I'm up early and although I tried to convince myself to go back to sleep, I am sitting at a computer, watching porn and surfing the web. The porn is research of course, and the web, well, the web is the most reliable source I have for information...or maybe the most unreliable, but whatever, it's my source.
So here's some of the YOU SHOULD BE AWARE OF THIS NEWS that I've received on the web the past few days:
In other sad news:
This is from the NY Times, and if I don't give you the parts of the article that I want you to read, by the time you read this - you may have to actually pay their damn site to access it..so instead, I've given you the cake, the plate and the fork. In other words, it's all here for you, and I have no idea why I decided to use that metaphor, except I seem to always use lame metaphors.
November 20, 2021
Negotiators Add Abortion Clause to Spending Bill
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and CARL HULSE
WASHINGTON, Saturday, Nov. 20 - House and Senate negotiators have tucked a potentially far-reaching anti-abortion provision into a $388 billion must-pass spending bill, complicating plans for Congress to wrap up its business and adjourn for the year.
The provision may be an early indication of the growing political muscle of social conservatives who provided crucial support for Republican candidates, including President Bush, in the election.
House officials said Saturday morning that the final details of the spending measure were worked out before midnight and that the bill was filed for the House vote on Saturday.
(Which, as an FYI it passed. From the LA Times: Congress, in one of its final acts of the year, on Saturday approved a massive spending bill that tightened the government's purse strings in response to a burgeoning federal budget deficit. The House approved the $388-billion measure, then the Senate followed suit in a postelection push to wind up the business of the lame-duck 108th Congress.)
The abortion language would bar federal, state and local agencies from withholding taxpayer money from health care providers that refuse to provide or pay for abortions or refuse to offer abortion counseling or referrals. Current federal law, aimed at protecting Roman Catholic doctors, provides such "conscience protection'' to doctors who do not want to undergo abortion training. The new language would expand that protection to all health care providers, including hospitals, doctors, clinics and insurers.
"It's something we've had a longstanding interest in," said Douglas Johnson, a spokesman for the National Right to Life Committee. He added, "This is in response to an orchestrated campaign by pro-abortion groups across the country to use government agencies to coerce health care providers to participate in abortions."
The provision could affect millions of American women, according to Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, who warned Friday that she would use procedural tactics to slow Senate business to a crawl if the language was not altered.
The spending measure, called an omnibus bill, was the main reason Congress returned to Washington after the election.
The 11th-hour controversy over the abortion language capped a long and chaotic day Friday. In the House, the ethics committee ruled that a Democratic lawmaker had brought exaggerated charges against Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the majority leader, a finding that provoked another round of bitter recriminations between Republicans and Democrats.
Outside the Senate chamber, the common ground Mr. Daschle spoke of seemed hard to find. House and Senate negotiators were still trying to salvage a reorganization of the nation's intelligence agencies. And Ms. Boxer was trying to negotiate changes to the abortion language, she said, with little success.
Louise Melling, director of the Reproductive Freedom Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, which has opposed the provision, said it would effectively strip states of their right to "enforce laws that were designed to protect women's health."
For instance, she said, there are four states - Hawaii, Maryland, New York and Washington - that pay for some abortions for low-income women through their Medicaid programs. Under the language included in the omnibus bill, hospitals would not have to comply with those requirements.
On Friday, nine female senators - eight Democrats and one Republican, Olympia J. Snowe of Maine - wrote a letter to Senator Stevens asking that the language be changed and complaining that it had not gone through committee or to the Senate floor for a vote. Ms. Snowe called the language "a bad provision" that would "adversely affect reproductive health access for women across the country." She added, "It is an ill-advised policy that is clearly harmful to women."
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As I reread the parts of the article I chose to share with you I think, Holy fucking shit. It's happening sooner than I thought it would. But that's because I like to believe that everything will work out just they way I want it to. I guess I know after this election that nothing ever has to work out as it should, nothing ever has to...
And on a less serious note. Thanks to some friends, I found this site and now I know that after college I most definitely became a New Yorker. Not that I ever wasn't, but until I was 18 I was a suburban chick, and after 21, well, after 21 I became a full-fledged city girl.
You Know You're From New York City When... |
You say "the city" and expect everyone to know that this means Manhattan. You have never been to the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. You can get into a four-hour argument about how to get from Columbus Circle to Battery Park at 3:30 on the Friday before a long weekend, but can't find Wisconsin on a map. Hookers and the homeless are invisible. The subway makes sense. You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multi-lingual. You've considered stabbing someone just for saying "The Big Apple". The most frequently used part of your car is the horn. You call an 8' x 10' plot of patchy grass a yard. You consider Westchester "upstate". You think Central Park is "nature." You see nothing odd about the speed of an auctioneer's speaking. You're paying $1,200 for a studio the size of a walk-in closet and you think it’s a "steal." You've been to New Jersey twice and got hopelessly lost both times. You pay more each month to park your car than most people in the U.S. pay in rent. You haven't seen more than twelve stars in the night sky since you went away to camp as a kid. You go to dinner at 9 and head out to the clubs when most Americans are heading to bed. Your closet is filled with black clothes. You haven't heard the sound of true absolute silence since the 80s, and when you did, it terrified you. You pay $5 without blinking for a beer that cost the bar 28 cents. You take fashion seriously. Being truly alone makes you nervous. You have 27 different menus next to your telephone. Going to Brooklyn is considered a "road trip." America west of the Hudson is still theoretical to you. You've gotten jaywalking down to an art form. You take a taxi to get to your health club to exercise. Your idea of personal space is no one actually standing on your toes. $50 worth of groceries fit in one paper bag. You have a minimum of five "worst cab ride ever" stories. You don't notice sirens anymore. You live in a building with a larger population than most American towns. Your doorman is Russian, your grocer is Korean your deli man is Israeli, your building super is Italian, your laundry guy is Chinese, your favorite bartender is Irish, your favorite diner owner is Greek, the watchseller on your corner is Senegalese, your last cabbie was Pakistani, your newsstand guy is Indian and your favorite falafel guy is Egyptian. You're suspicious of strangers who are actually nice to you. You secretly envy cabbies for their driving skills. You think $7.00 to cross a bridge is a fair price. Your door has more than three locks. Your favorite movie has DeNiro in it. You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression. You run when you see a flashing "Do Not Walk" sign at the intersection. You're 35 years old and don't have a driver's license. You ride in a subway car with no air conditioning just because there are seats available. You're willing to take in strange people as roommates simply to help pay the rent. There is no North and South. It's uptown or downtown. When you're away from home, you miss "real" pizza and "real" bagels. You know the differences between all the different Ray's Pizzas. *Adding my own two cents here, the best Rays is the famous Rays on 11th St. and 6th Ave. It is the only Rays that makes my mouth salivate just by thinking about the pizza You're not in the least bit interested in going to Times Square on New Year's Eve. Your internal clock is permanently set to know when Alternate Side of the Street parking regulations are in effect. You know what a bodega is. You know how to fold the New York Times in half, vertically, so that you can read it on the subway or bus without knocking off other passenger's hats. Someone bumps into you, and you check for your wallet..... You cringe at hearing people pronounce Houston St. like the city in Texas Film crews on your block annoy you, not excite you. |
because sex matters...