Don't Let Congress Erode Laws Protecting Women's Rights and the Disabled

This article discusses why your family should become very interested in what is happening in congress to women and the disabled. Women's rights and disabled people are in jeopardy to lose a lot of their hard gained advances. If families having children with learning disabilities don't get involved, they stand to lose the education benefits for their children. With Autism on the rise, we need everybody paying attention to the debate on entitlements. Congress is protecting the rich while taking from the most vulnerable. Congress is examining the laws of the United States to discern ways to cut the budget. The American with Disabilities Act will be one of the laws that if eroded will adversely affect women, disabled children and other handicapped people. The mentally retarded and autistic children are in the forefront of cuts. Special education is fully funded by the federal government. Also, SSI is not the same as Social Security. There is no trust fund.

From the late 50's to the 1970's, feminists and other activists fought for women's rights and The American Disabilities act.. By the middle 70's these activists made inroads and rejoiced when numerous laws were finally passed by congress. Now a much different congress is attempting to erode laws protecting women and the disabled. Some short sided legislators managed to control our house of representatives through the resources of the Tea Party.

Those determined to turn back the clock seem to gravitate to the Tea Party to use their resources and recognition. The Tea Parties' original intent was to cut government spending, not to change the laws protecting women's rights and the disabled. Not all of the laws being considered are financial in nature. What a shame. I remember reading a quote that indicated that throughout history, when women begin to gain status and power, no matter where they are in the world; they are systematically pushed back by men. Men then again hold the positions of power. The old saying that men should keep women barefoot and pregnant was how they kept power in the past. Hopefully, it will prove impossible to go back to that situation. We have gained so much because of technology and medicine. Women have more choice, but will it last? Without government laws and forcing the backing of those laws, women, handicapped and those with learning disabilities are vulnerable. Evan with the laws in place, many still don't have access to the basic protection of these laws.

A good example is the call for debate on eliminating some of the entitlements. Since most people aren't aware of the entitlements they use, these are the easiest to cut. Those families with disabled individuals need to unite and again fight to keep the rights many struggled so hard to gain. Advocates for seniors have already taken up the Mantra: "Don't cut our Social Security and don't mess with medicare", but these are only two of the entitlements, and social security uses a very different financial accounting than SSI and education entitlements.

We need women to be involved in the feminist fight because we are seeing our laws eroded, and some wanting to destroy our freedoms. The disabled are suffering through assaults on them, and their opportunities to education are coming up for cuts. Families of handicapped worked very hard since the early 50's to assure that mentally retarded had the right to an education, and safe and secure homes. The law that resulted was The Americans with Disabilities Act. This is the law that covers the rules for all education of learning disabilities, and the accessibility of disabled people to the same benefits the non handicapped enjoy. It includes education, SSI, and other entitlements.

I recently discovered this quote by President Kennedy that sums up what being a liberal means.

".... if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

It certainly applies today. We need to have a forward-looking congress, not one repeating the old lies.

that Social Security will disappear for our children and grandchildren is a fallacy often repeated since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president.That our country is going to go bankrupt, or that another great depression is imminent..That our government can't possibly take care of the most vulnerable.

Our country is exceptionally resilient, full of citizens with ideas and innovation. If they have the opportunity to thrive will develop what this country needs. To say that we have lost the American spirit is false. It is strong, and gets stronger when we have needs to fill.

I worked for 35 years with the mentally retarded and fought for women's rights and the laws governing them. None of us who worked on these laws are entirely satisfied with what congress actually passed, but they are the best we have. With such a diverse population, no one person is going to be satisfied with everything, but the laws we did manage to pass have served the disabled population well. To see the government systematically eroding the laws is unacceptable to me.

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CNN says Pakistan protecting Osama bin Laden; France on alert for terrorist ... - Christian Science Monitor

Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri are living comfortably in northwest Pakistan under the protection of members of the nation's intelligence service, a top NATO official has reportedly told CNN.

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The claim comes amid fresh warnings by Saudi intelligence of terror attacks targeting Europe – especially France – by the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of Mr. bin Laden's group. A British official said Monday that the United Kingdom faces a "very serious threat" of terrorist attacks, reported Agence France-Presse, while the United States and Japan earlier this month both issued travel alerts for Europe.

The latest report could add pressure on Pakistan to eliminate safe havens on its territory for Al Qaeda and Taliban militants.

CNN quoted an anonymous NATO official saying that the top two leaders of Al Qaeda were living close to each other, but not together, in houses in northwest Pakistan, protected by locals and members of Pakistani intelligence. "Nobody in al Qaeda is living in a cave," the official told CNN.

The official said the general region where bin Laden is likely to have moved around in recent years ranges from the mountainous Chitral area in the far northwest near the Chinese border, to the Kurram Valley which neighbors Afghanistan's Tora Bora, one of the Taliban strongholds during the US invasion in 2001....

The area that the official described covers hundreds of square miles of some of the most rugged terrain in Pakistan inhabited by fiercely independent tribes.

Pakistan's interior minister denied Monday that bin Laden and Zawahiri are on Pakistani soil and said such reports had proven false in the past, according to CNN.

But their group, Al Qaeda, has remained active around the world. Saudi intelligence officials have issued fresh warnings of a possible attack in Europe, warnings that will likely add to weeks of jitters triggered by vague reports of possible attacks planned for Europe.

The latest warnings were made public in a radio interview Sunday with French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux, who said that "several days" earlier, Saudi intelligence informed France that the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was "active or about to become active in Europe,"
according to Al Jazeera.

"This is not about overestimating the threat or underestimating it," he told France's RTL Radio. "I am indicating, based on all these elements, that the threat is real."

Hortefeux said, in the spirit of "informing, not alarming" the public, that the government had received a warning days earlier from Saudi intelligence about a terrorist threat to "the European continent, especially France," according to Le Figaro. "Our vigilance remains intact," he said, according to Le Figaro.

Hortefeux said the latest alert from Saudi intelligence followed other alerts, including a Sept. 9 Interpol warning, and a Sept. 16 alert warning of attacks by female suicide bombers, according to Le Monde. Hortefeux said an average of two terror plots against France were broken up per year, and 61 people were now in French prisons for involvement in terrorism.

France's current threat level is "reinforced red" (rouge renforce), the second-highest level after "scarlet red" (rouge ecarlate), according to Le Monde.

The Eiffel Tower was evacuated twice in recent months over terror fears. France has issued travel warnings to its citizens for the United Kingdom. The UK on Sunday updated travel advice for France and Germany, saying that there was a "high threat of terrorism" in those countries, "including in public places frequented by expatriates and foreign travelers," according to Agence France-Presse. The UK's threat level is "severe," also its second highest level.

Al Qaeda's Yemen-based offshoot has been reaching out to Muslims based in the Europe and the US with an English-language online magazine that encourages random attacks and instructions on bomb-making and do-it-yourself terror ideas such as welding steel blades onto a pick-up truck and driving into a crowd, according to Agence France-Presse.

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