Pelosi: Day Care Lets Moms Work ‘Without Carrying Burden of Child Care'

(CNSNews.com) – Giving women access to day care so they can work will allow moms “to earn without carrying the burden of child care,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in an interview on National Public Radio (NPR) on Sunday.

Pelosi spoke about her recently announced “When Women Succeed, America Succeeds: An Economic Agenda for Women and Families,” on Weekend Edition Sunday, an agenda that includes equal pay for women, an increase in the minimum wage, universal pre-school and access to child care for women who work.

“The child care issue probably has to be done in steps,” Pelosi told NPR host Susan Stamberg. “But when children are learning, parents can be learning.”

“And when the children are in preschool, that frees parents to earn without carrying the burden of the child care,” she said.

Via: CNS News

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Appeals court upholds ruling slapping down Mayor Bloomberg's soda ban

Mayor Bloomberg during a press conference in support of a large portion soda ban at Lucky's Cafe in Manhattan.

An appeals court today dealt another blow to Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposed soda ban, calling the controversial regulation "invalid" because it violates "the principle of separation of powers."

Writing for the Appellate Division, Justice Renwick also criticized Bloomberg and the Health Department for proposing a ban with giant loopholes, which would exclude colas and energy drinks but allow milkshakes and fruit juices. Similarly businesses like delis and restaurants were prevented from hawking sugary beverages but 7-Elevean could still sell its signature Big Gulp.

The judicial panel said those inconsistencies go “beyond health concerns, in that it manipulates choices to try to change consumer norms.”

In March, a lower court judge first rejected the ban that stropped city restaurants, delis and other businesses from selling large sugary drinks, just a day before it was scheduled to launch.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling slapped Bloomberg and his Board of Health for overstepping their bounds this spring.

Today the four-judge Appellate Division panel agreed.

"Like the Supreme Court, we conclude that in promulgating this regulation the Board of Health failed to act within the bounds of its lawfully delegated authority," Justice Dianne Renwick wrote in the unanimous ruling.

The judges said legislature should decide the issue.

Mayor Bloomberg called the decision “a temporary setback,” in his crusade to reduce obesity in the Big Apple, adding that he planned to submit an appeal to the state’s highest court.

Via: New York Post

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Congressional bosses from Hell: Sheila Jackson Lee

AND TO THINK THAT SHE HAS BEEN MENTIONED AS NEW HOMELAND SECURITY BOSS

A lot of politicians give nicknames to their aides. George W. Bush famously referred to his attorney general, Alberto Gonzalez, as “Fredo.” Mitch Daniels, then head of the Office of Management and Budget, was known as “The Blade.” Barack Obama reportedly called Larry Summers, his chief economic advisor, “Dr. Kevorkian.”

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas also hands out nicknames to the people who work for her. The Houston Democrat addressed one of her employees as “you stupid motherfucker.” And not just once, but “constantly,” recalls the staffer, “like, all the time.”

Another Jackson Lee aide recounts the time her parents came to Washington to visit: “They were really excited to come to the congressional office. They’re small town people, so for them it was a huge deal. They were actually sitting in the main lobby waiting area….[Jackson Lee] came out screaming at me over a scheduling change. Called me a ‘stupid idiot. Don’t be a moron, you foolish girl’ and actually did this in front of my parents, of all things.”

Yet another staffer remembers requesting a meeting early on in her tenure to ask how best to serve the congresswoman. Jackson Lee’s response: “What? What did you say to me? Who are you, the Congresswoman? You haven’t been elected. You don’t set up meetings with me! I tell you! You know what? You are the most unprofessional person I have ever met in my life.” With that, Jackson Lee hung up the phone.

According to the same staffer, Jackson Lee “would always say, ‘What am I a prostitute? Am I your prostitute? You can’t prostitute me.’”

Via: The Daily Caller

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Don’t Know Much About Voter ID: Matthews Exposes Ignorance About Laws ‘Only Republicans’ Pursue

COMPARES VOTER ID LAWS TO APARTHEID IN SOUTH AFRICA

Chris Matthews, beating a familiar drum on Monday, attacked Republicans for aggressively pursuing voter identification laws at the state level. Matthews, in his predictably hyperbolic fashion, linked these laws to South African apartheid and added that only Republicans and conservative-dominated state legislatures have passed these laws. This is incorrect. 

On Monday, Matthews told a guest that he believes voter identification laws suggest that American conservatives are emulating the experience of South Africa’s dying white apartheid protectionists by instituting laws which subtly discriminate against minorities.

“It does look like it’s almost like South Africa to this extent,” Matthews said. “You have a white, what’s the word, feeble minority — it’s losing its majority status.”

And it says, the Republican Party, we can only get so many white votes,” he continued. “So we’ve got to reduce the votes of others. It does look that way.”

“Maybe you’re not partisan,” Matthews continued, “but only republicans have pushed this in these 31 states. No democratic legislature.”

“Look gotta at the pattern here — talk about profiling,” he concluded. “I’m sorry, Republicans do this stuff.” Matthews’ guest, an expert on civil rights issues, laughed and agreed with this assessment.

Via: Mediaite

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Krauthammer Nails Obama: 'This Is His Economy and He's Pretending He's Just Stumbled Upon It'

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I find it astonishing that he goes around making speeches in which he deplores the state of the economy, the growing income inequality, chronic unemployment, staggering middle class income, and it's as if he has been a bystander, as if he's been out of the country for the last five years. It's his economy; he's the president.

He's talking as if this is the Bush economy, I don't know, the Eisenhower economy, and he just arrived in a boat and he discovers how bad the economy is. This is a result of the policies he instituted. He gave us the biggest stimulus in the history of the milky way, and he said it would jump start the economy. The result has been the slowest recovery, the worst recovery since World War II, and that is the root of all of the problems he's talking about, the income inequality -- the median income of the middle class of Americans has declined by 5% in his one term. So who's responsible for that? Those were his policies. He talks about this in the abstract and he actually gets away with it in a way that I find absolutely astonishing, it's magical. This is his economy and he's pretending he's just stumbled upon it. And the policies he proposes are exactly the ones he proposed and implemented in the first term. (Special Report, July 29, 2013)

Via: Fox News

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