The picture of a sunny day.

positivelyindecent:

omfgcate:

suavereign:

They agreed they want to become a state, the House and Senate just need to approve it now.

we 51 states now

why isn’t this the biggest news of the night

51 stars brah

motherjones:

Oh, that? Just Oprah chilling with director Lee Daniels, along with Jane Fonda and Alan Rickman playing the Reagans. No big whoop.

(via)

WAIT.

Alan Rickman as Ronald Reagan?

…my ovaries just withered.

(via marrymejasonsegel)

Mitt Romney would restore ‘Anglo-Saxon’ relations between Britain and America - Telegraph

Apparently the President is too black to appreciate why it’s important for white people everywhere to band together and give a big “fuck you” to the rest of the world.

Somehow, I suspect that POC in the US and around the world have a far better understanding of the shared history of white hegemony, colonialism, imperialism, and genocide that Mitt Romney has such nostalgia for than Mitt could even hope to possess.

(via greaterthanlapsed)

(via existentialcrisisfactory)

stfuconservatives:

rabbleprochoice:

abaldwin360:

by Vyckie Garrison | Reality Check

When I moved to Canada in 2008, I was a die-hard conservative Republican. So when I found out that we were going to be covered by Canada’s Universal Health Care, I was somewhat disgusted. This meant we couldn’t choose our own health coverage, or even opt out if we wanted too. It also meant that abortion was covered by our taxes, something I had always believed was horrible. I believed based on my politics that government mandated health care was a violation of my freedom.

[…]

Fast forward a little past the Canadian births of my third and fourth babies. I had better prenatal care than I had ever had in the States. I came in regularly for appointments to check on my health and my babies’ health throughout my pregnancy, and I never had to worry about how much a test cost or how much the blood draw fee was. With my pregnancies in the States, I had limited my checkups to only a handful to keep costs down. When I went in to get the shot I needed because of my negative blood type, it was covered. In fact I got the recommended 2 doses instead of the more risky 1 dose because I didn’t have to worry about the expense. I had a wide array of options and flexibility when it came to my birth, and care providers that were more concerned with my health and the health of my baby than how much money they might make based on my birth, or what might impact their reputation best. When health care is universal, Drs are free to recommend and provide the best care for every patient instead of basing their care on what each patient can afford.

I found out that religious rights were still respected. The Catholic hospital in the area did not provide abortions, and they were not required too. I had an amazing medically safe birth, and excellent post-natal care with midwives who had to be trained, certified and approved by the medical system.

I started to feel differently about Universal government mandated and regulated Health care. I realized how many times my family had avoided hospital care because of our lack of coverage. When I mentioned to Canadians that I had been in a car accident as a teen and hadn’t gone into the hospital, they were shocked! Here, you always went to the hospital, just in case. And the back issue I had since the accident would have been helped by prescribed chiropractic care which would have been at no cost to me. When I asked for prayers for my little brother who had been burned in a camping accident, they were all puzzled why the story did not include immediately rushing him to the hospital. When they asked me to clarify and I explained that many people in the States are not insured and they try to put off medical care unless absolutely needed, they literally could not comprehend such a thing.

read more

This is a long read but worth it. A lot of Americans have huge misconceptions about socialized healthcare, and this article goes a long way in dispelling some of the myths.

I bolded my favorite parts but here are some other things from the article I liked:

In Canada, midwives and doctors were both respected, and often worked together. 

 

I never went to the doctor growing up, we didn’t have health insurance, and my parents preferred a conservative naturopathic doctor anyways. And the doctor I had used for my first 2 births was also a conservative Christian. So I had never seen information on birth control and STDs. One of the pamphlets read “Pregnant Unexpectedly?” so I picked it up, wondering what it would say. The pamphlet talked about adoption, parenthood, or abortion. It went through the basics of what each option would entail and ended by saying that these choices were up to you. I was horrified that they included abortion on the list of options, and the fact that the pamphlet was so balanced instead of “pro-life.” 

I started to wonder why I had been so opposed to government mandated Universal Health care. Here in Canada, everyone was covered. If they worked full-time, if they worked part-time, or if they were homeless and lived on the street, they were all entitled to the same level of care if they had a medical need. People actually went in for routine check-ups and caught many of their illnesses early, before they were too advanced to treat. People were free to quit a job they hated, or even start their own business without fear of losing their medical coverage. In fact, the only real complaint I heard about the universal health care from the Canadians themselves, was that sometimes there could be a wait time before a particular medical service could be provided. But even [..] in the States most people had to wait for medical care, or even be denied based on their coverage.

In Canada, the wait times were usually short, and applied to everyone regardless of wealth.

I never experienced excessive wait times, I was accepted for maternity care within a few days or weeks, I was able to find a family care provider nearby easily and quickly, and when a child needed to be brought in for a health concern I was always able to get an appointment within that week.

the percentage rates of abortion are far lower in Canada than they are in the USA, where abortion is not covered by insurance and is often much harder to get. In 2008 Canada had an abortion rate of 15.2 per 1000 women (In other countries with government health care that number is even lower), and the USA had an abortion rate of 20.8 abortions per 1000 women. And suddenly I could see why that was the case. With Universal coverage, a mother pregnant unexpectedly would still have health care for her pregnancy and birth even if she was unemployed, had to quit her job, or lost her job. 

If she was informed that she had a special needs baby on the way, she could rest assured knowing in Canada her child’s health care needs would be covered. Whether your child needs therapy, medicines, a caregiver, a wheelchair, or repeated surgeries, it would be covered by the health care system. Here, you never heard of parents joining the army just so their child’s “pre-existing” health care needs would be covered.

 In fact, when a special needs person becomes an adult in Canada, they are eligible for a personal care assistant covered by the government. We saw far more developmentally or physically disabled persons out and about in Canada, than I ever see here in the USA. They would be getting their groceries at the store, doing their business at the bank, and even working job, all with their personal care assistant alongside them, encouraging them and helping them when they needed it. When my sister came up to visit, she even commented on how visible special needs people were

I also discovered that the Canadian government looked out for it’s families in other ways. The country mandates one year of paid maternity leave, meaning a woman having a baby gets an entire year after the birth of her baby to recover and parent her new baby full-time, while still receiving 55% of her salary and their job back at the end of that year. Either parent can use the leave, so some split it, with one parent staying at home for 6 months and the other staying at home for 6 months.

Since all of these benefits are available to everyone, I never heard Canadians talking about capping their incomes to remain lower income and not lose their government provided health coverage. Older people in Canada don’t have to clean out their assets to qualify for some Medicare or Social Security programs,

God, just read the whole thing. It’s awesome.

Love,

Rabble

Whaaa? Universal healthcare isn’t evil? WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT

(via stfuconservatives)

If Sarah Palin Were Black (via azspot)

Just goes to show how far Palin’s whiteness can take her. Zero intellect, two high school drop-outs, an unwed teen mother, a quitter of the one major job she had. Master of hateful coded language targeting opponents as not “real Americans”. Belongs to a church outside of the mainstream. Still a top GOP candidate.

(via liberalsarecool)

Meanwhile, Michelle Obama, a Princeton and Harvard Law School graduate, lawyer, and university dean who made over $200K/year, gets called “ghetto” and a “welfare queen”.

(via squee-gee)

(via fuckyeahfeminists)

stopstopandfrisknyc:

“Consider that in 2011, the New York Police Department stopped 685,724 people.  87 percent of these suspects were black and Latino (although blacks and Latinos account for less than half of the city’s population).  The overwhelming majority of those stopped were innocent of any wrongdoing; 9 out of 10 were not arrested or given a ticket.  There were only 0.4 percent arrests for firearms possession.”

(via fuckyeahfeminists)

lacigreen:

fromonesurvivortoanother:

This was not an exaggeration. The government ignored the issue of HIV/AIDS for years before anything was done. Gay and Queer communities had to form their own clinics because no government agencies cared for them. Back then, being diagnosed was equivalent to a death sentence or extreme debt and poor quality of life/a significantly shortened lifespan.

Things got so desperate that people literally had “Die-Ins”— in contemporary usage this refers to masses of people simulating death in order to protest something (like the War in Iraq). In this case, however, fatally sick people would literally lie down in public places and protest with what little energy they had left until they died. There is some footage of a church Die-In in the documentary Beyond Stonewall.  The middle image here of that person’s jacket is not an extreme political statement; it’s what people had to do because they had no other options.

The horror of the AIDS epidemic gives me chills.  It was a truly despicable and inhumane period of inaction.

To learn more about the politics behind the 80s AIDS epidemic, check out And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts.

Rachel Maddow (via many-worlds)

Beautiful

(via peopledontalwayssuck)

I think I’m going to reblog this every day. The anxiety people I know feel about unforseen health problems is crippling, and the alternatives to the problematically dubbed “Obamacare” besides repealing it? Nothing whatsoever. What does it say about a political party that sees a situation profoundly effecting huge swaths of the population and offering nothing as a response?

(via invisiblelad)

(via dionthesocialist)

fuckyeahfeminists:

tortillachronicles:

rox-c-rox:

A breakdown of today’s SCOTUS decision on SB1070. SHARE the info! 

http://www.aclu.org/whats-stake-sb-1070-supreme-court-0

 ”The controversial “show me your papers” provision upheld by the Supreme Court has been blocked by lower courts in Arizona and the five copycat until now. As a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling, law enforcement in Arizona can now pull someone over and demand their “papers” if they suspect them of being here unlawfully. Discriminatory laws like SB 1070 invite racial profiling of Latinos and others who may look or sound “foreign,” including many U.S. citizens who have lived in America their entire lives.“—ACLU

Also, if anyone is interested: SCOTUS Decision Brief PDF

ALSO: The Justice Dept has established hotline & email to track civil rights violations w/ AZ immigration law: 855-353-1010 & SB1070@usdoj.gov. Spread the word!

dibin:

The English Defence League’s planned ‘celebration’ of its three years of existence turned sour as they were outnumbered by antifascists in Luton on Saturday 5 May.

The EDL claims Luton as its home town, but only around 800 or so supporters turned out for a rally held behind a huge steel fence that degenerated as drunken thugs – who had been allowed to assemble in pubs that opened specially at 8.30am – threw bottles at police and set off fireworks and smoke bombs.

That number is far below the 2,500-3,000 supporters it bussed into Luton last year and marks the success of antifascists in containing the threat of the EDL’s racist and fascist thugs at a series of demonstrations around the country in the past three years.

UAF

(via fuckyeahfeminists)

fuckyeahfeminists:

A taxing day at the polls.

Inspired two recent stories in the news:

• Ohio now allows poll workers to refuse voters information about where to vote.
• a 93 year-old woman in Pennsylvania who has voted in nearly every election for 60 years is suing the state because she’s unable to cast a ballot, since the state lost her birth certificate.

Bonus: You can get a signed print of this cartoon from the cartoonist!

fuckyeahfeminists:

rhiannonloveisnotarobot:

I kinda love Cory Booker. 

i lotta love Cory Booker

(Source: sansastone)

fuckyeahfeminists:

From Voter Suppression 101 on Campus Progress

bouncingdodecahedrons:

A message to Planned Parenthood women’s rights supporters from President Obama.

Watch the whole video here.

(Source: daxterdd, via dionthesocialist)

cartermagazine:

Today In History

‘Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress, opened her historic campaign for President on this date January 25, 1972.’

(photo: Shirley Chisholm)

- CARTER Magazine

(via )