Wow... if you've been watching the news lately I guess one of the big stories are the "angry people" who are attending townhall meetings hosted by Members of Congress. Most of the meetings shown have been those in areas that are represented by Democrats. Even C-Span showed some of the circus act yesterday.
I watched a Maryland Senator try his best to explain what Healcare/ Insurance Reform actually is. I never realized that so many people have such closed ears and minds. Don't get me wrong, some of the questions they asked were legit. Things like cost, eligibility, coverage etc- all good topics to discuss.
If an actual discussion was part of the agenda. The people who did nothing but yell, scream, and declare they don't want "government" where just so pitiful. Not necessarily for doing the above, but for trying to drown out the discussion. They where hell bent on not letting anyone hear any information. Most of the people were aiming for the tv cameras and egging each other on as if they were in a talent competition.
I guess they really have great healthcare coverage. Or maybe they had nothing else to do other than bring out the can of hate.
I feel for some of these elderly congress folks (ie. Sen. Specter (PA) and Rep. Dingel (MI) ). These folks are in their 80s (or darn close) and they have to deal with all of this evil.
Thank God there is a provision for mental health services in the bills circulating in Congress...
.NYT article LINK
The New York Times reported today that the White House is quietly conceding that they are losing control of the Health Care Reform debate. So......in response......? A march? Rapid Fire TV ads? Formal debates moderated by NPR, PBS, ABC, NBC? Nope....a website.........That's it....a website..
The WH released a myth busters website.......What Obama should do is concede he needs a little help from his friends.....Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Howard Dean, Mike Bloomberg, Warren Buffet and other Business Leaders and even the Kennedys to get the word out and deal with the fires.
On Sunday, August 2, OFA in Chester County, PA had a busy day. First, we did phone banking for a few hours in West Chester. Then some of us travelled to the National Constitution Center for the Health Care Town Meeting with Senator Arlen Specter and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.
That happened to be the day that over four inches of rain fell in the Delaware Valley, closing the Schuylkill Expressway. Our trip became a tour of the western suburbs.
1. The acoustics of the meeting location were awful: high ceiling, very reflective surfaces, a booming sound. Unless you were right in front of one of the public address system speakers, you probably could not understand what was said. I moved around until I found a spot to listen.
A loud group will gain more attention than a listening group, no matter what their relative sizes. But Senator Specter and Secretary Sebelius are veterans of public service: they know this. What we don’t want is for Senator Specter, in particular, to think that only the loud, negative people care.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/search_simple?source=topnav
Have you heard the health care reform bill is coming together? It is by no means a done deal. President Obama needs us to lobby for his 3 principles of reform. We can not control every detail in the plan (and this wouldn't be much of a democracy if we could), but we can help keep it on the track the President laid out. The three principles:
1) REDUCE COSTS
2) GUARANTEE CHOICE (including a public plan option)
3) ENSURE AFFORABLE CARE FOR ALL
Many of us are not as intimately familiar with the legislative process as a lobbyist but the next couple weeks will be critical. To make our impact we need everyone's help. There are 1500 past volunteers in our area that we need to contact next week. Yes, it needs to be next week. Organizing For America wants each of them (and us) to contact all of their congressman to request that they support the health care bill and the reform principles. While lobbyists have made this kind of effort for years, a grassroots organization directed by the President's goals has not. Let's make history together again! We need to fill up our congressmans' voice mail with messages of support for the President's health care reform principles. If you want health care reform. Next week will be the chance to keep it on track and influence the legislation. "There's going to be a major debate over the next three weeks, and don't be fooled by folks trying to scare you saying we can't change the health care system. We have no choice but to change the health care system because right now it's broken for too many Americans." - Barack Obama When can you make time in your schedule to help?
Soon as we got a Democrat in the White House, a bunch of Senators claiming to be Democrats rushed to show how independent they are, declaring they won’t necessarily vote in support of the President’s agenda that he was elected to enact. As a Hoosier, I’ll put Indiana’s Evan Bayh (pronounced “Bye” or “Buy”) at the top of the list.
Mr. Obama is right to allow politicians to vote their “consciences” (oxymoron is obvious). Where he’s wrong is in promising to raise money for them. I won’t give one penny to support ANY Senator who fails to toe the line and earnestly help the President do what he promised. Many promises were made. If they’re not kept because Democrats in the Senate support powerful banks and other lobbies against the people who support Mr. Obama’s agenda, then Bayh-Bayh to them come the primary.
If self-described Democrats in the Senate refuse to push through the President’s agenda, then it’s up to us to FIND SOMEONE WHO WILL. I won’t give money to or raise money for Evan Bayh or Arlen Spector or any of the approximately eight others who have declared themselves “independent” of this cause.
They want our money and votes only to betray us to the powerful lobbyists who own them. We need to start work right now finding better people to run against them in the primaries and start raising the money they’ll need to win.
We kept McCain and Palin out of the White House. We certain can put Bayh, Specter and those other eight “independent” Democrats OUT of the Senate. CHANGE is coming to America.
If I had any doubts, I don't anymore: The (political) ground just shifted under our feet. The best comment I heard this morning was on MSNBC: David Shuster said that Arlen Specter didn't leave the Republican Party; the Republican Party left Arlen Specter ... and a whole lot of other moderates, in Pennsylvania and nationwide. Now we've GOT to make some real, positive change (as by getting Franken sworn-in in MN) so that the people at large get some benefit from all this, in those key areas Obama keeps pounding away at: healthcare, education, and energy. Those things have been left undone for far too long. The only way we can survive and thrive as a nation is by working on all three (and then some) together, in an integrated, "holistic" approach: It takes a nation to build a nation!
Yes, we can!
Republi-can'ts have taken their party from the party of Lincoln to the party of Bush... now they are canabalizing their own by chasing moderate members like Sen. Specter out of "their" party.
Let us celebrate the Senator's move and welcome Sen Specter to the Democrat-IC party! And then lay down the welcome mat for all who want to come over to our side.
