Sometimes it’s hard to believe it’s 2013…

The button shown above is the actual one that was worn by my mother when she marched, with me at her side, with 85,000 others in Chicago, during a rally for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in 1980. 59¢ was how much women in 1980 earned for every dollar a man made for the same job.

Today that number is 77¢. In 33 years, women have only gained 18¢ in their struggle for paycheck fairness. At that rate, to paraphrase Laurie Anderson, it will be the year 2055 before they make a buck. That is, unless Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski and Connecticut Congresswoman Rose DeLauro have anything to say about it.

Much, much more after the jump.

Click through for a second photoblog from the second inauguration of Barack Obama and Joe Biden including two exclusive interactive panoramic images.

C’mon, Governor Snyder, do the right thing

As regular readers of this site know, we have been calling on Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to expand Medicaid coverage in our state, one of the many excellent provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka “Obamacare”.) You can read LOLGOP’s pieces on this HERE and HERE and my piece HERE.

Now the Michigan Democrats are starting to move on this issue. Today, State Representative Andy Schor (D-Lansing) introduced a House Resolution today calling on Governor Snyder to expand Medicaid under the federal ACA.

As Rep. Schor notes in his press release, “under the ACA, the cost of expanding Medicaid to more residents would be covered 100 percent by the federal government from 2014 through 2016. After that, the federal government would cover no less than 90 percent of the cost.”

Much more after the jump.

They just didn’t Twitter those jpegs to your Pinterest blogs with good enough email Facebooks

Republicans have thought long and hard and have figured out why they lost the election in 2012. Although you dumb bunnies may think that it was because of their desire to benefit the very rich at the expense of our nation’s most vulnerable or because of their egregious War on Women and War on Minorities, you would, of course, be wrong. The reason they lost, according the Republicans, is because you people just didn’t understand their message well enough.

See just how dumb you are after the jump.

Four more years!

Yesterday, Anne and I attended the 57th Presidential Inauguration Ceremony in Washington, D.C. along with about a million other people. Attendance was down from nearly 2 million in 2009 but still dwarfs the 400,000-person crowd at George W. Bush’s second inauguration. While the crowd may have been smaller, the enthusiasm and the pure joy in the voices and faces of the people who were there was not diminished.

Anne’s photos along with President Obama’s speech, the Inaugural poem, and some reflections of the day after the jump.

DC bound… I’m typing this as we drive down the highway, en route to the 57th Inauguration of the President of the United States. Vice President Joe Biden was sworn in just a short time ago by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The President will be sworn in a bit later. Why today? Because today is the official Inauguration Day. […]

PLEASE NOTE: All that stands between 17 million Americans getting free public health care and lower rates for all is the GOP. Republican governors in states that re-elected President Obama are considering turning down the best thing to happen to the middle class since Medicare. Because of this people are going to die unnecessarily and we’re all going to pay […]

Add instant meaning to your life NOW! When I read my @ replies on Twitter, it’s generally a nice mix of people instructing me in various ways to have intercourse with myself and the same question over and over: HOW DO WE FIX THIS? There’s only one answer I’ve come up with: CLONE CHRIS AND ANNE SAVAGE. Both are exactly […]

The BFDness of Obamacare continues to roll out

Earlier this week, LOLGOP explained how a component of the Affordable Care Act, lovingly called “Obamacare” by those who understand that our President cares about Americans without health insurance, includes a huge expansion of Medicaid. He also explained how this is free to states for the first two years and they are on the hook for only 10% of the additional costs after that. He also explained how upwards of 670,000 more Michiganders will be covered by health insurance under this expansion of one of the most beloved and official government programs that we have.

Follow me after the jump for a couple of other things about it that make it even more attractive. And don’t forget to sign our petition!

Thank you kindly

Hi, folks. As you know, Eclectablog is a fully self-funded effort. We make a small amount of money from the ads but, frankly, it’s barely worth the effort. Most of the funds that we have to pay writers and expand our coverage with better equipment and to pay for travel comes from our quarterly fundraisers. I hope you’ll consider showing how much you value Eclectablog by making a donation today.

Details are after the jump.

Why should we believe this guy?

[I apologize for the light blogging these past couple of days. We’ve had a death in my family and that, as you can probably imagine, has taken up much of my attention.]

Last night in his State of the State address, Governor Rick Snyder implored Republicans and Democrats alike to set aside their differences and work together. “I appreciate that people had different perspectives on issues,” he said. “And what I’m saying is, I’m hoping we can find common ground where we can work together and I hope all of you join me in doing the same thing.”

Multi-millionaire Dick DeVos said much the same thing in an op-ed after Republicans made Michigan a Right to Work state. “We can’t finish rebuilding this state unless we pull together,” said DeVos.

These are easy things to say when you have the ability to win all of your political battles. When the deck is stacked completely in your favor, you can say nice things about “working together” and “pulling together”. Because, at the end of the day, if your political opponents disagree with you, you can simply run them over just like Governor Snyder, the Michigan Republicans, and their financial backer Dick DeVos have done for the past two years.