If you haven't followed the Rahm Emanuel story, I suggest you read Jane Hamsher's clear recitation of the facts over at Campaign Silo.
If you're not angry now, you will be when you finish reading what Jane has to say.
Is an all out capitulation to the Blue Dogs and the insurance industry underway, I'm not sure, it remains to be seen. But there's no doubt, they want us to shut up, sit down and go away. This means, we're moving in the correct direction and we need to do even more.
Now, more than ever, we need to redouble our efforts. When I read crap like this, I realize that Rahm is a cold-blooded political operative, more concerned about wins and vote counts than body counts from bad policies. Ridding the American people of insurance industry parasites isn't even on his radar. This could come back and bite the White House big time politically.
IMPORTANT ACTION AFTER THE FLIP!
Healthcare is MAJOR personal to probably two hundred million Americans. This is way, way beyond political, and we will not forgive those we've elected who are straying far the fuck off the reservation. I'm talking to you, Rahm, and your dastardly embrace of the Blue Dogs and their insurance industry patrons.
Rahm has never faced medical bankruptcy or financial ruin. Rahm hasn't a clue about the desperate lives of millions of Americans. And most tragically, Rahm seems to have forgotten that on election night 2008, tens of millions of Americans believed that our new President would deliver us from this healthcare evil.
I'm getting the feeling that the new definition of so-called "health insurance reform" is to require most of us, to pony up for private junk insurance. If this is the "something" they plan on passing, as in the oft said, "we're going to pass something", then count me, and 100 million others just like me, out.
Like I said Rahm, this is real personal for me, and at bare minimum about 100 million other Americans. Year after year, we pay much more for much less. During the last renewal period, I faced a shocking 20% rate increase. So what did I do?
I went from an 80 to a 70% reimbursement, I increased my deductible to $1000 and my co-pays went from $20 to $30. For this, I was able to re-enroll for a modest 9% increase.
I received more numbing information last week via my insurance agent. She told me the rate hikes coming through this year are among the worst she's even seen. Got that, Rahm!
I asked her what advice she has. She said, I'll have to dig deeper and cut back even more. This is called cost shifting, and the American people cannot sustain this any longer. More costs are being placed on our fragile shoulders and every day, more and more Americans are choosing to go naked rather than pay such extortion to the merciless insurance industry. Got that too, Rahm?
This you'll definitely get, Rahm. It's delivered via Frank Rich.
Yet there is real reason for longer-term worry in the form of a persistent, anecdotal drift toward disillusionment among some of the president’s supporters. And not merely those on the left. This concern was perhaps best articulated by an Obama voter, a real estate agent in Virginia, featured on the front page of The Washington Post last week. "Nothing’s changed for the common guy," she said. "I feel like I’ve been punked."
. . .It’s in this context that Obama can’t afford a defeat on health care. A bill will pass in a Democrat-controlled Congress. What matters is what’s in it. The final result will be a CAT scan of those powerful Washington interests he campaigned against, revealing which have been removed from the body politic (or at least reduced) and which continue to metastasize. The Wall Street regulatory reform package Obama pushes through, or doesn’t, may render even more of a verdict on his success in changing the system he sought the White House to reform.
WE DON'T GET MAD, WE DON'T BEND OVER, WE GET EVEN. TIME TO GIVE RAHM THE FINGER. HERE'S HOW WE DO THIS.
You've done more to activate the grass roots and to get this nascent citizen-powered effort off the ground. You've done more than the huge progressive organizations, with all their funding. This is huge and historic. We're citizen activists, we're not astroturf organizations, and despite Rahm's despicable words, we can will bring down these murderous insurance empires.
Here's just some what you made possible. We must do even more. We do not have a day, a minute or an hour to lose.
The health care achievements of FDL Action:
- 15 progressive House members have taken the pledge
- A crowd-sourced, embedable widget of health care events across the country
- Over 70 video interviews of House members by Mike Stark
And we're just getting started. There is a lot of work still to be done to keep lobbyists from turning the health care bill into nothing more than an insurance industry bailout.
- Networking of national and state blogs into the Health Care Whip campaign
- Rapid response operation to turn progressives out to support Democratic House members when the teabaggers target them for attack using national and state blog network
- Instant distribution of photos, videos and reports from events (like the 16 year-old in the Obama/Hitler t-shirt that made the news)
HERE'S HOW WE GIVE RAHM THE FINGER.
This widget is a searchable database of every Town Hall meeting. You search by zipcode and can find exactly what you're looking for.
We need you to get this embeddable widget onto every blog in America. This is the Event Tracker Widget. This widget was researched, created, crowd sourced, developed and manufactured by you, your hard work, and your contributions. It deserves to accessible to as many Americans as possible. And you have the power to make this happen as well.
WE NEED THIS WIDGET ON EVERY PROGRESSIVE AND DEMOCRATIC BLOG IN AMERICA
THIS IS WHAT THE EVENT TRACKER WIDGET LOOKS LIKE:
HERE IS THE EMBED CODE FOR THE EVENT TRACKER WIDGET:
<center><iframe src="http://firedoglake.com/files/1/files/2009/08/fdlevents3.html" width="300" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" marginheight="1" marginwidth="1"></iframe></ center>
HERE IS THE EMBED CODE FOR THE FULL SCHEDULE OF TOWN HALL EVENTS. GIVE RAHM THE FINGER, AND EMBED THESE TWO WIDGETS IN EVERY GODDAMN BLOG IN AMERICA.
<iframe src="http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?title=------%20%20August%20Whip%20Count%20Calendar%20------&showTitle=0&showNav=0&showPrint=0&showTz=0&mode=AGENDA&height=600&wkst=1&bgcolor=%23ffffff&src=p509ha6tsvrpp67r36slqg2pcc%40group.calendar.google.com&color=%23B1440E&src=mq5a37clg0ct6je9aeo097gu54%40group.calendar.google.com&color=%230D7813&ctz=America%2FNew_York" style=" border:solid 1px #777 " width="300" height="600" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">
</iframe>
Once these widgets are widely disseminated, it will enable people who don't necessarily read Daily Kos or Firedoglake to make their voices heard.
HERE IS AN FDL ACTION GUIDE TO RUNNING AN EVENT, ALL YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED.
USE THIS TOOL TO ADD NEW EVENTS. WE'RE CONSTANTLY UPDATING.
AND AFTER AN EVENT, YOU CAN TELL US WHAT HAPPENED AND UPLOAD VIDEOS WITH THIS TOOL.
AND YOU CAN ALWAYS CHECK IN AT CAMPAIGN SILO FOR ALL HEALTHCARE RELATED INFORMATION
AND, AS ALWAYS, PLEASE SUPPORT OUR WORK
PLEASE DONATE WHATEVER YOU CAN:
Please help us continue this fight for the American people and against the FAKE PROTESTORS, THE MOB VIOLENCE, the insurance industry lobby and its August campaign of fear.
Lobbyists and wealthy Republican donors are spending $1.4 million a day to insure that healthcare reform dies. We rely on your generosity.
And then take a look at this!
https://secure.firedoglake.com/...