What’s Happening to Us?

Original Source Video: The Columbus Dispatch. On March 17th outside of Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy’s district office teabaggers mocked and threw things at a man who said he had Parkinson’s. They told him “he’s in the wrong end of town to ask for handouts”, called him a communist and threw money at him to “pay for his health care”.

How can these people justify this? It seems as if the behavior being modeled by Rush Limbaugh and his ilk IS having an affect on our civility. THE MAN HAS A LIFE-THREATENING CHRONIC ILLNESS AND PERFECTLY HEALTHY PEOPLE ARE TAUNTING AND THROWING MONEY AT HIM? IN AMERICA?

But what can you expect when false and misleading information on policy are being reinforced by people who make fun of a 12-year-old kid speaking for health insurance reform because his mother, who didn’t have access to affordable healthcare, is now dead?

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Talk Radio At Center Of Health Care Debate

Rush Limbaugh TimeDecades of building a message delivery system infrastructure is paying off today big time. From NTS Media Online:

As Democrats in Congress mount the final push to approve President Obama’s health care reform proposal, conservative Talk radio hosts across the country are mobilizing the “troops” to defeat the controversial bill. Premiere Radio Networks talker Rush Limbaugh deviated from his usual policy of not giving out DC phone numbers on his show and actively called for listeners to “flood Congress with calls and emails.” Fellow Premiere talkers and FOX News Channel personalities Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck have also called for active protests from their listeners,…Meanwhile, Salem Radio Network hosts Bill Bennett, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Janet Mefferd and Michael Medved have all placed “Say No To Obamacare” buttons on their websites to encourage listeners to email Congress. So far, the hosts combined efforts have generated nearly 1 million emails urging defeat of the pending legislation.

There. So now you also know how “death panels” became a talking point so quickly.

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Ovaltine Decoder RingMaria Brewer of the Decoder Ring has a perceptive retrospective of the long and winding debate:

For those of us who have been watching the misinformation stream coming out of the Obstructionist’s Party on the right, it has been a head-scratching fight. Though the Republican Party had ten years in the majority to study and pass health care reform legislation to their liking, they did nothing. They continued to let an ever increasing portion of America’s GDP get sucked out of our hides and into the pockets of an industry whose profiteering callousness knows no bounds. Every day American families spend 18% and still rising of our household budgets on healthcare. Well, those of us lucky enough to get it. And now the right’s rallying cry is a weak “Code Red.” Indeed, they have waited until the patient is dying on the table to start their inadequate wails of “save us,” blaming those who are trying to sort through a difficult diagnosis as if we caused the disease….

Now, as the Congress readies itself to pass legislation, we must look past the hype, the media moment of the day, the manufactured winners and losers of the horse race. No one thinks this legislation is perfect, but the Republican Party needs to start telling the truth about this issue. There is no time to start over, they had their chance, and they lost their majorities.

Perhaps we have reached the end of one battle, but this is really just another step on the long path of liberty and justice for all. Thanks to our Founding Fathers, we are no longer yoked by fealty to King or Crown, but my how the Framers would be appalled by our bent knees before the throne of Corporatism and Profiteering.

Go read the rest. Maria’s voice is one that has been hiding too long in Sumner County. She needs to be heard.

T/F/B: Speak to Power

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Health Care for America Now! is sponsoring a lunchtime rally for health care reform tomorrow from noon to 1 p.m. at 3322 West End Avenue (corner of Murphy Rd. and West End Ave.) in Nashville.

The rally location is right in front of the office of Senators Alexander and Corker. In light of yesterday’s events, I would have chosen State Senator Mae Beavers’ office but we can save that rally for another day.

If affordable health care is one of your priorities, show up at the rally and let everyone know.

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Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey as John CalhounSo yesterday we posted about a bill sponsored by Senator Mae Beavers (R-Mt. Juliet) and supported by Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey (R-Running for Governoe) – esp. in front of the news cameras -that will do absolutely nothing to protect Tennesseans and their families from losing everything they’ve worked for – home, savings, college funds, access to the American Dream – if they lose their health insurance or get hit with “you have a pre-existing condition so we’re won’t cover your ***insert horrible and life-threatening illness here*** treatment” response from their insurance company.

Last night Newschannel 5’s Scott Arnold reported that the bill wasn’t even Sen. Beavers’ idea but the brainchild of a Washington D.C.-based group (founded in 1973 by anti-good government conservative corporatist Paul Weyrich) who have spent a ton on political contributions and whose sole mission is to set the stage for a showdown between the states and the federal government.

Oh, the places we won’t go with the weird and self-serving priorities of the TNGOP!

In addition, according to a report in the New York Times, “five of the 24 members of its ‘free enterprise board’ are executives of drug companies and its health care ‘task force’ is overseen in part by a four-member panel composed of government-relations officials for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association of insurers, the medical company Johnson & Johnson and the drug makers Bayer and Hoffmann-La Roche.”

Beavers fiddles, while Tennesseans lose everything.

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Senator Andy BerkeIn these times of economic distress when people are losing their houses, savings, and any hope of access to the American Dream because of health care insecurity, which is more important, fighting for nullification – a battle already fought and lost in 1833 – or fighting for affordable health care for all?

The latter, of course and our intrepid Capitol Hill correspondent Dean (Hey Dean! You’re now our intrepid Capitol Hill correspondent!) posted a synopsis of Senator Andy Berke (D-Chattanooga) taking a stand today for what really matters most to Tennesseans:

In other HC news, the Tennessee Senate on Wednesday passed a bill to require the state attorney general to mount a legal challenge to any federal law to require participation in a health care system.

The “Tennessee Health Freedom Act” sponsored by Republican Sen. Mae Beavers (R-Mt. Juliet) passed without debate on a 26-1 vote, with five abstentions.

Beavers, showing her ignorance, said her proposal seeks to check congressional power. Otherwise the federal government “could mandate that each of us buy a Chevrolet every year so we could help pay of the loans that were made to the industry,” she foolishly said.

Only Democratic Sen. Andy Berke of Chattanooga had a clue. He said the bill “doesn’t do anything to help the citizens of Tennessee who either need insurance or need a break in what they’re paying for health care.”

Berke also questioned the constitutionality of the bill.

“This is telling the federal government that we’re not going to obey the laws that you pass,” Berke said. “My education tells me there is the supremacy clause in the Constitution which says that we can’t do that.”

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Health Care Reform Advocates DemonstratingFamilies USA, a national nonprofit, non-partisan organization who since 1982 has been working at the national, state, and community levels to promote high-quality and affordable health care for all Americans, is bringing its “National Health Care Reform: What’s In It For Me?” Road Show to Knoxville and Cookeville on February 20 as part of the Tennessee Health Care Campaign’s Regional Conferences.

The road show presentation is a grassroots effort geared towards explaining what the health care bill in Congress and health care reform will really do for people in Tennessee and across the nation while exposing and debunking the scare tactics and myths being used to derail reform. It’s a message delivery system for the truth. (Not quite as effective as having conservative mouth pieces on the radio and TV at your disposal 24/7 but still…)

Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA will be the keynote speaker at two of the regional conferences – Cherokee Health Systems in Knoxville and the Cookeville Regional Medical Center in Cookeville.

Registration for the event is $10 in advance and $15 at the door. Scholarships available. Lunch included.

To register for Knoxville, contact Beth Uselton, 865-357-3151
To register for Cookeville, contact Christina Kretchik, 615-227-7500

There are 8 total THCC Regional Training Conferences. Deputy Director Kathleen Stoll of Families USA will be at the Memphis conference on Saturday, March 6.

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