Love. Culture. Politics.

Lunch time.

Democrats are being weak Democrats. Again.

Give them a call and tell them #resistance doesn’t mean constantly rolling over to compromise. Our healthcare is important.

Here’s a link to the script suggested by Indivisible:

There are literally thousands of staffers who can help, and for the purpose of this filibuster by amendment, it doesn’t matter if the amendments are one page sentences or paragraphs and paragraphs.

When Obama was president, Republicans wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on dozens and dozens of purely symbolic votes to repeal Obamacare, and now that they’re actually doing it, we’re supposed to be practical??

C'mon now.

Also, an amendment can be something as simple as one sentence (”Congress shall create a commission to study expanding Medicaid to all Americans”). Or do a dozen variations on a theme. (”Medicaid will be expanded to cover all Americans, to be paid for by raising income taxes on the top 10% of earners.” “Medicaid expansion, to be paid for by increasing capital gains tax.” “Medicaid expansion, to be paid for by fees charged to users who don’t qualify for free coverage.” “Medicaid expansion, to be paid for by transactions tax.” Then repeat all the above, replacing “Medicaid” with “Medicare.” Etc, etc. )

Republicans accused Democrats of “secret” health care negotiations in 2010. Now, they’re doing it.

Senate Republicans plan to vote on their yet-to-be-seen health care bill next week, according to multiple reports.

The timing of the vote means there will be zero congressional hearings that allow experts to vet the bill, and the public will have less than a week to read and digest legislation that will impact one-sixth of the U.S. GDP.

The secretive way in which Senate Republicans plan to pass their health care overhaul is exceedingly unpopular — 73% of voters want the party to discuss its plans in public, according to a CBS News poll. 

From Romania to Canada with Photojournalist @dianazeynebalhindawi on #WorldRefugeeDay

June 20th marks #WorldRefugeeDay, a day to honor the men, women and children who must flee their homes under threat of persecution and violence.

“Photography allows me to stay on the move, much like I did throughout my childhood and young adult years,” recounts photojournalist Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi (@dianazeynebalhindawi), who was born in Romania to an Iraqi father and Romanian mother. “Our family faced repeated harassment under the communist regime, but returning to Iraq was not an option for my father,” she says. “He would have been killed.”

The family moved to Syria, then back to Romania, where they applied for asylum in Germany, but were rejected.

“We ended up living in a refugee camp in former Yugoslavia, and were accepted for resettlement in Canada just before my 8th birthday,” says Diana. We were the perfect refugee family — my mother and father had professional degrees, and my brother and I were young enough to easily integrate into a new society and national identity.”

Stefani McCoy, seated in the center of the front row, was a high school dropout. After going back to school and completing her college degree, she joined the Peace Corps and went to Namibia to help fellow dropouts.

McCoy is stationed in Rundu, on the northern border of the country, working with the local branch of the Community Skills Development Center (COSDEC). Its programs provide vocational training in areas such as plumbing and office administration for dropouts who want to enter the work force but lack the skills to succeed.

Stefani McCoy, right, and her Namibian colleague Toive Pessa.

There are number of reasons it’s so common for kids to leave school early in Namibia. COSDEC colleague Toive Pessa ticks off a few: “There’s no support from their parents, their parents pass away, teenage pregnancy.” Plus, until 2016, secondary education cost money that many families didn’t have. (It’s now free.)

McCoy has learned that humor can work wonders. When students are nervous during a mock interview, she tells them to imagine her naked. “They all bust out laughing,” she says.

Mock interview 

Silly stuff helps them tackle some serious questions, like, in an interview, how do you explain to a potential employer what you did after dropping out. For many students, that time was spent at home, helping with their families. McCoy’s advice? “They won’t focus too much on the gap if you’re able to articulate the experience you have.”

Read the full story here

Samin Nosrat has become known as the chef who taught Michael Pollan to cook, after the famed food writer featured her in his book Cooked and his Netflix show of the same name.

Now, she’s sharing her wisdom with the masses in her new, illustrated cookbook called Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking. The key to good cooking, she says, is learning to balance those elements and trust your instincts, rather than just follow recipes.

An Illustrated Guide To Master The Elements Of Cooking — Without Recipes

Dorothy, of Spring Hill, Fla., has a 15-year-old son with spina bifida and developmental delays, and her 13-year-old daughter is, she says, “mildly autistic.” Neither was happy at public school.

“My son was in a lockdown classroom with gang members. It was a bad situation. I was afraid he was going to get hurt,” Dorothy says. “My daughter was getting bullied because she spoke out of turn or would get upset easily. Twenty kids in a classroom was a lot for her.”

Today, Dorothy is homeschooling her son and daughter with the help of a novel item on the school choice menu: the Gardiner Scholarship. This voucher program, created in 2014, can be used by students with specific disabilities, including autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy and Down syndrome. It has grown rapidly and is now used by 7,000 Florida students.

A controversial education bill now before Florida’s governor, Rick Scott, would add $30 million to the program’s budget, amid other expansions to school choice.

Using the Gardiner, which provides an average $10,000 for each child, Dorothy has been able to purchase tablet computers, a camera, a telescope, books, online courses and other supplies and equipment to customize a curriculum for both teenagers.

“They are doing better than I ever could have imagined,” says Dorothy (we’re not using her last name to protect her children’s privacy). “Neither take any [psychiatric] medication anymore. There are no overstimulation issues.”

Homeschooling Makes Learning Personal For Some Special Education Students