Another two votes for Hillary in GA!

Me and my husband's. So proud to have pulled the virtual lever for our first woman president.

The early voting location had a really long line, which is a good sign.

I heart my DU homepage again

The changes are already making the DU experience better.

I may even do something crazy like pulling GD-p out of the trash in a couple of days.

F is for Family rocks

Watching Netflix while I'm sick in bed today and stumbled across it. Very funny animated series set in 1973. It's roughly a mashup of Family Guy and King of the Hill. I'm three episodes in and I give it five stars.

Can I hide posts from a topic group?

I've been banned from a group, so I can't respond to threads from said group. Is there a way to hide posts from the group?

I would rather not see the posts on my DU homepage if I'm not able to reply.

Clinton blasts ‘concerted attack’ on Planned Parenthood

Hillary Clinton strongly defended Planned Parenthood Thursday as the women's health organization reels from the fallout over a sting video released by anti-abortion activists earlier this month.

"For more than a century, Planned Parenthood has provided essential services for women," Clinton said while campaigning at a community college in Greenville, South Carolina. "And I think it is unfortunate that Planned Parenthood has been the object of such a concerted attack for so many years. And it's really an attack against a woman's right to chose."

Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/hillary-clinton-defends-embattled-planned-parenthood-n397476

Paycheck to Paycheck - the cruelty of the GOP

We just watched the documentary Paycheck to Paycheck. The cruelty of anyone who will take assistance and foodstamps while denying Medicaid coverage to a single mom with three kids is staggering.

The documentary follows a mom who went to school to become a CNA, and now works full time at a nursing home. She literally lives paycheck to paycheck without any hope of escaping poverty.

She is young but looks many years beyond her age. She wears fatigue and depression on her face. Pictures of her as a young bride, with a smile and radiance, show a stark contrast from a few short years ago to now.

It was hard for me to watch. We can't allow ourselves to avert our gaze from the poverty and suffering that are all around us. This mom's story broke me heart.

It fills me with rage that the GOP, conservatives, and those who enable them can be so cruel that they want to take food from the mouths of children. Conservative governors deny the poor Medicaid because of ideology. They want to keep people sick and deny treatment to those with disease.

It's as if nearly half of our country is made of sociopaths who enjoy inflicting pain and misery.

Jimmy Fallon is hilarious.

The tonight show is completely different now. It needed an extreme makeover.

So good. So good.

Photos: Thousands stranded in 20-hour commute as minor snowstorm hits Atlanta

Behold the fruits of a state being managed by a republican super-majority.

And the sad thing is, the same people complaining about being caught in traffic will elect the same bunch of morons next time around. Because, freedom, or something.

We even have our own "Heck of a job" Brownie, by way of Georgia's Emergency Management Agency. He didn't activate GEMA until after 4:00, when school buses full of children were already stuck on the freeways. On the local media here are unending press conferences with the governor, mayor of Atlanta, someone called "the colonel" and GEMA director. When they're not blaming one another, they are talking about "everything they've learned" from their rarefied perches above the people.

We have been through this before -- three years ago. So it's not like it's something that's never happened to Atlanta.



Photos: Thousands stranded in 20-hour commute as minor snowstorm hits Atlanta
Commuters spent the night on the freeway

American Leaders Praise Nelson Mandela’s Contributions To Advance LGBT Rights

Mandela was a major gay rights leader - something that I'm ashamed to say that I knew little about or fully appreciated.

LGBT history has been pushed aside too long. I'm learning so much about how progressive he actually was.

Mandela ushered in the world’s first constitution to protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation. “Nelson Mandela tore down oppression, united a rainbow nation, and always walked arm-in-arm with his LGBT brothers and sisters—and with all people—toward freedom,” Human Rights Campaign president says.

The Constitution that was promulgated by Mandela in December 1996 was the world’s first to contain explicit protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation.



As the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Rea Carey said in a statement, “Nelson Mandela was an inspiration to the millions of people who yearn for freedom across the world. With great personal sacrifice, he fought apartheid and state-sanctioned racism. His principled approach, his willingness to reach out to former enemies, led to the introduction of multi-party democracy and real change in South Africa.”

Nelson Mandela: LGBT rights champion
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/12/06/nelson-mandela-lgbt-rights-champion/

As we celebrate the life of Nelson Mandela, who died yesterday at the age of 95, I want to make sure he is heralded for doing something no other head of government has ever done. As the first president of post-apartheid South Africa in 1996, Mandela ushered in that nation’s new constitution, which included protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation. The first of its kind.

The new constitution, adopted in May 1996, led to the end of the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the South African military. And that historic document laid the groundwork for a historic 2005 court ruling written by Sachs that legalized same-sex marriage in the Rainbow Nation.

Please stop using Latin to criticize posts - a modest proposal

Saying ad hominem is so 2002. Can we start criticizing people en francais instead?

In addition to mixing things up, it will class up the joint.

Plus we can drop in French phrases in our posts randomly, n'est-ce pas. Everyone gets a pass on using proper French grammar or since that's a pain in le derrière anyway.

It will make us sound like Ms. Piggy, and who can turn away from her irresistible allure?

Certainly not moi.

So instead of saying I've perpetrated the transgression of ad hominem-ism, can people just say something like:

Mon dieu! Vous message est merde like un pungent fromage.

Merci and happy Friday!