Why We Must Stand Up For the Right to Breastfeed -- By Senator Jeff Merkley

Right now in America, working mothers are being discriminated against solely because they breastfeed their children.  Last week the Ohio Supreme Court threw logic out the window when it ruled that a woman was rightfully fired for taking breaks at work to pump breast milk.  Apparently it would have been acceptable for Lanisa Allen to take a break to use the bathroom as long as she didn’t pump breast milk in the process.

The Court argued that Totes/Isotoner had the right to fire Allen because she made the choice to breastfeed her child, which apparently does not qualify as a condition related to pregnancy and, therefore, does not constitute gender discrimination. 

It is astounding that any court would come to a decision stating that breastfeeding is a condition unrelated to pregnancy.  That’s like saying the branches of a tree aren’t at all related to the roots below the ground.  All new mothers should have the opportunity to breastfeed their babies because it is integral to the health and long term well-being of the child.

There is significant scientific evidence showing that children who are breastfed have lower risks of disease and illnesses including asthma, diabetes, obesity, and certain cancers.  Additionally, there is evidence to suggest that breastfeeding has significant health benefits for mothers as well.  Yet, companies in America are allowed to fire working mothers for not only doing what’s best for the health of their child, but for themselves as well?  That’s just plain wrong.

In Oregon, I championed an effort to provide working mothers with flexible break times and privacy to pump breast milk.  We won that battle two years ago and now it’s time to expand Oregon’s effort nationwide.

In June, Representative Carolyn Maloney, who has been a long-standing champion of the right of women to breastfeed, and I introduced the Breastfeeding Promotion Act, a bill that would protect breastfeeding in the workplace by making it easier for nursing mothers to pump in private.  Additionally, I proposed an amendment to the health reform bill to help provide new mothers with flexible break times and privacy to pump breast milk.  The amendment garnered support from both sides of the aisle, was unanimously passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee and was included in the Affordable Health Choices Act. 

This ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court reaffirms why it’s important that Congress include this amendment in the health reform legislation.  We must enable all working mothers with the opportunity to nourish their newborn children.

Working mothers have so much on their plates when they give birth to a child; the last thing they should have to worry about is whether they’ll lose their jobs just because they want to do what’s best for their babies when they return to work.

We have to work together to make sure that the case in Ohio, where a woman was fired for taking breaks at work to pump breastmilk for her newborn, never happens again.

*****

The preceding post was written by Oregon's junior Senator, Jeff Merkley.  He is not only an advocate for women's health care, but he's a strong proponent for women's rights, too.  (A thing I'm both glad of and exceedingly grateful for.)  This entry cross-posted at Momsrising.org. 

If you would like to complain to the Totes/Isotoner Corporation for this outrageous act, they can be contacted here.

(Anybody up for a boycott?)

Tobacco Companies: Convicted of Violating Civil Racketeering, Moving on to Do Same (or Worse) For the Next Generation. RAD.

Washington Post writer Del Quentin Wilber penned today's piece regarding the federal appeals court that upheld Judge Gladys Kessler's original finding for the tobacco industry, namely, that they "violated civil racketeering laws by lying to the public about the dangers of their product."

(The article ought to be read in its entirety because it's outrageous and, frankly, totally gross.)

So, if you're a tobacco-industry company and your industry is, pardon the lame-ass pun, going up in flames, what with all the recent banning by states of smoking in public, where do you turn for your next big infusion of profit?

TO THE (ignorant, easily-preyed-upon) KIDS!!

Senator Merkley, my state's freshman senator of AWESOME, however, is on the job.  To wit: keeping the 'baccy bums from giving out tobacco candy, yes, TOBACCO CANDY, to our children, through an (already-approved) amendment, the Merkley/Brown amendment, to the Senate Health Committee; it provides the FDA with the legal authority to regulate tobacco products, and none too soon.  The candies have already been introduced in three markets:  Indianapolis, Indiana, Columbus, Ohio, and my town, Portland, Oregon.  (Brazen.)  And get this tidbit: according to the bulletin sent to me by Mr. Merkley's media director, Sarah Lane Pierle, the companies producing this poison are overtly canvassing our kids.

With brightly colored packages and candy flavors, it’s obvious that these products are attractive to children.   The packages are actually shaped like cell phones to make them easier to hide from parents and teachers.  And from a short distance, both the packages and tablets resemble mint containers.  Janitors are already finding used packages in schools.

The Indiana Poison Control Center estimates that dissolvable tobacco products like the Camel Orbs contain between 60 to 300 percent of the nicotine in one cigarette.

Here's a video featuring the Senator as he discusses the nature of the product during a recent Q&A:

Thank you, Senator, for doing your job so well.  The future of our kids' health depends on such legislation.

Governor Kathleen Sebelius' Tax Missteps, and How Insignificant They Are, Relatively Speaking.

I'm gonna just run out in front of this and say that the first person to criticize Governor Sebelius for having inadvertently left certain taxes go unpaid between 2005 and 2007 had better be awfully careful.  For instance, I'd like very much to hear that person take responsibility for having, possibly, also made errors when completing their annual tax forms, and even be willing to have those tax records pored over with tooth and lice comb to determine that they are, indeed, blameless as they currently assume they are, as they busily, eagerly cast red-herring-shaped stones at the Democrats being placed currently by the Obama administration.

See, I just did my family's taxes for the year a few weeks ago, using the H&R Block software available at the local Target, the one created for people who work and have an at-home business.  And, despite my very best intentions, I screwed up.  After working for several hours running on all of the tedious details, I pressed the send button and hey, presto!, the IRS assumed I'd done right by my numbers, as had I, and they approved of what I sent.  Only I realized later that evening where I'd screwed up, and in the morning, I went back and fixed the glitch.  So now I'm in the process of having to amend my returns, both federal and state, in order to pay them back for my mistake.  One mistake, and it took the return I was supposed to receive from both fed and state combined down by a few thousand dollars.  It was such a dumb move, and all I had to do to avoid it was not push the send button until I'd slept on the thing.  But that isn't what I'm trying to say.  What I'm saying is, dude.  I made a mistake.  It's ridiculously simple to do with taxes, even if someone else prepares them (which I'm assuming is true in the case of the Governor, who's already pretty busy being a Governor).  She had no intention of making these mistakes, any more than you or I do when we prepare our own taxes, due to the need to save the money we would spend on hiring someone else to prepare them, or through the hiring of someone else, someone who has been referred to us because they are competent and capable and there's a string of seemingly inscrutable letters after their name signifying their capacity to manage the taxes (mostly) without error.

But here's the thing that really matters: people who make mistakes on their taxes through honest intentions generally are found owing, give or take, a few thousand bucks.  Because it was an oops.  An error.  A miscalculation, made because the tax preparer is not perfect.

People who hire the brilliant scam-artists who know their way in, out, through, over and around the tax laws, are more loop-hole savant than anything else, are intent on cheating the government (and their fellow tax-payers) out of what they owe.  And it isn't in the thousands-of-dollars range.  Nuh-uh.  It's in the millions.  At least.

(Well, and there are plenty of examples to point to in the recent Republican-run Congress regarding people who absconded with millions of dollars in taxpayer money that didn't even come to them as a result of loopholes.  Nay, they did other things, like make shady deals with government-funded contractors.  Etc.  Deals involving millions upon MILLIONS of dollars.  Taxpayer dollars.  And I won't even touch on how their loosening of, and dismembering of, laws created to protect homeowners and the banking system and the taxpayers, caused the current financial maelstrom we're grappling with, the situation that earned some shady monsters billions upon BILLIONS, while the rest of us poor saps are trying to keep our forty-grand-a-year -- if we're lucky -- jobs.  Yeah.  Pointing fingers would be easy.)

This is not that.  And I would like very much to see the Governor not being given the run-around by those members of the media who are prone to aiming at creating discord for discord's sake, and instead be allowed to gracefully take on her new role as HHS Secretary.  She's got quite enough to manage in that capacity without being challenged stupidly, for the purpose of a media whirlwind and the ensuing ratings-fest, by the moronic, imbecilic partakers of such.

Even though I know I'm wasting my breath in hoping they'll drop this.  Even though I'm aware of how this sort of thing will play out, I can't help wishing the throwers of clay, shaped-and-painted-to-look-like-red-meat, would recognize how they lower our discourse.  The disservice they do to people, not just the ones in our nation, but people everywhere, solely for their own, miniscule fifteen-minute feast.

It's a damn shame.

Governor Kathleen Sebelius to Be Named Secretary of Health and Human Services.

President Obama has chosen Kathleen Sebelius, Governor of Kansas, for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

I am deeply glad the President has chosen Governor Sebelius to be in his cabinet.  (Even while it's a blow for Kansas, who needs a good leader right now more than ever, given the state's current economic woes, and the gaggle of Republicans hanging about in the state legislature who continue to insist the children of Kansas never hear about the miracle of science, etc.)

I'll allow one of my fellow MOMocrats to better unpack the reasons why the Governor is a super-savvy pick for the role.  I merely wanted to mark the moment, because she is, after all, an honorary MOMocrat, as revealed to MOMocrats Glennia and Sarah, when they had the opportunity to meet and speak with her last year.

Congratulations, Governor Sebelius.  We here at the MOMocrats are fiercely proud of your work as a public servant, and look forward to the good you'll do as a member of our new president's cabinet.

* Photo from MOmocrats Glennia Campbell and Sarah Granger

The Ironic Behavior By the Super-Wealthy: Delicious.

Gonna need an extra-large spork to handle the latest heft of delectable irony being ladled out by the extra-rich (extra + extra = yum-o!).  (Discovered on TPMMuckraker)

The, uh, scoop, via NYT:

UBS was sued on Tuesday in a Swiss federal court by wealthy American clients seeking to prevent the disclosure of their identities as part of a tax-evasion investigation by the United States Justice Department.

The lawsuit accuses UBS and Switzerland’s financial regulator, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, or Finma, of violating Swiss bank secrecy laws and of conducting what Swiss law considers illegal activities with foreign authorities. It also named Peter Kurer, the chairman of UBS, and Eugen Haltiner, the chairman of Finma, as defendants.

The suit, filed by a lawyer in Zurich, Andreas Rued, on behalf of nearly a dozen American clients, underscores the growing clash between Swiss banking secrecy laws and those of the United States. Tax evasion is not considered a crime in Switzerland. Disclosing client names under Swiss law is a criminal offense and can expose bank executives and officers to fines, prison terms and other penalties.

Isn't it grand?  Rich people don't have to pay taxes because they have enough money to stash it in some super-secret vault that has given itself special, above-the-law privileges to avoid having to reveal whose money is stashed within.  And the rich people have enough money to sue THE LAW-MAKERS over having to potentially reveal their super-secret identities (gee, are they superheroes, only with a $ symbol instead of an S?), because they have alla that money.  Stashed away.  In the super-secret vault.  That they're not paying taxes on.  To cover the expenses/incomes of the law-making law-makers.  And the courts.  And the system THEY'RE RELYING ON TO KEEP COVERING UP THEIR SUPER-SECRET IDENTITIES.

I wonder if irony tastes good on ice cream.  It's certainly quite intoxicating on its own.

Email Our President: Yes, We Can.

As Sarah, fellow MOMocrat, pointed out, we've already gotten a glimpse into a specific change to our federal government: The website for the White House is alight with photos and information regarding our new executive, President (!!) Barack Obama, and his administration. 

Don't know about you, but I was moved to tears throughout yesterday; at one point, my three year old son, upon catching me wet-eyed for the umpteenth time, said, "Mom?  Are you gonna cry AGAIN??  Don't cry again, mom!  No more crying!  You should be happy!"  (I tried in vain every time to explain the body's urge to release overwhelming joy by means other than smiles wreathed on smiles, because our faces would break if that was all we could do, but he didn't buy it.)  (While I kind of do.  Because it really felt as if my face was on the verge of cracking wide open as I watched our new President, (!!) Barack Obama, give a speech that made the crowd of two million people standing in the blistering cold there in Washington dance and cry and shimmy, that made everyone around the world feel a sense of lightening, made us all meet the eye of the future with a bravery that -- we're in this together.  And my face wasn't up to the challenge, even if my spirit was, so I was grateful to be able to cry.  Yeah.  I'm a total girl.  Shut up.)

But getting back to the shiny, spankin'-new website devoted to our government's executive branch, I already have a favorite page:  the one where you can talk directly to our new President, (!!) Barack Obama.

(Okay, I'm also geeking over this jump-off page that itemizes all of the new administration's agenda, conveniently referred to as, uh, the Agenda.  Basically, the whole site is like a present.  Inauguration '09 really *was* Christmas yesterday.)

So, go.  Go talk directly to our current President, !!!!, because I have this crazy, gut feeling he's actually interested in hearing what we think.

Debbie takes out the bulk of her zany ideas on her personal blog, i obsess.  She also gives vent to her quasi-Pagan worship of timeworn-yet-beautiful things on her thrift blog, didyoubuythatnew.com.

President-Elect Obama's Transition Team Shoos Away Perfect Job Candidates Just to Waste Everyone's Time.

So lemme get this straight:  the Obama transition team's vetting process is too invasive.  That's the current line, according to this CNN article:

But some political observers say the president-elect's similar caution with respect to recruiting new administration officials and key high-level advisers may be turning away a string of qualified candidates wary of subjecting themselves and their families to the most rigid presidential vetting process on record.

   After all, in addition to the already invasive FBI background check, the Obama team is requiring prospective candidates to complete a seven-page questionnaire that requires the disclosure of nearly every last private detail. In addition to the obvious questions involving past criminal history, candidates are asked about personal diaries, past blog posts, and the financial entanglements of extended family members.

"This questionnaire they've been giving to people who are thinking about signing up for a government job is extremely invasive," said David Gergen, a CNN senior political analyst and adviser to four past presidents.

David, methinks, would never dare suggest that it's remotely possible these people have embarrassing secrets to hide.

/eye/roll/

Gordon Smith Concedes to Jeff Merkley in Oregon Senate Race

Happy Sigh.  Though, I'm not sure whether I'm more relieved for myself or for Merkley and his staff (I spoke with Sarahlane, the campaign's official blogger, yesterday afternoon; they were sleeping in shifts and all a little, uh, frazzled; according to her, people were still wearing their clothes from the day before.  Committed campaign twenty-somethings kill me-or, that is, they're wonderful, wonderful people whom I adore-they don't actually *kill* me.  Their schedules might, though).

The Oregonian reported on the matter here.

And, may I just say, hooray?

Hooray.  :)

Kid-Friendly Election Night Party in Portland, Oregon

Here's the place to go if you're interested in hanging out with a bunch of fun families tonight.  If you're in the Portland area, there'll be a bunch of us at the BarackSpace (usually known as the BackSpace), doing it UP.  Kristin, who writes for Poliglots, Blue Oregon (and sometimes guest-posts for us, here, at MOMocrats), along with her fellow Poliglot, Shawn, have organized the event conjoined with the Activistas (otherwise known as Urbanmamas).  They were also gracious enough to invite me to join in as a sponsor; and I'm sweetening the pot with some kick-ass door-prizes from Black Wagon and Urban Bliss Design.  Woo!

Here's what you'll need to know about it all:

You are invited to an entirely kid-friendly election night party at the BackSpace Cafe (renamed the BarackSpace Cafe until Nov. 5th) at 115 NW 5th on November 4, starting at 5pm.

The BackSpace Cafe is huge, with lots of room for kids to run around and a full menu of vegetarian/vegan food for sale. It also has a big parking lot across the street.

It’s being hosted by Poligots, as well as Activistas and MOMocrats. We’re so excited!

The party will have:

**** Maps to color as the results come in (with LOTS of blue crayons :))

**** Balloons

**** Pin the tail on the Democratic donkey

**** Other games and kiddo diversions

**** Of course, lots of other great kids to play with.

And, it’s FREE. We just want you to come and celebrate what we hope will be a fantastic night for Oregon and our nation.

Cautiously Optimistic.

There is a peace spreading through me, a peace that is occasionally interrupted by a jittery desire to dance, or laugh -- no, scratch that, to *giggle* -- I feel itchy.  Itchy like I've been living in a cabin in the middle of the Catskills and it's been winter for about a hundred years.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say -- nothing.  I'm out on this limb, and there are approximately one hundred million other people on this same damn limb with me.  We're all nervous as hell.  Jittery.  Jumpy as the long-tailed cats Cyn mentioned in her piece referencing alla this business.

There's a strain of sad running through my peace and my jitters, the sadness I feel for Senator Obama and his family tonight as they teeter on the precipice, because oh, my GOD, what a time to mourn.  What a time to have to manage the difficult loss of such an important family member.

We mourn with you, Senator, just as tomorrow, no matter the results, we work alongside you to manage those results.

I can't figure out whether to cry, or laugh, or sit still and listen to my heart plod methodically along (only to realize it's doing anything but plodding, hence the rather enormous glass of red wine at my elbow).  (I'm kind of doing all of it, in fits, so it's good it's just me and the dog, with the husband at a friend's house, watching "the game," and the toddler already crashed out.  I think I must be kind of a sight.)  (The not-so-pleasant kind.)