Who Will Stand with Kucinich and Massa?

Of the 88 members of the House who say they are for a single payer national health care system, which ones will stand with Kucinich and Massa for single payer and against Obamacare in the upcoming health care end game?

Only a handful will need to come over to defeat Obama’s bailout of the health insurance corporations.

And trigger a national debate on how to replace those hundreds of health insurance corporations with one single payer.

Read the whole post for some interesting insight into labor and Healthcare-NOW!

All Eyes Are on Pennsylvania

Name sponsors of the legislation, Senator Jim Ferlo (D) and Representative Kathy Manderino (D) were joined by co-sponsor Representative Bill Kortz (D) in delivering impassioned messages to the rally attendees.

Billed as the keynote speaker, Sen. Ferlo expressed his passion oratorically and physically, pounding the podium for emphasis with such gusto he nearly sent two CS2 cassette recorders flying. He spoke of inclusiveness, advising, “Don’t write anybody off as we build this movement.”

So I just spent 1.25 hours with my sister trying to help her decide her local election choices. It's an off year, so generally only those of us who are Hard Core about voting bother to do so. That just makes our votes that much more powerful. I appreciate the irony of someone like me, frequent Doomsayer on the sad state of our video poker voting reality, talking about good voting. But I'll do so anyway, cause part of me wants to Hope. /scampers away from Lambert/

Anyway, if you're voting tomorrow, are there any online resources that have helped you make your choices? Please, post them here if so. My sister and I agree that one of the really sucky things about off-year local level voting is how hard it is to find useful information about the candidates. And that problem is getting worse. Judge 4 Yourself is one resource she and I found, but it appears to be regional. I really wish there were more, and if I were an Al Gore elected official, I'd be expanding mandated government websites to include more pages about people's records in government, and also those trying to be so. A pipe dream, I'm sure, but voting blogging is one of the aspects of the blogsphere I'm most proud of and hope grows. Brad remains the intertube's own god when it comes to vote blogging.

A new poll on the Massachusetts Senate race has state Attorney General Martha Coakley dominating the field with 37 percent support from registered Democrats and unenrolled voters, who are eligible to vote in the primary. That is more than double her nearest challenger, with 14 percent backing Boston Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca and 13 percent supporting Congressman Mike Capuano.

Oh, good Krist, this is wonderful Combined with this, I nearly fainted today, it's so nice to see this sort of thing. Stark is showing the Way, for those truly interested in being a New Media or whatever. It's so frakking simple.

Let me put it this way: I always thought I couldn't take good pictures. Trad film and I don't get along. Then they invented fancee digi cams that I can sort of use, and voila! I'm ansel adams, or something. But anyway, my point is that there should be a lot more of this, please.

For those of you who can't do youtube, here's the transcript:

I think that the aid program is a fig leaf trying to make congress and the American people feel better about the war and about killing. I think that diplomacy in the areas of fig leaf to try to make the American people think that there is some constructive alternative to the war when the war itself is destructive and not constructive.
I think that the basic premise that we can alter afghan society is greatly flawed. Afghanistan is simply the part of Asia that was never occupied by the Russians or the English (inaudible). It’s not a country, it’s not even a place. It’s just an empty place on the map. It’s terra incognita. People who live there are a welter of different tribes, different language groups, different religious beliefs.
All over the country you find different people who have nothing to do with each other except for the fact that we call them Afghans, and they don’t even call themselves afghans. They’re (inaudible) or they’re Pashtuns, or they’re (other groups, inaudible)). The things that hold them together are simply the things that we try to create artificially.

And the idea that we could transform that society or any other society through aid I think is entirely questionable. I’ve never seen it happen, probably never will happen.

Just wanted to give a little link love to my grrl Southern Beale, who has been turning out some increasingly stellar material lately. She also suffers the internet's most annoying trolls, so if you're inclined to stop by and show her some support she'd appreciate it. I really enjoyed this rant:

Congress is asking how we can reform the business of healthcare to better serve people. That’s the wrong question. I’d rather ask how we can keep people healthy and get affordable healthcare to everyone at those inevitable times when we are not. Business may play a role in that but it shouldn’t be the overriding focus.

The business of healthcare should serve people. That it doesn’t is a failing of the modern capitalist religion, in which people are viewed as “consumers” first, human beings second (if at all). We’ve had this drilled into our psyche so thoroughly that we blithely accept such terms as “American consumers,” not recognizing the pejorative it so clearly is. Because when humans are reduced to mere “consumers,” their value is in their purchasing power. They are nothing more than wallets, checkbooks, bank accounts. Even, ominously, “credit scores.”

This leaves a whole bunch of people out of the equation (namely, the poor), and creates a social inequity in which the wealthy are deemed of greater value to society than the rest. Just look at the rhetoric from conservatives, who routinely disparage the poor as drains on society (Nashville’s own Phil Valentine recently referred to the poor as ”greedy grumblers” who are “sucking up the tax dollars of hard-working Americans by the trillions.”)

It’s dehumanizing, yes, but also entirely inevitable under a system that sees only wallets, not people.

Coming out of the West, to save the day? Montana, New Mexico, Hawaii, Oregon, Wisconsin, Illinois, and yes, Vermont have Democratic Senators at work on this issue.

The Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools In Counterterrorism Efforts (JUSTICE) Act would reform the USA PATRIOT Act, the FISA Amendments Act and other surveillance authorities to protect Americans’ constitutional rights, while preserving the powers of our government to fight terrorism.

It's possible the Democratic majority in the Senate has decided to act on this now out of real conviction. Feingold, IIRC, has long disliked the USA PATRIOT Act and the FISA legislation; telecom immunity may be on the chopping block if this bill gets traction. Furthermore, there's support for this revision to the odious regulations rammed down our national throats by the w/dick administration in the aftermath of 11 September 2001.

One of my big gripes about the current administration has been how slowly it has moved, in my opinion, on major issues of Constitutional government :
this step by the Democratic Senators co-sponsoring this bill is proof that should a Democratic President choose to do so, foot-dragging appeasement can be cast aside. Would that the Senate would get behind shutting down the entire system of torturing POWs, either with US military personnel or with contractor/mercenary personnel in secret locations, as well as the US-military-run prison camp in Cuba, whence the detainees are not being freed despite US federal judges' orders to do so and the operations of which this administration apparently seeks to move to Bagram.

I'll rant and rave about other subjects with which I have found the new administration's actions or lack thereof disappointing in detail later. For now I'll just list some of them and ask y'all to

Conyers, Leahy Introduce Bill To End Health Insurers' Anti-Trust Exemption

John Conyers and some allies on the House Judiciary Committee have come up with a fabulous way to get the insurance industry in line - by threatening to remove their anti-trust exemption.

They want free market, let's give them some free market and see how they like it.

To appear in this Sunday's Washington Post Outlook section:

George McGovern:

But what seems missing in the current battle is a single proposal that everyone can understand and that does not lend itself to demagoguery. If we want comprehensive health care for all our citizens, we can achieve it with a single sentence: Congress hereby extends Medicare to all Americans.

...

We recently bailed out the finance houses and banks to the tune of $700 billion. A country that can afford such an outlay while paying for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan can afford to do what every other advanced democracy has done: underwrite quality health care for all its citizens.

From my local single payer activist, the news is that we have a commitment from Congressman Mike Doyle, not only to support Anthony Weiner's single payer amendment, but to speak for it on the house floor.

Meanwhile, last week Congressman Mike Doyle (Pittsburgh) reiterated his pledge to vote YES on the Weiner Amendment when it comes up for a vote on the floor of the House this fall AND HE ADDED THAT HE PLANS TO SPEAK ON THE FLOOR IN SUPPORT OF THE AMENDMENT (in response to our question to him as he was exiting the Organizing for America rally at Schenley Park last week. Doyle also made a point of thanking the single-payer supporters at the beginning of his speech on the rally stage, as we were present there with our signs and leaflets.)

CONGRESS: Slaughter vows to vote for single-payer health bill

WASHINGTON — A “single-payer” proposal that would make the government the nation’s only source of health care will come up for a vote in the House in September, Rep. Louise Slaughter is promising her Western New York constituents.

“Single-payer deserves a vote, and I can assure you there will be one,” Slaughter said during a conference call with constituents from Orleans and Monroe counties.

Slaughter chairs the House Rules Committee. The panel will choose which amendments are considered to the health care reform legislation moving through the House.

.... should listen to all sides of the argument, make himself or herself as available as possible, and to the best of their ability, cast a vote that they think will help their constituents."

And yes, he says that he will vote against HR 3200, and that yes, his constituents, coming to the 47 Town Halls he has held, want him to vote against HR 3200.

Tell him THANK YOU!

This is on Fox News, and near the end of the interview he quotes Ronald Reagan:

We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.

Now that's how a Democrat should be quoting St Ronnie.

Now, granted, what Weiner, a single-payer advocate, is discussing is pushing the wretched "public option," but at least he understands how to fight for something in Congress and win. And he's unapologetic about it, too.

h/t:Crooks and Liars

... and so much more. Man, he's good:

Unfiltered!

the youtube playlist

Sign the petition.

via masslib at Alegre's

[...Don't you agree Conyers kinda looks like Gandhi?]

Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy discusses the provisions of the PROFIT act: maximize ROI for the taxpayers, and add transparency. What's not to like?

The PROFIT act now has 10 co-sponsors:

I'm tired of talking about the FAIL (which doesn't mean it isn't important to document the atrocities, just that I'm tired). I want to talk about the good things folks are doing and Sarah suggested I put this one in a post and sticky it, so here it is.

The website democrats.com, which is not an official party website but advertises itself as "aggressive progressives" (a sure sign it's not the party's website), asked the site's 600,000 subscribers to call members of the Energy & Commerce Committee to whip for Weiner's single payer amendment. You can see the results here. While the decision late Friday to take it to the full house obviously negates some importance of this info, I think it's still useful since all of these folks are, of course, House members.

More importantly, I fully expect these folks to also whip for the full floor vote given that they seem pretty strongly single payer. When they do, I'll post the info unless someone else beats me to it. And they've been working in other ways to add pressure. For example, they adeveloped an online petition that can be sent to Congress members.

So the question is how do we bring together the websites that are doing the work? I'm sure there are others.

From Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Second Inaugural Address:

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

That's where he started, January 20, 1937. He didn't hesitate to show us how bad things were.

But it is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope—because the nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country’s interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

Well, we've let him down in the 52 years since, haven't we? Not for lack of beautiful words, not for lack of passionate speakers. Remember how John Fitzgerald Kennedy started

The example of his first 100 days (thank you Lambert) below gives us an idea.

What he did was create immediate relief. What he had that the current President lacks was a compliant Congress, although he too faced a Supreme Court hostile to helping the poor.

Look again at what Roosevelt achieved:

Tomorrow is the anniversary of this event:

Larry Dewitt has written an account of how Medicare came to be passed, with information gleaned from the LBJ tapes to give more background and insight into LBJ's thinking. I've posted this excerpt before, but on the eve of the anniversary I think it is good to reflect on it again.

Email today:

The military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is an unjust, outdated, and harmful rule that violates the civil rights of some of our bravest, most heroic men and women.

That's why I have been working, along with my colleagues in the Senate and so many of you, to overturn this wasteful and destructive policy.

Today, I have great news:  Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has agreed to hold the first Senate hearings on repealing DADT this Fall.

Keith Olbermann's not in his usual chair this week at Countdown. Instead a variety of guest hosts will appear, including on Tuesday and Wednesday nights Dr. Howard Dean. No cable? ABC's Nightline has overtaken, in the ratings war, both NBC's Conan OBrien and CBS' David Letterman. Elsewhere Howard Kurtz reports a sailor accusing a Miami Herald reporter of sexual harassment, and a storied AP reporter is leaving the organization after 49 years.