You Think What?

The creator of this piece, R.J. Matson, gave the title “The  Stand Your Ground Before He stands His Ground Defense…so our staff came up with sub-caption: “The Future of  ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws”.

The Future of "Stand Your Ground" Laws

A few words about the creator of this cartoon: (more…)

Readers who live in the Washington, D.C. Metro area are familiar with news anchor Jim Vance, the man in the following video.

Vance is also known on the Internet for appearing in a video with the late sports anchor George Michael where they laughed at a model who fell, not once but twice, on a fashion show runway.

This time you will find him somber as he expresses his point of view on the matter of Trayvon Martin.

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 Mounting pressure in the Trayvon Martin tragedy has succeeded in bringing forth the following result:

Just moments ago the federal  Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and the FBI announced they will be investigating the murder of Miami Gardens teenager by a neighborhood watch volunteer.

The department announced late Monday it has begun an investigation into the fatal shooting death of an unarmed black teen, Trayvon Martin, in Sanford, Florida by a self appointed neighborhood watch captain. (more…)

The following video is one African American intellectual’s take on the murder of seventeen year-old Trayvon Martin of Miami, Florida. Reports of his February 26, 2012 murder, while completely unarmed, is making headlines around the world. His confessed shooter has not been charged or arrested due to a technicality in the law called “stand your ground”. ( Read more about the so-called “stand your ground law” in a future post.)
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In the current issue of Rolling Stone Magazine, writer Matt Taibbi has contributed a very strong investigative piece on everyone’s favorite banking institution Bank Of America. The article is
“Bank Of America: Too Crooked To Fail“.  Around here we affectionately refer to the bankster company as “Bank Of The UNIVERSE”,  for obvious reasons.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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You may wondered , like many members of our staff at YouThinkWhat,  just what Sandra Fluke actually said to cause the popular fat windbag guy on the radio to call her out of her name. What in the world could she have said to cause the person who currently enjoys hosting the most listened to radio talk show in America, broadcast on over 600 radio stations nationwide, to say the hateful disrespectful things he has, and now attempt to apologize for saying them? Did he not arrive on this planet by way of a woman?

We present Part 2 of “What Sandra Fluke REALLY Said To The Democrats”, based on a report from Charlie Spiering of the Washington Examiner.com. This is the text of Sandra Fluke’s opening statement, given February 23, 2012, when she testified before a House Democratic panel in support of the HHS contraception mandate.

A friend of mine, for example, has polycystic ovarian syndrome, and she has to take prescription birth control to stop cysts from growing on her ovaries. Her prescription is technically covered by Georgetown’s insurance because it’s not intended to prevent pregnancy.

Unfortunately, under many religious institutions and insurance plans, it wouldn’t be. There would be no exception for other medical needs. And under Sen. Blunt’s amendment, Sen. Rubio’s bill or Rep. Fortenberry’s bill there’s no requirement that such an exception be made for these medical needs.

When this exception does exist, these exceptions don’t accomplish their well-intended goals because when you let university administrators or other employers rather than women and their doctors dictate whose medical needs are legitimate and whose are not, women’s health takes a back seat to a bureaucracy focused on policing her body.

In 65% of the cases at our school, our female students were interrogated by insurance representatives and university medical staff about why they needed prescription and whether they were lying about their symptoms.

For my friend and 20% of the women in her situation, she never got the insurance company to cover her prescription. Despite verifications of her illness from her doctor, her claim was denied repeatedly on the assumption that she really wanted birth control to prevent pregnancy. She’s gay. So clearly polycystic ovarian syndrome was a much more urgent concern than accidental pregnancy for her.
<blockquote>One woman told us doctors believe she has endometriosis, but that can’t be proven without surgery. So the insurance has not been willing to cover her medication – the contraception she needs to treat her endometriosis.

Recently, another woman told me that she also has polycystic ovarian syndrome and she’s struggling to pay for her medication and is terrified to not have access to it.

Due to the barriers erected by Georgetown’s policy, she hasn’t been reimbursed for her medications since last August.

I sincerely pray that we don’t have to wait until she loses an ovary or is diagnosed with cancer before her needs and the needs of all of these women are taken seriously.

Because this is the message that not requiring coverage of contraception sends: A woman’s reproductive health care isn’t a necessity, isn’t a priority.

One woman told us that she knew birth control wasn’t covered on the insurance and she assumed that that’s how Georgetown’s insurance handle all of women’s reproductive and sexual health care. So when she was raped, she didn’t go to the doctor, even to be examined or tested for sexually transmitted infections, because she thought insurance wasn’t going to cover something like that – something that was related to a woman’s reproductive health.

As one other student put it: ‘This policy communicates to female students that our school doesn’t understand our needs.’

These are not feelings that male fellow student experience and they’re not burdens that male students must shoulder.

In the media lately, some conservative Catholic organizations have been asking what did we expect when we enroll in a Catholic school?

We can only answer that we expected women to be treated equally, to not have our school create untenable burdens that impede our academic success.

We expected that our schools would live up to the Jesuit creed of ‘cura personalis‘ – to care for the whole person – by meeting all of our medical needs.

We expected that when we told our universities of the problem this policy created for us as students, they would help us.

We expected that when 94% of students oppose the policy the university would respect our choices regarding insurance students pay for – completely unsubsidized by the university.

We did not expect that women would be told in the national media that we should have gone to school elsewhere.

And even if that meant going to a less prestigious university, we refuse to pick between a quality education and our health. And we resent that in the 21st century, anyone think it’s acceptable to ask us to make this choice simply because we are women.

Many of the women whose stories I’ve shared today are Catholic women. So ours is not a war against the church. It is a struggle for the access to the health care we need.

The President of the Association of Jesuit Colleges has shared that Jesuit colleges and the universities appreciate the modifications to the rule announced recently. Religious concerns are addressed and women get the health care they need. And I sincerely hope that that is something we can all agree upon.

Thank you very much.

Today, Friday, July 22, 2011, is the last day for Public Comment on the proposed changes to the federal regs for owner financing rules….rules that will change your ability to enjoy real estate ownership in the United States.

Read here the highlights of the proposed regulations under Regualtion “Z”. (more…)

The United States Congress is looking to tighten regulations on owner financing. THE DEADLINE TO COMMENT IS TODAY, FRIDAY, July 22, 2011,  Congress will be making it difficult or impossible for property owners to collect their equity over time. This is certainly an investor issue; it is also a property rights issue, affecting all property owners. The freedom to sell on terms agreeable to a seller and buyer is a fundamental freedom affecting real estate value.

Today is the deadline for comments on this subject! You are encouragaed to voice your concerns over this issue of freedom being threatened to be taken away from all Americans. Go here to make and submit your comment.

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Fine Line Productions-East, a Washington, D.C. video production house, founder, Ron Minor, was fortunate to find a kidney to replace the one that had gone bad. (more…)

We want to weigh in on the non-controversy, a matter we believe is a further distraction from the important issues discussed during the President and First Lady’s recent travels abroad. An example of what we consider important is whether or not the U.S. dollar will remain worldwide currency. In our opinion this is a topic of far greater concern

than Michelle Obama’s sleeveless style or Mrs. Obama alleged breach of protocol by touching a British royal; a touch which was reciprocal, since the Queen initiated the touchy-feely expression (more…)