http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/blog_rss/michaelditto Today the House voted 291-127 to pass the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2007, which will require mortgage brokers to be licensed and crack down on predatory lending practices. Marilyn Musgrave voted against it. Apparently she thinks that people in her district and across the country deserve to be screwed by predatory lenders. http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqHS http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqHS/commentary#comments Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:12:16 MST http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqHS Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 8 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/CqHS/ The Colorado Secretary of State now (finally!) has online voter registration verification. Just go here: http://www.sos.state.co.us/Voter You just type in your info and voila. If you have moved recently or you haven't voted int he past two general elections you might need to re-register. Take a minute to verify, and encourage your friends and family to do so as well. http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqXy http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqXy/commentary#comments Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:35:13 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqXy Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 1 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/CqXy/ One of the ways that gay and lesbian families continue to be discriminated against is health insurance. Many of the large insurers offer employees of large corporations the ability to insure their domestic partners, but small businesses have been unable to offer domestic partner coverage--until now. Anthem, Colorado's Blue Cross affiliate, is erasing that bit of discrimination from its small business policies. Take a minute to write Anthem to thank them for taking an important step for equality. As every average American knows, health care is the single biggest pocketbook issue that we face. It's doubly hard for gay and lesbian people who face institutional discrimination in nearly every facet of life. Anthem just made it a little easier. If you are a small business owner, call Anthem and get set up with them so that you can offer health insurance parity to all of your employees. If you are an employee at a small business, your boss now has no excuse not to offer health insurance parity to you and your coworkers. http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqvF http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqvF/commentary#comments Sat, 08 Sep 2007 11:22:54 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqvF Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 2 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/CqvF/ The following are the floor statements in the Congressional Record from all seven members of the House of Representatives from Colorado and both Senators, as well as how they voted. As you can see, for the most part they didn't have much to say. As you write your Senators and Representatives to either commend them or criticize them for their votes, please note their responses in the comments. The Republican attack machine has already opened fire on DeGette, Udall, and Perlmutter for their principled votes. As I've spoken to my family, most of whom are primary voting Republicans, all of them--every last one--are horrified by the wiretapping vote. What the Republican party demagogues (and the brothers Salazar) need to get is that here in Colorado we're mostly small-l libertarians, whether we have a D or an R on our voter registrations. http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqcC http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqcC/commentary#comments Tue, 07 Aug 2007 20:23:31 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqcC Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 1 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/CqcC/ In the middle of the night on August 27, 1955, Emmett Till--a 15 year-old black boy--was kidnapped from his uncle's house in Mississippi by two white brothers. They dragged him into the woods, beat him until he was unrecognizable, shot him, tied a fan around his neck to weigh him down, and tossed him into the Tallahatchie River. On September 22, 2000, a man charged into a gay bar in Roanoke, VA and opened fire because he wanted to "waste some faggots." Danny Overstreet was killed, and six others were injured. In a new video , Focus on the Family equates being brutally murdered for being gay with getting your order screwed up in the drive through. They equate Emmett Till's savage death with being cut off while driving on the freeway. These are the people who purport to speak for Christians in America. These are the family values that they espouse. This is the group that is pulling George W. Bush's puppet strings. http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqWJ http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqWJ/commentary#comments Mon, 30 Jul 2007 06:54:55 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqWJ Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 4 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/CqWJ/ The Bush Administration recently demanded that air carriers collect broad personal information, including a traveler's sexual orientation, by threatening to turn planes away from Europe, and the European Union caved in. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff praised the pact as an "essential screening tool for detecting potentially dangerous transatlantic travelers." If available at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Chertoff said, such information would have, "within a matter of moments, helped to identify many of the 19 hijackers by linking their methods of payment, phone numbers and seat assignments." That's right. Micheal Chertoff just said that the 9/11 hijackers were gay. Or at least that if we had known conclusively if they were gay or not, we would have been able to prevent 9/11. Or something. The government will retain information on your sexual orientation for at least 15 years (but they leave the door open to keeping it forever): Although Homeland Security has said it will move passenger information to "dormant" status after seven years and "expects" to erase it after 15 years, it notified the E.U. that expiration of data will be subject to "further discussions." The data is only supposed to be used for counter-terrorism and law enforcement. Which means that if the army of lawyers at Focus on the Family are successful in overturning Lawrence v. Texas, the government will have a huge forever database of gay people it can arrest en masse . One and only one protection exists to prevent the government from arresting and jailing gay people, and it is in the hands of the likes of John Roberts and Sam Alito. Even if Lawrence is never challenged, Bush and Chertoff could right now black list gay people from traveling, because there is no federal law that protects gay people from profiling or discrimination. If you think I'm being alarmist, ask yourself why the government would be collecting information about someone's sexual orientation if they had no intention of ever using it. http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqWS http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqWS/commentary#comments Sat, 28 Jul 2007 10:21:27 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqWS Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 4 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/CqWS/ A brilliant response from John Edwards' web team: And it's so easy to put videos together like these--you don't even need a video camera. The Intertubes are awash with images and sounds that you can put together in iMovie or your video editing application du jour. http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqrc http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqrc/commentary#comments Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:38:18 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqrc Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 0 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/Cqrc/ I hate it when I'm forced to agree with Republicans : But Patrick Sammon, president of Log Cabin Republicans, a national gay group, accused Senate Democrats of holding the hate crimes bill "hostage" to what he called their doomed attempt to force President Bush to change his policies on the war. "The bottom line is the Democrats don't have the votes to pass their Iraq amendments," Sammon said. "Even if they did, everyone knows the president would veto the bill." He's right. Senate sponsors of the bill attached it to the defense authorization bill supposedly to protect it from a stand-alone veto threat from Bush. But they attached it to a bill they know that Bush will veto anyway. That says to me that the Senate is not very serious about passing the hate crimes bill. I'd rather see the hate crimes bill pass and be vetoed than to see it disappear because Senate Dems don't have the votes to overcome a Republican filibuster on Iraq. Let the "moderate" Republicans keep running toward the burning barn on Iraq. Don't make America's GLBT citizens go along with them. http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqrJ http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqrJ/commentary#comments Fri, 20 Jul 2007 07:42:43 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqrJ Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 1 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/CqrJ/ If you, like Susan the Neon Nurse , do voter registration (and you should!), there are some new forms you need to be using. Colorado has a new permanent mail-in ballot registry which will allow you to always get your ballot by mail. http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqcz http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqcz/commentary#comments Sun, 15 Jul 2007 12:33:24 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqcz Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 2 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/Cqcz/ Not sure why this is national news considering that the Denver Post reported it back in March. That's like...three and a half months ago? http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqc2 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqc2/commentary#comments Fri, 13 Jul 2007 18:43:36 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqc2 Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 2 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/Cqc2/ Why is it that when Democrats didn't vote for cloture on bills in the US Senate that it was called a "filibuster" by the media, but now that the Republicans are in the minority and won;t vote for cloture the bills are "blocked" because they "didn't receive the votes" to clear a "procedural hurdle?" Of course I already know the answer to my own question. The media reports what politicians say and not what they do. Mitch McConnell says the Democrats are filibustering and the media reports that Democrats are filibustering. Harry Reid says they failed to get the votes for cloture, and the media reports that a procedural hurdle wasn't cleared. Don't get me wrong, I like Harry Reid. But he's lousy at spinning the media, and these days that's all the coverage we get. In a perfect world I'd prefer Harry Reid's accuracy over the buzz-words and sound bites of the Republicans, but this is not a perfect world. The Republicans, from their place in the minority, are still great at spin-- and as a result the coverage still paints them in a better light than they deserve. http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqn7 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqn7/commentary#comments Wed, 27 Jun 2007 07:47:11 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqn7 Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 2 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/Cqn7/ ...that the Colorado Republican Congressional delegation is in the nuttiest camp of the lunatic fringe of the right wing, look no farther than this vote today . Only 84 Republicans in the House voted for an amendment which would have forbidden Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi from traveling to other countries. 337 members voted No, including all the Democrats and a vast majority of Republicans. But among the Yes votes were all three of Colorado's Republican contingent--Lamborn, Tancredo, and even the "new" and supposedly "bipartisan" Marilyn Musgrave. http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqnQ http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqnQ/commentary#comments Fri, 22 Jun 2007 11:31:20 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqnQ Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 3 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/CqnQ/ Imagine having to say goodbye to your wife and child against your will. Imagine telling your little boy he's going away for a couple months on vacation when the reality is it will be years before you see him again. Tony doesn't have to imagine. Click the video to the right to watch Tony's heart-wrenching story. Tony and his wife Janina came from Poland 18 years ago. They were married, started a business, had a healthy happy son and were living the American dream... ...Until 1 week ago, on June 8, 2007, when Janina was deported. http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqnX http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqnX/commentary#comments Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:44:40 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqnX Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 0 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/CqnX/ Wynona is an immigrant from Belize, once undocumented, whose son served twice in Iraq. Wynona reminds us that many, many people serving in Iraq are native US citizens who are children of undocumented residents, or are themselves undocumented and are serving and dying in order to gain expedited citizenship. Wynona is currently riding on the dream train . You can get on board too (virtually speaking). http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqpy http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqpy/commentary#comments Thu, 14 Jun 2007 21:18:33 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqpy Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 0 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/Cqpy/ With Holsinger as Surgeon General, Stephen Colbert asks, "Why go to a doctor when you can go to a plumber?" Link http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqp9 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqp9/commentary#comments Thu, 14 Jun 2007 16:56:38 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqp9 Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 0 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/Cqp9/ Immigration reform may be dead in Congress for now, but the problem still exists amid growing hysteria and hideous examples of discrimination against Latinos regardless of citizenship or national origin. Dreams Across America is changing that. Starting with a national train tour beginning today in Los Angeles and ending later this month in Washington DC, Dreams Across America is an ongoing campaign to return the focus of the debate to those involved--the individuals and families who have come to America in search of a better life, the small business and American citizens who benefit from their hard work, and the ongoing costs involved in keeping these people in the shadows. Meet Cathy Gurney: http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqp7 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqp7/commentary#comments Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:53:10 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqp7 Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 460 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/Cqp7/ So says the Project for Excellence in Journalism . Case in point: On a winter day when bomb blasts at an Iraqi university killed dozens and the United Nations estimated that 34,000 civilians in Iraq had died in 2006, MSNBC spent nearly nine minutes on the stories during the 1 p.m. hour. A CNN correspondent in Iraq did a three-minute report about the bombings. Neither story merited a mention on Fox News Channel that hour. That wasn't unusual. Fox spent half as much time covering the Iraq war than MSNBC during the first three months of the year, and considerably less than CNN, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism. Well there's your problem, says the right-wing Media Research Center: "Most coverage of Iraq focuses on what gets blown up." Sure. Next time there's an Oklahoma City bombing or a 9/11, I'll be expecting the MRC to criticize the lack of coverage of all the things that didn't get blown up. What a moronic thing to say. In a war, things (and people) getting blown up is news. Things (and people) not getting blown up--not so much. It's like criticizing the coverage of a swim meet for not talking about all the people who aren't in the water. What's next? Lambasting the Super Bowl coverage for not talking about the tens of thousands of people who aren't on the field? http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqp3 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqp3/commentary#comments Sun, 10 Jun 2007 11:54:01 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqp3 Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 3 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/Cqp3/ No, really : [Surgeon Gen. Nominee Holsinger and his wife, Barbara] founded Hope Springs Community Church in a warehouse at 1109 Versailles Road. Calhoun called it a socially diverse congregation with a "very vital recovery ministry." It serves the homeless and those with addictions to drugs, alcohol and sex; and it has a Spanish-language Hispanic congregation with its own pastor. "It's built around compassion for people who struggle with a lot of issues," he said. Hope Springs also ministers to people who no longer wish to be gay or lesbian, [Pastor] Calhoun said. "We see that as an issue not of orientation but of lifestyle," he said. "We have people who seek to walk out of that lifestyle." On this point, the church would differ with many gays and lesbians, who consider their sexuality a matter of identity, not a lifestyle choice. There Bush goes again, placing his twisted ideology above the well-being of the nation. Here's a few questions the Senate committee in charge of reviewing this nominee should ask: http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqJY http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqJY/commentary#comments Fri, 01 Jun 2007 11:19:14 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqJY Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 3 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/CqJY/ Conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan : The phrase "Verschärfte Vernehmung" is German for "enhanced interrogation". Other translations include "intensified interrogation" or "sharpened interrogation". It's a phrase that appears to have been concocted in 1937, to describe a form of torture that would leave no marks, and hence save the embarrassment pre-war Nazi officials were experiencing as their wounded torture victims ended up in court. The methods, as you can see above, are indistinguishable from those described as "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the president. As you can see from the Gestapo memo, moreover, the Nazis were adamant that their "enhanced interrogation techniques" would be carefully restricted and controlled, monitored by an elite professional staff, of the kind recommended by Charles Krauthammer, and strictly reserved for certain categories of prisoner. At least, that was the original plan. Click and read . http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqhk http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqhk/commentary#comments Tue, 29 May 2007 11:25:59 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/Cqhk Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 0 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/Cqhk/ Thanks to the efforts of ProgressNow Action members, Governor Ritter today signed SB25, an act to expand nondiscrimination protections to include gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. It is moments like these that make me proud to be a Coloradan. http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqhL http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqhL/commentary#comments Fri, 25 May 2007 18:35:38 MDT http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/post/michaelditto/CqhL Michael Ditto http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/profile_picture/f660dc8ce688a8bfdc_5fmmv2i99.jpg Michael Ditto 1 http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/community/comment_rss/CqhL/