Coffee Politics

Interesting article in the NYT Sunday magazine this week. 'Q: Why don't more women get to the Top? A: They choose not to.' Reading the article was hard because it touches on so many issues that I get passionate and emotional about. It's not a political artical but at the same time it demonstrates how women operate differently. I don't think it is considered enough in how work environments are created, how policy is created, and what society pushed by media demonstrates.
Article (not sure how archiving works on NYT)

Michael Moore was brilliant last night. One of the best take aways i had from the evening was to continue to challenge all presidential nominees on issues and positions you don't agree with. We're in a better position than thinking, 'anyone but Bush' we should make the nominees think hard about what the people want. When i get the opportunity i intend to try and find out which positions each candidate has on the difficult issues and let them know whether i'm in agreement or not. Trouble is I'm not sure how to find out about the issues they don't promote as much.

Death penality
Health care for all (especially children)
Pro-choice
Iraq war
Childcare
Education

I still wish I was in a better position to even understand the more of the issues and be able to ask the right questions but I'll just have to keep browsing.

Here's a link to the US Congress (House of Representatives) web site:

http://www.clerkweb.house.gov

And a link to the Senate web site:

http://www.senate.gov

Both are great. Both link to the "thomas.loc.gov" link Gayna sent below. From there I did a search on "Cuba" b/c I was curious who was supporting overturning the trade embargo. I found the entire text of the bill and discovered that our senators (Murry and Cantwell) are both cosponsors. These are great ways to go straight to the source for info - skip the media!

For the record, I want to add to the list of conclusions from our meeting on Sunday; in addition to deciding to follow more closely news about corporate accountability, we also expressed interest in learning more about issues that affect women, children, and families, and about issues coming up for vote by local and and national legislatures so that we can voice opinions when approprate.

We also agreed that we would try to find reliable sources of news.

Karen asked about the League of Women Voters, which may be a good source for a lot of the info we're interested in. Here is a link:
http://www.lwv.org/

A quick glance at their website shows good links to info about local and national info, as well as opportunities to get involved. I just signed up to receive their e-newsletter; will let you know if it's worth it.

This post is to test my Blog posting skills and to thank Gayna for setting this up. Thanks Gayna!

Sarah found some additional info

You can look up your local senator and reps using
http://dfind.leg.wa.gov/dfinder.cfm from there you can then access the
individual websites of your local folks, including there address, email and voting records...the voting records are great, but hard to decipher, since you get only a little blurb describing it

Here are some links that were generated after the discussion.

Here's a link to Paul Krugman column. They appear on Tuesday and
Thursday. Looks like once they're a week old you have to pay to access
them. Paul Krugman Column

Also I did find the Library of Congress on line, and you can search
everything from Senate committee topics, proposals, etc. Didn't have
much time to search through for specifics as was getting hang of the
site. Also has some good stuff for a newbie to US politics like me. Now
I understand why Hilary is a 'junior' senator.
http://thomas.loc.gov/

Talking of Hilary here's her gov page. Identifies the issues she's
working on (that was how I found the Library of Congress site).
http://clinton.senate.gov/

Getting ready for candidates 2004
http://www.democrats.org/whitehouse/

Howard Dean site
http://www.deanforamerica.com/

We're a group of 4 women who want to find a political voice to be able to influence change. We met last Sunday to discuss how we can keep informed, take action, and learn to find out how we can make a difference. We're aware there are many people in this country who are feeling the same way.

This is our beginning in figuring out how to change the way this country is run, and to change the way we feel about this country. It's a group Blog and a place to keep our links together.

Dawn, Sarah, Karen and I got together at a coffee shop on Captial Hill to discuss politics and get started on making change happen. We're all mothers and are trying to balance 101 things but are also so frustrated with the way the country is being run right now that we know we have to find time to get involved. This was the first time we decided to get together to try and figure things out.

We want to know more about Corporate Policies - they can have a big influence on many aspects of our lives even without being involved with big corporations. We want to know how we can track issues and stay informed of issues that are important to us. We want to know more about the Presidential candidates for the democrats. Dawn gave us the update on Howard Dean.

Great morning of discussion.