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In recent weeks, the nation has talked more about contraception than at any other time during my 58 years of life. Many Republican office holders and outspoken Catholic bishops call the discussion one of religious liberty. For me, it is a matter of whom I trust. As the father of two young adults, I trust them to make thoughtful moral choices about contraception and sexuality far more than I trust John Boehner, Rick Santorum, or the (all male) parade of Catholic bishops. My wife and I worked hard to raise our kids -- one son and one daughter. Anyone who knows us will recall it was joyous but definitely swtor credits not always easy. We made mistakes. They made mistakes. And now out of college, they are great young adults. They have jobs. Working hard to make a difference in the lives of others. Great friends. And they are thoughtful about relationships. We could not be more proud. I am delighted that the struggles of generations that came before them have meant that contraception is available to them and their romantic partners. Why would any a parent wish otherwise? One of the best features of the health reform law now slowly being implemented is that private buy swtor credits insurance is required to cover -- at no additional cost -- certain key items of preventive health care. My company and hundreds of thousands of our activists -- advocated for the inclusion of contraception, and we were pleased when the Secretary of Health and Human Services agreed. We fought to limit the number of employers and employees who would be discriminated against under a religious employer exemption, and were pleased when the Obama administration stuck to the principle of universal coverage. For there are literally hundreds of thousands of employees of many runescape gold faiths and of no faiths who work in religious organizations. But the Catholic bishops are not satisfied. They do not trust the employees of their own religious organizations to make faithful decisions. They would not trust my son or my daughter or their partners or friends. They want to make these decisions for them. And now much of the Republican leadership -- such as Speaker John Boehner, Senate Minority Leader McConnell, and presidential candidates -- have taken up the challenge, and support legislation that would allow ANY organization to disallow coverage of any medical procedure or buy runescape gold service that it asserts causes it moral qualms. That is, Boehner, McConnell and their kin want to empower the largely male leadership of corporate America to join with the entirely male power structure of the Catholic hierarchy to decide whether contraception -- and much more -- is an available choice for the young adults of the country. Why would I possibly trust these men to make responsible choices for my young adult children? Do they know them? Do they share their values? While I am utterly appalled at the rhetoric spewing from the mouths of these mistrustful, power-hungry men, I am not surprised. buy wow gold These same men have opposed contraception for decades. Among the Supreme Court rulings they hope to eventually reverse is the pivotal case of Griswold vs. Connecticut, in which the Supreme Court ruled that a state could not outlaw the use of contraception, as Connecticut then did. Who doubts that much of the Republican right long for the ability to outlaw contraception as part of its social agenda? Thousands of people have petitioned presidential candidate Romney to answer the question of whether he supports Griswold vs. Connecticut. Total silence has been the answer. Much has been made of the right-wing assault on women, with attacks on reproductive rights, contraception and the very definition of rape. And there surely is such an assault. But this assault is not solely on women, as all people -- single people, men and women, married people, socially active people, and parents -- have a fundamental interest in putting the decisions about the availability of contraception in the hands of those who make sexual choices, rather than the powerful men who seek to control them. I say to Boehner, McConnell, the bishops, and all those who seek to control the young adults of our country, you have not earned my trust. My kids have. Back off and let them decide.

George Washington, celebrated today by federal holiday, was (of course) our first president. When he died, the phrase which spread the country as part of the myth-making around Washington was: "First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen."

While this may -- as a direct result of a very successful mythmaking campaign -- be almost universally true today, it was not when the flesh-and-blood man (not the myth) held office as the new nation's first "Chief Magistrate" (as it was referred to back then). Yes, even Washington had his media critics.

This was due to the emergence of what I call "proto-parties" in American politics. The first two parties went by various different names (such things were fluid, and usually not even capitalized back then). Washington became the head of the Federalists. Their opponents were originally called "Anti-Federalists" but preferred to be called "Republicans," and are now historically known as "Democratic-Republicans" swtor credits (mostly to differentiate between them and today's Republican Party, which are not the same party). As one partisan newspaper helpfully defined: "it is not a question now between federalism and anti-federalism, but between republicanism and antirepublicanism." Such hair-splitting was common, because the entire concept of a political party was a fluid and changing thing, back then. True political parties quite simply did not exist -- there was no central party committee or other group, there was no corporate presence of a national party like a "head office," and there was no communications network for the party to discuss the "party line" on any issue.

What did exist, instead, were newspapers. The partisan press, in essence, were the party structure. All newspapers in America were able to mail each other copies of their papers for free (due to a special postal exemption), and "copyright" was unheard of for newspapers back then -- buy swtor credits they all freely copied articles or quotes from each other with nary a thought of payment. Because of this, the newspapers constituted the best communication network in the country -- and they used it to define what the parties stood for.

This, of course, included what the parties stood against, as well. The leading voice among the Republicans at the time was Benjamin Franklin Bache, grandson of his famous namesake. He published a newspaper in Philadelphia (following in his granddad's footsteps) called the General Advertiser, later rebranded as the Aurora. Bache's paper was the biggest thorn in George Washington's side, when he was in office. Here, for example, is what the paper wrote on the occasion of John Adams' inauguration, as Washington left public office:

"Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation," was the pious ejaculation of a man who beheld a flood of happiness rushing in upon swtor gold mankind. If ever there was a time which would license the reiteration of this exclamation, that time is now arrived; for the man who is the source of all the misfortunes of our country is this day reduced to a level with his fellow-citizens, and is no longer possessed of power to multiply evils upon the United States. If ever there was a period of rejoicing, this is the moment. Every heart in unison with the freedom and happiness of the people, ought to beat high with exultation that the name of Washington from this day ceased to give a currency to political iniquity and to legalized corruption. A new era is now opening upon us -- an era which promises much to the people; for public measures must now stand upon their own merits, and nefarious projects can no longer be supported by a name. When a retrospect is taken of the Washington administration for eight years, it is a subject of the greatest astonishment, that a single individual should have cankered runescape gold the principles of republicanism in an enlightened people, just emerged from the gulf of despotism, and should have carried his designs against the public liberty so far as to have put in jeopardy its very existence. Such, however, are the facts; and with these staring us in the face, this day ought to be a jubilee in the United States.

Even under the rules of editorial behavior back then (which makes what you see on Fox News or MSNBC absolutely pale in comparison), this was pretty scathing stuff. Newspaper editors had to be pretty hardy souls back then, as Bache himself was beaten in the street in one incident, and in another a drunken mob of over 1,000 soldiers still in military dress (after hearing a speech by President John Adams) mobbed Bache's office, and destroyed everything they could lay their hands on. Imagine that happening to Fox or MSNBC today....

This wasn't limited to physical violence, either. There were Federalist papers which were just as scathing buy runescape gold towards Bache. William Cobbett, editor of Porcupine's Gazette, shot back by describing Bache as: "This atrocious wretch (worthy descendant of old Ben) knows that all men of understanding set him down as an abandoned liar, as a tool, and a hireling; ... an ill-looking devil. His eyes never get above your knees. He is of a sallow complexion, hollow-cheeked, dead-eyed ... just like ... a fellow who has been about a week or ten days on a gibbet." So it wasn't like the newspaper invective was one-sided at the time, quite obviously. Both sides were equally vicious.

The outspoken (and outrageous) nature of Bache's newspaper led directly to one of the most unconstitutional periods we've ever experienced as a country, when Congress passed (and Adams signed) the Alien and Sedition Acts. The sedition bills didn't actually have Benjamin Franklin Bache's name in them, but they might just as well have, since the Federalists in Congress definitely had Bache in mind when writing them.

Bache rs gold was arrested in the spring of 1798 -- even before the Acts were passed. For daring to criticize the government, Bache was forced to pay a $4,000 bail (an enormous amount of money, back then). His case never came to trail, however, as he was dead of yellow fever by September. While Bache's death was an escape for him, other Republican editors were indeed jailed for long periods, or forced to pay exceedingly steep fines which drove them out of business. These prosecutions (persecutions, really) were never about the dictionary definition of "sedition" -- advocating war against the government -- but rather just for criticizing John Adams or any of the rest of the government.

Two years later, in what was called the "Revolution of 1800," Thomas Jefferson was elected president -- the first non-Federalist to ever hold the office. Bache's paper had been taken over by another, but was still a strong Republican voice during the campaign. The Alien and Sedition Acts had a sunset clause in them, and Jefferson did nothing to renew them. He pardoned all the editors still rotting in jail, and halted any further prosecutions. Jefferson had his own dustup with the news media of his time, when the Sally Hemings story broke, but that's a story for a different day.

Today, while remembering George Washington, Father Of Our Country, I choose instead to remember his biggest and most vocal critic, Benjamin Franklin Bache. Because the republicans of his day would later elect Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson's party would later split in the 1820's, in Andrew Jackson's time. At this point, some of them began calling themselves democrats (again, usually small-"d"), which later led to the party being called "the Democracy"... and, finally, the "Democratic Party" we all know today.

Benjamin Franklin Bache didn't singlehandedly start the opposition to the Federalists in this country. But while saying so would be inaccurate, it is without doubt that Bache was one of the (little-"f") "founding fathers" of the Democratic Party.

I have always considered Elizabeth Birch, the former head of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), to be a smart and savvy leader for our civil rights movement. At the new organization Freedom to Work, we're pushing hard for President Obama to sign the ENDA executive order, along with HRC and many other organizations. So I was disappointed when I read the comments Birch made to reporter Chris Geidner from Metro Weekly upon exiting the high-dollar fundraising dinner with President Obama last week. While President Obama has shown strength and leadership in the past months through his ongoing "We Can't Wait" campaign by issuing dozens of progressive executive orders, Birch's comments appeared to undercut our president by questioning the wisdom of taking executive action. Birch also projected to the LGBT community that we should be happy to wait longer for workplace equality, even when President Obama's own Justice Department and Labor Department have already drafted an ENDA executive order and recommended that he sign it. With just the stroke of his pen, President Obama can add enforceable LGBT workplace protections to more than 16 million American jobs. The swtor credits order will give the U.S. Labor Department strong enforcement powers at 22 percent of all jobs in America to seek back-wages and reinstatement for LGBT workers who are fired for discriminatory reasons. I suspect most of the LGBT community would celebrate that move. However, after Elizabeth Birch left the fundraising dinner, at which several other attendees had strongly urged President Obama to sign the ENDA executive order, she downplayed the importance of executive action for LGBT Americans. Metro Weekly reported, "What's more, she suggested that it mightn't even be the most strategic move, saying, 'Executive orders are great, but they can have wobbly legs.'" With this wobbly comment, Birch even seems to be undercutting her old colleagues at HRC. Back in 2008, during the Obama transition, HRC presented a list of actions the new administration could take without waiting for Congress, in a memo called "A Blueprint for Positive Change." HRC clearly laid out the case for the ENDA executive order: Nondiscrimination by Employers and Service Providers Who Use Federal Dollars When the federal government hires buy swtor credits private companies to perform government functions with public funds, it can and should expect the contractors to adhere to the same civil rights standards as the government would if it were doing the work itself. Executive Order 11,246 already ensures strict conformity to these standards by providing recourse to act when a federal contractor or subcontractor discriminates on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The president should amend Executive Order 11,246 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity by federal contractors and subcontractors as a term of contract. No longer should a corporation be allowed to reap the rewards of receiving federal contracts while ignoring basic workplace protections for its employees. Since HRC wrote this memo three years ago, they have been relatively quiet on this issue, leaving much of the detailed research work and public advocacy to groups like the Williams Institute, the Center for American Progress (CAP), and, to a lesser degree, Freedom to Work. But the good news is that reports coming out of Dupont Circle suggest swtor gold that HRC is now gearing up to make a stronger public case for President Obama signing the ENDA executive order. And about those supposedly "wobbly legs," American history proves that these concerns are just plain wrong. Executive orders have been used by many presidents to advance civil rights in the workplace since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt 70 years ago. These executive orders have consistently lain strong foundations for equality legislation later passed by Congress. And history shows that Republican presidents do not rescind these executive orders; they just scale back on enforcing them. The next Democratic president then ramps up enforcement. It's a natural cycle in politics. For example, let's look at the record of Bill Clinton, who was president when Birch ran HRC. In August 1995, President Clinton signed Executive Order 12968, which stated that sexual orientation could not be considered a security risk for the purposes of employment in national security jobs. Guess who welcomed that executive order? Reports the Baltimore Sun: "I would put this in the category of an important request [to Mr. Clinton] that has now runescape gold been fulfilled," said Elizabeth Birch, president of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, a gay advocacy group. "There is no reason why a gay or lesbian person who otherwise is making a good contribution in their federal job should be restricted from moving on to higher responsibility because of arbitrary discrimination." Not such wobbly legs for that one. Later, in 1998, President Clinton signed Executive Order 13087, which banned discrimination in federal hiring. Guess who also welcomed that one? Yes, HRC did, of course. And if there was ever an executive order that might be wobbly, it was that one. Back in 1998 it was much easier for politicians to be publicly homophobic, and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives tried to overturn Clinton's executive order. But they failed miserably. According to the San Francisco Chronicle: The 252-to-176 vote marked a major victory for pro-gay forces. The amendment by Colorado Republican Joel Hefley was the highest profile gay issue to come before Congress this term... "We're absolutely jubilant,'' said Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay buy runescape gold lobby. So even against tough odds, Clinton's executive order for workplace nondiscrimination was not so wobbly. Think about this: a Gallup Poll in March 1948 showed that "63% thought that black troops and white troops should remain separated, while 26% thought they should live and work together." But President Harry Truman had the courage to sign the executive order integrating the military anyway. He did the right thing to advance civil rights, even when the polls suggested he should wait. Fast-forward to today and the ENDA decision currently pending in the Obama White House. A recent poll conducted by the Center for American Progress showed very strong support for this kind of proposal. From CAP's Jeff Krehely: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research fielded the poll of likely 2012 voters in the first and second weeks of April 2011: Nearly three-fourths of voters (73 percent) support protecting gay and transgender people from workplace discrimination. This support cuts across political party affiliation, with 81 percent of Democrats, 74 percent of independents, and 66 percent of Republicans supporting workplace nondiscrimination laws for gay and transgender people. Today, rs gold the polling is strongly on President Obama's side when it comes to banning LGBT employment discrimination. And, it sure fits with his current "We Can't Wait" campaign that has led to other strong executive actions this year. In fact, the ENDA executive order may just prove to be a winning wedge issue to use against either Mitt Romney, who has flip-flopped multiple times on ENDA, or Rick Santorum, who is staunchly in favor of keeping it legal for discriminatory employers to fire LGBT Americans just because of who they are or whom they love. Indeed, smart political commentators like Andrew Sullivan have noted that one of President Obama's greatest skills is getting his political opponents to over-reach and self-destruct. The ENDA executive order is a perfect trap, and I predict that both Romney and Santorum will foolishly take the bait during their long-slog of a primary contest. When they do, President Obama can remind the Republicans that America's top government contractors -- companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, etc. -- have already adopted LGBT nondiscrimination policies, because they realize workplace harassment is bad for the bottom line. The new executive order will only affect the holdout companies that still engage in prejudice. President Obama can explain to taxpayers and voters that we should never have our money squandered by letting our government subsidize discrimination and harassment. So for the first time in American history, a presidential candidate may effectively use LGBT rights as a winning wedge issue against the conservatives and the discriminators. The polling, after all, is strongly on our side, and ENDA divides their party, with prominent Republicans like Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin having voted in favor of the bill. But putting politics aside, this ENDA executive order is both the morally right thing to do and decades overdue. In my opinion, President Obama has accomplished more for LGBT Americans than any other president in the history of the United States, and the ENDA executive order that his staff has drafted for his signature is a no-brainer compared to the far more challenging things he's already done. It is because I believe so strongly in President Obama that I am confident that he will do the right thing by signing this executive order. To quote our president, "We can't wait."

The multiple life sentences handed down today for "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should come as no surprise to anyone who tracks federal court terrorism cases.

U.S. courts have become notorious for meting out harsh sentences to anyone even remotely connected to terrorism, whether a student who lent his cell phone to a friend who called an al Qaeda member, or dim-witted participants in a plot against U.S. targets cooked up by an undercover FBI agent.

So when U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds ruled that the 25-year-old Nigerian would be serving multiple life swtor credits sentences for trying to set off a bomb strapped to his underwear, it was the obvious outcome for someone who had tried -- and fortunately failed -- to kill some 289 passengers on a commercial airliner bound for Detroit. In U.S. law, incompetence is no excuse.

What's odd about this case is actually what no one's talking about now -- all the politicos who bashed the Obama administration for bringing this case to federal court in the first place.

Remember Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who called it "a strategic and tactical buy swtor credits mistake in the War on Terror to try Abdulmutallab in civilian court"? "He should have been interrogated by the military and tried by military commission," Graham said. Given that the military commissions still haven't tried the 9/11 defendants, it's hard to imagine how long it would have taken them to get around to this case.

Then there was Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who said: "Mirandizing the Christmas Day terrorist mere hours after he was taken into custody was profoundly irresponsible... it shows a complete failure to comprehend swtor gold the role that valuable intelligence can play in saving innocent American lives." In fact, Abdulmutallab was only read his Miranda rights after he stopped talking to FBI agents. And I don't remember Cornyn complaining when the Obama administration successfully killed Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, whose role in the attempted bombing they discovered by lawfully questioning Abdulmutallab.

These were just two among the chorus of critics who eagerly trashed the American justice system as too soft on terrorism for providing suspects basic rights. Their view seems runescape gold to be -- though they likely won't mention it today -- that the United States government has no business trying a suspected terrorist in the U.S. federal justice system, because it can't be trusted to convict him.

Of course, a guaranteed conviction before anyone's investigated the facts isn't what's supposed to come out of any credible justice system. Terrorism charges are supposed to result in a thorough investigation that leads to a fair and reasonable conclusion. That's how we can maintain that we're better than dictatorships and terrorists.

But there are still buy runescape gold many U.S. lawmakers who don't believe in the American tradition of justice and want to see all terrorism cases shunted off into off-shore military commissions where, they believe, conviction is certain. Never mind that federal courts have convicted more than 400 terrorists and their supporters since 9/11, while the military commissions, which keep changing their own rules, have convicted only six. That's not surprising: military commissions are intended to be ad-hoc courts set up on a battlefield in emergency circumstances where no regularly-constituted courts are available. They lack rs gold the consistent precedent, procedures and experience that are the hallmark of a centuries-old standing justice system. Still, for what appear to be purely political reasons, some lawmakers continue to insist the military commissions system is superior, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The controversy came to a head in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, signed reluctantly by the president this past New Year's Eve. Under the new law, as interpreted by its proponents, terrorism suspects like Abdulmutallab would be forced into military custody, absent a signed waiver delivered to Congress from the president.

Had that happened when he was arrested, Abdulmutallab would likely still be sitting in Guantanamo Bay without charges, let alone a conviction and life sentence. After all, the five 9/11 defendants still haven't been prosecuted more than ten years after committing their crimes.

The United States has plenty of problems to focus on right now, from global recession to war in Afghanistan and nuclear-charged tensions in the Middle East. As we can see from today's sentence of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, U.S. federal courts not being sufficiently tough on terrorism isn't one of them.

Despite President Obama's accommodating move last week, conservative leaders are hurtling along in their attempt to restrict birth control. They've gained a righteous head of steam so quickly they don't seem to care that they're about to careen off the tracks. They're not backing down despite polling that shows 99 percent of women in the United States will use contraception in their lifetimes, and 56 percent of voters support the requirement that health care plans cover prescription birth control with no deductibles or co-pays. Let's review: First the Department of Health and Human Services swtor credits gave churches an exemption from playing by the rules of the Affordable Care Act -- an exemption NOW continues to oppose. But the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wanted other religiously affiliated institutions -- such as Catholic hospitals and universities -- to be excused as well. They lobbied hard, with influential newspapers like The Washington Post taking the bishops' side. The Obama administration chose instead to keep the refusal clause narrow but require insurers to absorb the cost of birth control for employees of religiously affiliated buy swtor credits institutions. When the bishops didn't get everything they wanted, GOP legislators took up the charge, with a twist: Now they want to give a pass to any employer that claims providing their employees with access to birth control coverage goes against their religious beliefs. I shudder to think how many women such a loophole would affect. But there's no need to do the math. Because what this right-wing runaway train is headed for is every woman it can possibly reach. Intruding into women's reproductive lives typically starts with women who are most economically swtor gold vulnerable -- those who depend on government assistance or -- gasp -- private insurance, to pay for their health care costs. Even if you can afford to pay for your own pills, is it fair that you are being asked to, when other preventive services and medications are covered under health care reform? The conservative talking point of the moment is that this fight is about religious liberty. Religious institutions do have important rights in our democracy. But their rights must be weighed against individual women's rights and against our society's shared interest in public health. runescape gold Thus, a religiously affiliated employer's first amendment rights must be weighed against: women's constitutional rights to religious freedom (1st Amendment), privacy (Griswold v. Connecticut), and equal protection (14th Amendment); women's statutory rights against sex discrimination (Title VII) and pregnancy discrimination (Pregnancy Discrimination Act) in the workplace; the increasingly recognized international human right to unfettered access to basic health care (and birth control is obviously basic health care for women); and society's interest in assuring public health, a key aspect buy runescape gold of which is availability of family planning. Looks like the scale is weighed heavily in favor of a woman's right to birth control access. Additionally, religious entities do not have blanket immunity from every law and regulation in the land that conflicts with their tenets, so why should this directive be any different? Oh, that's right -- this one affects women. Conservative candidates are campaigning on a platform that is proudly hostile to family planning funding and to the idea of a government safety net. This kind of vilification of women and poor people combined with allusions to religious rs gold persecution and unfair taxes sure does rile up the conservative base. While candidates like Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are likely driven by political expediency, some of our most powerful opponents -- like the bishops -- clearly have ideological fervor fueling them. So, the question becomes: Is anti-contraception zeal about protecting the bishops' religious liberty or is it about keeping women in a perpetually disadvantaged status? A woman who cannot control her reproductive life, who cannot plan her own family, is unable to contribute to the community on her own terms, and moreover is at the mercy of men and the state. Turning back the clock in this way is not only unjust but stupendously dangerous. That's why we must get out the word that opponents of birth control coverage are opponents of birth control, period. And they are hazardous to our health -- the health of women and the health of this nation. Talk to your friends and family, contact your legislators. Tell them we must all stand together. Yes, the bishops and their radical right cronies in government will keep making their ridiculous demands. But we don't need to give in to them. We can stand up for women's rights and wave victoriously as their crazy train leaves the station.

In my seven-year tenure as governor of the great state of Washington, yesterday was one of the best. That's when I signed the bill providing marriage equality for all Washingtonians, and it is the day when our state said, quite simply, that love is love. I'm proud that Washington became the seventh state in the nation to provide civil marriage for same-sex couples, and that it stood up for what is swtor credits right and just. I'm proud that our same-sex couples will no longer be treated as separate but equal. They will be equal. I'm proud that the children of same-sex couples will no longer have to wonder why their parents' love is treated differently than that of other loving families. I'm proud of the parents who have fought fiercely for the rights of their much-loved buy swtor credits gay and lesbian children. And I'm proud that those who are growing up and realizing they are gay or lesbian can see that they, too, can look forward to the day when they make that important vow in front of their friends and family to the person they love. As a parent, there is no greater joy than seeing your grown child walk down the aisle and make a lifetime swtor gold commitment to the person they love. In Washington state, the words "I do" will now carry the same meaning for all families. Like laws in other states, our legislation provides broad protections for religious organizations, religiously affiliated schools, and social service organizations. While no religion will be required to perform a marriage against its beliefs, the state will runescape gold no longer discriminate in the issuing of marriage licenses. This legislation makes us stronger. The stories of everyday citizens who give back to their communities, support one another in their relationships, care for aging parents, raise healthy families, and save for their children's futures are legion. A young man, who as a senior in high school has already received his associate's degree buy runescape gold in computer science, recently emailed me that his biggest obstacle in life is not his passion or intellect. It is his sexuality. As he so thoughtfully wrote, "One day, as this nation continues to change, people like me will not have to be extraordinary to appear ordinary." That's as it should be. At a time when our families face many challenges -- keeping a job, paying the bills, saving for their children's education rs gold 00 worrying about who you can marry should not be one of those challenges. Marriage is important to everyone. In Washington state it is important enough that this bill passed with a resounding "yes" that was achieved only with bipartisan support. Republicans and Democrats both stood up for what is right. Leaders from both parties, gay and straight, made impassioned, eloquent speeches conveying that marriage equality is not a partisan value or a religious value, but a human value. Major corporations such as Microsoft, Starbucks, and Nike endorsed the bill and said, rightly, that diverse workforces are key to economic success. But this bill is much more than a piece of legislation. It is about telling couples, some who have been together for 20 or 30 years or more, that a lifetime commitment matters. That their love matters. That their families matter.

A few years ago at a book signing with fellow congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shared an anecdote about the sometimes strange experience of being a woman in the still predominantly man's world known as Congress. She recalled how early in her career she and another female elected official found themselves as the only women regularly dining at a table full of male elected officials. The men rarely acknowledged their female counterparts or asked their opinion on any political or policy issue. But one day the subject turned to childbirth. Being that she and the other female official were the only two real authorities on the subject (since they were the only two at the table who had actually given birth), Pelosi presumed that this would present an opportunity for their voices to be heard and valued by their male colleagues. Imagine swtor credits her surprise when two of the men began speaking over one another to share their stories of "being there" for the birth of their children, before moving on to another topic before the women ever had a chance to speak. I remember chuckling, along with the other women in the room, at how silly men in power used to behave, and being relieved that things have changed so much. Apparently we laughed too soon. Not only has the fight over access to contraception been led entirely by men (President Obama on one side, Sen. Marco Rubio and House Speaker John Boehner on the other), but a recent report has confirmed that the voices that have dominated this debate in media have been overwhelmingly male, as well. By a nearly 2-to-1 margin male guests and commentators outnumbered females in discussions of the contraception buy swtor credits controversy on news programs. Sen. Rick Santorum's inaccurate remarks regarding the cost of contraception served as a powerful reminder of the severe handicap our political discourse suffers when women are not permitted to speak for themselves on the issues that directly affect them. Before contraception was widely available, there were far fewer women able to do just that, because of the physical, emotional, and financial demands that giving birth to and raising sometimes more than a dozen children (something my great-grandmother did) required. Maybe that's the point. Maybe some of these elected officials fighting so hard to make contraception as inaccessible as possible want to return to the good old days when contraception was virtually impossible to come by, and therefore men were able to rule the world and, swtor gold more importantly, their households. Men were able to enjoy absolute power in the legal system and in domestic life without fear that a woman could carve out some semblance of financial and political independence that would enable her to engage in such scandalous behavior as running for office or leaving an abusive relationship. Because after all, where would a woman with six, or seven, or eight small children to care for really go, even if she had a good reason to? With that in mind, below is a list of the most powerful ways contraception has impacted and continues to impact the world, from issues such as literacy to life expectancy rates of women. I'm sure there are more than 10, so please feel free to add to the list in the comments section below. 1. In countries with the highest fertility rates, women have the shortest life expectancies. runescape gold Women in Sierra Leone live half as long as women in developed countries and 10 years less than their African counterparts in some African countries, and no, this is not merely due to the history of civil unrest. One in eight Sierra Leonean women dies in childbirth. In other countries like Chad, where women are likely to give birth to six or more children, women are lucky to live to age 55. 2. In countries with the highest fertility rates, women have the fewest rights. In countries like Niger and Mali, both of which fall in the top 10 for countries with the greatest number of births per woman, women and young girls can still be forced into marriages. A recent case in Niger documented a 9-year-old girl forced to "marry" a 50-year-old man. 3. Countries with low contraception usage have the lowest number of women who can read. In buy runescape gold Afghanistan, which continues to have one of the highest fertility rates in the world, and where contraception knowledge and access remains limited (and women give birth to an average of six children), 87 percent of women cannot read. In Sierra Leone the number is 71 percent. 4. Men who physically abuse their partners fear contraception. (Think about that for a moment.) A national study of more than 3,000 abused women conducted by the National Domestic Violence Hotline found that one in four said their partners sabotaged, hid, or prohibited use of birth control as a form of control in an already abusive relationship. These findings confirmed those of a number of smaller studies. 5. When contraception availability goes down, abortion rates go up. Abortion remains illegal in the Philippines, but for the last decade the nation's capital, Manila, has been at rs gold the heart of a battle over contraception. Contraception was stigmatized and difficult to access prior to 2000, when contraception was prohibited altogether by an executive order. (It is not unusual for women who have come of age in the city during the time period of the ban to have more than 10 children.) While the abortion rate in the country has barely changed in recent years, the rate in Manila increased by more than 10 percent. So has the number of women dying of complications from illegal abortions. 6. Countries with the highest fertility rates have the highest poverty rates. Ten of the countries with the world's highest fertility rates are located in Africa. Between 1990 and 2001, the African continent experienced what is deemed "extreme population growth." The number of those on the continent living in "extreme poverty" ballooned from 231 million to 318 million. 7. Before contraception* American women were statistically more likely to die in childbirth than they are today. At the start of the 20th century, the maternal mortality rate in America was approximately 65 times higher than it is today. During the 17th and 18th centuries, long before modern contraception became widely available, the average American woman gave birth to between five and eight children. Her likelihood of dying in childbirth increased with every birth. The number of women who died in childbirth or its immediate aftermath was one in every eight women. *Forms of contraception have been available since ancient times (click here to see ancient forms of contraception), but contraception did not become widely available in the U.S. until the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965. Click here to read about Griswold and other key contraception cases.)

The Republican candidate believes we're all envious of him. Romney feels that envy of his financial success, the envy of income inequality, is the driver of the current uprising against wealth -- the driver of 'class warfare.' He also believes that envy is the reason for the anti-Romney movement of those opposing his candidacy. But the class warfare he alludes to is not generated by envy. It's only a talking point emanating from Romney himself to deflect from his obvious deficiencies and to fire up the Republican base. True, some individuals are probably envious, but, is it envy that causes so many to dislike him? Watching Mr. Romney stumble through swtor credits the primaries is excruciating. It's obvious he's desperate to become president despite a lack of understanding of what the position requires. The position he's aspiring to requires connecting with 'the people' -- understanding their situations and their needs, feeling their pain, and addressing their issues. But Romney has difficulty connecting with the average person and even more difficulty convincing middle-class America that he really cares about them. His recent campaign statement regarding the poor, even taken in context, came off as insincere and out of touch. He has no concept of the plight of the buy swtor credits poor. Combined with a cold insensitivity toward working-class people his qualifications diminish. His discomfort in interviews and on the stump is palpable and is marked by his many gaffes. At various times he appears wooden, shallow, unnatural, abrasive, even phony, but rarely sincere, caring, or humble. He tries hard to appear humane yet still comes off dispassionate. Everything Romney does and everything he says stirs up controversy. He, at the same time, brags and apologizes for his wealth to appease whichever group he's addressing His assertion of being unemployed or fearing getting a pink slip and his insistence swtor gold that he did not inherit his wealth -- partially true but missing the point -- is disingenuous and phony. The presumptive GOP nominee had problems releasing his tax returns and when challenged reluctantly released his 2010 return. The 2010 return showed a few disturbing things. Aside from the offshore accounts in Swiss and Cayman banks it was discovered that he paid a smaller percentage of taxes than most middle-class Americans -- 13.9 percent. He, cavalierly, dismissed income he received from speaking engagements as a small amount. It was $374,000, which is more than 10 years of income to the average American family. Full release of runescape gold multiple years would likely jeopardize his attempt at being Everyman. The potential exists that earlier returns will show even lower tax rates. This is not a good thing for someone trying to convince the struggling, hard-working American voter, that he's just like them and feels their pain. His inability to properly address these financial ambiguities is amplified by a hidden feeling of guilt -- guilt about how he's earned his money and the unpatriotic appearance of the low tax rates he's paid. Though many would like to live in the confines of wealth he's enjoyed, I do not envy him. With all he's been given and all the doors that have been opened for him buy runescape gold with his family name, he struggles with being 'real.' Despite his tithing to the Mormon Church he appears selfish. Despite his repeated insistence that he wants to help the poor he appears pious. Despite his promise of change he has no 'real' solutions. And, with his unfactual attacks on Obama's presidency and policies, the improving employment and economy, he appears to be a liar. The inability to connect with 'the people' becomes more evident with each primary or caucus. Even within his own party Romney is receiving fewer votes than he received in 2008 -- proof that the party is not overly enchanted with him as their nominee, or, quite frankly, with any of the others. The rs gold 'class warfare' Romney refers to is not the product of envy, but a product of what the wealthy in this country have done to the economy and because of what they've taken from hard-working Americans to line their own selfish pockets. Romney is the epitome of the inequality they've created and one of the reasons his numbers have declined. No, it's not envy, my friend, it's pity: pity of your desperation, of your personal purgatory over the issues, your lack of true understanding, of your feckless attempts at convincing the American people you're the answer to their struggles. But it's also pity that he must invoke 'class warfare' to avoid his complicity in the disparity in the classes.

I love writing but yeah… I get lazy sometimes lol!Well.. Let's see if I can keep this up. Check out my friend's profile if you have time… since they are a lot better than me.

Bonjour
Journaliste pigiste, je réalise un supplément digital pour Stratégies
Objet : décrire sur 1 feuillet (1500 signes) les nouveaux métiers du digital
- descritption, rémunération, formation, verbatim + photo de la personne

Les métiers 
- community manager 
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- responsable SEO-SEM 
- architecte Web/Web designer 
- responsable e-commerce 
- responsable e-CRM 
- chef de projet mobile 
- data journaliste 
- chef d'e-pub 
- planneur digital 
- responsable Web analytics 
- responsable social médias 
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