Women Making History

March is women's history month. An annual tribute that sprang up in the seventies when women in history were first noticed and studied.

Women Making History:

Ruth Bader Ginsberg ~ The Notorious RBG

Ruth Bader Ginsberg, now 84 years old, has had a career spanning her life time. In her role as lead counsel for the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, Ginsburg believed the most effective way to achieve lasting results was to pick cases that were winnable and would set precedents that would chip away at the legal barriers imposed on women. "Not all feminist issues should be litigated now," she cautioned in the early '70s, "because some are losers, given the current political climate, and could set back our efforts to develop favorable law." In this way, bit by bit, Ginsburg set out to construct an unshakeable legal foundation for women’s equality, which would hold until society was ready to pass a more sweeping measure—say, an Equal Rights Amendment—explicitly banning gender discrimination. Ginsburg’s slow and steady approach drew the ire of some feminists who felt the ACLU wasn’t being bold enough.

Sandra Day O'Connor was the first woman ever appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsberg was the second woman appointed. With no end in sight. Justice Bader Ginsberg has said on many occasions that she has no plans to retire any time soon.

On May 4, a documentary about Justice Bader Ginsberg's life and career will open at selected theatres.

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Emma Watson

We first head of Emma Watson at a young age for her portrayal of the brainy Hermione Granger in the widely beloved Harry Potter film series. Quite the overachiever herself, Watson earned her degree in English literature from Brown University in 2014 and later that year, was appointed UN Women Goodwill Ambassador. Her dedicated work for women’s rights around the globe includes acting as advocate for the UN’s HeForShe solidarity campaign, which encourages men and boys to be agents of change in the fight for gender equality. She has also spent time in Zambia and Bangladesh to promote education for girls and served as an ambassador for Camfed International, a nonprofit dedicated to eliminating rampant poverty in Africa through the empowerment of women. Just 25 years old today, Watson is destined to have an inspiring and productive career ahead of her.  

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Val Demings, Hometown Hero

In 2007, Val Demings made history when she became the first female chief of police in Orlando, Fla. and decreased the department's crime rate by 40 percent. After retiring from police work in 2011, Demings decided to run for Congress and won in the 2016 election.

Recently at a CNN Town Hall on gun policy, Florida Senator Marco Rubio publicly supported “gun violence restraining orders.” He previously backed the idea and. U.S. Rep. Val Demings (Orlando, FL), a former police chief, is a cosponsor of the Gun Violence Restraining Order Act.

The act would set up procedures by which families can ask a local court to prevent a loved one from owning a firearm, if the court finds that the individual poses a risk of injury to themselves or others. Senator Nelson also backs the idea. The bill has 60 cosponsors in the U.S. House. However, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives has refused to move the bill forward.

At the town hall Senator Rubio said, “I've already announced ... a concept called a gun violence restraining order that allows authorities -- and it has to be someone in your immediate family, it has to be somebody you live with, it has to be a parent, it has to be an administrator -- can go to authorities and allow someone to not just be prevented from purchasing any firearm and allow those to be taken from them -- and the person will have due process…I support that and I hope they will pass that.”

And, Rep. Demings said, “I’m glad that Senator Rubio has supported this common-sense idea. Families are our first line of defense. If something is wrong, it is nearly always a loved one who notices first. The mother of the Parkland shooter called police dozens of times about her son. If this law had been in place, law enforcement officers might have been able to take the shooter’s guns before he could use them on our children. I urge Senator Rubio to put his words into action and push his GOP colleagues to bring this proposal up for a vote.”

I honor these women and so many others who are working daily to promote gender equality.

Who do you admire?

Net Neutrality - Submit your Comments to the FCC

Friends-

I just submitted a comment to the Federal Communications Commission in support of Net Neutrality. We only have a few hours left to stand up for Net Neutrality before the FCC's current comment period closes.

The important email below is from the groups behind the new Battle for the Net website -- it explains how you can take action too.

Please read on and join me in taking a stand!

Just a few hours to go. That’s how long we have to get pro-Net Neutrality comments submitted to the FCC in front of their first comment period deadline — and save the Internet from the clutches of Comcast, Time Warner, and their ilk.

Let’s make our power clear, by submitting more comments than the FCC’s ever seen before.

Click here to visit our brand new website and send the FCC a formal comment demanding support for Net Neutrality. It’ll only take a minute:

https://www.battleforthenet.com

We're in a battle to for the Internet as we know it. Net Neutrality guarantees all websites — start-ups, blogs, independent media — an even playing field. It’s essentially the First Amendment of the Internet.

But the cable companies want to gut Net Neutrality to increase their profits: Without Net Neutrality, those corporations can kill websites by relegating them to slow lanes if they don’t pay fees — or if they just don’t like the content they contain.

Many of you have already signed petitions to the FCC or President Obama — and so have literally millions of others. That’s incredible — and it’s had a huge impact. But now we all need to go one step further and submit formal comments into the FCC’s Net Neutrality proceeding.

It’s really quick and easy, and carries way more weight than the usual petition signature does. You’ll be a formal part of the process.

Click here to submit a formal comment to the FCC before the end of this comment period — it’s over TODAY:

https://www.battleforthenet.com

Originally the FCC was poised to undermine Net Neutrality all together. Because we all pushed back, now they’re considering adopting rules that would save it.

But they’ll only do so if we speak out again, even louder.

We can make a huge statement: We have a chance of submitting more comments than the FCC has ever received on an issue before.

The cable companies have millions of dollars and armies of lobbyists and public relations firms -- and since they own so much of the communications infrastructure, it's especially easy for them to push their propaganda.

But we have millions of people on our side — and our only chance of beating the cable companies is if we all take a stand, together.

Click here to visit our brand new website and send the FCC a formal comment demanding support for Net Neutrality. It’ll only take a minute:

https://www.battleforthenet.com

Thanks!

Be Ever Vigilant in 2014

Mainstream media's steady drum beat -- the economy has recovered – the Great Recession is over.. Unemployment is down. Home sales are up. GDP is expanding. In 1995, the Atlantic Monthly online published an article titled - “If the GDP is Up, Why is America Down?”Good question then, an even better question now.

GDP – Gross Domestic Product – is the primary indicator of economic well being. GDP measures all economic activity of a given economy, the United States, for example. It is a clumsy method of measurement. Since GDP includes all economic activity, productive and destructive economic activity are added together and dumped in the same pot. Increased medical costs; ever larger law enforcement budgets; building more prisons; cigarette sales; alcohol sales; gambling; strip clubs; promotion of fast food and unhealthy foods; spending for deferred maintenance of infrastructure. Citizens are consumers. We are no longer producers. Everything is monetized. The things that families and communities do for each other, are never measured at all. The intangible, the free assistance, the neighbor to neighbor help is never included, never measured, never mentioned.

Unemployment – According to mainstream media Florida unemployment is at 6.4% - not bad. However, my sources tell me that the quality of the jobs is sub par. There are many part time workers, not out of choice, but because part time work is all they could find. Others are underemployed, college graduates working at low level jobs, because that's all there was available. If you don't have a connection, a relative who owns a business or can influence hiring it's tough. Hardest hit are the twenty somethings who are now competing with older more experienced workers for the same low paying job. And don't forget all those who have given up hope of ever finding work, and rely on their family, government, or the underground economy to support themselves.

Housing Market – According to mainstream media, the Florida housing market has recovered; or at the very least is well on its way to recovery. There is a shortage of inventory (that's houses). Interest rates are low. Around two thirds of home buyers pay cash. However, there is a second side to each and every one of these statements. The inventory shortage is caused by the lack of new construction due to the lack of demand; and foreclosed and bank owned homes that were allowed to deteriorate after the homeowners left. Cash is king in home buying, and much of the cash is foreign cash. Even Florida residents with good credit who easily qualify for a new mortgage are edged out by a cash buyer. And interest rates are still low, Except for government backed loan programs like FHA and VA, home buyers need a credit score of at least 620. For some people, a 620 credit score may be easy to achieve, however, many people took a credit score beating due to job loss, causing a domino effect to their personal finances. And although, as the Miami Herald reported in August 2013, that new foreclosure filings were down in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, but auction notices and bank repossessions were up. More people out of their homes.

My post on this blog – Civil Indigent Status – Florida - – has had more traffic by far, than any of my other posts. Likewise, of the top ten keywords used to reach www.faldp.org – six of them included indigent or indigent status as part of the key word. Our world financial crisis is far from over, although there are pockets of improvement. I have high hopes for this year – and suggest that we all be vigilant. Look past the headlines, ask the questions, show compassion for others, and be ever vigilant in protecting you and yours from financial disaster.

Wall Street Owns the Country

Wall Street Owns The Country

A Speech by Mary Elizabeth Lease (circa 1890)

"This is a nation of inconsistencies. The Puritans fleeing from oppression became oppressors. We fought England for our liberty and put chains on four million of blacks. We wiped out slavery and our tariff laws and national banks began a system of white wage slavery worse than the first. Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master. The West and South are bound and prostrate before the manufacturing East. Money rules, and our Vice-President is a London banker. Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us. We were told two years ago to go to work and raise a big crop, that was all we needed. We went to work and plowed and planted; the rains fell, the sun shone, nature smiled, and we raised the big crop that they told us to; and what came of it? Eight-cent corn, ten-cent oats, two-cent beef and no price at all for butter and eggs-that's what came of it. The politicians said we suffered from overproduction. Overproduction, when 10,000 little children, so statistics tell us, starve to death every year in the United States, and over 100,000 shopgirls in New York are forced to sell their virtue for the bread their niggardly wages deny them... We want money, land and transportation. We want the abolition of the National Banks, and we want the power to make loans direct from the government. We want the foreclosure system wiped out... We will stand by our homes and stay by our fireside by force if necessary, and we will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the government pays its debts to us. The people are at bay; let the bloodhounds of money who dogged us thus far beware."

And so it goes ...