All right ppl! Want to know what benchmarks our Pres needs to be held to?

Go thou to change.gov, scroll to the bottom and under Agenda, you can click on all the stuff that you want to know about what Mr. Pres proposes to do in improve our great nation. Here are some of my favorites:

The Women's Agenda

Caring for Women Vets, Trying to reduce poverty among women, Improving about of Women in Math and Science, Uphold Roe vs Wade,Create Work Pensions, Work to prevent Violence against women, working to prevent unintended pregnancy, reducing health risks due to mercury pollution, work to end pay discrimination (why not just work to pass the Equal Rights Amendment?) Etc. etc. Go read its full of good stuff.

Teh Civil Rights Agenda (scroll down for teh gay part.)
Now then. Re: civil rights for POC : There is end employment discrimination, and :

# Expand Hate Crimes Statutes: Obama and Biden will strengthen federal hate crimes legislation, expand hate crimes protection by passing the Matthew Shepard Act, and reinvigorate enforcement at the Department of Justice's Criminal Section.
# End Deceptive Voting Practices: Obama will sign into law his legislation that establishes harsh penalties for those who have engaged in voter fraud and provides voters who have been misinformed with accurate and full information so they can vote.
# End Racial Profiling: Obama and Biden will ban racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies and provide federal incentives to state and local police departments to prohibit the practice.

Also reduce crime recidivisms and use the drug courts more to do more drug rehab than straight prison for first time non-violent offenders.

Re LGBT issues: Repeal Dont Ask dont Tell, Expand hate crimes statutes, Fight Workplace Discrimination, Full Civil Union and Fed Rights equal to married couples ( which would work out well for straight ppl who don't want to get married as well, but seriously. Get over whatever the heck is bothering you and support gay marriage already for gods sake!)Expand adoption rights HELLO FLORIDA AND ARKANSAS , oppose constitution bullshitting about marriage =1 man, 1 woman, promote HIV/AIDS prevention with special emphasis on women.

In the first year of his presidency, Barack Obama will develop and begin to implement a comprehensive national HIV/AIDS strategy that includes all federal agencies. The strategy will be designed to reduce HIV infections, increase access to care and reduce HIV-related health disparities. Obama will support common sense approaches including age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception, combating infection within our prison population through education and contraception, and distributing contraceptives through our public health system. Obama also supports lifting the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. Obama has also been willing to confront the stigma -- too often tied to homophobia -- that continues to surround HIV/AIDS. He will continue to speak out on this issue as president.

Re: homophobia, may we hope to see him avoid homophobic gospel purveyors as well? Anyway...



( More on Immigration, Defense, Rural and Urban Policy when we come back! )

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Via: Andrew Sullivan

Poor obese lids may not be eating enough

Researchers have long blamed childhood obesity and diabetes, especially in poor neighborhoods, on too much food and too little exercise.

But new findings from a San Antonio study point to another explanation: children living in poverty are obese in part because they don’t eat enough to meet the daily nutritional requirements needed for cell function and metabolism.
A 9-year-old should consume 1,400 to 2,200 calories daily to sustain growth, said Dr. Roberto Trevino, director of the nonprofit Social and Health Research Center. But in the study of 1,400 inner-city children, 44 percent were consuming less than 1,400 calories, and 33 percent were obese.
“They were not overeating,” Trevino said. “This study shows these kids were not eating enough, and when they did eat it was all the wrong things.”
Missing from the children’s diets were four key nutrients: calcium, magnesium, potassium and phosphorus. All play important roles, but magnesium is involved in more than 300 enzymatic reactions in the body that help to spur metabolism and cell function.MORE

Via: Shakesville

50 percent more US children went hungry in 2007

Some 691,000 children went hungry in America sometime in 2007, while close to one in eight Americans struggled to feed themselves adequately even before this year's sharp economic downtown, the Agriculture Department reported Monday.

The department's annual report on food security showed that during 2007 the number of children who suffered a substantial disruption in the amount of food they typically eat was more than 50 percent above the 430,000 in 2006 and the largest figure since 716,000 in 1998.

Overall, the 36.2 million adults and children who struggled with hunger during the year was up slightly from 35.5 million in 2006. That was 12.2 percent of Americans who didn't have the money or assistance to get enough food to maintain active, healthy lives.MORE

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And he's serious about combatting climate change. good.

"More than half of mortgage failures re:the subprime crisis, were b/c of health care bankruptcies

Single Payer Healthcare and the Economic Crisis

Michael Lighty, Policy Director of the California Nurses Association and Olveen Carrasquillo, Vice President and Policy Director of Latinos for National Health Insurance discuss the possibilities for healthcare reform during an economic crisis. With an ailing economy it is likely that the number of Americans who are uninsured will rise. One third of Latinos already lack health insurance and that doesn't include undocumented workers. Under Obama's current healthcare plan there is no provision for the undocumented--some 14 million people. If premiums keep going up, Lighty says, healthcare reform won't be very meaningful and private insurance companies will continue to profit.
What about single payer healthcare? It could actually serve as an economic stimulus by improving retention, cutting costs for businesses, increasing efficiencies, and offering a costs saving to health consumers that could be spent on other economic activity.
But will Obama's healthcare plan do anything to mitigate the crisis? And will single payer healthcare get a hearing? To find out more you can visit guaranteedhealthcare.org.

The debate between the expanding coverage and controlling costs

Signs And Portents On Health Care Reform

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Should we Bail Out the Auto Industry?

What is the cost of bailing out the auto industry? Well, it may be more complicated than a simple yes or no vote. The real challenge may be coming up with an energy plan that stimulates the economy without destroying the environment. Congress is supposed to decide this week whether to extend a new $25 billion loan to the Big Three or apportion some of the $700 bailout money to save GM, Ford, and Chrysler. Some say these auto companies are dinosaurs bound for extinction - but if they fold, according to the Center for Automotive Research, as many as 2.5 million jobs could be lost.
On GRITtv Peter Lazes, Director of Programs for Economic Transition at the Cornell University School of Industrial & Labor Relations, Arun Gupta, writer and editor of The Indypendent, writer and filmmaker Mitchell Bard, Jonathan Cohn, Senior Editor at The New Republic, and Betsy Rosenberg, the creator and host of EcoTalk Radio weigh the costs of bailing out the auto industry.

Playing Chess with the Chinese

Last week, I suggested that Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation might be the most likely GM buyer, if it came to that.

So if GM goes bankrupt in January, as may happen, it may well have to sell itself off (unless the government guarantees the same kind of financing that it is refusing now). And I believe one company is one of the most likely--and indeed sensible--buyers: Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, or SAIC, the Chinese company with which GM partners to do business in that country.

Apparently, the Chinese thought so too.

Chinese carmakers SAIC and Dongfeng have plans to acquire GM and Chrysler, China’s 21st Century Business Herald reports today. [A National Enquirer the paper is not. It is one of China's leading business newspapers, with a daily readership over three million.] The paper cites a senior official of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology– the state regulator of China’s auto industry– who dropped the hint that “the auto manufacturing giants in China, such as Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) and Dongfeng Motor Corporation, have the capability and intention to buy some assets of the two crisis-plagued American automakers.” These hints are very often followed with quick action in the Middle Kingdom. The hints were dropped just a few days after the same Chinese government gave its auto makers the go-ahead to invest abroad. And why would they do that?
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hee!

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