The pain is still raw.  The anger is still palpable.  And the disappointment is still so very real.

Yet, it is long past time for us Clinton supporters to put the Primary behind us and start taking this election more seriously.  

Today is the birthday of Social Security.  McJoan has posted a video of James Roosevelt comemorating his grandfather's signing of the bill, and saying that John McCain has called Social Security a disgrace and is in favor of privatizing the program.  She also includes Barack Obama's statement today.

I was not planning to write a diary today, but decided Social Security is worth writing about.

On June 25, 2008 the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 passed by a whopping 402-17 vote in the House. Sometime in September, the full Senate is expected to begin floor action on the Senate bill (S.3406). It currently enjoys the sponsorship of 65 Senators, and the endorsement of a wide variety of business and disability community organizations, so it's widely expected to pass, but your help is needed to provide just that little bit of insurance so that the opportunities and protections intended by Congress in the original ADA are certain to be restored to persons with disablities. We need to pass this with a veto-proof majority!

After the fold, there's an action request (the links are toward the bottom of the diary) as well as background information on why it's so important for the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA) to pass...

Note: I'm posting this quite late - it's nearly 2AM! - and won't be able to stay awake to respond right now to any comments. So here's a shameless pitch: please, my fellow night owls, help me out and rec this diary up, so that people may have a chance to see it in the morning. It's not campaign-related, but it's such an important issue!

So it seems my fellow gimps have found something to be outraged over, leaving me to wonder...

Are they retarded?

I love that line from Pink's song Dear Mr President.  In Illinois we need to change the title to Dear Mr Governor.  In our state we are the worst of the worst and heading lower in terms of money spent on people with disabilities and mental illness.  The people with mental illness have it the hardest.  What do I think when I see all the homeless on the streets of Chicago.  I think most of those people have a mental illness and they could be my brother if he did not have his family fighting to keep him well and safe.  

you will live.
If not, that's too bad.
Link to AP story.

Tomorrow is the 1st DISABILITY PRIDE DAY.  Tomorrow is the 5th annual Disability Pride Parade.  I am on the planning committee for the Disability Pride Parade.  I am also the Liaison for the Disability Pride Parade.  It was during my job as liaison, and the ensuing difficulties I had in getting some legislators to give me proclamations and clean resolutions honoring our Disibility Pride Parade, that I conceived the idea of asking for and getting, DISABILITY PRIDE DAY.  

I just left the McCormick Freedom Museum housed street-level in the Tribune Tower.  I read my poem "The Birth of a Poem" honoring the first ever, Disability Pride Day being celebrated in Chicago, marking the conjunction of two events, the 5th annual Disability Pride Parade and the 18th anniversary of the signing of the ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act.

In the audience sat former Congressman, the Honorable Tony Coelho, chief author of the ADA, who said that now there are 52 countries who have enacted their own version of an ADA,  because we in the United States had the vision to craft our ADA in 1990.  Tony said that Disability Pride Day, like the ADA, was a global idea.

When we send our young men and women into harm’s way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they’re going, to care for their families while they’re gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.

Barack Obama
2004 Democratic Convention Keynote Address

I hope I can be forgiven for repeating this diary for those who missed it the first time.  

This won't be the standard-issue karateexplosions diary, and I do apologize for that.  There's just not a whole lot of funny in this story.  But that doesn't mean we have to forgo the kitty picture:

The U.S. House has just passed HR 1355, http://thomas.loc.gov/... designating this Saturday, July 26, Disability Pride Day.  H Res 1355 honors both the 5th anniversary of Chicago's annual Disability Pride Parade and the 18th anniversary of the signing of the ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.  The Senate is poised to take complimentary action.  The Parade website: http://www.disabilityprideparade.org/

Our Parade already has had global impact!

Last year a contingent from Norway marched in our Parade.
 Several weeks ago, Norway held its first Disability Pride Parade!

The woman with the electric-blue hair was our guest in Chicago for last year's 4th Disability Pride Parade.

I've always been amazed that the very people forced to live in the worst parts of town, go to the worst schools, and who have it the hardest are always the first to step up, to defend us. They serve so that we don't have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is remarkably their gift to us. And all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harm's way unless it is absolutely necessary. Will they ever trust us again?

Michael Moore
Fahrenheit 9/11

This won't be the standard-issue karateexplosions diary, and I do apologize for that.  There's just not a whole lot of funny in this story.  But that doesn't mean we have to forgo the kitty picture:

...and a good friend of mine who now does part-time volunteer work on Long Island...haven't received the benefits that they were guaranteed by Congress. A majority-REPUBLICAN Congress passed the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act in 2000 because previous attempts to administer government-guaranteed  benefits had failed.

My friend and a group of over twenty people who were employed at the same nuclear weapons plant on Long Island have the identical cancer ailments and the identical organ deficits (kidney disease) that have been laboratory-proven to result from the specific exposure that they unwittingly received.

Over 160,000 claims have been filed, but fewer than 43,000 have been paid!

Details from The Rocky Mountain News which provided the landmark investigation of this extraordinary abuse follow over the fold.

Allow me to vent regarding the following:

John McCain cashes his monthly Social Security checks despite calling the federal program "a disgrace," the Associated Press reports.

"I'm receiving benefits," McCain told campaign reporters, but added, "the system is broken."

In 2007, he received benefits of $23,157 from Social Security, approximately $1,930 a month. The maximum monthly benefit under Social Security is $2,185. Social Security benefits are determined by age at retirement.

McCain, who is 71, has received benefits since he was 65.

Last week, McCain told observers at a town-hall meeting in Portsmouth, Ohio, "Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers ... and that's a disgrace."

B.J. Jarrett from the Social Security Administration said that individuals can refuse retirement benefits.

In 2006, McCain's wife Cindy earned $6 million, and has a net worth of approximately $100 million.

(San Francisco Business Times)

(Note: This diary was actually written by PerfectStormer, but he blew his daily diary last night on posting NetrootsNation fluff so I'm posting this for him.)

Good morning, all. I woke up this morning, got dressed and got ready for another wonderful day of hanging out at Netroots Nation.

Capital Metro of Austin had other plans.

See, I'm disabled. I am afflicted with a moderately severe case of spina bifida, and I walk with a cane. Undertakings like NetrootsNation are usually huge and arduous for me, but I make it through, as long as others play by the rules.

This morning, Capital Metro of Austin didn't play by the rules.

You might think that Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott learned a lesson from the beating he took a few months ago in the media over the Deborah Shank case, but you'd be wrong. Wal-Mart now seems determined to keep disability benefits from all Americans, not merely its own employees. To make matters worse, the company has chosen to start its campaign with an injured police officer.

I just posted this challenge on the barackobama.com web site, in two disability policy groups.

I have been visiting two barackobama.com blogs on disability issues for a couple of months now, and while I'm glad they are available to us, it seems like they aren't being used as effectively as they could. I feel that those of us familiar with disability issues who support Barack Obama's candidacy owe it to him to provide him with useful advice. If we could agree to get behind one specific disability policy initiative and rally support around it, we could have real affect on Sen. Obama's disability platform, and more importantly, perhaps point out a unique, "outside the box" idea he could champion and thereby in one more way distinguish his disability policies from the ordinary "by the numbers" disability policy approach one typically hears from candidates of either party. If Senator Obama were to adopt an idea promoted by our community, it might be only a sentence in his stump speech, but it would be an earthquake and a milestone for our people, and when he's President, it could make a real change, for a change, in our lives.

I was working on a diary which I will post next week which will explain why Obama can win on both Change and Experience. Real life experience.   While doing some research for the piece, I was forced to read John McCain's Wiki for comparisons and I was shocked by some of the statements on the page. None of which are disputed.  Let's jump.

This just up on Americablog.com:

Why is McCain getting $58,000 a year in disability income?
John Aravosis (DC)    

First off, I find it fascinating that John McCain, who is refusing to vote for the GI Bill for our troops because "it's too generous," is himself getting $58,000 a year, tax-free, from the US government for his military service. Had McCain been getting that amount every year since Vietnam, that would total $2,000,000 for the man who isn't into overgenerous government. I just find that interesting.

Holy wheelchairs, Batman!

Apparently, John McCain makes $58k a year in tax-free disability pay. He makes $145k a year as a US senator. His wife makes...

Well, actually, we have no idea what his wife makes.

As a disabled man trying to live on just shy of $11k a year in SSD, I'm outraged.