Speak your mind even if your voice shakes
by Debra
Credit to skdadl of pogge for coming up with this idea
the pome only has to be four lines long (minimum), but it must mention the Court Challenges program at some point.
Here is my attempt;
SWC, CCP, like so many birds the acronyms fly by
The hunters sit intent on death
Progress, they say, has drawn it’s last breath
I need you again progress sighs
Mourn their blindness, then organize
Tag to progressive bloggers reading this!
by Debra
Tories and their supporters must be so proud
Reg Warkentin is challenging the military pension act’s “gold diggers clause,” but his legal battle is in jeopardy after the federal government cut a program that funds human rights court challenges.
Reg Warkentin married Hilde when he was 62. Because he was older than 60, she will not get his military pension when he dies.
“Virtually we’ve been cut off at the knees,” he said. “Unless somebody comes up with more money, this thing will never get to the Supreme Court.”
The clause in Section 31 of the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act says a woman who marries a veteran who is 60 or older cannot receive her husband’s military pension if he dies.
Good thing that was nipped in the bud! [Read more…] about Court Challenges Program
by Debra
the same company that has more than one of these types of charges against it
The United Healthcare Insurance Company, a unit of UnitedHealth Group, will pay $3.5 million to settle charges that it defrauded the federal Medicare program, the Justice Department said yesterday. United Healthcare ”knowingly mishandled” phone inquiries from Medicare beneficiaries and health care providers, then made false reports to the federal government about how it handled the calls, the department said in a news release. The activities took place for five years ending in 2000, the government said. United Healthcare did not admit wrongdoing in reaching the settlement. UnitedHealth’s press office did not return a phone call. A former United Healthcare employee began the case in 2001 by filing a whistleblower lawsuit, in which the Justice Department intervened.
by Debra
The Bush administration guts another set of laws and policies that protect workplace equity for women.
And this example of the Bush administration’s efforts to weaken women’s rights is not the only case. For example, the Administration has repeatedly sought to weaken the 86-year-old Women’s Bureau, the only federal agency whose work is solely devoted to the concerns of women in the workplace. Early on in the Bush administration, the Department of Labor erased all information about eradicating the wage gap from the Women’s Bureau website. Recently, it announced a plan to outsource half of the career positions at the Women’s Bureau national office, which would cripple the Bureau’s ability to advance working women’s concerns. And in 2001, the Department of Labor tried but failed to close the 10 regional offices of the Women’s Bureau.The administration has also championed efforts to restrict the availability of overtime pay for workers, both by narrowing the categories of employees eligible for overtime, and by enabling employers to coerce their workers to take comp time rather overtime. This is especially harmful for women, because many women rely on overtime pay to supplement their inadequate wages.
Moreover, in an alarming example of selecting the fox to guard the henhouse, President Bush recently recess-appointed Paul DeCamp, an attorney who has spent his career trying to curtail legal remedies for women, to head the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. Among other things, DeCamp represented Wal-Mart in trying to prevent a class of 1.5 million women — the largest employment class action ever certified — from suing the company for sex discrimination in pay and promotions.
AlterNet
by Debra
Pro life, as I have said before, is a term that needs to be reclaimed by those who feel that a woman is entitled to the basic human right of having control over her own body.
Anti abortionists are not pro life. They are pro shame, pro blame, pro control, pro legislating wombs as wards of the state, and they are pro caring about the unborn as opposed to the already born, but they are most certainly not pro life.
This excellent article describes one woman’s journey from black and white to the multitudes of gray.
To engage in productive dialogue about abortion, we must account for justice and equity; we must strive to make our country one where laws, practices, programs, and attitudes nurture women and allow them the opportunity to bring babies into the world when they can support them, provide them excellent healthcare, send them to college without putting themselves in massive debt, and promise them truthfully there are living-wage jobs waiting for them.
Come to think of it, if this isn’t a genuinely pro-life position, I don’t know what is.
by Debra
The latest tact by the anti abortionists is to say that women cannot make their own decision re abortion.
The task force took as a statement of biological and psychological fact that a mother’s connection to her unborn baby was more authentic than her own statement of desire not to be pregnant.
They trot out women who have regrets about their abortion, stats on women who have committed suicide, (perhaps the suicides had more to do with other things in their lives but lets not go there)and generally manipulate the tear ducts like a maudlin Disney film. [Read more…] about Anti abortion/anti woman
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