"I'll vote the way my district wants me to vote"

post from The Politics of Jamie Sanderson on 18 March 2010 11:47:00 AM. © The Politics of Jamie Sanderson

"I'll vote the way my district wants me to vote," said Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA) this week. If you don't think your voice matters, think again. There's more than 30 confirmed members of the U.S. House who remain undecided on health reform. These members of Congress are waiting to hear from you.

Call your Congressperson at 1-866-311-3405 and report back on your call, here.

The revised House bill was released today. A vote in the U.S. House could happen as early as Sunday, with the Senate not far behind. What does this mean to you and me? It means that health care reform is on its way toward final passage. It means that immediately upon passage, we'll be protected from many of the worst offenses by health insurers.^[*]

This is about winning control over our own health care choices - for families, small businesses, people with so-called "pre-existing conditions," and for our kids. Think about it - this is the moment.

If you've called, if you haven't called, if you called back in August but have tuned out since then - now is the time to get back involved. This moment belongs to you and the thousands of others who've taken action for reform. Call 1-866-311-3405 and tell your member of Congress to finish the job on health reform. Did you have an interesting conversation with a staff member? Click here to report back on your call.

At long last, it's beginning to look like Congress understands the costs of doing nothing. Make sure they don't forget it. Call Congress and tell them to finish the job on fixing health care. Let's pass this bill!

Thanks for all you do,

Andy Stern
President, SEIU

^[*]The Top Ten Immediate Benefits You'll Get When Health Care Reform Passes, Huffington Post, March 16, 2010.

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wants-me-to.html

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Limbaugh’s ‘Cheap And
Disingenuous’ Call For People To Jam Congressional Phonelines

post from Think Progress on 18 March 2010 11:40:00 AM. © Think Progress

For the past few days, hate radio host Rush Limbaugh has been urging his listeners to call Congress and oppose health care. Yesterday, he gleefully aired clips of journalists touting his project, urging his followers to keep up the pressure:

LIMBAUGH: So here are the numbers, the toll-free number for the Capitol Switchboard: 877-762-8762. The toll call number, the direct toll number is 202-224-3121. Now, we have these numbers at RushLimbaugh.com if you don’t have a way to write them down, if you’re driving around or something. If you have a smart phone, you can log on at a red light and get the numbers. Here they are again: 877-762-8762, I guess this is the third time now that I’m — or maybe I could just say this is a continuation of yesterday, still only the second time in history that I have advocated this. And there’s no better time than now. It is really crucial. I think all these phone calls that you made yesterday, there’s no question at all they had an impact. I mean everybody noted it at the Capitol Hill switchboard.

Limbaugh seems eager to be in the spotlight after his “spawn,” Glenn Beck, has been getting all the attention lately. To do so, Limbaugh is adopting a Beck-style tactic that he previously derided. In an interview with Politico last year, Limbaugh said that telling people to “call Washington” was “cheap and disingenuous“:

“I don’t rally people and haven’t since the first year of my radio show,” he wrote to POLITICO. “At that time, all local talk hosts were attempting to prove their worth by getting people to cut up gasoline credit cards, call Washington, etc. I thought it was cheap and disingenuous. The few times I did, early on, suggest people call Washington, the reaction to it from the media was that the response was not genuine (I shut down the House switchboard) because people only did what they did because ‘Limbaugh told them to.’“

On his show yesterday, Limbaugh admitted that he has “shied away” from urging people to call Congress in the past because his efforts could “delegitimize the whole thing.” He said that this time was different, however, because the media weren’t saying that “Limbaugh urged them to do it.” “They’re reporting it as a genuine outrage at the bill, and it is!” he said. “There’s no question.” Well, not really. In fact, even in the stories that Limbaugh highlights, the press reports that the calls are coming in because of Limbaugh — not because of a spontaneous outrage over health care. As The Hill wrote yesterday, the “unusual call volume” to Capitol Hill “began Tuesday afternoon after Limbaugh made a plea on his website for fans to call lawmakers.”

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http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/18/limbaugh-call-congress/

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Turberculosis: New Killer of Women

post from Everyday Citizen on 18 March 2010 11:32:36 AM. © Everyday Citizen

According to Barrie Examiner, "In 2010, tuberculosis (TB) is one of the leading infectious killers[...]

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Turberculosis New Killer of Women

post from Everyday Citizen on 18 March 2010 11:32:36 AM. © Everyday Citizen

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Blogswarm: it's time to move ENDA

post from Open Left - Front Page on 18 March 2010 11:30:00 AM. © Open Left - Front Page

Today, OpenLeft is participating in a blogswarm today with Daily Kos, Towleroad, Pam's House Blend,[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenLeft-FrontPage/~3/lq8b7rzlDpU/blogswarm-its-ti
me-to-move-enda

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Yes, Rahm is Totally Vindicated

post from Firedoglake on 18 March 2010 11:25:20 AM. © Firedoglake

Ben Smith writes that if the health care bill passes with "unified, if grumbly, support on the left, it would seem to vindicate the White House's fundamental approach, which was to take the left for granted as much as possible and focus on courting[...]

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http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/03/18/yes-rahm-is-totally-vindicated/

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Zero Public Option + One Mandate = Disaster

post from BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash on 18 March 2010 11:18:20 AM. © BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Norman Solomon

Not long ago, the most prominent supporters of the public option were touting it as essential for healthcare reform. Now, suddenly, it?s incidental.

In fact, many who were lauding a public option as the key to a better healthcare future are now condemning just about anyone who insists that the absence of a public option makes the current bill unworthy of support.

Consider this statement: ?If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current healthcare bill. Any measure that expands private insurers? monopoly over healthcare and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real healthcare reform.?

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http://blog.buzzflash.com/contributors/3072

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Late-night session sees abortion coverage removed

post from The Politics of Jamie Sanderson on 18 March 2010 11:18:00 AM. © The Politics of Jamie Sanderson

At 1am this morning, after a day of arm twisting and political maneuvering, anti-choice Representatives managed to re-open debate on employees' benefits in the state health insurance plan.

The intense debate lasted over four hours into the wee hours of the morning. Our pro-choice champions, Representatives Cobb-Hunter, James Smith, Stavrinakis, Mack and Sellers, made a valiant effort and QUOTED YOUR EMAIL MESSAGES while arguing against this motion.

At 5am the House voted to strip abortion coverage in the state health insurance plan for rape and incest victims. 15 Representatives as well as Speaker of the House Robert Harrell changed their vote from Tuesday evening, when you'll recall we alerted you that the House had voted to protect victims of rape, incest and life endangerment.

We must hold these Representatives accountable! Click here to email those Representatives right now!

Thank you for your continued support of women's reproductive healthcare. Together, we WILL make a difference.

Sincerely,

Sloane Whelan
SC Field Coordinator

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http://thepoliticsofjamiesanderson.blogspot.com/2010/03/late-night-session-sees-a
bortion.html

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Health insurnace reform updates

Some quick hitters on info as it comes in:Full CBO score. House Democrats had their first full[...]

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-reform-updates

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Abe Foxman: Petraeus is "blaming Jews for
everything."

There can't have been anyone who didn't see this coming down the track:

Israel should immediately battle a charge emerging in the US that its actions are endangering the lives of US soldiers, because it is a particularly ?pernicious? argument that ?smacks of blaming the Jews for everything,? Anti-Defamation League National Chairman Abe Foxman said on Monday.

Foxman, in an interview with The Jerusalem Post, was replying to an emerging theme that has run through the public discussion in the US of the Interior Ministry?s announcement of plans to build 1,600 housing units in northeast Jerusalem?s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood: that Israel?s actions could cost the lives of American soldiers.

I wondered how long it would be before someone called Petraeus an anti-Semite. So, if one finds any linkage between any Israeli action and any other deed, and make the case that the two might be related, that's border line anti-Semitism and "smacks of blaming the Jews for everything".

But then anti-Semitism is literally everywhere.

Now we find out that Obama is an anti-Semite as well.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's brother-in-law Dr. Hagai Ben-Artzi on Wednesday called U.S. President Barack Obama an anti-Semite in an interview with Army Radio.

"It's not that Obama doesn't like Bibi," he referring to Netanyahu using his nickname. "He doesn't like the nation of Israel."

They have actually taken all of the bite out of that accusation through sheer overuse. There was a day that such a charge would have been career ending, but now even people like Andrew Sullivan are having it made against them.

What's most striking about this attack is how inconsequential it is. It was once the case, not all that long ago, that an accusation of "anti-semitism" was the nuclear weapon of political debates, rendering most politicians and pundits (especially non-Jewish ones) petrified of being so accused. A 4,300-word prosecution brief published by The New Republic, accusing a major political writer of being a Jew-hater, would have been taken quite seriously, generated all sorts of drama, introspection and debate, and seriously tarnished the reputation of the accused.

No longer. Neoconservatives have so abused and cynically exploited the "anti-semitism" charge for rank political gain -- to bully those who would dare criticize Israeli actions or question U.S. policy towards Israel -- that it has lost its impact. Ironically, nobody has done more to trivialize and cheapen anti-semitism accusations than those who anointed themselves its guardians and arbiters.

That's the saddest thing about all of this. There is still anti-Semitism out there, but by throwing the term around at anyone who criticises Israel, they have lessened the impact such an accusation would carry when it is actually needed to be levelled against a true anti-Semite.

Tags: Abe Fox, Petraeus, Israel, Palestine

Read The Full Article:
http://the-osterley-times.blogspot.com/2010/03/abe-foxman-petraeus-is-blaming-jew
s-for.html

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