Kerry's Kids First Act Needs Your Support

via Yellow Dog Blog

John Kerry isn't a man who forgets about the issues he said were important while running for president.

The Senator is the author of the Kids First Act (S.114/H.R. 1668), which will ensure that the 11 million uninsured children in America have health coverage and a healthy childhood – and he needs our help.

Check out the television ad that Kerry's organization is running in key Republican states and districts. While no Republican ever got kicked out of their party for being heartless, it is Senator Kerry's hope that running a public relations campaign targeted at the constituents of Bill Frist and Tom DeLay will put pressure on them to at least feign compassion for children. (Though it is interesting to note that, of the legislation's eight cosponsors, none has an 'R' next to their name.)

Please take a look at the ad, give whatever money you can to help run it and sign Senator Kerry's web site to be a cosponsor of the act yourself.

As a parent fortunate enough to be able to provide care for my son, I can't imagine the heartbreak of having to watch a young child be sick and be unable to get them help.

This is important legislation. Please support it. It'll make you feel good.

Street Prophets :

Bill Berkowitz notes, rightly, that the Bush Administration's "faith-based initiatives" program seems to have dropped off the Administration's radar, and that legal challenges to it are working their way through the courts. On the other hand, most of the action has transferred to the state level, where block grant money has been distributed to religious organizations since the Clinton era.

My off-the-cuff reaction, though, is to say a program has to have had a legitimate purpose before it can be described as a "failure." Not that Berkowitz uses the term.

[..]Contra David Kuo, the point of this program was never to effect a policy solution, nor to enact a "compassion agenda". The change it aimed to make was a shift in how government pork was distributed, allowing small, mostly evangelical organizations to get their fingers in the pie.

It's accomplished that much, but it failed to meet its larger goal, which was to fund a change in political allegiance in the black churches. They've gotten into the game, true, and many of them are happy to use the money to meet pressing needs in their communities. But they're also smart enough to know that a little walking-around money isn't going to make those needs go away - and that the current Republican party will never vote for the social legislation needed to make a dent in the underlying causes of poverty and violence. Even if had they taken the lure, Katrina would have been enough to shake them off it.

Will at AttyTood takes a look at what lessons right-wingers are learning from the situation in Somalia.

It shouldn't surprise you that they have nothing to do with compassion for your fellow human being.

Taylor was at the North Carolina event today and said he's never felt more ashamed of the leadership of his country.

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Taylor: Okay, I don't have a question. What I wanted to say to you is that in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate...And I would hope -- I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself inside yourself...

I'm wondering how "FOX News-I mean the Secret Service" let him in?

Full transcript

Think Progress has it too.

via Avedon: We seem to be under terrorist attack at the moment here in London, with explosions on both the Underground and on London buses. Authorities originally explained the disruptions as a cascading technical problem but once the buses went off that explanation obviously didn't work.

Communications: Normal landline service is kind of overwhelmed for transatlantic calls, but you can always download Skype and make cheap calls to landlines anywhere as long as you have a sound card, a microphone, and give them ten Euro for a SkypeOut account.

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So they are fighting them over there instead of over here. I guess London qualifies for that. I have many musician friends from England and my heart goes out to them. John Gibson in an*&#$@. He has constantly written moronic pieces before, but this one epitomizes his delusional view of Europe and the world. How FOX lets his column appear on their website is amazing to me.

Gilliard says: But hateful bigots like John Gibson, pandering to Fox's halfwit audience, would rather talk about fictional France than real France. He wouild rejoice in the misery of others as if they don't exist. Maybe he should join Al Qaeda, since he seems to share their anti-human logic of seeing people as symbols and not people.

In the SUN-UK paper, Bush vowed to get the Bombers. "We will find them, we will bring them to justice and at the same time we will spread an ideology of hope and compassion that will overwhelm their ideology of hate."

It's hard to spread an ideology of hope and compassion while using a military solution to fight the war on terrorism.

Pamela has John Kerry's latest statement about the attacks.