This is the last day Congress will be in session until the last week in August. The Senators and Congresscritters are getting their Vacay. They weaseled their way out of doing anything about the most important issue currently facing the US now: the dismal state of health care. So there will be a roughly 3-week period of downtime.
This can be a detriment to the fight for real Health CARE Reform, (note I didn't say Health INSURANCE Reform, I said Health CARE Reform) or it can be a golden opportunity to hold our representatives' feet to the fire.
We are meeting yet again today at the corner of Topanga Canyon Blvd. and Califa Avenue at 5pm for yet another Single Payer Happy Hour in the shadow of the Murder By Spreadsheet industry in Warner Center, Woodland Hills, CA. We didn't get many people last time but we sure had fun. And we will be doubling down on our fun next month. Details over the flip.
Currently one of the most intransigent "ConservaDems" on Capitol Hill is Senator Dianne Feinstein. She was never a liberal, but it seems with every year she gets more grumpy, more cranky, and more conservative. Now she's said the nastiest things about fellow Democrats who want to see real Health CARE Reform happen, and who are simply trying to find out where she stands on the issue, something she has been stubbornly concealing for months now.
Yesterday a group of senior citizens tried to press the issue at Feinstein's LA office. Initial reports had it that eight of them were arrested for trespassing, but now the LAPD are saying that they were never in custody.
Here's a link to video from KCBS TV 2 Los Angeles.
Remember: the people who took this stand were senior citizens...people with nothing to gain from health care reform. They have Medicare. No, they were there for their children and grandchildren, who have to sweat and worry about every little fall and sneeze for fear it could throw them into medical bankruptcy. They were there for the families who can no longer rely on Healthy Families to cover their children thanks to Arnold Schwarzenegger's downright cold budget cuts.
Can we do any less?
Single Payer Happy Hour will be holding a mocktail party at Senator Feinstein's office in West Los Angeles some time in August. Watch my diaries and those of Shockwave for exact dates and times. We will be there to demand to be seen by Senator Feinstein. We must be prepared to go the whole route and follow the example of the dear Bubbehs and Zaydes who took their stand yesterday.
We will be bringing a briefcase full of a quarter million dollars in Monopoly Money, to symbolize what the Murder By Spreadsheet industry, big PhRMA and big hospital corporations gave Senator Feinstein to buy her ear and her cooperation.
Keep your eyes on these pages. In the meantime, come join us in Warner Center, in the very belly of the beast, to stand for REAL HEALTH CARE REFORM. And REAL HEALTH CARE REFORM means SINGLE PAYER.
One last note: We support wholeheartedly the effort to gain a TRUE Public Option as part of Obama's attempt at reform, and fervently hope the Feingold Amendment which allows individual States to try types of health care reform other than the National plan remains in the bill. We stand with everyone who wants to see a Robust Public Option. We are not your enemies. We do not stand for the Conservadem, Blue Dog attempts to sabotage Obama's agenda, and see it as a turncoat operation benefitting only the Republicans and their obsession with seeing Obama's agenda fail.
Conservadems! Blue Dogs! Republicans! You are ON NOTICE. We are as mad as Hell and we aren't going to take this anymore. We want Obama to succeed.