My name is Catherine Morgan, I'm a writer, nurse, mother, and founder of "The Political Voices of Women". This is a blog dedicated to inform and educate the voting public through articles, ideas, and links. It's also a way of giving myself a voice, rather than just sitting back and watching politics and my opinion go by.
--- I am now also at the Care2 Election Blog.
Why No Healthcare Questions at GOP Debate? — by Catherine Morgan
There were exactly “zero” questions on healthcare at the CNN/YouTube Republican Debate. I find it very disappointing that there were three questions on guns and the IRA, a few on religion, and even one on sports teams…But, squeezing in a healthcare question wasn’t possible? Very disappointing.
Obviously, this is an issue that is not at all important to the Republicans. As a nurse, a mother, and a compassionate member of society…I find the lack of interest in our country’s healthcare crisis by these candidates appalling. There is no way that I will vote for any candidate that does not recognize the seriousness of this problem, or who does not at least have some desire to rectify it. Personally, I believe there are many Republicans that are “compassionately” conservative enough to agree with me.
Just in case you are sick of the debates, but still want to be able to hold your own at the water cooler today…Here is your recap of the CNN/YouTube Republican Debate. Listen to the issues that are of interest to you, and feel free to skip the rest…I wish I could have done that.
Interestingly, there were exactly “zero” questions on healthcare. Maybe they could have considered having one less gun question, and address the issue of healthcare? Nope. Very disappointing. Obviously, this is an issue that is not at all important to the Republicans. As a nurse, a mother, and a compassionate member of society…I find the lack of interest in our country’s healthcare crisis by these candidates appalling.
There is no way that I will vote for any candidate that does not recognize the seriousness of this problem, or who does not at least have some desire to rectify it. Personally, I believe there are many Republicans that are “compassionately” conservative enough to agree with me.
**AS OF TODAY, DECEMBER 6TH…I WILL BE UPDATING THIS LIST HERE (I’ve managed to have three lists, keeping them all up to date is becoming too time consuming). SO, FOR THE MOST UP TO DATE LIST GO HERE. Thanks.
Answering the question…Where are all the women political bloggers? I decided to take some time today and surf the Internet for as many women blogging on politics that I could find. The refreshing thing about women political bloggers is their diversity. Now, in no particular order, here are over 100 women political bloggers and blogs.
UPDATE: We now have over 250 275 women bloggers on this list. Thanks to everyone sending me links, keep them coming.
We know that women slightly outnumber men online. But at least anecdotally, it seems as if more men are on the political blogs, writing specifically about politics, reading about politics and putting in their two cents in the comments sections. Did you notice how many more men compared to women submitted videos for the Democratic YouTube debate in July? The pool of videos for the upcoming Republican YouTube debate is similarly stocked with more men.
Women In Media & News, a media analysis, education and advocacy group, works to increase women’s presence and power in the public debate. WIMN’s POWER Sources Project provides journalists with a diverse network of female experts.
List is now in alphabetical order. If you would like something added to your link, or you would like your blog added to this list…just say so in comments. Thanks.
My Opinion: This is the kind of thing that really infuriates me. With issues like the war, our broken healthcare system, education, the economy, and so on and so on…Tricking the voting public with wedge issues like this makes me sick. The only thing worse than using a wedge issue to manipulate the voting public, is a wedge issue that will take take away personal rights of women…This is an infuriating story.
Why would two of our male democratic legislators in Georgia buy into a republican strategy to put a wedge issue on the November 2008 ballot-an issue that is sure to energize the republican base and make it harder for all Georgia democratic candidates to get elected? Oh, and did I mention that this a part of a national GOP strategy, right out the Rove playbook? That’s right, the GOP is seeking to put this amendment on the ballot is several states, not just Georgia. So, why help them?
Mixed in with the water fight and the tax fight, during the next legislative session, Georgia women are going to be literally fighting for control of our eggs. Georgia republicans-with the help of two democratic co-sponsors-will try to pass legislation to put “The Personhood Amendment” or “Human Life Amendment” on the ballot in Georgia in November of 2008.
“The Human Life Amendment,” is a constitutional amendment that defines life as beginning at the moment of fertilization and offering constitutional protections to the fetus.
If you are a women that is blogging about politics and you are not yet on this list…Please leave your link in comments and I will be happy to add your blog.
And if you have an idea for a guest post, you can email me at…
catherine @ catherineblogs dot com
If you would like to put a scrolling widget with the most recent posts from the site on your own blog, you can get it here.
You can also now join our Political Voices of Women community here.
More problems associated with vaccines, this time the controversy is with the Chicken Pox vaccine. I haven’t been silent about my distrust with the pharmaceutical industry, and most recently with the collaboration between this industry and our government…specifically the rush to make the HPV vaccine mandatory for 9 to 12 year old girls. As much as I have a problem with *some* vaccines, I have a much larger problem with our government forcing parents to vaccinate for viruses such as Chicken Pox and HPV.
I am not someone who is against childhood vaccinations, as a nurse I fully understand the necessity for vaccinating children against polio, measles, mumps, and rubella. However, vaccinating against these diseases was begun for the sole purpose of saving the lives of children, that can not be said for most of the newer vaccines (Flu, HPV, Chicken Pox, Hepatitis, etc). The sole purpose for pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines today, is for one purpose and one purpose only…money (and a lot of it). I wont be able to go into each one in detail for this post (maybe in a future one), but here are a few statistics to just give you an idea of what I am talking about.
But now, let me talk specifically about the Chicken Pox vaccine and this latest controversy.
In Maryland parents are being threatened with fines and jail if they do not comply with vaccinating their children for chicken pox. Does anyone NOT see how insane that sounds? What the bleepidy-bleep is going on????
Speaking as one of the lucky ones, who lived through “The Great Chicken Pock Pandemic” of the 1970’s…oh wait, there was no pandemic and everyone I knew got the chicken pox and a couple days off from school, and actually lived to tell the tale. For those of us old enough to remember having the chicken pox…The memories are horrifying…the pustules, the itch, the dreaded calamine lotion. If you haven’t been through it yourself, you can not begin to imagine what we suffered with for those never ending couple of days. [My attempt as sarcasm…I know, don’t quit my day job.]
Seriously now. When my children were born (and at that time the vaccine was not yet mandatory), the pediatrician told me about it, and I decided that if my children weren’t exposed to the virus before they would be attending school, then I would consider it. [CHOICE…it’s a beautiful thing, but becoming more and more rare in our society.] My reservations had nothing to do with a possible adverse reaction to the vaccine…It was the fact that, getting chicken pox as a child is not serious, and getting the virus actually gives a life-long immunity (the vaccine does not). I also wondered why anyone would consider this vaccine, when there was already an anti-viral medication available, that reduced the severity of the symptoms and cut the duration of the illness?
I made my very first YouTube video for the 10 Questions project. I hope you will take a minute to go over and vote for my video…There is no registration required (you don’t even have to give you email address), just click on the green thumbs-up link.
If for some reason the link does not work…just go to “10questions.com” and search “catherinemarie66″ - My daughter did a video too, they will both be together on the above link.
Morra is asking everyone to participate in the 10Questions Project. You can either make and submit your own video question, or just go over to the site and vote on your favorite questions. This is a great way for “we the people” to really get involved with this campaign.
Even though I’m camera shy, my daughter was brave enough to ask a video question…and now I decided to make one too. I’ll let you know when we post them…probably later today or tomorrow.
A year from now, Americans will go to the polls to elect the next president of the United States. While Democrats hope to ride a wave of to hegemonic control of the White House and Congress for the first time since 1994, the Democratic presidential nominee should hold off measuring the drapes in the Oval Office.
This morning I received an email from my favorite BlogHer political contributing editor, Morra Aarons. She pointed me in the direction of 10 Questions, to check out a video question that is getting a lot of attention…
I wasn’t at all shocked when I saw this today on Countdown. It’s just more evidence of how the Bush administration uses fear and manipulation of the American people to further their agenda.
During his time in office Donald Rumsfeld used to write 20 to 60 brief memos each day to his staff and he called these memos snowflakes. They gave advice on how to manipulate the press and the public and some of the worst were things like should terrorism be considered a “worldwide insurgency”, “go out and push people back”, “keep elevating the threat” and “link Iraq to Iran”.
