Tell Congress to make up for Obama's inaction during this week's National Week to Fight AIDS
Obama is testing AIDS advocates' patience.
His 2010 budget cuts funding to fight AIDS globally, cuts funding for federal AIDS housing, and fails to lift the federal ban on syringe exchange. Now it's up to Congress to push back against Obama's cuts. Starting next week AIDS activists around the country are going to Sound the Alarm during the National Week to Fight AIDS by targeting members of Congress to make changes to Obama's misguided budget.
"President Obama's budget is not what we have hoped for. Congress has the ability to go in to increase funding for additional programs and now is the time to be targeting them," said Health GAP grassroots organizer Kaytee Riek
From June 30 to July 7 there will be actions across the country aimed at key members of Congress who control the nation's purse strings. There will be a march from Sen. Arlen Specter's office in Pennsylvania to Sen. Frank Lautenberg's office in New Jersey. Both are members of the Senate appropriations committee.
On July 7, everyone is encouraged to call Speaker Nancy Pelosi to demand that she "work with the Appropriations Committee to improve President Obama's budget and secure sufficient funding for AIDS programs in the US and around the world."
People who live in 13 states (California, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin) have a special responsibility to speak up! In these states, a Senator sits on an especially important Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, which decides funding for all programs in the U.S. It's up to that committee to fix the three major issues in the Obama budget. See how to contact these senators
Change that's time has come
In Obama's proposed budget, AIDS housing does not even keep pace with inflation or meet its anticipated demand for the year, let alone develop desperately needed new housing, even as new infections continue to rise. Congress needs to increase the Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS (HOPWA)'s budget by the $50 million dollars, to $360 million.
Wealthy countries have not kept their promises to increase funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, which is facing a $5 billion funding shortfall and is cancelling entire rounds of funding and cutting existing grants.
On the campaign trail, Obama heralded the Fund as a key investment. But his 2010 budget did not request any new money for the Global Fund.
Congress needs to increase funding for the Global Fund to the U.S.' fair share-$2.7 billion-to avoid cuts to grants.
As recently as this winter, President Obama has said that he is strongly in favor of lifting the current ban on using federal funds for syringe exchanges. But he failed to remove the ban from the appropriations bill, citing that this is not the right time and place. But there is no other way to lift the ban besides removing the language banning federal funding. And if we do not do it now, that means many more HIV infections this year. As the administration tells us, every 9 and 1/2 minutes there's a new infection in the United States.
Sound the Alarm is sponsored by ACT-UP Philadelphia, African Services Committee, American Medical Students Association, Artists for A New South Africa, Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project, Global Action for Children, Harm Reduction Coalition, Health GAP, Housing Works, New York City AIDS Housing Network and Proyecto Sol Philadelphia. But anyone can get involved! For more information about how to get involved contact soundthealarm.july7@gmail.comor go to sound-the-alarm.org
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Happy pride! 40 years later
40 Years Later, Still Second-Class Americans
by Frank Rich
.... And though my friends and I were obsessed with every iteration of the era’s political tumult, we somehow missed the Stonewall story. Not hard to do, really. The Times — which would not even permit the use of the word gay until 1987 — covered the riots in tiny, bowdlerized articles, one of them but three paragraphs long, buried successively on pages 33, 22 and 19. ....
But full gay citizenship is far from complete. “There’s a perception in Washington that you can throw little bits of partial equality to gay people and that gay people will be satisfied with that,” said Dustin Lance Black, the screenwriter who won an Oscar for “Milk,” last year’s movie about Harvey Milk, the pioneering gay civil rights politician of the 1970s. Such “crumbs,” Black added, cannot substitute for “full and equal rights in all matters of civil law in all 50 states.”
As anger at White House missteps boiled over this month, the president abruptly staged a ceremony to offer some crumbs. The pretext was the signing of an executive memorandum bestowing benefits to the domestic partners of federal employees. But some of those benefits were already in force, and the most important of them all, health care, was not included because it is forbidden by DOMA. ....
Action would be even better. It’s a press cliché that “gay supporters” are disappointed with Obama, but we should all be. Gay Americans aren’t just another political special interest group. They are Americans who are actively discriminated against by federal laws. If the president is to properly honor the memory of Stonewall, he should get up to speed on what happened there 40 years ago, when courageous kids who had nothing, not even a public acknowledgment of their existence, stood up to make history happen in the least likely of places.
*Just looked it up. The nytimes used the word "gay" before 1987, but as far as I can tell, usually in quotes or proper names. So strange.
See here, here, & here
by Frank Rich
.... And though my friends and I were obsessed with every iteration of the era’s political tumult, we somehow missed the Stonewall story. Not hard to do, really. The Times — which would not even permit the use of the word gay until 1987 — covered the riots in tiny, bowdlerized articles, one of them but three paragraphs long, buried successively on pages 33, 22 and 19. ....
But full gay citizenship is far from complete. “There’s a perception in Washington that you can throw little bits of partial equality to gay people and that gay people will be satisfied with that,” said Dustin Lance Black, the screenwriter who won an Oscar for “Milk,” last year’s movie about Harvey Milk, the pioneering gay civil rights politician of the 1970s. Such “crumbs,” Black added, cannot substitute for “full and equal rights in all matters of civil law in all 50 states.”
As anger at White House missteps boiled over this month, the president abruptly staged a ceremony to offer some crumbs. The pretext was the signing of an executive memorandum bestowing benefits to the domestic partners of federal employees. But some of those benefits were already in force, and the most important of them all, health care, was not included because it is forbidden by DOMA. ....
Action would be even better. It’s a press cliché that “gay supporters” are disappointed with Obama, but we should all be. Gay Americans aren’t just another political special interest group. They are Americans who are actively discriminated against by federal laws. If the president is to properly honor the memory of Stonewall, he should get up to speed on what happened there 40 years ago, when courageous kids who had nothing, not even a public acknowledgment of their existence, stood up to make history happen in the least likely of places.
*Just looked it up. The nytimes used the word "gay" before 1987, but as far as I can tell, usually in quotes or proper names. So strange.
See here, here, & here
Saturday, June 27, 2009
thinking Charles M. Blow is my favorite, ridiculous name and all
The Prurient Trap
.... At the end of the day, aside from the dereliction of duty and malfeasance, this, for me, would be a private matter. That is if it were not for the appalling hypocrisy of yet another social conservative saying one thing while doing another.
There are Democratic sex scandals to be sure, but Democrats didn’t build a franchise on holier-than-thou moral rectitude. The Republicans did. They used sexual morality as a weapon and now it’s shooting them in the foot. ....
.... At the end of the day, aside from the dereliction of duty and malfeasance, this, for me, would be a private matter. That is if it were not for the appalling hypocrisy of yet another social conservative saying one thing while doing another.
There are Democratic sex scandals to be sure, but Democrats didn’t build a franchise on holier-than-thou moral rectitude. The Republicans did. They used sexual morality as a weapon and now it’s shooting them in the foot. ....
Friday, June 26, 2009
AIDS action alert
In the United States there are 55,000 new HIV infections each year.
We cannot afford to wait.
Without the increased funds, programs such as the Ryan White Program, Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS, and comprehensive sex education will continue to suffer. In addition, there is much research to be done at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.
Please join AIDS Action and the AIDS Budget and Appropriations Coalition in requesting the provision of necessary funds for these vital HIV/AIDS programs. Additionally this letter requests a removal of the ban on the use of federal dollars for syringe exchange programs. This ban has significantly impacted the ability for states and communities to determine the best prevention methods for their people and it must be removed immediately.
TAKE ACTION NOW!
comforting
comforting to know that my mother's 4-legged children are no less weird than the 2-legged variety.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Follow-up: Clarence Thomas has no soul
Supreme Court Says Child’s Rights Violated by Strip Search
.....Justice Clarence Thomas was the only member of the court to conclude that the strip search of Savana Redding did not violate the Fourth Amendment. He asserted that the majority’s finding second-guesses the measures that educators take to maintain discipline “and ensure the health and safety of the students in their charge.” .....
.....Justice Clarence Thomas was the only member of the court to conclude that the strip search of Savana Redding did not violate the Fourth Amendment. He asserted that the majority’s finding second-guesses the measures that educators take to maintain discipline “and ensure the health and safety of the students in their charge.” .....
Monday, June 22, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Arizona, methadone, & driving
Sides weighed on methadone use by drivers
by Glen Creno
An effort to bar people who take methadone from driving kicked up a dispute at the state Capitol last week as legislators weighed the arguments of young women hurt in a car crash by an impaired driver against medical professionals who said methadone is safe.
The driver in the crash was taking methadone and other drugs. Methadone is prescribed for treating dependence and withdrawal of narcotics and to treat severe pain. Senate Bill 1003 proposed removing methadone's exemption in the state's DUI laws. ....
by Glen Creno
An effort to bar people who take methadone from driving kicked up a dispute at the state Capitol last week as legislators weighed the arguments of young women hurt in a car crash by an impaired driver against medical professionals who said methadone is safe.
The driver in the crash was taking methadone and other drugs. Methadone is prescribed for treating dependence and withdrawal of narcotics and to treat severe pain. Senate Bill 1003 proposed removing methadone's exemption in the state's DUI laws. ....
Saturday, June 20, 2009
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