Tag Archives: Sign this/Send that

EZPass service charges? Oh hell, no.

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In my inbox this afternoon, I found a note about the proposed $1/month service fee that VDOT is considering charging for the privilege of using EZPass (full text below the fold).

I resent being charged extra for a “convenience” when the “convenience” actually allows VDOT (or banks in the case of ATMs) to hire fewer workers, thereby saving VDOT money. Money that amounts to millions a year.

I further resent being charged extra when the Greenway, already exhorbitant, and privately owned, doesn’t have any toll collectors at all, and takes no cash. Because I have a height deficiency, I have to actually get out of my car to use the credit card machines on the Greenway, which feels unsafe. I generally try to avoid the Greenway on principle, but when I use it, I have no choice but to use EZPass. To be charged extra to use something that enables a FOR PROFIT company to avoid hiring workers really frosts my cookies.

I will be discussing this at home and, if the charge is implemented, will probably be turning in my EZPass in protest.

Go to the VDOT webpage and register your disgust with proposed charge. I did.

Continue reading →

The inevitable result of “it”

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Crossposted at Equality Loudoun

What you will see below is the result of people being told they should see other people as “it.”

A woman is violently assaulted in a Baltimore McDonalds, dragged across the floor, repeatedly kicked in the head until she has a seizure, and is left to convulse in a corner while employees watch and record the assault on their phones. They can be heard laughing and encouraging the assailants in the background. One posted his video on the internet later, to entertain his friends. You can hear one of them near the end, warning the assailants “police on their way. Y’all better get out of here.” The only person who attempts to help the woman is an elderly female customer.

Warning: The video is extremely violent and disturbing. I’m reposting it because it’s important that people understand the consequences of their careless, self-centered actions.

Continue reading →

Bob Marshall chooses personal prejudice over children. Is anyone surprised?

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Crossposted at Equality Loudoun.

Bob Marshall, not getting his way

It’s not enough for Bob Marshall that same sex couples have to move outside the state temporarily in order for both to be adoptive parents – in Virginia, second parent adoption or adoption by unmarried couples is illegal, so we have families in which one parent is literally a legal stranger to their own child. Think about what that means for a child’s security, if something were to happen to his or her legally recognized parent.

In 2005, Bob Marshall shared the embarrassment with Dick Black of having “Adoption: Prohibited if Homosexual” basically laughed out of the Senate after Black flew the disgraced Paul Cameron in as an “expert witness.” That wouldn’t have been enough, either – and the truth is that nothing will ever be enough for this obsessive oddball, short of our complete elimination. As he let slip to the Leesburg Today back in 2006, “This is a springboard. If they get this [defeat of the Marshall-Newman anti-marriage amendment], they are getting other things.” By “other things,” he refers to the freedom to live our lives with the same safety and security as everyone else. That amendment never had anything to do with marriage. Its purpose, as I explained here, was simply to create more danger for gay and lesbian couples, to discourage us from living openly and visibly – because it’s exactly that visibility that is driving the rapid shifts in public opinion toward support for equality.

It’s that same purpose that leads Mr. Marshall to have a hissy fit about this revision to the Virginia Department of Social Services regulations: Continue reading →

From my inbox

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Dear Liz,There's still time to contact Gov. McDonnell!

It could come down to just 20 minutes.

The McDonnell administration is pulling out all the stops to steamroll through new, overreaching regulations that could force 17 of Virginia’s 21 abortion providers to close their doors.

Tell Gov. McDonnell to veto this bill today.

Last month, cunning anti-choice lawmakers voted to categorize Virginia’s abortion providers as hospitals! This, of course, is not only utterly ridiculous, but downright reckless. Their aim is to shut down clinics. And, if that happens, the majority of women in the Commonwealth will lose access to vital reproductive health care.

We have learned that the process to recategorize abortion providers are hospitals is being fast tracked and that the public will have little to no input. In fact, the Board of Health will only allow 20 minutes for public comment at their September meeting! That’s not how democracy should work!

You can help stop this power grab by putting pressure on Gov. McDonnell. It’s not too late. He has not yet signed this draconian bill into law, but every minute counts. He has until Tuesday, March 29.

After trying to pass this sort of bill into law for 20 years, it could come down to just 20 minutes of public comment – 20 minutes that could shape women’s access to safe, legal abortion in Virginia for the next 20 years and beyond.

The McDonnell administration is attempting to work in secret to eliminate safe, legal abortion care in Virginia. This cannot happen. It’s up to you to stop this attack!

Ask the governor TODAY to veto the bill designed to shut down abortion providers.

If Gov. McDonnell signs this bill into law, we will spend the next six months working tirelessly to make sure new regulations do not severely limit access to abortion in the Commonwealth. We have our work cut out for us, but I know pro-choice Virginia is ready to stand up and tell the McDonnell administration we will not tolerate its harmful anti-choice agenda.

Please stay tuned over the coming weeks to learn more about how we will be fighting this dangerous attempt to limit reproductive care.

For choice,
Tarina Keene
Executive Director

P.S. We will need a lot of support in the coming months to fight these attacks, so please consider making a donation to help us protect Virginia’s valuable abortion providers.

Sign This, Send That 10

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Send Frank Wolf a fax asking him to drop his government healthcare, since he voted on January 19th to deny citizens access to affordable healthcare.

Also, join the call to investigate JP Morgan for overcharging 4,000 US troops for their mortgages.