NanceGreggs’s Journal: Nance Rants – Let Me See If I’ve Got This ‘RIGHT’ …

A must read.

Defense attorneys outraged as terror case switches to fraud

So because one is brown, buying cellphones (admittedly in bulk for a legal purpose) is fraud? Somebody is definitely trying to cover their ass.

Linkages:

FBI: No terror ties to men in cell phone arrest

Phone buying is a big business

Rape victim denied morning-after pill

A Good Samaritan Hospital emergency room doctor refused to give a rape victim a morning-after pill because he said it was against his Mennonite religion.

Really? Funny. The Hippocratic Oath does NOT give a doctor the right to force his belief system on to someone who is need of help. The woman had been traumatized enough and to be forced to go to another city just to get the drug so she wouldn’t have the additonal worry about pregnancy is not right.
Of course the oh so enlightened ones in Congress wish to do anything to further their aims of outlawing abortion from preventing a woman from easily obtaining a legal prescription drug (Plan B) to making it difficult for a minor to have an abortion.

Then of course they cut out funding for services that could help those women, like insurance coverage, food stamps, even subsidized day-care and job training.

If they were so concerned about children, how about this?

Help women raise better families-Healthcare, job training so they can work at something other than low paying jobs, a living wage so they can support their families, subsidized day-care that is trustworthy so they can work without worrying about their children.

Dear Elected Officials in Washington DC.

Kindly remember on this, America’s birthday, that there was a piece of paper signed (technically, but y’all are all about the technical), that declared the United States free from monarchy. Please do not try to make us a monarchy again. We’ve already had experience with a tyrant, determining taxes and abrogating rights, we do not need another.
Remember, you are elected. That means you are chosen by the American people to follow THEIR will, not make the public follow yours. The state of your employment, for yes you are employed by the people as representatives of the government, is at will, renewable in cycles determined by yet another piece of paper.
I believe, as an American citizen, that you seem to treat the public as sheep to be led about by the nose. I humbly and respectfully call bullshit.
There is a illegal war going on, wasting precious dollars that could be used to improve the public’s standard of living. Unemployment/difficulty in finding employment that pays enough to live on is a problem. Occupying a country without any evidence of terrorist activities/weapons is a problem. Having citizens go without insurance or medical attention because their job doesn’t pay enough to cover that plus housing plus transportation plus food and clothing is a problem. Not raising the minimum wage $2 per hour but giving yourselves a $3000/year raise (for what may I ask? You have excellent insurance and a guaranteed pension.) Cost of living? Bah. A $100 check to everybody in America does NOT constitute a cost of living increase in wages. or even covers the cost of increased gas prices.

Worrying about illegal immigration, WMDs, gay marriage and flag burning does not help the country. Improving the lot of the working class-you know the ones who build your houses, clean your houses, build your cars, take care of your children, etc.-would do wonders.

A few ideas to ponder:

• A Living wage for the minimum wage. Where people could afford housing, a decent car/transportation, food and health insurance and still have money left over each paycheck.
• Fix the bloody mess in Iraq. We have Saddam Hussein in custody and there are NO WMDs anywhere in Iraq, yet we seem to be making Iraq into a client state.
• Instead of revoking Roe vs Wade, why not teach the children that birth control is good in any form, be it condoms or the pill or even the morning after pill.
• Medicine in and of itself does not have morals. It is those who use it that attach moral weight to drugs. Thus, pharmacists do not have the right to deny somebody a LEGALLY prescribed drug merely because of ethical/moral beliefs. If they do have a problem, well, help the patient find another pharmacist who WILL fill their prescription.
• Find a way to wean ourselves off of foreign oil. That does not mean drill in ANWR or more oil rigs in the Gulf. It means funding research to find new sources of energy like finding a practical, cost effective method of refining hydrogen, or a cheaper way of manufacturing solar panels that can power entire houses. Wind power is a good idea in many areas as well.
• Bowing to big corpoartions like the telecoms and media companies regarding the Internet and copyrights versus fair use and network neutrality and the American public does NOT work. The Internet is supposed to be an easy way to communicate with others over long distances, not a goldmine for companies who want to control what people see, do or hear.

In conclusion, I and many other citizens and residents of America request that y’all get your heads out your asses and do your job that we elected you to do and not whatever you seem to want to do.

Signed,

A Loyal American Citizen

Homeland Security panel boss urges criminal charges against newspapers

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee urged the Bush administration on Sunday to seek criminal charges against newspapers that reported on a secret financial-monitoring program used to trace terrorists.Rep. Peter King cited The New York Times in particular for publishing a story last week that the Treasury Department was working with the CIA to examine messages within a massive international database of money-transfer records.

Treason for doing their duty? Hmph. Somebodythinks that to be loyal to the US means to to not say a thing if the government does something illegal.

(link found via BoingBoing)

Daily Kos: Small Group of Republicans Hijack Renewal of the Voting Rights Act

Some Republicans need to lay down the crack pipe, because good grief!   

I saw that on the news last night and I about blew up. I have a 5 year old daughter and if some bastard did that to my baby, I would cheerfully castrate his ass. Sixty YEARS ain't nearly enough, let alone sixty days and some therapy. That poor child, who now has to contend with the thought she might run into her rapist again. The family, who has been traumatized enough, now has to suffer again because some dumbass of a judge who thinks that punishment doesn't work and that retribution isn't suitable in a court. Life in prison should be the MANDATORY sentence for ANYBODY who rapes a child or woman or murders somebody.

Everybody was jumping down Mr. Clinton's throat for getting a bj in office and I'm not hearing any moral outrage about domestic spying? I'm hearing things on the blogs and not very much on the MSM (checks CNN and MSNBC, nope not a peep, NYTimes, yeppers , here it is a brief article on the Spying program.

I think that it is time for Mr. Fitzgerald to some some more digging and indictments, starting with Mr. Bush.

I've been reading about the New York City transit strike and I think that yes one should say I'm tired of working like a dog and not having anything for when I'm old and can't work anymore. Are those lovely people going to help support the retired transit workers who can't live on whatever MTA deems they should have? I don't think so, and the same goes for people working all over the country in union or non union jobs.

The whole point of having Social Security was to help supplement pensions and give a bit of something for those who lost pensions, not a sole means of support. But many companies expect that Social Security will cover their retiring workers when it isn't. The airline industry is having the same problems MTA is having-their pilots and other personnel want their pensions paid in full for the years they have worked.

The CEO's, though, THEIR pensions and bonuses are secure, while the rest of the workers have to make do on SS and low paying jobs and a severely depleted pension fund.

25 Questions About the Murder of New Orleans

I say everybody involved wasn't doing their jobs. It shouldn't have been such a nasty mess at all if the government from local to federal did the jobs they were supposed to and elected for by the citizens of New Orleans, and Lousiana.

(via BlondeSense)