I Hate to Break it to the GOP, but We ARE in Our Place!

Oh those crazy people at the Republican National Congressional Committee!!  When there's something they're not happy about, they can't help themselves from saying something silly!

The RNCC tried to chide Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi with this:

If Nancy Pelosi's failed economic policies are any indicator of the effect she may have on Afghanistan, taxpayers can only hope [General] McChrystal is able to put her in her place.

Her comeback?

I'm signing up for the Speaker's next class on political zingers!

Just Being Alive Will Soon be a Pre-existing Condition

Domestic violence isn't a subject I talk about much, but it's something I feel very strongly about because I have a very personal connection to the topic.

I was a victim of domestic abuse.

Many, many years ago I was married for a very short time when I was an incredibly young (19) and stupid college student (while 19 might be a good age for some to marry, it was not a good age for me).

I was smart enough, however, to get out of that very brief marriage quickly before I suffered too many injuries. But it was scary -- I had bruises from being pushed down stairs and I was anxious about lying to cover up why there was a big hole in the wall (where my ex-husband kicked it in in a rage), among other things. When he pulled a butcher knife on me when I said I was leaving, I really knew it was the right choice to save my life. But I was terrified that he would come after me and hurt me more. He tried, but I was lucky that I had friends who sheltered me and kept me safe, even when I had to go to work.

Go Listen: BlogHer Call with Senator Amy Klobuchar on Health Care Reform

BlogHer recently hosted a conference call on health insurance reform with Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar. MOMocrats writers Karoli, Jaelithe and Joanne participated in the call, which included several BlogHer members with various backgrounds and political opinions, and was moderated by Nancy Watzman from the Sunlight Foundation, a non-partisan organization dedicated to improving government transparency

Senator Klobuchar, a Democrat, a mother, and one of only 17 women Senators currently serving in Congress, supports health care reform and has expressed a preference for a plan that would end exclusions for pre-existing condition, include a health insurance exchange that would allow small businesses and independent contractors to use collective bargaining power to access lower health insurance prices, and include a public option that would give Americans the choice of buying into a non-profit government-run insurance plan.

During the call, the Senator discussed her views on the best ways to reduce health care costs for both consumers and the government, spoke about the need to provide better support to families caring for elderly relatives, and expressed her outrage at learning that some private insurance companies have been denying coverage to victims of domestic violence.

Senator Klobuchar also talked about ways that ordinary citizens who support health care reform can help make a difference by promoting reform in their own communities.

Visit the BlogHer website to listen to the BlogHer conference call with Senator Amy Klobuchar or read a partial transcript. And don't forget to check back next week for a BlogHer conference call with Republican Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers.

Will Ferrell "Defends" Health Insurance Companies

Well, sort of.

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

I could really laugh at this if it wasn't spot on.

Aside from thinking about health insurance reform here, Joanne Bamberger is also trying to get her head around it at her place, PunditMom.

Vote for Your Favorite MOMocrats!

CREDO Mobile is awarding a BlackBerry® Curve™ 8330 smartphone, plus one year's unlimited service on CREDO, to three deserving recipients. CREDO has setup a contest that you can participate in from any mobile phone regardless of whether you'll be in Pittsburgh at Netroots Nation this sweek. So take a few minutes to review the rules and then cast your votes for individual progressive bloggers you enjoy.

There will be one winner, determined by the highest number of votes submitted via text message, in each of three categories:

    * Best National Blogger
    * Best State or Local Blogger
    * Blog Activist of the Year

Please cast your votes today! Just text the keyword ("national," "state" or "activist") plus your favorite blogger's name or "handle" to short code 27336. We're encouraging people to vote for the following MOMocrats contributors, based on their work on our site and elsewhere, but feel free to vote for your favorite progressive blogger in each category:

    * National  PunditMom/Joanne Bamberger
    * State Julie Pippert
    * Activist Jaelithe

Just text your votes in using this format for your favorites! One vote per category per voter; you may vote in all three categories if you wish. Please note:

   1. Vote for your favorite blogger (a person)—not your favorite blog.
   2. If your favorite blogger usually posts under a handle or alias, please use that in your text message, not his or her real name.

Voting closes: Saturday, August 15th 10:00 a.m. ET

For more information and the full contest rules, please visit CREDO's Mobile Apptitude blog. Winners will be announced Saturday evening, August 15, at the Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburgh.  The MOMocrats will be there in force, so look for us if you're attending!

What's a Good Source for Understanding the Health Care Bill?

Now THAT's the $64,000 question, isn't it? But that's what my friend Susan (aka WhyMommy) from Toddler Planet asked me and I didn't have a good answer at the ready.

Sure, you can read the original 615 page bill if you're battling insomnia. Oh, and don't forget to search for the boxes upon boxes of amendments that have gotten tacked on, too. Aside from the actual language of the bill, there are some things important to understand in this battle -- and yes, it is a battle.

Insurance companies, and the legislators who take money from them, want you to think they're protecting competition by opposing the current legislation. They are not. Competition should be a great thing, right? It's supposed to keep prices down and keep companies honest. That works unless you have an industry that's become a monopoly. Like cable TV and satellite radio companies, insurance doesn't have a lot of competition and at this stage of the game they're not trying to protect competition, they're afraid of losing money. If they really want competition, why would they be afraid of another option -- public or otherwise?

Sonia Sotomayor & Sexism: The More Things Stay the Same

Thought we were done with how men in the media find as many disparaging ways to talk about women as possible? No, I didn't either.

Just as the MSM found lots of subtle and not-so-subtle ways to express their feelings that women just aren't as smart or as qualified as with their ongoing sexist comments about Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton, Judge Sonia Sotomayor has given them a fresh chance to brush off all those old, and some new, ways to tell anyone who's watching -- including our kids -- that girls just aren't good enough.

I'm thinking that if Pat Buchanan doesn't believe that it's possible for four women to be on the SCOTUS finalist list as the best qualified, he doesn't want to appear before the Canadian Supreme Court -- it's got four women AND it's Chief Justice is a woman!

Quel horreur! Why, the next thing you know, us uppity chicks will think that we should have parity in all things! Now where is THAT in the Constitution?

MOMocrat Joanne is sometimes better known as PunditMom around these parts.  You can also find her political wonkiness at BlogHer!

MOMocrats Meet Valerie Jarrett at BlogHer

At the BlogHer '09 conference, five MOMocrats writers were among a group of women bloggers who met with White House Adviser and Public Liason Valerie Jarrett to talk about health insurance reform. Representing MOMocrats.com were BlogHer Political Director and MOMocrats contributor Erin Kotecki Vest, MOMocrats Founding Editor Stefania Pomponi Butler, PunditMom creator, Huffington Post contributor, and MOMocrats writer Joanne Bamberger, MOMocrats writer Sheila Bernus Dowd, and MOMocrats writer Jaelithe Judy.

Also in attendance were:

• BlogHer Community Manager Denise Tanton and BlogHer co-founder Lisa Stone
• Jenny Prokopi, the founder of an online community for women living with chronic health conditions, ChronicBabe.com
• Kerri Morrone Sparling, author of Six Until Me, a blog about living with diabetes.
• Loolwa Khazoom, journalist and founder of the Dancing with Pain chronic pain management website.
• Kim McAllister, who writes about her life as a nurse at Emergiblog.
• Liz Henry, tech blogger, momblogger, disability rights advocate and BlogHer contributor.
• Kelly Wickham, a public school administrator, writer of the blog Mocha Momma, and BlogHer Content Editor.
• Daphra Holder, Manager of Mobilization Marketing for the charitable organization Donors Choose. 
• Katie, who has written about her experiences as a brain surgery patient at Overflowing Brain.
• Casey Mullins from Moosh in Indy, who has written about her struggles with depression, endometriosis and infertility.
• Loralee from Loralee's Looney Tunes, who has written about her experience being denied insurance coverage for a high risk pregnancy.

Here is the official BlogHer liveblog of the Valerie Jarrett meeting, written by Denise Tanton as the meeting happened.

Run, Mama, Run -- Cook County, Illinois Judicial Candidate Abbey Romanek

It might not seem like election season -- maybe some of you are just now recovering from 2008 election fatigue! -- but races for local offices are in full swing and worthy of our attention as much as the big races!

One Democratic mother who's decided to run for Cook County Judge in Illinois is the latest woman we'd like to feature in the MOMocrats' "Run, Mama, Run" segment -- Abbey Fishman Romanek! I met someone involved in Abbey's campaign at a conference earlier this year, and thought it would interesting to profile someone running for an office that we don't often think is an elective one (depending on where you live!)  Abbey took some time out from her campaign to talk a little bit about her decision to jump into the world of elective politics:

Q: How many children do you have and what are their ages? 

A: I have three very active and busy boys. Josh is 15, Mikey is 14 and Ricky is 12.  

Q: What prompted you to decide to run for office?  Why did you decide to run for a judgeship as opposed to another office?

Fem2.0-MOMocrats Live Chat: Feminism is Where You Are/What You Do

Moderators: Jaelithe Judy, Julie Pippert, Joanne Bamberger & Cynematic of MOMocrats

Fem2.0 Twittercast: Feminism is Where You Are/What You Do
Sunday, May 24, 2009, 10 PM EST
We'll be using Cover-it-Live to live chat (more than 140 characters allowed, hurray!) and also pull in tweets from Twitter tagged #fem2.

Today, we're joining up with the folks at Fem2.0 to continue the discussion from last week, which started with the discussion of feminism, moms who blog, the feminist blogosphere, and what intersection there is among all three.

To start the conversation, we have a beautiful post by a GrandMOMocrat (who happens to be MOMocrat Jaelithe's mother). Please read the lovely essay by Diana Harvestmoon-Stewart about combining motherhood, feminism, and activism.

It may shed new light on the previous Fem2pt0 conversation, which was framed here: "Mommies and Feminists: the Great Divide."

Here's how we've framed the Fem2pt0 chat for this week:

Cynematic says: No matter where we are in our respective life cycles–raising children or choosing to be childfree, a young adult or older woman, mother to boys or girls, caretaker of the generations before you–if you’re a feminist, you’ve probably brought that sensibility with you to your activism.

We want to turn the question on end a little. What are you active in, and how does that inform your feminism? Where are you geographically, so you can connect with others on the chat? What do you need to do your work? How would your work be different if there was a critical mass of feminists there? Or is that already the case?

Let’s move off labels, identities, and the preconceptions that can come attached to those. Let’s find as many different feminisms as we can through the kinds of way it’s practiced.

More food for thought: feminisms in the context of family or community, Naomi Wolf