Scary…

How big money tried to stop health care reform in a picture

The Republicans relent…

This just in…they are going to be finished with the health care votes in the Senate on Christmas Eve.

From Roll Call:
Reid, McConnell Reach Deal to Adjourn Early

Dec. 22, 2009, 2:24 p.m.
By John Stanton
Roll Call Staff

——————————————————————————–

Senate Republicans have agreed to end their filibuster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) health care reform bill a few hours early on Christmas Eve, a move that will allow the GOP to technically stick to its promise to force Dec. 24 vote on the measure while still making it possible for Senators to return home for the holiday.

Under the agreement between Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), votes on final passage of the health care bill and a two-month extension to the debt limit sometime before early afternoon on Christmas Eve.

Republicans also have secured the right to offer between two and four votes to the long-term debt limit extension, which is expected to come to the floor sometime in February.

McConnell presented the deal to his Conference during the GOP’s weekly luncheon Tuesday. Although many Members had hoped to force the chamber to remain in session until Thursday night, with a ice storm threatening to disrupt travel to the Midwest, Republicans ultimately agreed to end the debate earlier than planned.

Reid and McConnell were expected to announce the exact timing of the Christmas Eve votes on the floor later in the day.

NOW We can REALLY Celebrate a Victory – I believe there will be more to come!!!

Don’t lose site of the Victories

We actually got 60 votes lat night in the Senate last night. It might not be a good bill, I’m not judging that – but it is a victory. And it’s ours to either claim or give away. We turned the corner. We forced the Congress to vote for the people, and to start down the road to reform. Its ONLY a beginning. Bit if we don’t claim this significant victory – 75 years in the making, then Limbaugh, Beck and the Republicans will claim it and it’s not theirs to claim – don’t’ let them! This is not the time for the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Keep that in mind in your discussions and emails today.
Now that said, we don’t give up the fight – this bill is only a beginning and its our job to make it better!!!

Getting Some Backbone

It’s starting…

The Dems are starting to go to the mat…

I think it really started with Al Franken shutting Liberman up yesterday on the floor of the Senate and then John McCain whining about it, only to be chided by Levin. It’s about time BOYS!

And then Axelrod finally started venting his ire at the right source – Nelson. Now let’s cut Liberman down to his little man status.

I will take this as the time when your mother is sooo mad at you that she whispers your name, your full name – including your middle name. You know you are going down then.

Let’s whisper – let’s use their full names. MoveOn did it yesterday when they raised $1 million in 2 days to take Liberman OUT.

No more nice Dems.

I got a call from a strong, consensus building, politically savvy operative from NYC yesterday. She is always the first to try to calm the waters, to work to bring everyone together. That is until she puts the gloves on… Let me tell you, her gloves are on.

So she, I, other NY progressives are mad. We are getting our messages in through the backdoor. We are still calling the offices of our Senators and Congressmembers. But we are also seeking out anyone we remotely know in the Administration – someone that worked on the campaign with us and now has a job in DC. We’re telling them the truth – the people are losing hope and we are losing them.

Let me tell you something about working in DC, because I did that 20+ years ago. You may or may not have heard of this phenomenon – it’s called an “inside the Beltway mentality”. And it is the thing that occurs when you work in Washington and become insulated to what is happening in the rest of the Country. You are so focused on the tactics and legislation in front of you, you believe so strongly in what you are doing that you don’t see how it is playing “in the field” aka: outside of DC.

The message to those we know who work in DC is this – this is playing VERY badly in the field right now. People are losing hope that their best interests are being served in this bill negotiation process. It is time to call in some political capital – to take Liberman into the backroom, one and one, and come carrying a very BIG stick with you, scare his whimpy little self into dumping the vendetta and working for the people.

No more Mr. Nice Guy, Ms. Nice Lady – Dems it’s time to kick some ass, take the names later. Out here in the field, when you do that, we’ve got your back. MoveOn proved that yesterday.

And for those of you in the field – send the message, and then back em up when they do this because they are putting themselves on the line for us – if we walk away from them now, if we back down from this fight then we are no better than Liberman.

Now go make a call, and don’t forget to whisper and use their middle name.

I Call on the President

Now is the time to lead. And we elected Barack Obama to lead us in the darkest hours.

We need no less than words of hope that any health care legislation that makes it out of the Senate is not a huge giveaway to the private insurance industry.

We hope for words that say that Senators with an agenda, pockets lined with lobbyist money and personal vendetta’s are not going to be allowed to bury true reform.

We ardently wish for an LBJ style line in the sand that says – “I will do whatever I need to and that is within my power to make sure that this bill not only passes out of Congress and to my desk but that it will truly help the American people I have been chosen to lead, nothing less will be signed with my pen.”

These are the darkest hours when the mess that is Democracy is exposed for the failures that lie in the power of money and influence. But it is also our moment when we can shine. When we can beat back the influence of the fat cat lobbyists and the uber rich that feel we are nothing but a bother to their agenda to rule the world.

And I wish my saying that was enough to get people motivated – but i understand that we need someone with the rhetorical skills, with the intelligence and persuasion not to mention the ultimate bully pulpit that the President owns – we need Obama to be his very best Obama and to lead us so that we will continue to fight for ourselves and our neighbors. Not see the troops go home saying, “what a screwed us system, we were taken again…”

Now we’re mad

I have talked to hard core Obama supporters – the ones that spent hundreds if not thousands of hours on his campaign.

I have heard from those who have worked on health care for years.

Labor leaders, progressive activists, everyday citizens.

No one is happy right now. We are getting rolled over by a short white guy who wants to rule the world. Liberman has to be taken out of this equation. And the one person who can do it, Obama, seemingly isn’t up to the task.

Well, folks, I still say – we don’t throw in the towel. Get angry, don’t go home yet.

We have some options but we have to channel our energy and our efforts. Now is the time to really work hard. We can’t have a bill that is going to hurt us more than help us land on Obama’s desk – because he will sign it just to say he has won. I’m not going for that and I bet you aren’t either.

So if you are in Buffalo email me and I will keep you posted on when/where we are meeting to devise a local strategy. If you are somewhere else call those others you know who are pissed and invite them over, figure out what you can do to put pressure on your electeds and on Obama.

This is our moment – we use our anger to create good. Or we go home empty handed and the tea baggers have won. What will it be folks?

If you throw in the towel now…

You will be allowing the right wing crazy fanactic Palin lovin psychos to win.

Did you know they are in DC right now shoving around staffers? Are you gonna let them get away with that?

Yes, the Senate bill SUCKS. The Medicare buy in was a small spot of hope in a dark sea and if that is gone than so should the Senate bill. And Liberman – well, don’t even get me started. One small little bitter man should not be allowed to tank real reform – he will pay!

But WE STILL HAVE THE HOUSE BILL!!!!

Eyes on the prize people. Most Americans want reform. Most want a public option. The media is the one driving the rhetoric that this is all dead. IT’S NOT! Not if you call.

Call today, call tomorrow, call everyday. Add your hashmark to the tally at the end of the day in the offices – you don’t understand how important that is or how much we are outnumbered right now.

I support health care reform NOW. That’s all you have to say. I support health care reform NOW.

Here are the numbers for WNY:

Schumer:
202-224-6542
716-846-4111

Gillibrand:
202-224-4451
716-854-9725

Higgins:
716-852-3501
202-225-3306

Slaughter:
716-853-5813
202-225-3615

Please call and tell everyone else you know to do the same. And stop believing the sensationalizing news stories and start believing that you have the power to defeat Liberman and his smarmy little snicker.

The Right Wingers Get Violent

Okay, this is it.

It’s time for us progressive, liberal, or just plain sane people to get mad.

I just got back from a meeting with Senator Gillibrand’s staff and they told me a sick, sad story.

One of the staffers was returning to the office the other day when she was very physically confronted by 2 white suburban looking woman at her office door. They immediately started yelling at her with irrational comments about health care reform including how this was not only going to “destory their lives, but the lives of their children.” They said that they “owned her and the office” and no amount of soft words or rational arguements was going to calm them down. Then they roughly shoved her out of the way to storm into the office. That’s drawing the line when you assault a district staffer over health care reform – where is this going next?

This is how crazy they are.

These staffers are putting up with alot of abuse by people that are calling and yelling at them about death panels and how they are going to have their Medicare taken away. They are irrational, they don’t listen to truth or logic. It’s draining to the staffers and to their morale.

While we, who want to be logical and fair weigh our thoughts and are careful to not abuse our relationship with the staff. We feel like it is cheating to call every day. That we are bugging them if we call again and again. We don’t want to seem irrational, we don’t want to cheat.

But I say to you this is war, and we are going to lose if we are not willing to fight.

They want, no wait -they NEED us to call each and every day. All you have to say is “I support health care reform”. You can add more if you want, but you don’t need to.

So please. Make the committment, call each and every day until the very day Congress passes reform and it goes to Obama to sign. The numbers for Western New York are below, if you live anywhere else in the country visit www.house.gov and www.senate.gov to get the phone number for your Representatives and Senators.

Schumer:
202-224-6542
716-846-4111

Gillibrand:
202-224-4451
716-854-9725

Higgins
716-852-3501
202-225-3306

Slaughter
716-853-5813
202-225-3615

Call right now. Call again tomorrow. Do it every day and ask everyone you know to do the same. Think about how you would feel if you were a staffer, wanting to do the right thing but at the end of the day you had to put up with 200 crazy phone calls and only 3 people who believed in you and what you were doing bothered to even pick up the phone.

Under the Radar…

While we focus on the bubble gum issues of health care reform, the War in Afghanistan and climate change there is another issue that is being quietly swept under the rug.

And it affects all of those issues and the very social fabric of our society.

The Estate Tax (death tax as the teabaggers would have you call it) is set to expire. This tax, that is levied on the uber wealthy who have $3.5 million or more to pass to their offspring when they pass on, is a very large boon to our treasury.

It was instituted to assure that America did not breed the monarchies of Europe. It is based on the American ideal of making it on your own, not creating a class of very wealthy that never have seen a day of work in their life (not that it doesn’t happen anyway).

It also assures that in order to avoid the tax the uber wealthy give large sums of money to their favorite charities – soup kitchens, charity hospitals, literacy programs, you know those bubble gum charities.

If this tax expires and the wealthy are allowed to avoid this obligation to the society and the members of the society that gave them their wealth by the sweat of their labor and the choice of their dollars, than we stand to lose $14 billion over 10 years.

Perspective – unemployment is over 10% (because these uber wealthy thought they could make more money by paying for cheaper labor to make their goods overseas), we are the only industrialized nation that does not offer it’s society health care (because the very wealthy want to make a bigger dividend on their health insurance company holdings) and banks and financial services groups as well as large corporations have driven our economy to the brink of solvency (I doubt I have to make the connection here).

Yeah, let’s let that tax expire – the very wealthy have done so much for the society that drives their profits.

The thing that gets me again and again – where do these uber wealthy think they are going to sell the very products that make them so much money when we are all broke, jobless and sick at home?

Call your Representatives and say – don’t let the estate tax expire – we need to make sure our Country stays healthy so that those super rich can continue to feed off of us.

Don’t let the other side steal our momentum!

Things are moving so fast in DC that the health care staff in the Senate can’t even take the time to really update their fellow staff members I am told. I am getting rapid fire emails from all kinds of sources about development after development. It’s truly hard to keep up, much less analyze it all as it comes in.

But this is good. For a couple of months now the message of the activist community has been “we can’t afford to wait, get this done now Congress”. Well, seems like someone was listening.

And I will say it again – this is NOT everything we want. But it’s not in it’s final version yet and there are plenty of indications that the momentum is in our favor. Pelosi’s remarks today that she wasn’t going to roll over and play dead for the Senate version showed us that she still is on the side of the American public that wants reform they can take to the bank, so to speak. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said:

“The public option has certain purposes,” he said on Wednesday afternoon.
“If those purposes are all satisfied somehow, some other way, we’d have to
take a look at. If they weren’t, that would be a problem.”
….

“The basic idea of allowing Medicare to go to people under 55 is a wonderful
idea,” Nadler said. “Some of us have thought we ought to do that for a long
time. But-and I hate to use this term-the devil is in the details.

“I mean, I gather that people are going to have to pay a premium for it. And
the question is, how big is the premium, how affordable is it? There’ll have
to be a Medigap plan, too, presumably. What’s the affordability? What are
the subsidies? We have to look at all of that stuff before we can really
talk intelligently about it.”

So the deal isn’t done yet and things are going our way. They will continue to go our way if we keep calling every day. Don’t let the other side steal our momentum!