IL-02 Jesse Jackson Jr.'s Townhall

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Tuesday August 18, 2009 · 11:26 PM PDT

2009/08/18 · 23:26

First of all, thanks to the Sheldon Heights Church of Christ for contributing their beautiful facility for tonight's town hall.

And thank you to the people of IL-02, who, even after all the distasteful teabagger activities at other townhalls, did not restrict entry into this event. Unlike my own republican congresswoman, who screens everyone she talks to ala GW Bush; Jesse Jackson Jr. and the people of his district are not afraid of public discourse.

I've tried to get to as many of these things as I can the past few weeks, but tonight was the first night I've been in a room of full of people who just know their Congressman and our President will do what needs to be done on health care.

Meggie

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Wednesday August 12, 2009 · 3:06 PM PDT

2009/08/12 · 15:06

We're still waiting for a real townhall meeting with our congresswoman, Judy Biggert, here in IL-13. Until she bothers to set something up with enough notice that her working constituients can attend, some of us lucky people (or unlucky because we're unemployed?) managed to track her down at the Naperville Chamber of Commerce for a meeting today.

Naperville Chamber of Commerce, thank you for letting us horn in on your meeting, which was heavy into all of the issues business people in the area are concerned with. And we also thank you for allowing us to ask questions, which made everything at the end a discussion on health care. We imagine that some of your members had their own issues to discuss with the congresswoman and may not have had a chance because we were there talking about health care.

Poll

21 votes Show Results

What did you eat at your town hall meeting today?

21 votes Vote Now!

What did you eat at your town hall meeting today?

A great selection of sandwiches and drinks in an airconditioned ballroom.

6 votes

A great selection of sandwiches out of your own cooler.

0 votes

Don't remember, I was rushing and ate too fast.

0 votes

Didn't eat luch, I was too busy.

2 votes

Parking lot dust.

4 votes

Couldn't taste it, the smell emanating from high school gym lockers was too overpowering.

2 votes

Pie.

7 votes

Another chance with Judy Biggert & Mark Kirk UPDATE! at the bottom of my previous diary

Meggie

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Monday August 10, 2009 · 9:00 PM PDT

2009/08/10 · 21:00

I heard my Republican congresswoman was holding a town hall meeting this evening. I was a little surprised, because I've called her several times to ask her to hold a public meeting on health care. I got the info on the meeting a little late, but the issue is important so I made the effort to attend on short notice. I managed to bring one friend and arrived about 15 minutes before the meeting was scheduled to start.

Oh, she had the tele townhall a few weeks ago. At that time, she only had third-hand anecdotes about Canadian and English health care. Two vague horror stories that she "heard about." She had not done any research, she had no facts. Mostly she called on people who actually made comments on how she's just such a trooper and thanked her for going to Washington and earning $170,000/year. It's a brutal life, but somebody's gotta do it.

Meggie

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Wednesday July 08, 2009 · 9:31 AM PDT

2009/07/08 · 09:31

Almost every day here, there are great diaries about health care. We can get lots of details about what's going on. We hear what the politicians are talking about, we can understand better than most average people just exactly what a trigger is and how a coop might work.

Just today, we have another great diary by slinkerwink about what the politicians are doing. Downtowner provides us with another compelling story of life with and without health insurance in the US. Machiado gives some details about how the politicans are parsing their words like the first class lawyers and politicans they are. Each day here at kos, we're able to have indepth conversation on the issue.

But, the main conversation in the US does not include much of this information. Tell someone in a casual conversation that you are against triggers, and they will stare blankly at you until you explain what a trigger is. Often, it's too much detail. You lost them. They want some sort of change in health care, but they're busy and distracted.

Meggie

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Wednesday June 24, 2009 · 3:34 PM PDT

2009/06/24 · 15:34

Your kos login and password will get you there!

Meggie

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Thursday June 18, 2009 · 6:55 AM PDT

2009/06/18 · 06:55

This diary is meant to ask all of you if you can help add to my list of ways we pay for health insurance right now.

I'm tired of MSM and more conservative people I talk with worrying about what it will cost to switch to some sort of single payer or governmental health care plan. I know this topic has been discussed a long time here, but a list of every place your personal money goes, and amounts/percentages if you have an idea, to pay for American health care right now. It's money that would not cost you more because you're already paying it out. It's going to private for-profit industry instead of directly to help Americans with health care.

On this issue, the compassionate conservative turns into a snarling beast, so all the stuff about caring for children and peace of mind, while valuable, will not help. It seems shortsighted to claim that leaning on the public once in a while "will never happen to me" but it is still where most of them are.

Meggie

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Thursday March 19, 2009 · 11:17 AM PDT

2009/03/19 · 11:17

A couple weeks ago we were asked to contact our representatives about Rush Limbaugh's comment that he wanted President Obama to fail. Would our republican congresspeople condemn such hateful speech directed to the United States of America - and while we're at war??? There was no question that he intended for the USA to fail if it would bring political power back to republicans.

I called my republican congresswoman Ms. Judy Biggert that day. I asked specifically if she would condemn Rush's comments. Her staff claimed that they had not seen Rush's quote, even though it had been played by MSM all day, every day the whole previous weekend. And they claimed that they could not condemn Rush Limbaugh for saying he wanted our president, and by implication our country, to fail because they had not heard him make the statement.

Meggie

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Wednesday March 11, 2009 · 9:46 AM PDT

2009/03/11 · 09:46

Over the years, some of you may have heard, as I did, stories about how minorities and outsiders driving through the south were targeted by the local sheriffs and their deputies. And maybe you have friends or family like my friend Debbie, who moved south for a job and was harrassed by the local sheriff's office every single time she drove her shiny red car with the northern license plate - until she got the local plate and then all her troubles ceased.

A related story came to my attention this week and bears repeating. When you consider the Beck/Norris and Limbaugh nonsense, add in stories like Jena, add in every harassment of "outsiders" and minorities that does not make the news; this story shows just how bad things remain in our country. Dust off those '50's and '60's movies of the local southern sheriff gone amok, because those days never left. They've run for decades under the radar, but with the economic meltdown, these people are grasping at everything they can to try to save their dying towns and their dying lifestyles. Beware!

Meggie

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Friday February 13, 2009 · 6:05 AM PST

2009/02/13 · 06:05

It's been a tradition in our family to add a verse or two to our holiday wishes for each other. My husband writes dry, boring stuff for a living, and he's always happy to break loose and try the greeting card business. This year, he's out of town, so I received my Valentine in the mail yesterday and began composing a response. (The suprise is, he'll get it in time.)
Anyway, this year he wrote:

"Now Valentines are Red, and this card is just Black.
No budget for colors, you can thank W for that."

Meggie

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Monday February 09, 2009 · 11:10 AM PST

2009/02/09 · 11:10

A recent article in the Chicago Tribune caught my attention, and it's worth paying attention to in our current economy. I've done a little more reading on the subject since that initial article and I think this guy is on to something great.

On Tuesday, February 3, the Trib's Laurie Goering wrote an article about Oxford University Atomic Physicist Joshua Silver. He started experimenting with optics when trying to find a better way to view atomic strucure. The man is also a tinkerer, and in the process of that tinkering he's come up with self-adjusting eyeglasses that will provide improved vision for the world's poor.

Meggie

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Monday December 01, 2008 · 9:26 AM PST

2008/12/01 · 09:26

Today's Chicago Tribune (12/01/08, Sect 1, pg 21) carries a full-page ad from WeThePeopleFoundation. It's an open letter to Barack Obama demanding that he provide proof to this organization that he's a natural born citizen of the USA.

Meggie

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Wednesday November 05, 2008 · 10:30 AM PST

2008/11/05 · 10:30

I worked as a poll watcher in a decidedly Red outpost in IL all day yesterday. Very few minorities and very little reason for shenanigans at this polling place, at least for the national ticket. What I witnessed yesterday disgusted me beyond belief. I don't claim to be the most involved in US elections, and I surely don't know all applicable laws, but I do know that what I saw yesterday is wrong in a country that prides itself on being a democracy where every vote is supposed to count. It may have been an active effort to disenfranchise or merely incompetence and laziness, but it was there.
I'll list a few of the problems I witnessed:

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IL-02 Jesse Jackson Jr.'s Townhall

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Another chance with Judy Biggert & Mark Kirk UPDATE! at the bottom of my previous diary

Main Stream Conversations about Health Care

CONGRESS MATTERS lists CONGRESSIONAL KINKY SEX ACTS for W/O 6-22/26

What Does Health Insurance Cost You?

My Congresswoman Refuses to say Rush is Wrong

Dragging America, Kicking and Screaming, into a new Century - Again Updated

Happy Valentines Mr. President

Joshua Silver's Invention for the Poor

WeThePeopleFoundation's open letter to Obama

Voting in the USA is a mess