MOMocrats™

Facts & Figures Show "Hall Pass" Resistance to President Obama's Speech is Partisan Grandstanding

...aided and abetted by mainstream media that loves a spectacle.

Two surveys were done yesterday on the "appropriateness" of President Obama's speech to schoolchildren, one asking the opinions of parents of schoolkids in Fresno, CA, the other of parents of schoolkids in different parts of Missouri.

Liberals of course highly approved of President Obama's speech. In MO, the lowest approval by moderates was 74% for ANY president to address schoolchildren, and 78% approval for our current president to do so.

In the mid-section of California, far from the liberal cities of the north or south, moderates approved of Obama's speech to kids by 73%, same as they'd approve for any president.

Now I'm willing to bet at any given time, 25-30% of people polled will disapprove of anything, including breathing, sunshine, and kittens. These currently seem to be known as conservatives. *wink*

Is this a reason for the world to screech--and I mean SCREECH--to a halt?

No. I'd like to see school boards stop flailing about and get some equilibrium. I'd like to see broadcast media stop getting wee-wee'd up at every tiny little thing.

So parents of public school kids contemplating a walkout: wouldn't it just be easier and less economically punitive on your school and all the kids who attend to simply have a talk with your kid(s) about it over dinner, when you find out how their day went like you usually do?

Extra bonus--no need to scramble to find childcare for a kid who's staying out of school all day just to miss 20-30 minutes of something you may disagree with.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k

Why You Should Be Mad That Some Parents Want to Boycott Public Schools on Sept 8

On September 8, 2009, President Obama will deliver a simple message urging schoolkids to be the best possible selves they can be--to stay in school and achieve. It's almost a tradition among presidents, Republican or Democratic, who have given similar messages. The suggested curriculum for teachers and classes who want to opt-in to the special broadcast of President Obama's speech has even been made available beforehand for parents to review, in case anyone's interested.

And this sparks a movement led by Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity to have parents keep their kids home from public school?  Like my sister MOMocrats, I'm disgusted by the irrationality and appalled by the vitriol.

Parents who are lucky enough to have jobs in this economy will say, "That's ridiculous--who'd watch my kids if they stay home?"

Parents who have the sense to not watch right-wing tv will scoff. "It's the president of our country and schoolkids learn about the presidents. Big deal."

A Response to Sarah Palin's "Death Panel" Comment from a Parent of a Child with Special Needs

Sarah Palin, you are not my advocate. You do not speak for me. You do not speak for my child.

You do not speak for the many good friends of mine who have children with chronic medical issues far more severe than my own son's neurological disorder, Sensory Processing Disorder. You do not speak for all parents of children with Down Syndrome. You do not speak for the member of my extended family who has Down Syndrome.

What you said on your Facebook page, about mythical Obama "death panels"?

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.  -Sarah Palin

If enough people believe it — if enough people are scared by it into opposing any kind of health insurance reform — that politically motivated statement deliberately promoting a dangerous rumor that has been proven to be patently false could cause tens of thousands of children with special needs in the United States to continue to suffer without adequate health care for years to come.

In the United States, children with chronic health issues are often denied coverage by private health insurance companies that consider their health concerns to be a pre-existing condition. Some of those children denied coverage under private health insurance are, thankfully, able to qualify for public health insurance through Medicaid or SCHIP — two of our country's existing socialized medical insurance programs — but some are not. And those children who do have private insurance coverage are often forced to pay high co-pays for routine procedures, and are frequently denied authorization for recommended medical care.

Every day in the United States, children with autism or cerebral palsy are denied occupational therapy. Children with juvenile diabetes are denied insulin pumps. Children with asthma are denied inhalers. American parents of children with chronic health conditions must fight a tangled bureaucratic health insurance system constantly to make sure that their kids can get access to the care recommended by their doctors.

And that's why the National Down Syndrome Congress supports health insurance reform. That's why the Autism Society of America supports health insurance reform. That's why Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, the American Diabetes Association, and the March of Dimes all support health care insurance reform. Because all of these organizations are advocates for children with special needs.

Abortion and Health Reform: What the Bills Actually Say

I've been reading – from the Washington Post to Time to really awesome blogs – that abortion is going to derail health reform.

I’d like to call a time-out and explain what is actually included in the legislation, both House and Senate versions. The amount of hysteria over health reform generally, and women’s reproductive health in particular, is alarming. What we need are some facts. And, of course, we need for women’s reproductive health not to be the sacrificial lamb. Again.

So, onto some facts...

House version: The House version does not contain the word abortion.

The House version had to be approved by three committees: Education and Labor, Ways and Means, and Energy and Commerce. During debate on the bill before Ways and Means, Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) tried to amend the bill to prohibit coverage for abortion services except in cases of life endangerment, rape, or incest. His amendment failed, 19-22.

When Energy and Commerce took up the bill, an amendment by Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-PA), would have prohibited abortion coverage except in cases of life endangerment, or forcible rape or incest. Forcible rape or incest? Are there other kinds? And what is forcible anyway? Do bruises count or would you need broken bones? Anyway, his ridiculously offensive amendment failed, 29-30. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) offered a similar amendment – sans "forcible" – that also failed, 27-31.

Go Watch It: White House Pushes Back Against Health Reform Myths

In this new YouTube video released by the White House, White House Health Reform Office Communications Director Linda Douglass succintly addresses the false internet rumor that President Obama plans to eliminate private health insurance coverage and force everyone to join a public health insurance plan.



I hope this video is only the beginning of a Major Health Insurance Reform Rumor Beatdown, MythBusters style. There are plenty of myths circulating about the Democrats' health insurance reform plan that could use a good solid debunking straight from Pennsylvania Avenue.

The insurance industry spin machine is working overtime to confuse the public about what the government is actually planning in an attempt to scare American citizens into opposing health insurance reform — the health industry lobby is spending over a million dollars a day trying to prevent the government from passing a meaningful reform bill.
 
And Republicans, so determined to see the President's centerpiece initiative fail that they've openly declared they hope health reform will be his Waterloo, are actually going so far with their lies about health reform legislation that they have outrageously, falsely claimed the President and Democrats in Congress want to encourage the elderly to commit suicide. (This is not true. Repeat, not true. Read the link already.)

The White House, unfortunately, will have to work overtime too just to stay on top of manufactured rumors like these if they want health reform to succeed. This video is a good start.

August 4, 2009: Happy Birthday, President Obama

Would you pay $5 to say, SHUT UP FOREVER ABOUT THE BIRTHER THING? How about $10? I just did.

There's a section of Wingnuttialand peopled by those who believe our president is not a citizen of the United States of America--the very nation whose Constitution he swore to uphold, whose domestic and foreign policy he shapes, and the nation he represents to the world. You know, the country whose approximately 60 million inhabitants of voting age and the Electoral College actually elected him to office. Wingnuttians instead believe that Obama's a Kenyan citizen by virtue of his father's having started and ended his life there after immigrating to the US and fathering Barack Obama.

Well, that's crazy. And xenophobic. With dollops of racism swirled in.

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!

Go Watch It: Rep. Anthony Weiner on Government-Run Health Care

New York Congressman Anthony Weiner gave Republicans in the House the chance to put their votes where their mouths are on government-run health insurance plans Thursday by introducing an amendment to eliminate our best-known government-run health care program, Medicare, and inviting them to vote yes.

"I double dare you. Vote yes on it," he said. "And then go home and explain to your constituents how you're so philosophically opposed to publicly-funded health care that you voted to eliminate Medicare on its 44th anniversary."



Unsurprisingly, the House Republicans did not take Representative Weiner up on his challenge. The amendment to repeal Medicare did not pass.

Conservative Shadowboxing on Sonia Sotomayor

This week's Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor closed Thursday, not so much with a bang, but a whimper, with the confirmation committee's ranking Republican member Senator Jeff Sessions going so far as to say to the judge, "I will not support and I don't think any member of this side will support a filibuster or any attempt to block a vote on your nomination. I look forward to you getting that vote before we recess in August."

Sessions' remarks were a fitting coda to match Republican Senator Lindsay Graham's statement during opening remarks on the first day of the hearings, "Unless you have a complete meltdown, you are going to get confirmed." But Republican politicians and conservative pundits managed to fit quite a show of political theater in between.

For a nominee who is apparently almost guaranteed to be confirmed, and may even garner a few Republican votes, Judge Sonia Sotomayor has faced quite a gauntlet of unfounded accusations by conservatives this week. Here are a few of the talking points most frequently aimed against her:

Tea party conservatives latch onto GOP fear-mongering tactics, and manufacture car and highway fund troubles

Why would Henry Lamb want General Motors to fail? Why would conservatives attack GPS? Why would conservatives want US citizens to fear the government is watching them through their cars?

Because it incites fear, an emotion that has carried conservatives to victory many times over. Except I wearied of the Orwellian call to collapse in a paranoid state of shock onto a fainting couch a while back, and I hope I can count on my fellow Americans to do the same: think logically, ignore fear-mongering, and research emotional scare stories. Then decide for yourself whether you support it, and if you don't make sure you can back another solution.

We've got problems, and we need solutions.

The most recent Huddle 'Round the Campfire Scare Story hit my inbox today, and after a tsunami of similar, I was motivated to take this one on, but understand, it's really my personal criticism and deconstruction of the plethora of anti-government, get rid of taxes scare tactic divisive insanity that I've simply lost all patience for.

So let's start with the story by Henry Lamb, the founder and former executive director of Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO) and chairman of Sovereignty International. He is also a columnist for the conservative website WorldNetDaily. (Go research those to understand what they are and what they stand for. Don't assume based on the names.)