Stand Up! Take Action! Vote!
MORE CALLS NEEDED RIGHT NOW! (Leave messages at any hour!) Use the virtual phonebank. Watch the whip list. Vote is planned for Tuesday morning.
Read: McGovern: Reporter Made It Up, I’m Voting NO
Read: An Exit Strategy That Keeps Wars Going.
June 16th: Catch Bob Fertik on Democracy Now! at 8:45 a.m. ET. Then catch the vote on C-Span if it happens. It IS on the schedule for late morning. Emanuel is still trying to bribe Republicans to fund war (odd as that may sound) by including funding for the flu (bizarre as that may sound, and they were going to include it anyway) in an attempt to somehow overcome the Republicans’ opposition to the IMF’s doing things Republicans support if only it were with someone else’s money. Clear? The San Francisco Chronicle has an article quoting Sam Farr putting the question of whether Obama is embarassed above the question of whether people in Iraq or Afghanistan are killed, and George Miller professing his blind obedience to the President. The same article reports that Jackie Speier and Lynn Woolsey will vote No.
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CLICK HERE to see and hear video of Rep. Lynn Woolsey and Rep. Jim McGovern on the upcoming War Supplemental vote.
Watch this video and then Contact your member of Congress – Healthcare NOT Warfare!
We invite you to visit the PDA Home Page for more articles and Actions you can take!
ACTION CENTRAL FOR PUSHING REVENUE RESCUE FOR CALIFORNIA – FIX THE BUDGET NOW.
www.fixthebudgetnow.com
Californians deserve real solutions to the budget deficit. Responding to our economic crisis with deep cuts will only make the state’s problems worse. They would undermine our economic recovery and President Obama’s investment in economic stimulus, disproportionately harm the most vulnerable Californians, and go against our core values.
By Steven Harmon
MediaNews Sacramento Bureau
SACRAMENTO — Corporate tax giveaways from dead-of-night budget agreements in September and February will cost the state as much as $2.5 billion in revenues at a time when lawmakers are contemplating eliminating programs for the poor, a budget analyst said Wednesday.
The tax loopholes made it through the Legislature with no public hearings and little analysis of the effect, said Jean Ross, executive director for the California Budget Project, a research group that studies the effects of policies on the poor.
"The problem with dark-of-night deals is that you never get a chance to get a debate over value choices," she said. "These three tax breaks represent a reduction of one-third the income taxes paid by California corporations.... They really represent a stark contrast in values and what kind of future we want to see for Californians."
The tax breaks will cost the state $640 million for the rest of this fiscal year and for the 2010-11 budget year as lawmakers search for ways to close a $24.3 billion deficit, according to Ross's report, "To Have and Have Not." By the time they are fully implemented in 2014-15, the tax breaks could cost nearly $2.5 billion a year, she said.
Read the full story at the Silicon Vally Mercury News
Altoona, PA The Blair-Bedford Central Labor Council in Altoona, PA has endorsed HR 676, single payer healthcare legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI). The Blair-Bedford Labor Council is the 128 central labor council to endorse HR 676.
Toledo, OH The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), which began organizing farm workers in the 1970’s, and is the second largest farm workers union organization in the U.S. has also endorsed the Conyers legislation.
CDP Progressive Caucus
Solidarity Summit
San Luis Obispo
UPDATE – Summit planned for June 27 has been moved to August, date TBD. Please stay tuned!
More info will be posted as it becomes available. You can also check the CDP Progressive Caucus website for updates
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Rep. Raul Grijalva asked us to forward this message to you. Click here to read it.
We’re very proud that Rep. Grijalva is a member of our advisory board, and we appreciate the support he has given to PDA.
Catch him and other notable supporters of PDA in this short video .
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/43454
By David Swanson
June 10, 2009
On Tuesday President Obama proposed that any increases in federal spending on anything useful, such as healthcare or retirement security, must be balanced by cuts and savings to something else useful, such as healthcare or retirement security.
“The pay-as-you-go rule is very simple,” Obama said. “Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere.” Except that it’s not so simple. Obama would make an exception to allow Bush’s tax cuts for millionaires to be extended past their 2010 expiration date, as well as to prevent the alternative-minimum tax from impacting the overclass. Still, the White House insists that everything is very simple:
Insurance giants panic at the prospect of competition
Now is the time for boldness! Instead, we're getting Baucusness. Sen. Max Baucus, that is--Montana Democrat, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and frequent spear-carrier for the corporate agenda. He has now been tapped to handle Obama's promised rewrite of America's warped, ineffective, and exorbitantly expensive health-care system.
This should be a dream job for the Democratic leadership. Consumers despise today's corporatized medical structure. So do doctors, nurses, and other health-care workers. So do businesses that provide health-care coverage for their employees. The insurance-company-dominated system is so unpopular that swine flu enjoys a higher public-approval rating! A Pew Research Center poll taken in March 2009 shows that the American people don't merely want the current system fixed, they want it overhauled--76% say it must either be "fundamentally changed" or "completely rebuilt."
Read the rest of this article at the Hightower Lowdown
by paradocs2
Daily Kos
June 7, 2009
Most people are unaware how similar the major health insurers are to our failed Wall Street firms.They are corporate cash cows and have virtually no fiduciary responsibility and few activities for protecting or improving health or the health care system.They will devote their vast resources to prevent any meaningful health reform. They have controlled Congress and the mainstream media. The only cure is vigorous popular support for a single payer, Medicare for All reform.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Agenda — Tuesday, June 9, 2009
The Supervisors will be voting on the change to the general plan to allow/disallow the Dutra Company to build at Haystack Landing.
If you can attend this meeting, PLEASE come, and remember that if you submitted anything to the Supervisors between 2-3-09 and the present, it will need to be resubmitted at the hearing.
By Norman Solomon
June 8, 2009
Take Action: Tell Congress We want Healthcare NOT Warfare
It takes at least tacit faith in massive violence to believe that after three decades of horrendous violence in Afghanistan, upping the violence there will improve the situation.
Despite the pronouncements from high Washington places that the problems of Afghanistan can’t be solved by military means, 90 percent of the spending for Afghanistan in the Obama administration’s current supplemental bill is military.
Often it seems that lofty words about war hopes are boilerplate efforts to make us feel better about an endless warfare state. Oratory and punditry laud the Pentagon’s fallen as noble victims of war, while enveloping its other victims in a haze of ambiguity or virtual nonexistence.
June 8, 2009
Push for a Revenue Rescue for California
Californians deserve real solutions to the budget deficit. Responding to our economic crisis with an all-cuts budget will only make the state’s problems worse. Under Governor Schwarzenegger, we have suffered $23 billion in spending cuts in the current budget year alone.
A number of polls show the defeat of the May 19 initiatives was neither an endorsement of an all-cuts approach nor a rejection of raising revenues. In fact, polls show voters are in favor of revenue solutions by wide margins.
By Robert Parry
June 5, 2009
As the health insurance industry and its defenders in Congress lay out their case against permitting a public option in a reform bill, perhaps their most curious argument is that some 119 million Americans are ready to dump their private plans and jump to something more like Medicare – and that’s why the choice can’t be permitted.
The House Oversight Committee issued a report documenting $95 Billion in past and potential health care waste and windfall profits, as well as 15,000 unnecessary deaths that single payer health care and state regulatory improvements could have eliminated.
Use this information when you contact CSPAN at (202) 737-3220 to ask them to cover the upcoming House hearing Examining the Single Payer Health Care Option on June 10th.
On June 6, supporters of healthcare reform will be gathering all around the country at the Organizing for America (OFA) Kickoff meetings.
Take PDA Healthcare NOT Warfare flyers with you when you attend. You can download them here to print them out.
If you are able to attend share with us any details about the meeting HERE
NORMAN SOLOMON – film and discussion
“War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death”
Nationally syndicated columnist Norman Solomon, discusses his book “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death”.
Following his discussion we will show the film of the same title based on the book and narrated by Sean Penn, followed by a Q&A session conducted by Norman Solomon.
June 3, 2009, Washington, DC
Following a meeting in mid-May, organized by Progressive Democrats of America and the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing committee, with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, the following letter from Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Donna edwards (D-MD) and John Conyers (D-MI) was sent on June 1, 2009:
by Sheila Kuehl
June 1, 2009
This is the first in a series of new essays on the current state of budget considerations and analyses on contributing factors. In this essay, I report the Governor’s opinion that Prop 1A failed because everyone voted against new taxes, and a subsequent poll on the subject which came to a different conclusion.
Thousands of Americans turn out to support single-payer healthcare!
Reports from the single-payer events, which took place on May 30 and the days leading up to it, are still rolling in, but we couldn’t wait to share the news with you. Read about the events in Seattle and Tacoma, Ohio, Rochester and Indiana . We’ll be posting more and invite you to send us your story , as well.
One thing is clear: more and more people are turning out in support of single-payer healthcare at rallies, marches, and forums—big and small . Pat yourself on the back! We’re seeing the fruits of our labor playing out in communities across the country.
Jason Kowalski and Ada Araneau from 1sky.org for a summary of pending climate legislation …
http://blog.pdamerica.org/2009/05/iot-global-warming-call-on-4-20-2009/
CLICK HERE TO VISIT the web page for ALL of the PDA Issue Organizing Teams (IOTs). Simply click on each Issue listed — to find news, activist tools, resources and PDA supported legislation for each PDA Priority Issue.
At a critical moment for health care reform in the United States, The National Economic & Social Rights Initiative has published an in-depth assessment of single payer proposals, finding that a single payer system goes further towards meeting key human rights principles than market-based plans.
The question of whether national leaders will consider a single payer system as an option for health care reform has become a question of basic democracy. Despite most Americans supporting a single payer solution, the Obama Administration and congressional leaders have denied it consideration. Key stakeholders such as health care professionals, patients and single payer advocates have been excluded from hearings regarding health reform, prompting courageous civil disobedience actions by health care advocates.
PLEASE TAKE ACTION NOW-Public hearings-California Budget Committee. Submit your comments for the public record by Tuesday June 2.
Here is the schedule of Public Hearings on the California State Budget. Noreen Evans is Chair of this committee.
Noreen Evans – Chair, email: Assemblymember.evans@assembly.ca.gov, Phone: (916) 319-2007 FAX: (916) Fax (916) 319-2199.
If you can not attend the meetings, please fax and email your comments FOR THE PUBLIC RECORD today. I have included the names, emails and fax numbers of the members of this committee. We need a united voice, raise revenues to balance the budget.
Public meeting on Dutra plant hosted by Assemblymember Jared Huffman!
Host: Save Shollenberger Park
Type: Meetings – Informational Meeting
Network: Global
Date: Saturday, May 30, 2009
Time: 9:00am – 11:30am
Location: Petaluma Veterans Memorial Building
Street: 1094 Petaluma Blvd S,
City/Town: Petaluma, CA
WASHINGTON – May 27 – As the Obama administration calls for health reform to be done this year, Progressive Democrats of America and other groups and people in support of improved Medicare for all, a single-payer national health system, will take to the streets in nearly fifty cities around May 30. Town hall meetings, protests at insurance companies, rallies in state capitols, and vigils in memory of the 22,000 people who die each year because they lack health insurance will be taking place across the country.
PDA supports HR 676 by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) which would create an expanded Medicare-type system to cover all Americans. The removal of for-profit insurers from providing basic health care would create enough savings, an estimated $400 billion a year, to fund health care to all.
We are an affiliated chapter of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA)
MOVIE NIGHT!
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
NOTE: Early start time for Wednesday’s meeting, in order that we may enjoy Movie Night and still have time for an endorsement meeting to follow.
PDSonoma meets the 2nd Wednesday of every month except December.
New Members and Guests Always Welcome!
Refreshments can be ordered and enjoyed in our meeting room. Please arrive early if you wish to order refreshments.
Healthcare advocates from fourteen states met in Wayne, Penn., April 10, 2010. The following Declaration is a result of the meeting. Add your name to the Declaration! PDA is planning actions around the country when our goal of 25,000 signatures is met.
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