This week Congress started the 'marking up' session on the Health Care and Insurance Reform. It is crucial we keep the pressure on them pass the bill.
The Daily Kos has an excellent article about the amendments we should push to support, and those we should push against.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/21/10112/5602
You might want to sit down to read this one .......
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-dorlester/guaranteed-health-care-in_b_280528.html
AMERICANS UNITED FOR HEALTH CARE AND INSURANCE REFORM
http://www.americansunitedhcr.wordpress.com
Phone/Fax (712) 239-0992
Direct Questions to:
americansunitedhcr@cableone.net
Press Release
9 A.M. CDT, August 31, 2009
AMERICANS UNITED FOR HEALTH CARE & INSURANCE REFORM RALLY & March in Washington, D.C. Sept. 13, 2009
Sioux City, August 31, 2009: A rally/march will be held in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 13, 2009 between 12N – 5pm in support of the administrations health care and health insurance reform goals. It is the goal of Americans United for Health Care and Insurance Reform to let congress know that all Americans need health care and insurance. Over 47 million Americans are uninsured and millions more are underinsured or at risk of losing their health insurance
The rally/march will begin at the Lincoln Memorial and march to the steps of the Capitol Building via the National Mall. This rally/march will be peaceful.
Robert Reich has given his support to this rally and march, “….I just want Congress to know how many Americans want universal health care and will settle for no less than complete coverage and no less than a public insurance option, to keep private insurers honest. So I’m happy to lend my support to whatever you are doing.”
Americans have enjoyed the freedom of movement, speech and employment. It is time that American citizens have the freedom that comes from knowing they have affordable health care for themselves and their families. Health care is not just for the privileged but it is a fundamental right.
Other groups marching on September 13, 2009 for health care reform are Congressman Fattah’s “March for Healthcare”, “Medicare for All”, and “March on Washington for Health Care.”
We invite all those who wish to participate visit our web blog at http://www.americansunitedhcr.wordpress.com and register to rally.
For more information please see our web blog (address above)Please direct all questions to our committee at americansunitedhcr@cableone.net.
After reading this article it occurred to me that we are in the same position Russia was before Putin took over. Our economy, resources and future is in the hands of a ruthless, greedy group of oligarchs that have hijacked our nation. It also occurred to me that President Obama might not be Putin-like in this matter but more akin to Yeltsin. A populist who let these oligarchs run rampant while the nation tanks. I must say I am extremely saddened and depressed by the current state of affairs and look to President Obama to step up and stop this insanity before it is too late. Please read the article in it's entirety before responding. I fully expect this site's moderator to not allow this post.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover
One of the signal changes leading up to President Obama's election was the stunning rise of the baby boomers once more. We're the generation that felt had, lied to, and abandoned by a government and corporate bureauocracy that that stifled us, tried to control the way we thought, and illegally sent our brothers and classmates to be killed in Vietnam. We were an entire generation of alienated individuals, too cynical about government to think our efforts made any difference at all.
Obama's candidacy represented all the ideals we had back then going mainstream now. What I saw in this campaign was an ARMY of people in their fifties and sixties once again hopeful that government would be responsive to their ideas and needs. While Obama effectively harnessed the enthusiasm of youth, I hope he appreciates the tide of emotion and strong feelings that he unleashed in older Americans as well. For once, our idealism had a place, and we could act on it. We felt renewed, worthwhile. And we got involved in droves. The result was that Obama actually had the combined power of generations behind his back.
This stunning reality was brought home to me especially in the last days before the Presidential election. Who were those busloads of people pouring over the border from New York to Pennsylvania with single-minded dedication to securing it for Obama? Baby boomers! Buses and buses and buses of them, as far as the eye could see. And who poured into Obama offices all over the tri-state area with the simple plea "I want to help" during the last two months of the campaign? Baby boomers!
Not that they weren't involved in primaries -- they were. Big time. But as their cynicism finally took a back seat to hope, more and more suddenly jumped into the fray and worked tirelessly for Obama.
We stand now, an army of revitalized people, ready to help President Obama dust off all our old ideals and make them come alive. I would ask that he appreciate this fact, appreciate us as a group, and ask more of us in the shaping of our nation and the continuation of his administration's efforts in the days of years head.
We're good for it. The sleeping lions have awakened, and they're VERY hungry for change.
Hello all! Let's make it a good one ...
Mount Vernon, NY's Image Preservation Society
True fact. He also correctly predicted our current financial crisis - ten years ago! (citation below) Frankly, his accuracy scares the living daylights out of me.
What can we do to avoid total financial meltdown and breakup as a country? Here's my two cents:
1. TOTAL HONESTY. Until anchorman Peter Jennings had the personal integrity to insist that the war in Iraq be finally and correctly publicly called a civil war because it had, in fact, long since degenerated to one, America wasn't getting the information that the situation was far worse, not better as Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld insisted in claiming. All of a sudden, American opinion changed and there were outraged calls for us to stop wasting our money and to get out of Iraq. We need that kind of total honesty right now, and we're not getting it from Bush.
2. SPEND HERE, NOT EVERYWHERE ELSE. It's time to stop the arrogance of supporting the entire world. We don't have the money to support everybody else's economies. Period. WE DON'T HAVE THE MONEY. THE WELL IS DRY.
3. REORDER OUR ENVIRONMENTAL PRIORITIES. Quit spending billions to preserve the last known habitat of the Kingfisher and other minor actors on this planet. Species die out. There are plenty more birds, snakes, etc. Move on.
4. REFUSE TO FUND BUSH'S LARGESS. George Bush just gave a speech yesterday about how he was defiantly continuing to send money to other countries so that they could have economic progress, good homes, educaton, etc. Screw that. We are losing all of that right now, right here, in our own country. What does it take, giving away every last penny before somebody finally admits the horror is actually true? We need the money right here. Period.
5. STOP SPENDING ON THE ARTS. Now this will anger a lot of people. But right now, we don't need new little theatre groups, dance troupes, more art shows, etc. Nobody can even afford to go see that stuff now, anyway. Also, the phrase "starving artist" should not be a historic relic. After all, we've all now got starving neighbors. Everybody into the pool.
6. NO MORE HANDOUTS TO BANKS, COMPANIES, INSURERS, ETC. UNLESS THEY SHOW A PLAN. And that plan had damn well better show that the 25 top officers and managers in the company are taking a severe compensation package cut. Like, no stock options. No performance unit plan payouts. Base salary only for a few years. Oh, and salary freezes throughout the company, with voluntary, alternating short-term layoffs. The goal should be to preserve jobs, not the earnings potential of the fat cats. Why hasn't anybody followed the lead of Goldman Sachs on cutting executive salaries, I'm asking? And why the CRAP was it so important for the government to pay $400,000,000 for naming the new Yankee stadium the "Citi Center"? If it doesn't put food on the table or keep the roof over our heads, it's not critical, period.
7. ADDITIONAL REGULATION OF THOSE WHO ALREADY GOT THEIR HANDOUTS. Impose the same salary and compensation limits on those who stuck out their panicked, greedy hands already. Congress, get off your butts and pass a law, already.
8. STOP BEING BLEEDING HEARTS. This will sound heretical, but we need to stop throwing money at every single perceived ill. Everybody has their hand out all the time. Time for people to just get them slapped away. If it isn't critical to feeding people, clothing people, or putting a roof over their heads, don't spend on it. DON'T spend on it. Don't SPEND on it. Don't spend on IT. Think like a Republican when it comes to non-critical spending.
9. JUST SAY NO. We're spoiled as a nation. We've got closets full of clothes, shoes, accessories, suits, ties, etc. when a few will do. Two cars in many families because it's more convenient, a luxury. And just stuff, stuff, stuff that marketers tell us makes our lives more complete, meaningful and enjoyable. Just say no. Their marketing pleas fill their pockets with moola, not yours. Time to suffer. One TV per household, not one on every floor. Wear your scruffies and read a good book more often. Yes, companies will go bankrupt, restaurants will close, fewer movies will be made, etc. After one massive shakeout, we'll all be doing what we should be doing - paying more attention to home, hearth, and each other, and less attention to stuff.
http://www.drudgereport.com/flashrur.htm
Ok, sportsfans. Bill Clinton has promised to cooperate fully with vetting, scale back his relationship with his foundation, disclose his clients, and other limits, "anything they want," to help Hillary land the Secretary of State position. So what could possibly go wrong?
The Constitution, that's what.
Specifically, Article I, Section 6, Clause 2, which provides that "No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; ...."
Emoluments? Yep. Pay raises, among other things. And, wouldn't you just know it, Congress approved a pay raise for for cabinet posts during Hillary's current senate term. The Huffington Post quotes the Washington post for this tidbit:
"In Clinton's case, during her current term in the Senate, which began in January 2007, cabinet salaries were increased from $186,600 to $191,300."
As Keith Olbermann would say, "Oops."
There is another solution, however, successfully employed once before in the "Saxbe Fix," which evidently involved repealing the pay raise for the duration of an unexpired Senate term so that Sen. Saxbe could be appointed attorney general in the Nixon Administration, even though he was a Senator when the Attorney General's salary had been raised. This little end-run dates back to the Taft administration, and U.S. Attorney Generals have sometimes allowed it and other times declared it not constitutionally permissible.
For more fun reading, see the full Huffpost article and a nifty online exerpt from The Heritage Guide to the Constitution:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/13/hillary-clinton-secretary_n_143735.html?page=29&show_comment_id=18149463#comment_18149463
http://books.google.com/books?id=-_8N3UeXeesC&pg=PA83&lpg=PA83&dq=Saxbe+Fix&source=web&ots=kYTyZxZMRN&sig=mQGRqI7568yqqURydEIExjExhtY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result
The defeat of Alaska Sen. Stevens is cause for a sigh of relief. The U.S. Senate won't be forced to throw him out and Sarah Palin won't be able to shove herself through the back door to the Senate by getting herself appointed or elected to serve out his Senate term.
Remember Palin with her "if a door opens before me, I'm going to go right through it" campaign this last week? This was basically the "ME, ME, I'LL TAKE IT, I'LL TAKE IT, IT'S MINE, MINE, DO YOU HEAR ME? MIIIIIINNNNNE" tour, in case anybody missed her embarrassing total lack of subtlety.
Thank God that avenue is closed to her. This is one woman who should be denied a podium entirely until she has something useful to contribute to society, if ever.
Guys, it's not whether Hillary has foreign affairs experience. She might block Obama's health care plan in the Senate in retribution for him beating her in the primaries and doing her out of the presidency that she considered hers. This removes her and gives her something entirely different to focus on. Also, once she takes it, not likely she can go back to being a senator, so the problem is dealt with permanently.
The conversation has moved on, and it doesn't include Sarah Palin. Despite many talking heads giving her the widest possible berth on her recent behavior, just in case she again emerges on the national scene to create delicious fodder for their shows, they're peddling fraud.
Palin has to learn a hard political truth. If you blow an inverview or a campaign, there are no re-dos. You can't claim that an interviewer was mean and try to correct it weeks later. You can't claim you weren't found in violation of the law in the face of a government report that says you were. You can't take shots at President-elect Obama as if you could still win and he can still be brought down, when the campaign is actually done. You have to have the correct political instincts, actions and answers the FIRST TIME. Right then and there. Like national officials are required to have.
There are no re-dos weeks later when you are deciding to bomb a country.
There are no re-dos weeks later when facing a hostage situation or a national emergency.
There are no re-dos later when you decide and people act irrevocably on your decision.
Lives and livelihoods hang on your capacity to know, understand, analyze, evaluate and decide, IMMEDIATELY.
Good government depends on your ability to govern well, not whine about how everybody else is at fault for all your missteps.
This current campaign of Palin's to raise public opinion of her is so childish and immature that it's cringeworthy. The woman has no shame, in addition to having no judgment.
In the short time she was in the public eye, we learned heaps of horrifying stuff about her personal life - that she kicked her daughter out of the house when she first found out about the teenage pregnancy. And that Palin used private email for public business. And slept with her husband's business partner. And used the power of her office illegally. That she "cancelled" the Bridge to Nowhere but KEPT all that juicy, porky Federal money. And submitted thousands of dollars in questionable per diem expenses to Alaska. And shamelessly and selfishly blew a stunning amount of the GOP's money on clothes for herself and her family.
Who knows what other skeletons she is now burying . . . or ontinuing to create.
As far as politics goes, we learned that she can't think on her feet if her entire career and future depended on it. And doesn't know a thing about foreign affairs. And somehow missed some core concepts in elementary school geography. Oh, yes, and that she's a race-baiter, slanderer, and liar.
Palin thinks she can come back from all THIS? She sees Hillary is too old to make another run for the presidency and is determined to jump into the vacuum?
Whom, exactly, did she think she has managed to impress? Whom, exactly does she think would support her after all her shameless and nasty flailing around on the public stage?
Noooooooooooo, honey, you only get one try.
And BOY did you ever blow it.
WOW. Rachel Maddow, on her MSNBC News show last night, cited a Congressional oversight law that sets the prior May 15th as the deadline beyond which a new president can reverse regulations finalized by a former president.
If that's true, then all this current flap about how Obama could reverse regulations adopted "after Congress adjourns" would be solved. Pelosi could call Congress back into session without worrynig about forfeiting the opportunity to cancel regulations.
Anybody have a citation to this law?
Politico.com today references a little-known Clinton-era law that would allow a new president to overturn any new federal regulations adopted within 60 days of Congressional adjournment. This means that not only could the Obama administration overturn regulations passed within 60 days of his inauguration, but within 60 days after Congress adjourned - Oct. 3.
So as long as Congress stays OUT of session, Obama can repeal any damaging regulations finalized on or after October 4, 2008.
I see danger here. Pelosi is about to reconvene the House to start working on Pres.-Elect Obama's agenda. That would blow this opportunity, right?
You have to see this - so poignant!
Staring up at a steep front stairway almost two stories high, I began to question why I had taken the bus from Westchester County, NY to Scranton, PA. Nobody had mentioned the mile-long stairways up to the doorways. But as we huffed and puffed up the stairs, it became just another obstacle to be overcome in this long battle. Our "door knock" map put us smack dab on a steep hill, and dammity dam we were going to do it.
Every last house.
Not only did we age 50-hm-hm-hm ladies trudge through the entire assigned route, we got happier by the minute as we determinedly worked to get out the vote. Yes, already supporting Obama. Yes, I need a ride to the poll. The polling place has changed? Thank you for reminding me.
50 homes. Four hours. Nearly dead with exhaustion at the end, and half a mountain higher than where we started.
We were dropped off and later driven back to the office by another woman and her daughter from Westchester County who heard the call that drivers were needed, jumped into their car and joined the caravan. She and others dropped off teams all over Scranton in the morning, then picked them up and brought them back to the campaign's office in the afternoon. It was November 1st, and nobody was taking anything for granted. All hands on deck, everybody pouring over the borders into Pennsylvania and Ohio for one last big push.
The small team manning the Scranton office was well-prepared. They had handed out packets with literature, lists of homes to contact, questions to fill out, and a "walk map" complete with dots where our target homes should be on the blocks. After returning, we tallied them up.
Then came the astonishing news. Our office had completed 5,000 door knocks that day. The downtown Scranton office had completed another 15,000, fora total of 20,000 doorknocks in Scranton that day. The several busloads of stunned out-of-state volunteers erupted in cheers.
The news channels later reported that Obama volunteers had completed 1.8 million doorknocks in Pennsylvania and 800,000 doorknocks in Ohio that weekend.
I am so proud to have participated in this great campaign. So many small acts adding up to such a great wave of energy.
We did it together.
We changed a nation.
Most elections are about immediate issues. Sometimes you get a confluence of factors that presents us with immediate issues and generational issues that can transform the nation. This is one of those elections. We have serious immediate issues (e.g., energy independence, a failing economy, and the Iraq war). We also have some serious generational issues (basic philosophy of what the government's role should be, and dealing with serious religious and racial/political divides). Those issues require a different kind of leader. In essence, they require a transcendent and transformation figure who can reach across those divides to accomplish change. That's what I saw in Obama; in a lot of ways, he was the culmination of a lot of the great battles for which our father's generation fought so bitterly - including most prominently civil rights. Moreover, he - by his basic philosophy and his biography - was able to bridge and transcend those divides; and most importantly, he preached that message and walked the walk.
I believe one of the most amazing things about this country is its ability to continuously strive for a more perfect union and fix mistakes and heal divides. We owe our fathers and forefathers a great debt of gratitude for what they accomplished and fought for and we have a huge obligation to protect it, better it, and pass it forward. I think the generational churn (for lack of a better word) is amazing to witness. Thanks to them, we now live in a world where the next generation was no longer consumed by the 60's or the civil rights fights and was able to elect a man simply as the better choice; And that's what happened in this election; with this generational churn, we validated what our parents and grandparents fought for. Now our kids will grow up in a world where that is hopefully no longer a relevant question.
I can only imagine what will be ours to fight for and protect. I personally think it may be in our great struggle between defeating terrorism and religious extremism on all sides - whether Muslim, Jewish, Christian or other - and avoiding World War III and preaching tolerance for all those who are moderate practitioners of the same. In that regard, I am hopeful because although I know Americans may disagree on policies, I think the country elected a man who will be able to approach this issue with the depth and nuance and intelligence it requires.
And more than that, I'm hopeful because I know that most Americans - while on opposite ends of the political spectrum - will both be united in the fight to strike out against evil and extremism while instilling in our kids tolerance of all peace-loving good-hearted people, regardless of basic creed or ideology.
