After a frequently cantankerous year of deliberations and debate, the Democrats are posed to move forward Sunday by voting on health insurance reform. On this, as well as much other legislation, the Republicans appear ready to continue their year-long legislative obstructionism.

HEALTHCARE NOT WARFARE VIGILS IN 82 DISTRICTS ON MARCH 17 | Press Release

Labor and advocacy groups organized "brown bag" lunch vigils against war funding in 22 congressional districts in January and 67 in February. Currently 82 are planned for March 17th, with more being added. Organizations participating include: Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), AfterDowningStreet, the Backbone Campaign, Democrats.com, the California Nurses Association / National Nurses Organizing Committee, Healthcare Now, CodePINK, and United for Peace and Justice.

On March 10th, 65 members of Congress voted to end the occupation of Afghanistan.  Yet only 14 have publicly committed to voting No on funding the same war.  A $33 billion supplemental spending bill for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is expected to be voted on in April or May.  
Brownbaggers are asking members of the House to publicly commit to voting No on any bills that fund wars, and to publicly urge their colleagues and the House leadership to make the same commitment. As lesser steps in the same direction, the Brown Bag Vigils are encouraging congress members to cosponsor HR 2454, calling for an exit strategy from Afghanistan, and HR 3699, prohibiting any increase in the number of U.S. Armed Forces in Afghanistan. Congress members' commitments are tracked at defundwar.org.

Vigil participants, who support a shift in resources from warfare to healthcare, are also asking their representatives to join the growing movement calling for "Medicare for All" by demanding passage of the Kucinich amendment facilitating state-level single-payer healthcare and by offering their support to single-payer efforts moving forward in state legislatures, including in California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, Minnesota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Across the nation today people are gathering in over 350 events for the national kickoff of the Coffee Party movement, which started on Facebook. The Coffee Party movement aims to reform government through civility, accountability by lawmakers and an end to obstructionism. The Coffee Party movement rejects the idea that the Tea Party represents “Real America.” There are now 60 groups nationwide, and at last count, 123,000 members.

CNN dropped by on one Coffee Party gathering this morning at Washington DC’s Busboys and Poets and interviewed its owner, Andy Shallal, an Iraqi-American artist, activist and restaurateur. Asked about the Coffee Party as a political party, he called it a “people’s version. It’s something that I think has been missing in the dialogue, which is the voice of the people. Oftentimes the media takes a certain sound bite and they explode it and it makes it sound as though the whole world is thinking this way. I think most people in the United States want to see a more progressive agenda.”

Rachel Maddow interviewed Annabelle Park, originator of the idea of the Coffee Party. She described the movement as being about three things: for civility, for cooperation in government, and for affirming the American community - "that we don’t have to be so divided over our differences of opinion."

Keith Murphy, President of Conceptz Communications wrote today:

The Urban Journal show airs at 8pm EST-5pm PST on Sirius-XM Satellite Radio on Ch 169 but the show can be heard right now around the world at The Urban Journal. Feel Free to post on your websites or to send out via Facebook and email.
 
Seg. 1 Mario Flores, Habitat for Humanity International
 
Seg. 2 Martha Love, Census Representative
 
Seg. 3 Bob Fertik, Democrats.com
 
Seg. 4 Derek Dingle, Editor in Chief,  Black Enterprise Magazine
 
 

Corporations and First Amendment Rights from Elyn Heyn on Vimeo.

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Just as the "birther movement" was long ago discredited to rational people, and more recently by even the irrational who had to cave when the "smoking gun" birth certificate turned out to be a product of "forgery-R-us," opponents of health care reform will also be discredited because they aren’t really worked up about health care, they are energized in their fear and distrust of President Obama by buzz words like "socialism." They lost the election, and now, it seems, they are losing their minds. They are being manipulated by the for-profit health insurance lobby, who knows they are in the fight of their corporate lives if the legislation proposed by Congress includes a "public option" or (gasp!) even worse for them, becomes Medicare for All, the "single payer" option.

Even the term "ObamaCare" is a misnomer. The truth of the matter is that President Obama set out to accomplish health care reform by only specifying expectations for legislation, leaving the details (and presumably any attendant devils) to Congress. He specified three bedrock principles of health care reform: reduce costs, guarantee choice, and ensure quality care for all. He left the actual design of the legislation where it should be - in Congress, where there are now 3 bills pending in the House, and one in the Senate. The bills still need to be reconciled in the legislatures before going to the President.

Here's an example of the first turn of the health insurance/big pharma corporate worm as it propagandizes to protect its interests - and for its very existence in its current form.

And here's how John Perry replied to the OpEd writer Patrick McIlheran:

Your corporate insurance propaganda could not be any more naked, Patrick. How much stock do you have in the industry?

I love how you talk about the $5000 deductible and say "The trade-off is that she must accept her coverage isn't free," without making any mention of the premiums already being paid.

Here's a news flash for you: Nobody expects their coverage to be free.

The bipartisan Senate committee on negotiating on health care met in secret to "compromise." AP is reporting the following:

• participants were on track to exclude a requirement many congressional Democrats seek for businesses to offer coverage to their workers
• no provision for a government insurance option, despite President Barack Obama's support for such a plan
• considering a tax of as much as 35 percent on very high-cost insurance policies, part of an attempt to rein in rapid escalation of costs
• likely to be included in any deal was creation of a commission charged with slowing the growth of Medicare