For DeLay, All A Matter of Timing

It almost seemed like part of a pre-holiday news dump, didn't it?  I mean, who didn't think that Tom DeLay was at best a sleazy pay-for-play kind of politician?  But when the news came down that he's been convicted on two felony counts and now faced the possibility of life in prison, well, for some of us, this seemed like Christmas in November.

And while I certainly don't have any sympathy for DeLay (and in fact would characterize my most generous emotion towards him as outright contempt), I do have to wonder if DeLay is in fact a victim of some terrible timing.

That's because the underlying conduct that got him convicted--funneling corporate money to candidates--is pretty much a-okay these days thanks to the Citizens United decision.  And that raises a whole host of interesting (and depressing) questions about the scope and impact of that decision, let alone the challenge our democracy now faces.

Because thanks to the Roberts Court, the very conduct that gave DeLay the opportunity to trade his dancing shoes for an orange jumpsuit is now not only acceptable it is enshrined as a constitutional right.  So when DeLay and his lawyers railed against the verdict as political payback I have to admit in some ways I agreed with him.  After all, by today's standards he was merely facilitating corporate political speech rights. 

That also raises the question of just whether or not the conviction will stick.  If I was DeLay's attorney you'd better believe I'd appeal this conviction, and continue to in hopes of getting it before a sympathetic Roberts Court where the case can be made that DeLay was not a felon but a man ahead of the times, a politician on the cutting edge of constitutional jurisprudence.

And that right there should be proof enough of just how damaging, just how disastrous, Citizens United really is.

 

GOP Fake 2010 "Census": Only Losers Cheat When They Can't Win Any Other Way

UPDATE as of June 8, 2010--see the coda to this story at the bottom of the page.

I'm sure there's a Very Brady Episode that taught the important life lesson: only losers cheat when they can't win any other way. That's certainly what occurred to me when my spouse was mailed this fake GOP "Census" about a month ago. (The accompanying letter signed by RNC Chair Michael Steele is dated March 26, 2010.) We'd already been sent our official 2010 U.S. Census materials and filled it out dutifully. So when we opened the non-profit franked envelope that said in big bold black letters, "DO NOT DESTROY OFFICIAL DOCUMENT," (Exhibit 1) we raised our eyebrows.

 

International Women's Day: Celebrate Women

It's International Women's Day. A day to honor women's impact on world history, further the cause of equal rights for women everywhere, and appreciate the women in our own families and communities who make important contributions to our daily lives.

So what are you doing to celebrate?

If you're still looking for something to do, you could hold a dinner party on behalf of the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood to raise awareness about the need to improve pregnant women's access to medical care. You could attend a local Join Women on the Bridge event on behalf of Women for Women, an non-profit organization that helps women in war-torn countries escape and recover from the cycle of violence.

You could watch influential women speakers discuss their world-changing work over at the TED blog, or visit WomenCount to read profiles of women running for public office. You could sign Change.org's petition to persuade Congress to pass the International Violence Against Women Act, a bill that would integrate U.N.-recommended measures to prevent violence against women into all U.S. foreign aid missions.

You could donate to organizations that work to empoyer impoverished women and girls, like CARE or Barefoot College. You could send your favorite women International Women's Day ecards through Care2 (and earn credits toward charitable donations that you can later direct to charities that assist women).

If you would like to join a group writing blog posts in honor of International Women's Day, you could join these events hosted by Gender Across Borders and Bloggers Unite.  

Or, you could tell us about the great International Women's Day events you've attended or read about, or point us toward great posts about International Women's Day here in our comment section.

Celebrate International Women's Day with the White Ribbon Alliance

The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood is an organization working to get women worldwide better access to lifesaving prenatal and childbirth care. Last year, on Mother's Day, we at MOMocrats encouraged our readers to share their own birth and adoption stories to promote the White Ribbon Alliance's Mother's Day Every Day initiative.

This year, we are hoping you will help us spread the word about a new WRA initiative, the White Ribbon Alliance Global Dinner Party. In honor of International Women's Day on March 8th, the White Ribbon Alliance is asking women around the world to hold dinner parties at their own homes and invite their friends to raise money and awareness to reduce maternal mortality. 

Details on the many ways you can participate and suggestions for making your own party a success are available at the WRA website in their Global Dinner Party Guide. If you are planning your own White Ribbon Alliance Global Dinner Party, let us know here in the comments. We'll feature the MOMocrats' own dinner parties — and link to other bloggers' posts about their Global Dinner Party events — in an upcoming post.

This Isn't About Ads Any More (Video Responses to Focus on the Family's CBS Super Bowl Ad)

As with many things that irritate, Focus on the Family's "pro-life" ad has gotten under the skin of a lot of people--people who prefer their sports politics-free, people who are pro-choice, and people who like their gay selves, siblings, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and parents just fine the way they are.

Can't go without mentioning the Planned Parenthood ad:

There's the spicier Raging Grannies ad (women after our own hearts who TOTALLY GET IT):

And now there's an ad making fun of the Focus on the Family's particular brand of right-wing Christian homophobia:

While these are all alternately touching, hilarious, and snarky, it's not about the ads any more. It's about a right-wing religious organization that's funded to the tune of $112,000,000 and chronically UNDERFUNDED pro-choice organizations. That's why MOMocrats launched this Tailgate for Choice campaign.

If we say we support choice and enjoy reproductive rights, then let's walk the walk with even a small donation to the organizations that protect those rights for us and provide needed services to women.

Cynematic needs more hours in the day. Period. She also ignores her personal blog, P i l l o w b o o k.

MOMocrats' Super Bowl Tailgate for Choice: You're Invited!

The MOMocrats are throwing a “Tailgate for Choice,” and we're inviting 
men and women who support reproductive rights to shout it
 with your dollars on Super Bowl Sunday!

If you’re attending or hosting a Superbowl party when the Focus on the 
Family tv ad comes on, use it to prompt you to donate at least $5 online to your 
favorite pro-choice organization. (See the list and take the pledge after the jump.)

That way, right-wing 
religious fundamentalists interested in making their narrow values everyone 
else’s values will instead have spent $2.5 million on A GIANT PRO-CHOICE AD.

Even if you’re not at a Super Bowl party—or even if the ad gets pulled—on Sunday, February 7, 2010, make a donation to keep choice safe and 
accessible for women. 'Cuz uteruses aren't political footballs.

The Season of Giving

A terrific blogger, Alias Mother, is doing a blog-link-y thing where she's writing about her favorite charities and encouraging readers to do the same.

To that end, a couple of MOMocrats will be posting about our favorites charities - ones that help women and their families - in the coming weeks.

APOPO - HeroRat
Apopo was founded in the 1990s and it works with rats. Special rats. Rats that detect land mines. Following the long civil war, many areas of Mozambique were virtually uninhabitable due to heavy mining -- children cannot play in open areas for fear they will lose a limb or worse.

The rats find the landmines (they find scent from the TNT) but aren't heavy enough to set off the mine. The mine then can be removed or detonated. And, just in case you think this sounds...odd...keep in mind that the rats passed official licensing tests according to IMAS standards under supervision of the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD).

You can watch a great video about the rats from PBS/Frontline here

UNIJECT
PATH, a non-profit with offices in Seattle and DC/MD, is devoted to improving the lives of women worldwide. To that end, they created Uniject.

Uniject can be used my minimally-trained people to deliver vaccines (Hep B, mostly) and drugs to prevent postpartum hemorrhage. It is single use, so helps lessen the worry about proper sterilization and transmission of HIV/AIDS.

Again, a great video is here.

My husband and I are tremendously lucky that our daughter will never have to run a gauntlet of land mines to attend school. And while childbirth carries risk, the likelihood that I or any woman in the first world would die from postpartum hemorrhage is infinitesimal compared to women in the developing world. And we won't lose our daughter to neonatal tetanus, a major killer in areas without access to vaccines.

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.

Unite for Hunger and Hope

Bloggers Unite and Heifer International have teamed up to raise awareness about world hunger today with the Unite for Hunger and Hope project. Bloggers Unite invites bloggers everywhere to join the effort and write a post about world hunger.

Previously on MOMocrats.com, we have featured several organizations that fight hunger and poverty both in developing countries and here in the United States:

Share our Strength fights childhood hunger in the U.S. by raising public awareness about hunger, organizing fundraisers, and awarding grants to hunger organizations and food pantries. MOMocrats partnered with Quaker Oats last year help to raise money for Save our Strength. 

Meds and Food for Kids is an organization that saves children from starvation in Haiti, one of the countries hit hardest by last year's spike in global food prices, by providing families with nutitional supplements created using locally grown ingredients; the group also teaches the local Hatian farmers who provide ingredients for their product new and better agricultural techniques and food safety methods. MOMocrats interviewed the founder of Meds and Food for Kids, Dr. Patricia Wolff, last December. 

Unicef also fights childhood hunger and poverty worldwide; in January, MOMocrats interviewed Dr. Brandao Co, UNICEF's chief of nutrition in Afghanistan, a country where agricultural production has been devastated by two decades of war, and current conflict makes it difficult for agencies to move food and medical supplies to the communities that need them. 

You can help fight world hunger by joining today's Bloggers Unite event, by donating to or writing about one of the organizations listed above, or by donating nonperisable items to your nearest food pantry.

Portland, OR: Emergency Volunteer Action Event for Jeff Merkley's Senate Race

All ya gotta do is show up at Merkley's campaign HQ tomorrow evening at six-ish.  Okay, fine.  6 p.m. sharp.  (Oy.  You'd think Sarah Palin had invaded my typing.  Actually, *I'm* beginning to suspect it.  November 5 cannot arrive too soon, people.  I've heard enough G-drops to last me a good, long while.)

(At least I didn't wink atcha after.  See?  These things matter.  Also?  I'm making myself cringe.)

Details:

Democracy for America is holding Emergency Volunteer Action events for endorsed candidate Jeff Merkley

The race is tied and DFA members can make a real impact on the race! Join me:

Wednesday, October 22nd at 6:00 p.m.
DFA Emergency Volunteer Action for Jeff Merkley
Portland Office
3016 SE Division
Portland, Oregon 97202

Can't make it Wednesday? Sign-up to volunteer:
http://democracyforamerica.com/electmerkley

Please contact me if you have any questions:
Adam Quinn, 406-431-9770 or aquinn@democracyforamerica.com

With your help Jeff will win! Thank you for all you do.

So I'll see you there, right?  You're coming?  Because if Jeff takes the gold, er, beats Gordon Smith, we're that much closer to a 60-seat majority.  Filibuster-proof.   (Those latter words make my fingers tingle, they're so awesome pushed all close together like that.)  (Also, sorry about the Olympics reference.  I kind of missed the boat on that one.  When everyone else was watching people do crazy stuff like swim really fast and throw big-ass rocks over their shoulders and lob spears at some random marker this summer, I was -- reading political blogs.  Prepping for the DNC.  Looks like I'm not quite as patriotic as I thought.  Maybe I'm not a real American?)

(Oh!, and my favorite part of Jeff Merkley snatching the victory, er, winning the seat: Gordon Smith can no longer claim he's a Senator.  Just landed gentry the owner of a vegetable-packing plant that employees illegal immigrants.  Which makes my fingers tingle, too.

Maybe I need to have the finger-tingle-thing looked at.)

Won't be able to volunteer?  You're still welcome to donate to the campaign.