Summer's gone, school's back in. Holidays are around the bend. Yet change is on its inexorable path, waiting for no one. You've made an enormous impact, and the finish line for one historic change, health care reform, is in sight! Can you help make it the change you want to see?
You've all made thousands of calls, gotten your neighbors to sign tens of thousands declarations, you've sent thousands of emails. What did you achieve? For one, Sen. Maria Cantwell went from "no comment" on the public option, to public support for the public option. Sen. Patty Murray and many of our Representatives are also on board. Four of five committees have voted on a bill - and that has never, ever happened before.
Do you want to make sure they stand strong? The biggest hurdle is right up ahead. We expect the final of five committees, the Finance Committee, to vote on Tuesday. It could take a little longer - that seems to happen pretty often, right? But next is the full Senate and full House, then they have to reconcile their bills, then it's the final vote to send it to President Obama to sign.
You can imagine the bill you want will be signed. Go ahead. Imagine.
If we do not get a public option, we will pay billions of dollars in subsidies to private insurers only. 80% of people with no health insurance work, and rightfully, they will get subsidies.
Wrongfully, all that subsidy money paid with your taxes will go to private insurers, and pay for not only health care, but also for:
- Salaries of $20-$25 million for private insurance CEOs
- Perks like private jets, bonuses, and stock shares often worth over $100 million for those CEOs
No government employee gets millions of dollars a year, and perks and stock shares worth over $100 million.
. Your firefighter, police, highway patrol do not make $25 million a year.
. Your congressmen don’t make $25 million a year.
. Your President of the United States does not make $25 million/year.
. Your Medicare, VA and Medicaid bureaucrats do not make $25 million/year.
Bremerton for Health Care Reform:
Time to talk to neighbors, 1-to-1 again! Gather the troops and meet us Saturday, August 22nd at 10 a.m. to canvas the area around Evergreen Park. We will have a script, homemade clipboards, and a list of Independent voters. We’ll start with a quick training/review, and walk the neighborhood in pairs, to gather from 50-100 signed declarations from voters in favor of health care reform with a strong public option.
RSVP here:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpfcdf
Remember, we are the change we’ve been waiting for. The anti-health reform lobby is going strong, even though it is still a minority. It’s time we help demonstrate what most voters really want: reform, now, with a strong public option! Bring comfortable shoes, bottled water, a smile and a friend!
Organizing for America Listening Tour -- All Fired Up to Make Change a Reality (Listening Tour)
Organizing For America would like to invite you to an important gathering for volunteers in our city. Across the nation, volunteers like you will attend Listening Tour stops in their communities. At the meeting, you will:
* Meet your new statewide Organizing for America staff.
* Hear about Organizing For America's mission, accomplishments, and State-specific goals.
* Provide lots of input on what Organizing for America should look like in your hometown.
Many of us were moved to share hundreds to thousands of hours of our time during the campaign. We shed tears on election night when we realized beyond the shadow of a doubt that our nation is ready to grow. Now is the time to step forward and support President Obama's agenda in an active way!
Each of you have important testimonies to share on how we best support President Obama's agenda and build a formidable grassroots movement in Washington State. Please join us and share your vision. Together we will create the change we voted for!
Time: Tuesday, May 19 from 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Host: Dustin Lambro
Location: Lynwood Commons Community Center (Bainbridge Island, WA) 4779 Lynnwood Center Rd NE Bainbridge Island, WA 98110
Bring a snack/refreshments to share if you're able! Thanks!
RSVP: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpcsz7
We have never had a better chance to impact this critical issue. Our reps are willing to use "budget reconciliation" to overcome filibuster threats and pass health care reform (since private insurers are still at the table), but on climate change and cap-and-trade, the resistance is absolute, from Democratic reps from mining, coal, oil, gas states, not just from Republicans.
Since our representatives are more indebted to their oil, gas, mining and coal lobbyists than to our environment or our President, it's the EPA to the rescue! There will be a 60-day comment period so please write, right now, and get everyone you can to attend 2 public hearings in May, in
Support w/your comments to:
GHG-Endangerment-Docket@epa.gov
Subject: Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0171
Do it please, now! Background at: http://epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html
Post this on Facebook, all your networks, Digg to push story to front page:
http://digg.com/world_news/U_S_says_greenhouse_emissions_endanger_human_health
Send this alert to all your friends, especially in the vicinity of VA and WA!
I think lobbyists are ruling our Democratic reps and senators, as there is no push in either house to support Obama's budget proposal for cap-and-trade and as of now, it's beaten, it's out, so, if you're as p-o'd as I am about it, don't wait for a call to action - just write the DNC now: http://www.democrats.org/page/s/contactissues
Choose "Energy Independence", and tell them you want it reinstated. If we sit back, we can kiss it goodbye. Obama is having a lunch with the Dems on Wednesday to push for it - let's all help him, and our poor arctic-ice-melting planet!
"In one week, at this defining moment in history, you can give this country the change we need.... We can't afford to slow down, sit back, or let up for one day, one minute, or one second in this last week. Not now. Not when so much is at stake." For more, select link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDw5_d0M-wc&NR=1
I was watching with a local organizer-volunteer, Stephanie, mother, black female, Christian, veteran, who got a text msg from a fellow black female student who had not committed to vote until then - saying she will now definitely vote for Barack, and volunteer too, after seeing Barack at Saddleback.
This is in response to the Aug. 21, 08 Op Ed by Michael Moore in Rolling Stone.
Michael Moore's a successful (rich) mockumentary maker, and very successful among many working class whites especially. Yet, like so many white liberals, he wants the first viable African American presidential candidate - who happens to have the best policies for the working class, and best environmental policies, and the best transparency in government policies, and the best anti-media-conglomerate policies, and the best foreign and trade policies - to be more radical and outspoken than any white presidential candidate who's ever made it this far.
Michael claims Obama's legendary "move to the center" will discourage volunteers. Michael, there were 22,000 volunteer applicants for 10,000 volunteer positions at the Denver Democratic Convention!
Michael ignores that there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of white voters, especially older ones but not exclusively, who will not vote for Obama if he stands on his head and hands them $100 bills. He wants black Obama to act like white Michael, or at least like Michael's deposed hero John Edwards.
Imagine it for a moment. See Obama yell for the poor and rail against the Two Americas, as Edwards did. See him, in your mind's eye, pounding on the podium with righteous indignation. Right. That'll sink him like a stone.
Angry black men are not the ideal candidates in America. It sure didn't work for the black Republican Alan Keyes, who couldn't get even white Republicans to vote for him against mild-mannered, cool as a cucumber Obama. For that matter, the Angry Populist act didn't put even white John Edwards over the top. All people of all races are tired of divisive politics - except for contentious liberals who make a nice living from the divisive politics. We want to fight bad policies, not paint everyone who supports those bad policies as demons on earth.
We just registered 130 people today, from 10 am til 6 pm at a local festival. Many who registered were just turning 18, first-time voters. It is so exhilarating! We did it in concert w/our local democratic club, and it turned out Obama volunteers were the backbone of the event - 8 of the 10 who worked the registration tables were our volunteers.
Another Obama vol photographed supporters, for free, to post on the Google group Wall of Hope. Galen Swain, our volunteer photographer from a separate district, took over 300 pictures of couples, singles and groups of people who wanted a picture with "Obama" - a life-size cardboard standing figure. He hollers out "Take a picture with the next President! All it'll cost you is a smile!" Who can resist that?
Someone got so inspired he's bringing a plaster bust of Obama's lovely head for our table tomorrow - he bought it from a local artist we'll be contacting, trust me! Two local t-shirt printers offered us ready-made BO t's to sell and take a cut. We're raising money to send people to a battleground state - just a little $50 gas card for each carpool. Looks like we'll be sending lots of carpools!
A local volunteer who has a graphic designing young son with his own printing business made organic cotton canvas shopping bags with an awesome design of BO and quote. We're going to do it in different languages - they're selling like hot cakes! So are the t's he made where we get half the cut on sales - sweet!
None of us but our senior Democratic Club members ever did this before, and the creative fundraising projects we did impressed them no end. Our enthusiasm, the level of commitment, made the organizer, in his 60s, smile all day long.
I had offered to take over on scheduling and confirming volunteers, and a team to set up and break down, when the Democratic Club elder who organizes this every year called me four days ago to tell me his wife, his most loyal voter registration partner, was going in for two surgeries followed by a week in a nursing home. We (our local Obama group) were just gonna show up, sit down, and register people before that very sweet, humble "ask" for more help.
Nothing is more disheartening than the media assault that ties our Senator Obama's ideals with Rev. Wright's perceived ideas - distorted by the barely minutes-long media "coverage". Long articles are written, but they consist of quoting themselves and each other - no new information, no analysis of the history of black churches, no question of how they are feeding into threats to the pastor and the congregation.
My gift has been voters' and supporters' letters and comments in response to this pathetic media feed frenzy. They inspired me to write my own, but first, their encouraging words:
I am a soldier reading all this from Iraq. I cannot tell you how disturbed I am at this moment. I have spent 34 of the past 48 months in battle or training for battle... and all my country can do is squabble about Jerimiah Wright. I believe in Barack Obama. Not just his policies, but the process in which he will go about implementing those policies. Unity, sitting down at the table, transparency, diplomacy, empathy... and all I see are my fellow citizens behaving like children, fighting for the tablescraps of power. I understand what a McCain presidency will bring... another tour here, sigh. I understand what a Hillary presidency will bring. 4 years of partisan bickering, more stories of Bill, mudslinging from the Right and on and on and on. This is almost like a movie, a living nightmare that won't end. Everything is topsy turvy. I'm losing faith in our political system. I have yet to hear a single hate word spew from Sen Obama's mouth. Not one. I have not heard a single hateful character bash come from his words, not one. I have read his books. Beautiful, sound, in depth, visionary, truthfull, articulate... sigh. I am this close to resigning my commission. Our government IS broken. I no longer feel inspired to serve my country. Why am I fighting here? Why are we fighting at home? We can elect George Bush twice, and yet sling this amazing American possessed with tremendous talent in the garbage. If Obama is not elected, we get what we deserve. Either more war, or more of the same Rush Limbaugh bickering. April 28, 2008 4:05 PM Link
More below the fold.
Check out Slate.com: POLITICS: WHO'S WINNING, WHO'S LOSING, AND WHY.Slate's Delegate CalculatorTHE MATH ONLY GETS GLOOMIER FOR CLINTON—EVEN AFTER A BIG PENNSYLVANIA WIN.By Chris Wilson and Chadwick Matlin Updated Wednesday, April 23, 2008, at 1:03 AM ETHillary Clinton's 10-point victory in Pennsylvania awards her a net gain of about 16 pledged delegates, based on projections from the popular vote. Because Pennsylvania awards about two-thirds of its delegates by district, we won't have a precise figure until later this week.
Coming into today, the odds that Clinton would catch Obama in pledged delegates were very small. Now they're zero. Before Pennsylvania, Clinton needed to win each remaining primary with 65 percent of the vote to close the gap. Even though she won Pennsylvania, that figure is now just over 68 percent. (Try it on the calculator below by dragging the red bar at the top to the right.) Furthermore, the state with the most remaining delegates is North Carolina, where Obama leads in the polls by about 20 points. Assuming he nets at least 20 more of the state's 115 delegates, Clinton needs 80 percent of the vote in each of the other eight remaining primaries to catch up.
Now is the time to give your all. Indiana and North Carolina must and will be blowouts, if you and I give our all.
Let no one say Hillary got more steam out of this than Obama - we overcame a 20+ lead after every smear thrown at Obama, in less than one month, after 55 minutes of organized attack at the final so-called "debate" - so for all practical purposes, she lost! She needed a 15 point win, she only got 10, if that. She only got 10 more delegates than Obama, 75-65, with 18 to be determined. There are just as many delegates up for grabs in IN and NC, so let's go get them!If you've never pushed an undecided or Clinton-leaning voter to reconsider, do it now, in one of those upcoming elections. It is so easy. Over 10% of voters still believe Obama is a practicing or undercover Muslim, and/or doesn't salute the flag. You can change that! Just say, nicely and firmly, why you want Jan. 2009 to usher in the Obama Administration.PhonebankIf you've never donated or have 5, 10, 20 to spare, do it now.DonateIf you've never written a newspaper, or in news sites online, write now. Start with Indiana and NC. If you get into a groove, keep on going. Just say, nicely and firmly, why you want Jan. 2009 to usher in the Obama Administration.Rapid ResponseIf you're bilingual and write nicely in Spanish, write Puerto Rico's media outlets, at least online.Latino Rapid ResponseIf you can travel to one of the last states, from Kentucky to Oregon, or West Virginia or Puerto Rico, get set and go now! Hit the road!If you ever wanted Obama campaign gear, get it now, only atBO StoreRemember, as future President Barack Obama reminds us:
After a sufficient time grieving that we didn't win my [newest] home state California, I'm fired up - we won so many states, with such huge margins! The Democratic Party is positively drooling for our candidate Barack, who has brought so many devoted supporters to the Democratic Party.
I keep working on the campaign, and so do most of the volunteers I've met. We're phonebanking, holding fundraisers to get each other to the next primary or caucus states, and we're determined to reach June 3rd as the decisive winners. Gather some friends, pick a state, and call: Call for Obama
Things are looking good for Obama in Indian Country, according to this article. Let's do all we can to spread the word among our friends and relatives in Indian Country and get out the vote for Barack Feb. 5th! Read on, it starts forebodingly, but it's very positive, overall. The rest is up to us! Alaska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, North Dakota and Arizona - let's get to work! Spread the word among our Native brothers and sisters.
Barack Obama is big in Indian Country, even though he’s done everything wrong. He hasn’t attended the annual National Congress of American Indians meet, or rolled out a comprehensive Native American agenda, or even addressed the rumors of his own Native heritage—but he has still, somehow, managed to capture the imagination of Indian Country, say Native American commentators and community activists.
Link
Only 23.6 percent of registered voters either mailed absentee ballots or showed up at the Tyrrell Elementary School cafeteria on election day, compared with the 35.6 percent citywide average, according to the Alameda County registrar of voters.
But that didn't matter to a small crew of grass-roots organizers for presidential candidate Barack Obama who bombarded the apartment-heavy neighborhood with unexpected attention on a chilly and breezy Sunday afternoon.
"Everything we do, it's all alone," said organizer Virginia Velez of Alameda. "It's astonishing. We have less than 70 days to go."
