A Reason to Vote in Nebraska

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky said this week that FEMA is ineffective. This is a perfect example of how selfish and greedy these kinds of republicans are. If the money isn't going to tax cuts or millionaires, it's ineffective. 

Everyone PLEASE get to the polls next week. Living in Nebraska, we have the ability to split our Electoral College votes so a democratic vote DOES count here! Don't let these 'fend for yourself' republicans win. Just think of what would have happened to the hurricane victims if people like THIS were running FEMA.

VOTE

Things that make me angry:

Knowing that so little of my friends and family vote.
When people try to make me feel badly about paying attention to politics and the news.
When I'm looked at as 'less fun' because I can explain what's going on in the world.
When someone who doesn't read or clearly has no idea what they're talking about cannot admit that they are wrong or change their views with new information.

Some say that we shouldn't vote because nothing ever changes.  They also say that one side isn't better than the other because they're all liars and crooks.  I say that there is one thing more damaging to us than all of this divisiveness and that is complacency.  I can guarantee you that if everyone took the time to pay attention, to understand, to communicate, and then to VOTE, this world would be a much better place.  We would change things from the bottom-up instead of being controlled from the top-down.  Elections matter.  Isn't that what having a democracy is really all about? 

An Open Letter to the Republican Congress

Dear Congress,

    I was just informed that you'd like to take the summer off.  I have just a couple issues with this and wanted to take the time to address that with you.  First, you've said in the past that teachers do not deserve the pay they get because they get time off in the summer.  I'd like to know why it is okay for you to make several times the amount that teachers make as well as getting the same time off. 
   Second, how do you expect to put the American people back to work when you are in fact, not working?  I don't think it's possible. What happened to having the 'dignity of work'?
   Third, I work for a corporation and if I decided to take the summer off when I was scheduled to work, my boss would say two words to me.  "You're Fired."  You seem to be in love with corporate America but still want the same cushy government benefits that you vilify public workers for having.  I guess it's okay if you're a republican?  I wonder how you would react if someone tried to take those benefits away from you?  Hopefully your bosses (the American people) will say those same two words to you in November.  Thank you for your time as I know it is very valuable. 

No Love,

Jill

Different is not Bad

I have been seeing and hearing a lot of 'Speak English or get the hell out of my country" sentiments lately and I would like to comment on that. 

I would like to remind everyone that this land we live on was not yours to begin with.  Remember that whole slaughter thing we started?  'Whites' were the original immigrants and not all them spoke English either.  (Polish, Czech, Russian, French, etc.)   While immigration reform is certainly a political issue and rightly so, it is also a human issue and that's what I'll be focusing on here.  "Go back to the shit hole country you came from" is something you are not just posting on a website, it is something you are saying about a PERSON.  PEOPLE speak Spanish and other languages.  PEOPLE take the jobs you won't take.  ASSUMING that just because someone speaks another language they are here illegally is just ignorant.  My advice to anyone who uses this kind of rhetoric or language is get it together and stop being such a bigot!  How can we ever unite as a country and deal with the real issues (income inequality, corporate/political corruption, the military/prison industrial complexes, etc.) if we are constantly being divided?  We are all PEOPLE and we have more power as a whole than we ever will apart. 

A Question for Mitt Romney

Recently on the Jay Leno Show, Mitt Romney said that people with pre existing conditions should not be able to get insurance coverage if they have not been consistently covered.  But that if they have had coverage consistently through other carriers, they should not be denied coverage.  Jay did a good job of following up on that statement, but no one asked this question.  If the Affordable Care Act allows a child to remain on their parent's insurance until the age of 26 and then required them to have coverage going forward through the individual mandate, wouldn't this solve the problem of a person not being insured until they were sick?  Wouldn't this mean that a person should conceivably be covered for their whole life?   Wouldn't that solve Mitt's 'hypothetical problem'?  But I guess that's a 'gotchya' question so it can't be asked to Mitt directly.