Displaying 4,981 To 5,010 Of 5,146 Comments Democracy DOA, Killed by the Supreme Court Emerald – this IS worrisome, but actually what changes is that a corporation would be confined to direct contributions of $2500. They already have myriad ways to get around this with phony “non-profits” and “527” campaigns. That won’t change. We need to fight – and have needed this since 1886 when fictitious personhood was also established through rampant judicial activism using the 14th Amendment – to abolish equality of fictitious persons and real persons. I do agree that it is fascist, but it’s been present for over 100 years. Pushback can come from labor unions and other large “corporate” entities as it has long done. I’m not minimizing the seriousness of ratification of “rights” for corporations, but it actually won’t change much that is not already happening less overtly. What worries me SO much more is how gullible people are already! How can ANYONE listen to the garbage around “health care rationing” directed at a public option and NOT think how much that already happens at the hands of insurance corporations? Why do we hate banks on one hand and love Aetna on the other???? I did a health care policy update last night, and the uniform agreement we all had was that we have done way too little work (not those here on The Planet but progressives in general) educating our friends and neighbors about reality. It took the ultra right over 20 years to begin their march to take over, 20 more years to blow it big time, but we haven’t spent those 40 years teaching people not just how to support a candidate but to WORK for democracy. When you see hundreds of protesters on the streets for ultra-right causes, where are the progressives??? Those people do a lot of what they do to be “saved” – are we less concerned because we don’t believe we’re in mortal peril? I cannot believe how ignorant my ALLIES are about political activism. So yes, this is a worry, but in some sense it just would ratify what already happens. It might even make it more transparent, and that might be a good thing? I continue to have hope. » Posted By choicelady On December 18, 2009 @ 8:54 am Yeah -but unlike his Republican counterparts, he has the decency to shut UP! » Posted By choicelady On December 17, 2009 @ 4:37 pm If at any point we cannot get past the 60 votes, I say Reid should lock them all in, keep them there day and night save bathroom breaks, and bring in whatever the Senate Dining Room is serving, no special orders. If the conservative Dems won’t grow up and Republicans are being obstructionist, well, then, let’s do the traditional American way – the HARD way, the “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” style. Bets are on about who’s the first to cave. I say Coburn when his hair spray fades? Any takers? » Posted By choicelady On December 17, 2009 @ 4:26 pm I believe they can’t since it was posted within the window they had demanded, and whatever comes out of amendments and changes will also be posted. They can do that with only options that are immediate and unposted such as Sanders’. I’d love to have people do that to them and see how they like it. » Posted By choicelady On December 17, 2009 @ 4:22 pm Hey Nellie – This is SUPER – Baucus is in trouble over his girlfriend, so he seems lately to have kept quiet. I have been surprised he has not sided with Nelson and Lieberman, so maybe he has more little secrets he’d not like to draw attention to? Or perhaps he’s seen the light. In CA we turned SIX Blue Dogs, so it CAN happen! I think I just breathed again, and short or not, I THANK YOU SO MUCH for posting this! I’m off shortly to do an interfaith presentation on where we are on health care, and you gave me more to say than, “Well, duh. Dunno.” I really appreciate it! » Posted By choicelady On December 17, 2009 @ 4:20 pm Progressive Senators to Contact NOW LOL!!!! » Posted By choicelady On December 17, 2009 @ 4:35 pm Perfect, Cher – that’s precisely what I tell our members to say! It really works to keep it short and simple. » Posted By choicelady On December 17, 2009 @ 4:34 pm Reid takes email from anyone. He’s good about that. You can call any of these people, just use the name of a town (have the ZIP handy just in case and make up an address.) Ever lived there? Use the old address or one of friends, parents, etc. Most of the calls are NOT filtered for precise address – they just do not have time. You can go to web sites and send a FAX to the listed number. But it’s usual to put an address on those, where a call is much easier. » Posted By choicelady On December 17, 2009 @ 4:33 pm Dear Ted Kennedy, Wish you were here…. Dear Patsyt- it’s not over. No matter if the Senate turns out drek, it MUST go to conference committe, and the House is far more determined to act well on behalf of all of us, especially YOU with a pre-existing condition. Don’t give up! We all need to ride Harry Reid and insist that he employ the nuclear option over-riding the 60 votes on filibuster. He has the power. Does he have the guts to USE it? Bernie Sanders withdrew his single payer amendment because the Reeps insisted it be read in full and DeMint says they will use procedure to slow things down. Where is the leadership? The muscle? Reid give committee assignments and office space – where is the clout? We need to focus on him. We could not get calls through today – his direct line had been changed, and the switchboard was overloaded, BUT his FAX is 202-224-7327, so FLOOD his office with FAX messages about protecting American people and using his authority to bypass the damned filibuster cloture rule that was set up to protect anti-integration Southerners. He MUST LEAD or resign. We deserve REAL reform NOW. YOU can’t wait even if the rich Republicans can. He WILL accept email from other states, too – and there is a spot on his web site to do that. So feel free to let him know that he represents ALL of America and had better do it WELL. His site is We’re here for you – we all will put on the pressure! » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 10:47 pm A Mandate for Civil Disobedience Hi AdLib- I’m bringing this back up to the top for you. I asked your sources, and I am NOT criticizing, just wanted to know. I have no language at ALL so that’s why I’m confused. Nate Silver actually showed SOME benefits yesterday – fairly thin to be clear about it – but this is ALL speculation until we get language. (OK – I am REALLY a policy wonk who has to know what the bill actually says – it’s what I owe my members! But it makes life difficult, for sure!) I appreciate the concern, SHARE the concern, but I do think we just do not yet know. Our organizational mantra is: No public option? No market-based mandates! Our bottom line. Until someone actually has a BILL dammit, how can anyone actually KNOW? The leadership has to stifle the obstructionists and get ON with it! The public deserves to know precisely what is happening to them, to our nation. I do agree with Krugman if not precisely his analogy. I am just sick at heart over the failure of leadership to squash the opposition in their own party. What happened to the nuclear option? The Reeps used the threat to get Supreme Court nominees passed – where is Reid’s SPINE? Now there are rumors (I’m checking them out) that Pelosi IS willing to pass something without a PO. It’s freaking CHRISTMAS for many of us!!! We deserve better than a lump of coal! » Posted By choicelady On December 17, 2009 @ 9:59 am This bill will most likely go to conference committee where it has to be hammered out to meet the OK of the House. Their bill has a lot of controls AND a decent public option. Pelosi is NOT giving up – she said last Thursday she’d wait to see what the Senate offered. If it’s as bad as AdLib says, she will demand changes. Once again – we’re back to cloture to cut off debate on filibuster with the Conference Committee bill. Reid has choices – bust Liberman’s chops or, if he thinks L. will go over to the Republican caucus – employ the Republicans’ favorite thing – the nuclear option. Refuse to use the filibuster rule. It was set up in the 60s to protect the filibuster for anti-integration senators, and when Dems threatened to use it to block Bush’s Supreme Court nominees, remember the Reeps threatened “the nuclear option”? Well, let’s do it! Reid’s web site is reid.senate.gov. You can go to “contact” and send an email – every single day – insisting we use the nuclear option to get DECENT health care. Or FAX – the number is at the very bottom of the main page. Don’t bother calling – we DID that today, and it was a disaster. The number did not work, and the switchboard was overloaded. We mobilized people around the country to use a toll free number for the faith community – no one could get in. This is NOT over. The Senate is NOT the sole determining factor. All of us in CA – lean especially hard on Pelosi. Her health consultant told me last Thursday she is NOT caving. Let’s give her the will to stay that course. She needs to hear from supporters as well as the tea bag idiots. Now is the time to move on. One proviso – if we do NOT get a public option, we must oppose mandates in the private market. Then everything AdLib says will come true and worse. So that’s where I and the people for whom I advocate are. It’s going to be a long, cold winter. Get out the mukluks. » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 10:56 pm I have to say as one who has worked this bill in some detail, I have NO evidence of this, AdLib. We know that this HAS to go to conference – Sen. Sherrod Brown’s health staffer said she tome this afternoon that she thinks it will because Pelosi and the House are much tougher than the Senate and are determined. But even looking at just the Senate bill, I don’t see these details, largely because the Manger’s Amendments are not out yet and we don’t even have final language or CBO scoring on any aspects at all. I will definitely keep your concerns in mind. What is the source for your points? It will help a lot if I can review that. Thanks for the heads up – I definitely WILL be watching for these dreadful giveaways. But I will also say – do NOT give up. The House is gnarly and hard to beat back! They may prevail. Now if Reid would get a spine and use the nuclear option the Republicans always threatened to do, we might get somewhere with a decent Conference Committee bill. I do not lose hope when it’s JUST the Senate. They always were less bold. » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 10:32 pm I’d be willing to TRY! But it really began with Carter who started deregulation and the move to the global economy, without regard to the consequences to the nation. He may be a great EX president, but he was a disater for very different reasons from what history is judging him for. He laid the ground for Reagan and the Republican revoltion of the 90s. Clinton capitulated as well. Where IS the Democratic vision any more? Since when is it evil to care about PEOPLE before PROFITS? » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 8:40 pm I do agree with you KQuark. This debate has raged since at least the 60s. Only a couple of times have party splits resulted in the formation of a much stronger challenger, and it would not happen well today I think. We do need to bring the Dems back to the Center and away from the Right – first step, get rid of Stupak who is The Family AND is merely masquerading as a Dem. But we have to have principles, and one of them is putting people before profits. Too many Dems believe in the unfettered free market, think government itself is suspect, and really are hooked into the global market system, damn the consequences to Americans. Health care is a no-brainer: we are NOT so damned “exceptional” that we should abandon ALL efforts at an efficient, government-run system. But we have allowed our kids to be ill educated (and that’s NOT merely an accident – the powers that were did not want another 60s generation of thinking, questioning people) and too many of the rest of us got too complacent about our own household security – until it all fell apart, and now we forget how to be assertive. It took the Reeps 20 years to build their strength – we moved back in about 6 years, but we were not really ready to govern. We have no discipline, we are so used to being outsiders and critics we don’t know how to be assertively in control. Progressives have remained outside, too good to get their hands dirty, and we have to come together. We must. Splinters don’t win, don’t influence, don’t move anything. We need to be respectful of our differences but willing to share common visions, goals, work, and society. I don’t know if we can. » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 8:35 pm escribacat – that is an absolute howl! Thank you for making me laugh!!! I would never have figured that out myself. You are definitely ON to something! Do you recall the Peanuts cartoon when Charlie Brown found Linus with his eyes all wide and asked Linus what he was doing? Linus said he was practicing to be a fantatic. And not JUST a fanatic – a wild EYED fanatic! That would be these two and their ilk. Un-freaking-believeable. Can we be made safe from these dangerously wacko people? I’m not sure we can. » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 8:26 pm Where is the Dem version of the “nuclear option”??? We have a huge majority and are pissing it away. What the hell is ALWAYS wrong with the Dems? They are cowards and cannot stand up to pressure, but I don’t understand WHY. What’s going on? Do the Family members have something on them? Well so what? compared to the Republicans’ fall from grace, the Dems look like Boy Scouts. The HAVE to grow a spine! » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 8:19 pm I have absolutely HAD IT! Now Michelle Bachmann and her band of thugs are having a ‘prayercast’ to pray to God to stop “government take over of health care”!!!!! Give me a break – this is the fudamental Hole in the Soul we’ve been discussing! How DARE they pretend to be Christian when all they are is theiving robber barons and their lackeys????? They care nothing for the American public and the uninsured. They have their stinking, dirty hands out for insurance corporation money and justify it all by deciding that ordinary people are poor because THEY HAVE BEEN DISOBEDIENT TO THE RICH!!!! I HAVE ABSOLUTELY HAD IT! To quote Charlie Brown – Aaaarrrghgghhhh! » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 8:15 pm I really like the saying, “We are the leaders we’ve been waiting for.” We underestimate our power. Look at all the amazing women, just to make this point not because men don’t do this also, who emerged from nowhere to be great. Lois Gibbs in Love Canal; Peggy Say trying to free her brother in the mid east; Karen Silkwood who gave her life to expose the truth about nuclear theft and mishandling; Erin Brakovitch exposing toxic waste in CA. On and on and on. Many “ordinary” people have done great things. I first learned about “people’s history” back in 1971 when radical historian Staughton Lynd brought Genora Johnson Dollinger, the woman who’d started the Women’s Emergency Brigade during the 1937 sit downs in Flint, MI to speak at a major history conference. She had begun with a lie – she was on the barricades, the ONLY woman, but jumped up and yelled at the police – “there are women and children here!” They backed off, and no one got hurt. The next day there WERE women there, and the cops would not wail in on them, thereby protecting the men, too. It was marvelous and gutsy and kept people safe. We never remember we ARE the government, we ARE the economy, we ARE democracy. Problem is – it takes a lot of work, and too many of us would rather chill with TV than do that work. We have not lost our power. We gave it away. » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 3:25 pm Sorry you got ME started! LOL!! » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 3:16 pm Mandates are important, but I’d recommend, rather than an opt-out that leaves people still uninsured, that rates be pegged to income as Medicare is. That way those with higher incomes would pay more, those with less would pay less. That is do-able even in the private exchange. It is critical however that the care not be substandard for those with less money. We have SO lost the sense of proportion and with it the respect for people who work but do not make much money. That’s right back to this marvelous post – the sense of greed being good (in the movie Wall Street that was supposed to be EVIL but people believed it!) and all the emphasis on THINGS rather than a healthy and productive society. And I do not mind that we might pick up a few dollars to help you out! You are definitely worth it! » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 3:14 pm These types of Christians my work nearly unbearable sometimes! We don’t promise heaven or threaten hell; we ask people to WORK for a better society. I spend my off hours reading BILLS so I can understand them and let members know what’s what, and the Jimmy Swaggerts get megabucks for NOTHING while we scramble for pennies. And let me tell you – we faith progressives made a HUGE mistake dropping threats of hell. When I lobby, it would have been VERY useful with some conservative bozos, I can tell you that! » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 1:57 pm Thank you KQuark – the attention to nuance and detail is critical here! You’ve done an outstanding job of making these points so clear. My one HUGE reservation is how the individual mandates emerges. If it is provided on a sliding scale and does not drop deductibles and out of pocket costs that are inflexible upon individuals and families, then OK. In MA and what was proposed here in CA was a subsidized premium BUT absolutes of $5000 deductible per person per year and $10,000 OOP if you became ill. Those are market supports, giveaways to the insurance industry to keep the premiums low enough for the government to subsidize. It has converted too much of the MA plan into catastrophic coverage – no one can afford to use it. If the final bill has real caps on these expenses, provides (as I was just informed it does) preventive care for free to lower income people, and does the rest of what you’ve noted, then yes. Good first step. If it mimics CA or MA – I cannot support it. I also HATE the principle that not carrying insurance can be “criminalized”. What an absurd issue when it’s the insurance plutocracy that is making it unaffordable. That is REALLY putting the wrong guy in the stocks! But your thoughtful analysis parallels my investigation of the details (in flux at the moment), and I do agree Cher’s post below and with Nat Silver – if all these points are correct and are retained in the bill, progressives would be bat-shit crazy to defeat it. But progressives are just as prone to arrogant selfishness – my way or the highway – as anyone consumed with material possessions. We shall see what comes. » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 1:53 pm I would like to say a word in defense of Puritans – they were actually far less awful than we’ve been taught. They wore bright clothes, had a very relaxed pace of work (no one worked permanently for wages), and treated women well up to and including supporting their independent property rights. Most of what we think we know came from 19th-Century Victorian values. It’s those that promoted sexual repression, inequality, massive exploitation of others, and absolutely NO sense of humor (well, until Mark Twain anyway.) We are legatees of the 19th-c. mode – subordination to capitalism, property rights over human rights, free markets triumphant, and the basic dislike of anyone different or anyone who works hard but makes less money. Puritans actually controlled the law on behalf of ordinary people even if it curtailed the power of the rich. ALL prices were regulated until 1802 in MA, and merchants were forbidden from exploiting people – you were not legally allowed to sell things that were luxury goods if the purchaser could not pay for them. Debt was for necessities, not the Puritan equivalent of XBox. And from what I can read, sex was far from taboo, even outside marriage, but you’d better not procreate outside marriage since the child had guaranteed rights to the support from the town, and that was a hardship. N. Hawthorne LIED about the scarlet letter – it was given for INCEST not adultry, and since one of his forebears had one, he could not bring himself to write that, so he pinned it on Hester. Not at all true. Puritans were fine with sex. It was the Victorians who were not – got in the way of working your butt off for your boss. HL Mencken inaccurately defined Puritanism as the fear that “somewhere, somehow, someone was having a good time.” That would be the Victorians, not the Puritans! Having a good time was reserved for the rich. Period. » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 1:40 pm …and then there are those pesky “prosperity Gospel” Christians. The message of material reward for heavenly belief (more or less) is in many of the conservative mega-churches and certainly “The Family” where faith is the justification for having it all now, here on earth. Never will get over the 3 a.m. pastor dripping with jewels, $1000 clothes, coiffed and sprayed hair (and you should have seen the women!) who told his audience that a man turned to Jesus, and he was not only lifted from the gutter but Jesus got him a condo in Florida and a Mer-SAY-deez Benz. Yuck! The recent Atlantic cover story is “Did Christians cause the collapse?” So many churches worked hand in glove with mortgage corporations to shove communities of color and working class white folks into subprime mortgages all the while extolling “you deserve it” which they certainly DID, but they did NOT deserve the rotten rates when many of them actually qualified for FHA rates. Pastors helped the lie, people believed them, and look what happened. Churches got $350 per mortgage from their congregations. Someone lost their way BIG TIME here. I have a rich – very rich – young relative, and frankly I resent the easy money he has. He professes to care about social justice, but I’m scratching away while he, a single man, has two lavish cars, a multi-million-dollar house, and lives a life of huge excess. He believes he’s entitled to it – it IS his money. But where is the balance???? OK – he’s NOT happy, but he’s not UNhappy, so he has no incentive to change or even to help me and my organization. When he was young an had a troubled life, I was the one who took him in. Always. So… And I plug away trying to make sense of policy (things he professes to believe in such as universal health care) so people can lift up decent arguments for or about any given thing. I am happy – LOVE my job – but I’d really appreciate some freaking BALANCE here! We’ve long been ruled by plutocrats. They are just more visible on the land than they’ve been since 1929. We have Reagan and “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” to thank for that. Bah. » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 1:30 pm Wow AdLib, this is powerful! Since I’m in the “anti-selfishness” game doing advocacy with our members in CA in the mainstream, progressive communities of faith, I see people rise above this every day. But the dominant thing that comes back is that even the “good guys” have slipped into a kind of solipsism and narcissism that reflects this selfishness. Yesterday I got sent a wonderful interpretation of Obama’s Nobel speech by Susan Thistlethwaite that was printed Dec. 11 in the “On Faith” page of the Washington Post. (You can find it via Google – it’s too long a link to post.) She was president of the Chicago Theological Seminary – a very cool, progressive place – and wrote that she read Obama’s speech as a radically different view of the world from his predecessors. It was SO hopeful and wonderful! So – I posted it to our members, and you’d have thought she’d been calling for selling babies in the town square! People who have decided, less than a year in, that Obama is a shill for capitalist warmongers – people who OUGHT to know differently – were angry with her and with me for posting what she said. We won’t learn because it means giving up our prejudices. Progressives are JUST as bad at this, we’re just less violent about it. So far. I keep trying to learn things. I keep trying to HEAR people – their fear, their pain, their longings, their hopes, their insights. I believe that is true of all of you here – ALL. Even when there are disagreements, I believe there is listening (well, OK reading) of other people’s views. How big a universe is PlanetPOV? We seem small. But once again, these are the best conversations I’ve EVER had, and I learn something new every day from all of you. Those of us who really “Got Hope” last year and are willing to DO THE WORK of shaping this democracy along with Obama are proving to be the minority of even those who supported him. It’s sad. Thank you for writing this. It IS important! » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 10:57 am I don’t disagree in principle, but I AM a lobbyist! I’m covered by the same rules as ones from Exxon even though they’re silly. About 1/4-1/3 of all lobbyists are like me – representing non-profit organizations who work on a shoestring. The idea that we can’t take someone to coffee (and in CA you cannot) is ridiculous because it puts that on exactly the same level as taking someone out for a $400 dinner. I’d make it illegal to take freebies from ANYONE – no junkets, no payments, no nothing. I don’t think anyone in Congress needs to do a “fact finding mission” on any organization’s dime. If there are legitimate needs for travel or conferences, let the state or feds have a travel allowance, a per diem. Maybe here is where all interests can pitch in, with money, as you note KQuark, being drawn without reference to the sources. If said legislator wants to live large, let him or her pay for the overage. Lobbyists can’t legally give money in CA – but our employers CAN, and that needs to END. I am less familiar with DC rules, but I think what’s good in CA should work there, too. » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 3:32 pm Cher – it’s 7:44 in Sacramento. Nice to know we’re in the same time zone! I find all of your arguments against killing the bill very persuasive, and I do agree. I would like us ALL to take up the mantra about one thing, however – if there is no public option by which premiums etc. are truly made more affordable, then THERE MUST BE NO MANDATE TO HAVE INSURANCE. Forcing people to buy the excresences out there and incur god-know what costs is utterly immoral!The Schwarzenegger effort and the Mass Connector both planned and do have pretty low, subsidized premiums. However, to keep the premiums low, the deductibles are $5000 with out of pocket up to $10,000 – PER PERSON PER YEAR. That is outrageous! It makes YOU pay that, not the insurance company! It’s a total gift to Aetna and Hartford!!!! People in MA who have it are using it as catastrophic insurance because they do not HAVE the $5000, so they are paying for insuranc they can’t afford to USE. So – here’s my rap: No public plan, no mandate. Simple as that. Do you know that government-mandated purchases of commodities in the private market has no TERM in modern economics??? The closest I can come is feudal tribute. I don’t think that’s progress, do you? » Posted By choicelady On December 15, 2009 @ 7:43 pm A very dark and depressing day in Montana Can’t open yours, Rarest- but you’ve forgotten your grammatical construct – it’s “Youze are great!” Once you add the “guys” you don’t NEED the “youze”. It’s to clear up how MANY people are great – just the one or the many. The “guys” is redundant. Regional variant in West PA is “youns” which I think is you ones. Don’t know that for sure… » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 10:04 am Hope you’re in the air and can’t read this! How AMAZING! This is just terrific news!!! We all want to hear ALL about it when you can tell us! » Posted By choicelady On December 16, 2009 @ 10:01 am Oh RarestPatriot I’m SO sorry! You break my heart – this is SO unfair! You deserve so much better than to be in peril at this point in your life. I hope you find something to do, somewhere to be, where you can thrive! You are IN my heart! » Posted By choicelady On December 15, 2009 @ 8:45 pmComments Posted By choicelady
reid.senate.gov. Click on “contact” and send an email to him.
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