when I learned that more Americans are aware of National Dog Day than are aware of Women's Equality Day,  I thought I had better mention it, before someone else did, and get it out of the way.

Back to Women's Equality Day, which is what the column is really about, it was, as I said, created in 1971, by a joint resolution of Congress:

Joint Resolution of Congress, 1971
Designating August 26 of each year as Women’s Equality Day

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have been treated as second-class citizens and have not been entitled the full rights and privileges, public or private, legal or institutional, which are available to male citizens of the United States; and

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have united to assure that these rights and privileges are available to all citizens equally regardless of sex; and

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have designated August 26, the anniversary date of the certification of the Nineteenth Amendment, as symbol of the continued fight for equal rights: and

WHEREAS, the women of United States are to be commended and supported in their organizations and activities,

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that August 26th of each year is designated as Women’s Equality Day, and the President is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation annually in commemoration of that day in 1920, on which the women of America were first given the right to vote, and that day in 1970, on which a nationwide demonstration for women’s rights took place.

The responsibility for keeping it going seems to have (appropriately) fallen to/been adopted by the National Women's History Project, a non-profit educational organization, which, among other achievements, got March designated as National Women's History month.  They produce and provide resources for educators, speakers for groups, guides for historic site tours, and – well, you name it.  They offer an on-line trifold brochure in color about the Day and detailed instructions on how to print it.

Mrs. Abzug spearheaded the Day as a celebration of women getting the right to vote, but it has become more general in focus, and, while you may notice the brochure has a voting quiz, they also pick a different theme each year to highlight, connected to women's history in general rather than just voting.  This year the theme is "Working To Form A More Perfect Union: Honoring Women in Public Servide and Government."  A very appropriate theme for 2016.  Last year, Time magazine developed and published the graphic on the right for National Women's Day, which is, alas, still pretty accurate.

But I also want to mention two other organizations who work every day to make it easier for women to vote.

We probably know each major party has a GOTV effort in place this very important year.  But the American Association of University Women, along with their other projects, is providing non-partisan GOTV skill training free through webinars, specifically aimed at registering women in the milliennial generation, through their "It's My Vote: I Will Be Heard" initiative.  This program also includes providing voter guides, and goes beyond that to training participants how to create their own voter guides if none are available which are specific to their area.  Yes, they have "University" in their name, but they are far from an elitist group.  They are envisioning holding these drives on campuses, but that's because they are timing this set of webinars with back-to-school.  I can't imagine them being upset if someone wanted to hold a drive in, say, a mall, nor if someone signed up a male or two while registering women.

Then of course, probably the grandmamma of all organizations which pair women and votes – it was founded, by Carrie Chapman Catt, six months before the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified – is the League of Women Voters.

The League began as a "mighty political experiment" designed to help 20 million women carry out their new responsibilities as voters. It encouraged them to use their new power to participate in shaping public policy. From the beginning, the League has been an activist, grassroots organization whose leaders believed that citizens should play a critical role in advocacy. It was then, and is now, a nonpartisan organization. League founders believed that maintaining a nonpartisan stance would protect the fledgling organization from becoming mired in the party politics of the day. However, League members were encouraged to be political themselves, by educating citizens about, and lobbying for, government and social reform legislation.

To this day the League concentrates on educating voters on issues rather than on candidates.  It is committed to being grassroots and non-partisan.  And it does register voters.  Last spring, League volunteers registered nearly 15,000 high school and community college students throough 350 registration drives.  They are looking to repeat or expand on this on National Voter Registration Day, which will be Tuesday, September 27.

However, the league does not stop at educating and registering.  It does get involved in fighting on issues.  Money in politics and defending the environment are the biggest, but there are some others as well.  You might be surprised how many others.  Click thrugh to the site and scroll down for a look.

Cross posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/101612212/4007182

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Bernie’s Revolution

 Posted by at 10:26 am  Politics
Aug 252016
 

0825sandersthoughtful

Here is the complete video for the kickoff of Our Revolution, as proposed, promised and delivered by Bernie Sanders, if you missed it, or if you want to watch it again.  Bernie was in his normal superb form and said nothing with which I disagree.

I strongly encourage you to sign up to help, and help him however you can.  Also, let's not forget that Bernie said nothing is more important than electing Hillary Clinton to keep Trump out of the White House.

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Aug 252016
 

Yesterday the heat returned, groceries were delivered, and Wendy came for kitty-primping.  When I got out of the shower and dried, by the time I got back to my apartment, I had to dry off the sweat.  Finally, the site turned to mud, so I spent the first couple hours after breakfast on the phone with tech support.  The problem was that PP was chocking the cache system designed to speed up page load, because we have thousands of graphics that are poorly optimized.  She turned off the cache system and that fixed the problem.  However, cobbling the site together by someone who isn’t an IT pro (me) has taken its toll over the years.  The tech sent me detailed instructions on how to optimize all aspects of the site.  It looks like I have many hours of work to do in the coming months.  Tomorrow, I need to venture into the heat to submit to torture from Courtney, my Physical Terrorist.  Therefore I will probably have no more then a Personal Update for you tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:22 (average 4:56).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Another Earth could be circling the star right next door to us.

Astronomers announced on Wednesday that they had detected a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest neighbor to our solar system. Intriguingly, the planet is in the star’s “Goldilocks zone,” where it may be neither too hot nor too cold. That means liquid water could exist at the surface, raising the possibility for life.

Although observations in recent years, particularly by NASA’s Kepler planet-finding mission, have uncovered a bounty of Earth-size worlds throughout the galaxy, this one holds particular promise because it might someday, decades from now, be possible to reach. It’s 4.2 light-years, or 25 trillion miles, away from Earth, which is extremely close in cosmic terms.

When I first heard this, I thought it might be a good place to put Republicans, but on further consideration, a mere 4.2 light years is just too damn close!!

From Daily Kos: Many people who are prone to allergic attacks are also prone to having their throat air passages close from the internal swelling and inflammation. Without immediate treatment this can cause many children and adults to suffocate and die. They die a terrifying death of asphyxiation.

In 1977, the life-saving Epi-Pen was created. The self-injecting shot of adrenaline can sometimes halt the air passages from closing further, for a brief period, which gives the victim more time to seek emergency care.

A pharmaceutical company called Mylan [capitalist pig delinked] acquired the EpiPen in 2007, and immediately began hiking up the prices to a whopping 600%. That’s wonderful for the multi-billion dollar company, and it’s been awesome for Mylan CEO Heather Bresch who gave herself a big fat pay raise. Reports show that from 2007 to 2015, Bresch’s total compensation went from $2,453,456 to $18,931,068 [capitalist pig delinked] — yet she can’t afford to offer her “generic” drug at a fair price in order to save the lives of those who are in need and don’t know how to obtain the life-saving medication any other way.

As a former volunteer firefighter, I have used an EpiPen to save a life. I have seen what it does and now necessary it is for someone suffering a life-threatening allergic reaction. Heather Bresch’s Republican greed is obscene!

From The New Yorker: Calling it “the best use of our resources at this time,” the Republican National Committee has decided to pull money originally earmarked for Trump campaign ads and spend it on alcohol instead.

According to the R.N.C. chairman Reince Priebus, the decision to reallocate the funds from television advertising to alcoholic beverages came after careful review of the polling in crucial battleground states.

“With about seventy days to go until the election, we had to consider what was the optimal way for us to get through those seventy days,” he added. “We are confident that we have found that way.”

“The decision was unanimous,” he added.

Dang Andy!! If you’re right, that’s the most intelligent idea for Republicans I’ve heard.

Cartoon:

0825Cartoon

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Aug 242016
 

I’ve looked forward to the kickoff to Our Revolution for some time and will watch what I can of it tonight, but I’ll be tied up with home care.  I was very disappointed to learn that several of his aides abandoned him at the last moment and hope he can proceed with it. I’ll reserve judgment until more info comes out, but fear that some Berners are burning Bernie.

0824map

A week before its launch, a liberal advocacy group started by former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ campaign staffers as the next stage in the "political revolution" is facing a liberal civil war.

One-third of the 15-person team Sanders put together to run a nonprofit advocacy group focusing on issues of election reform and economic inequality have quit amid a heated internal debate about how the organization should be structured, who should run it and whether its existence as a nonprofit violated campaign finance laws prohibiting electioneering by such groups.

ABC News reported last week that former Sanders campaign manager and longtime adviser Jeff Weaver was tapped by Sanders’ wife, Jane, to lead the new group "Our Revolution." Weaver’s presence reignited an internal rift between old guard Sanders advisers like Weaver and the younger generation of political operatives who helped make Sanders a political sensation in the age of digital campaigning…

From <UPI>

It seems like a power play, as Rachel Maddow pointed out.

Unless I hear reasons to change my mind, I would tend to support Weaver, because Jane would not have brought in Weaver, if he wasn’t who Bernie wanted.  Also the younger operatives have been unable to raise money the way they could with Bernie in the race.

Also, as I’ve been researching this story, I’ve noticed many comments to the effect that if "Our Revolution" includes Hillary voters, then they need to move ahead without Bernie.  I can guarantee them that "Our Revolution" includes Hillary voters.  Bernie is one.  Bernie Sanders has done more for progressive politics that anyone else in this century.  Abandoning him over hatred for Hillary, if that’s what’s behind this issue, is the most shameful thing they could do.  Time will tell.

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Aug 242016
 

The heat wave has returned to Portland with a vengeance, and we are under an Excessive Heat Warning until Friday evening.  Today is a grocery delivery day, and late this afternoon, Wendt will be here to pamper and polish the TomCat.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:40 (average 4:37).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Horseback riders, their faces streaked in yellow and black paint, led the procession out of their tepee-dotted camp. Two hundred people followed, making their daily walk a mile up a rural highway to a patch of prairie grass and excavated dirt that has become a new kind of battlefield, between a pipeline and American Indians who say it will threaten water supplies and sacred lands.

The Texas-based company building the Dakota Access pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, calls the project a major step toward the United States’ weaning itself off foreign oil. The company says the nearly 1,170-mile buried pipeline will infuse millions of dollars into local economies and is safer than trucks and train cars that can topple and spill and crash and burn.

But the people who stood at the gates of a construction site where crews had been building an access road toward the pipeline viewed the project as a wounding intrusion onto lands where generations of their ancestors hunted bison, gathered water and were born and buried, long before treaties and fences stamped a different order onto the Plains.

Kudos to the Sioux. I endorse their protest wholeheartedly.

From Daily Kos: Officials in Sarnia, Ontario were surprised last night to find approximately 1,500 Americans illegally floating into Canada.

They were participating in the annual Port Huron Float Down, during which people simply float down the river on rafts, inner tubes and other flotation devices from Port Huron, Mich.

High winds pushed them to a number of points along the Canadian shore. They had to be rescued by Sarnia police, the OPP, the Canadian Coast Guard, Canada Border Service Agency and employees from a nearby chemical company Lanxess Canada.

Likely story. Probably a bunch of Justin Trudeau fans trying to get a glimpse.

If Harper’s Harlots still ruled Canada, they would have lured those terrorist wetbacks into portapotties, locked them in, and trucked them back to this side of the border.

From TPM: In a lawsuit filed Monday, former Fox News host Andrea Tantaros alleges that ex-network boss Roger Ailes was far from alone in making unwanted sexual advances during her tenure there. Tantaros alleges that network heavyweight Bill O’Reilly and former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) also contributed to a culture of “misogyny” at the conservative news network.

Tantaros’ suit comes after Ailes resigned from the network amid mounting allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation, first made by fired host Gretchen Carlson in a lawsuit filed in July (Ailes strenously denied those allegations through his lawyers). Tantaros’ lawsuit names the network’s newly appointed co-president, Bill Shine, public relations czar Irena Briganti, and two other high-ranking executives, along with Ailes, whom the complaint labels as a “predator.”

This is boggles the mind. Tantaros always lies. Ailes always lies. We have an oxymoron between morons!

0824Cartoon

At the time, Nero (R-RO) explained that there was no such thing as volcanic climate change.

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Aug 232016
 

Lately the most accurate spokesman in the history of the Republican Party, Rump Dump Trump, has had a knack for surrounding himself with appropriate advisors, like Putin-stooge Manafart, and the head hater for Breitfart.  Now he has gone beyond mere farts, all the way to Batshit!

0823BatshitIn June, Donald Trump put failed Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann on his Evangelical Advisory Board. In July, that appointment paid off as Bachmann announced that just as God had once chosen her to be president – yeah, don’t ask – he had now ‘lifted up’ Donald Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton.

It was necessary she say this, because in 2013 she’d assured us all that only God could defeat Hillary Clinton. Trump without God was doomed to fail, but as the old Crusader adage (Romans 8:31) goes, “If God is for us, who is against us?” See how that works? Deus Vult! God wills it!

At a Minnesota fundraiser for Trump on Sunday, the xenophobic Bachmann, who hates lots of people but specializes in fear and loathing of Muslims – she once said she wanted to declare war on an entire religion – dropped a terrifying bombshell: she’s advising Donald Trump on foreign policy.

I’m not sure you can actually call it advising when the advisor knows no more than the person being advised, but for the sake of argument, let’s pretend you can. Cause everything in Trump and Bachmann’s world is make believe anyway, right?…

From <PoliticusUSA>

There you have it!  Could there be a more appropriate foreign affairs advisor for Rump Dump?

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Aug 232016
 

I’ll be as brief as I can, as I have a meeting this evening and need to rest today.

Jug Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:59 (average 5:14).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Florida’s Republican governor, Rick Scott, and legislature have happily joined in on the War on Women and the war on Planned Parenthood, attempting to state funding to reproductive health clinics and diverting resources away from clinics that provide abortion. What does that mean when it comes to fighting a disease that kills and deforms unborn babies? A looming disaster.

"We haven’t heard about any kits," says Laura Goodhue, a vice president at Planned Parenthood of South, East, and North Florida. Planned Parenthood hasn’t received any Zika kits from the Florida Department of Health, nor has it received any guidance from the department about how to serve pregnant women during a possible outbreak. […]

A big part of the defense against infection for women in Florida appears to be the Zika prevention kits and OB-GYN outreach, but the Scott administration’s strategy is unclear. The Planned Parenthood affiliate operates three clinics in Miami-Dade County, which has the fourth-highest uninsured rate in the country, and another just over the border in Broward County. The women’s health care organization serves tens of thousands of people per year, many of whom are low-income and without insurance—and more likely to get pregnant by accident. As Laura Goodhue notes, they have not received a single kit.

This Republican is intentionally withholding life-saving services to the women who need them most. When his victims start dying, he will undoubtedly blame Planned Parenthood for the blood on his own hands.

From NY Times: Taking advantage of almost a decade of political victories in state legislatures across the country, conservative advocacy groups are quietly marshaling support for an event unprecedented in the nation’s history: a convention of the 50 states, summoned to consider amending the Constitution.

The groups are an amalgam of free-market, low-tax and small-government proponents,

I urge you to click through to read this entire article to better understand how critically important it is to win down-ballot races. Then vote blue.

From Alternet: Donald Trump is trailing Hillary Clinton badly in Colorado, which despite being a "swing state" went for President Obama twice. And despite boasting that he’ll change the electoral map, Trump is running a ground game in the Centennial State that can only be described as embarrassing, even for him.

According to St. Louis-based news station KMOV 4, Weston Imer runs the GOP nominee’s campaign office in Jefferson County, Colorado, which is "part of the Denver metro area" and "one of the most populous counties in Colorado," KMOV notes. But Weston is just 12 years old.

I consider it horrid that one so young is so corrupted. On the plus side, it appears that Rump Dump has all but given up in CO.

Cartoon: (Yesterday at the Podiatrist’s office, I heard a "trigger"word!)

0823CartoonTCPodiatrist

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Aug 222016
 

Yesterday afternoon, I discovered that when I see two carafes full of coffee in my hand, and see two burners on the coffee maker, it’s easy to put the right eye’s carafe on the left eye’s burner.  ARGH!  Cleaning all that coffee from the floor took me over an hour.  I could actually turn off my A/C for the first time since last Wednesday.  If only it would last.  I’m getting ready to leave for my Podiatrist appointment.  I won’t publish this before I return, and this will be my only article today.

The trip went without incident, and the foot is in excellent shape.  As expected,. George’s foot needed no care.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:55 (average 8:58).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From KP Daily Funnies: John Oliver Asks Donald Trump To "Drop Out"

 

Oliver is both right and funny, but Trump won’t do it.

From NY Times: As he seeks to revive his embattled candidacy, Donald J. Trump has seized on a new argument to rally his supporters and to explain away a possible defeat in November: that Democrats are preparing to exploit weak voter identification laws to win a “stolen election” through fraudulent voting.

The claim has spurred outrage among Democrats and has alarmed some Republicans who worry his tactics will backfire, angering minority voters and threatening the party’s chances in close races down the ballot.

Since 2010, Republican governors and Republican-held state legislatures have fought for stricter voter identification laws, which Democrats argue are intended to hinder turnout by the poorest voters, many of them black and Hispanic, who tend to vote Democratic.

From a Republican perspective, Trump is right. Weak voter ID laws in some locations will actually allow some Democrats and independents to exercise their right to vote while Black, Latino, Asian, Poor, Disabled, Unionized, Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Transgender, Female, and/or any other people, who Republicans are trying to disenfranchise.

From Think Progress: Al Gore lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush in part because of votes lost to third-party candidates. He has a simple message for fellow climate hawks who are contemplating a third-party vote in 2016: Please don’t.

Amen! Please click through for the rest of Gore’s message.

Cartoon:

0822Cartoon

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