With your support, your phone calls, your emails, we won a major legislative victory today for a state single payer health care option in the House of Representatives in Washington, DC. The House Education and Labor Committee approved the Kucinich Amendment by a vote of 27-19, with 14 Democrats and 13 Republicans voting yes.
The amendment propels the growing single payer health care movement at the state level. There are at least ten states which have active single payer efforts in their legislatures. They are California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington. The amendment mandates a single payer state will receive the right to waive the application of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which has in the past been used to nullify efforts to expand state or local government health care.
Alternet has a good article by Joshua Holland, titled "How Kucinich May Save the Health Reform Battle". He does a quick analysis of the current bill, and points out the advantages of allowing the Kucinich amendment to stay attached.
re the current bill:
But it also fails some of the basic criteria that most progressives have long said is a red-line that can't be crossed. First and foremost, it doesn't have a public option that can compete with private insurers and result in significant cost savings.
re Kucinich Amendment:
The Kucinich amendment is really key. If it were to survive the legislative sausage-making and be enacted into law, the we might expect a progressive state to take advantage of the opportunity and enact a single-payer system in the coming years.
I spent five hours last night glued to my television set. This was highly unusual for me since I rarely watch, preferring to get my news and entertainment on the internet.
What was so riveting? Dennis Kucinich was standing on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in his best suit and tie, with his most solemn face on, and with a stack of paper from which he was reading 35 articles of impeachment of George W. Bush. I couldn't stop watching and listening as the charges went on and on.
Right in the middle of the reading, I picked up my phone and called Representative Kucinich's Washington office. An aide answered the phone of course, and when I told him I was calling from Alabama the poor fellow sounded as though he was preparing to take a beating. I asked him to convey a message to the Congressman for me and he agreed to do that. "Tell him THANK YOU! It's way past time someone did this!" His voice lightened right up after that, and he took my name and location, and said he would be happy to convey the message for me, and I went back to listening.
Representative Kucinich covered everything I could think of and then some. Listening to him put me in mind of Hugh's List of Bush Scandals, only with more documentation and with testimony records. He even covered Katrina (yes!). I was determined to get a copy of these articles, and was trying to find them this morning (kucinich.us was down) when, lo and behold...
Last night, while I was watching the real best political team on television, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, I received a tip to check out CSPAN's coverage of the U S House. There was Rep. Kucinich, presenting a 35 count indictment of George W. Bush for impeachable offenses against the American people, the rule of law, and the U S Constitution.
Awakening today, I rushed to my TV to watch the coverage of this earth shaking event on ABC, NBC and CBS. Strange...nothing there. How about CNN. No, they are fixating on Beyonce, who is alleged to be an entertainer. MSNBC? No, big breaking story on sports photography there. So, given that, last year Dennis filed impeachment charges against Cheney, and last night, he dropped the other shoe, how is it that the vast left wing conspiracy is so silent on the matter?
Who would've thunk it? Every one of Alabama's Republican Congressmen -- Robert Aderholt, Spencer Bachus, Jo Bonner, Terry Everett and Mike Rogers -- voted to keep alive Rep. Dennis Kucinich's motion to impeach Dick Cheney. Kucinich introduced HR 799, Articles of Impeachment Against Vice President Richard B. Cheney, against the wishes of the Democratic leadership. Republicans initially voted in favor of tabling the motion (effectively killing it) but then started changing their votes, apparently in an attempt to humiliate Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer. The resolution was eventually referred back to the House Judiciary Committee.
Who cares why they voted to keep Cheney's impeachment on the table? It's high time we finally started talking about it. He clearly lied to both the American people and to Congress to drum up support for the Iraq war, and unless I mis-remember, he has profited handsomely from that very war. That's bound to be a high crime or misdemeanor.
Why not start calling and emailing these Congressmen (click on their name, above) to thank them for their vote to keep the Cheney impeachment alive? While you have someone on the line, tell them you expect the Congressman to vote to actually impeach Cheney, too, when the time comes. Be sure to call Representatives Bud Cramer and Artur Davis and ask them to support Cheney's impeachment, as well.
After they finish with Cheney, they should start impeaching Bush. The Senate can forget about confirming Mukasey -- let's start cleaning up the White House now.
The articles of impeachment against Cheney are in the extended text.
Although your friendly fake consultant tries to bring news that is interesting and accurate, I am obligated to apologize for and to correct two significant recent errors, which is the purpose of today’s conversation.
In both cases the “victims” are easily identifiable and public, and as a result we will offer a personal apology to each of them as well.
So with the introduction out of the way, let’s get to the salient facts.
Seven of the eight announced Democratic presidential candidates attended the YearlyKos 2007 Convention and participated in the 90 minute Candidate Forum Saturday afternoon. In spite of Hillary Clinton's scheduling problem, all seven of them also participated in a smaller session after (Clinton was forced to do her session before) the Forum. I think this is an unprecedented degree of access for bloggers and the Democratic wing of the Democratic party, as Howard Dean once called it.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson came into the room early, talked to folks and shook hands for a while. He stopped at our table -- I arrived at 10:30 to stake out a good seat -- and seemed very relaxed and comfortable in the crowd. None of the other candidates worked the room before the forum, and of course afterwards everyone headed to the breakout sessions.
Matt Bai of the New York Times (??) and McJoan of DailyKos moderated and Jeffrey Feldman of Frameshop was in the audience, looking for questions. Former Senator Mike Gravel, Senator Chris Dodd, Governor Bill Richardson, former Senator John Edwards, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Barack Obama and Representative Dennis Kucinich were seated two by two on the stage, not hiding behind podiums as they have been at the other debates this year. Audience reaction was not discouraged and some of the questions were those submitted by bloggers. All in all, I thought it was a fiestier encounter than we have yet seen, with candidates reacting to the audience and mixing it up with each other a little. No doubt about it, the applause and etc. did take away from candidate time, but I think the instant feedback was good for our candidates.
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New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson came into the room early, talked to folks and shook hands for a while. He stopped at our table -- I arrived at 10:30 to stake out a good seat -- and seemed very relaxed and comfortable in the crowd. None of the other candidates worked the room before the forum, and of course afterwards everyone headed to the breakout sessions. 
