(…and another important action alert from the diaries! Things like this I just have to promote to the front! – promoted by odum)

Did anyone say it could never get any worse than Medicare Part D (for disaster)?  Hang onto your wallet, folks, and have a good supply of nitro pills handy for your heart.  Look what may be coming so the Republicans can promote health cost savings on their campaign trail.

Bernie and Peter Welch would never vote for this — we can’t say the same for Martha Rainville and Rich Tarrant.  But we can stop it in it’s tracks if we mobilize!

I wouldn’t put it past them to sneak in another vote at 2 a.m. or to hold the vote open another three hours to twist some arms — it’s worked before!

Call Leahy, Jeffords and Sanders and ask them to reject this bill and call your local papers and ask them to help publicize this threat.  I hadn’t read about it anywhere else, and didn’t want to believe it, so I looked it up in Thomas:

S.1955
Title: A bill to amend title I of the Employee Retirement Security Act of 1974 and the Public Health Service Act to expand health care access and reduce costs through the creation of small business health plans and through modernization of the health insurance marketplace.

Sponsor: Sen Enzi, Michael B. [WY] (introduced 11/2/2005)  Cosponsors (7)
Latest Major Action: 4/27/2006 Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 417.

Sounds fairly inocuous, doesn’t it?  Further research shows this bill would override state laws that guarantee coverage of such crucial services as cervical, prostate, and colorectal cancer screenings, as well as mammograms, mental health, and well-child care.  It would not only put consumers at risk but cut back on states’ rights to regulate insurance company behavior;  rules that limit premium discrimination based on health status, age, and sex; prohibitions of huge premium increases when people get sick; and prohibitions of misleading insurance company marketing practices.

Read more:  http://www.familiesusa.org/assets/pdfs/enzi-bill/Enzi-bill_national_1.pdf

Ignore this if you like paying more for less coverage!  This is yet another giveaway of our money to the insurance companies.

Peace,

Barbara

Cross-posted at www.DailyKos.com

I’ve been reading, both with bemusement and a little frustration, several recent articles urging restraint or denouncing the proposed censure and potential impeachment of George W. Bush.  And to this Vermonter, it looks like a microcosm of the troubles of the Democratic party.  Simply, if you oppose bringing impeachment or censure into the national discussion, no matter the reason, then don’t complain about the Appeasement Democrats. You are one.

Because making this an election issue is the right thing to do.

Way more on the flip

Before I go any further, a little background;  I’m no politico, I never had a job where even finding Washington DC on a map was necessary, never ran for office, and until 2004, had never donated money to a political campaign.  But I gave my time going door to door for Robert Drinan in the seventies, was present (at the tender age of 5) when the National Guard rolled through the streets of Chicago, and have never missed a voting day since my eighteenth birthday. I was also scared shitless of Bush before he stole the Oval Office. So I’m what you might call aware, but certainly no expert. 

  More to the point, I have been a New Englander all my life, and a Vermonter for the last sixteen years. Our small population and grassroots style helps keep it simple.  Helps me see the forest through the trees, while so many better heads than mine are lost in the multitude of details. Details that obscure the larger truth. Wonks tell me it’s a matter of political calculus. I never took calculus, but I got a chainsaw. So let me get it started…

The rationales I’ve seen for opposing impeachment/censure discussions are as follows:
  1) It will never happen with the Republican Congress.
  2) It will put Cheney/Condi/Freddy Kreuger  in the #1 spot.
  3) It will be compared to the Clinton impeachment
  4) It will mobilize the Troglodyte base
  5) Bush is a lame duck, so it’s moot.
  6) It will backfire on the Democrats in `08
  7) It’s a distraction. Win the `06 election first.

These are excellent Republican talking points, folks.  And like all Republican talking points, they are easily cut down, even with my little chainsaw. 

  To all of these, I offer one simple response: It’s the right thing to do for America. 

  I knew this for sure when my Repub nemesis from college came up for a ski trip. I tried to avoid politics, but he must’ve seen my “Impeach” car window signs. He amazed me by agreeing, “`cuz it’s the right thing for America.”  If the Democratic Party still cannot embrace the idea of stopping this administration’s assault on its people, and force the issue with all the ferocity of the anti-Clinton Republicans, because it is the right thing for America, it truly has no courage, no message, no hope of victory in this or future “elections”.
  So let’s cut some wood.

  Reason #1 above would be far more accurate if it said “it will never happen with a Republican Congress that is not held accountable for their dereliction of duty over the last five years.”  Then I would agree. There is a solid repub majority in both houses of Congress, and the media has spun all accountability away from their total lack of oversight of a blatantly criminal administration.
And this line of argument essentially says “don’t rock the boat.”
  How’s that approach working for us so far?  An opposition party is supposed to oppose.  Does that mean offering amendments to appropriations bills that get whitewashed in Republican committees? Making bold statements in their fundraising emails to me, then running from Feingold’s and Conyers’ resolutions?  No. Never did. Really doesn’t in the GOP golden age of homicidal politics. Opposing this conspiracy means spitting in the face of the traitors. It means calling them out. It’s the right thing to do. Playing by the rules of public decorum and observing parliamentary good manners went out the window when the sitting vice president told  Senator Leahy to go fuck himself. And was lauded on Faux News for his forthrightness.
I can’t recall any (D) national officeholder even calling Bush a liar, much less a criminal.
But. He. Is.  Make impeachment/censure an election issue.
ALL democratic candidates should issue a joint statement declaring their support for robust and timely investigations of the myriad mischief of the last five years. Focus on the discussion, not horseracing it with polls and pundits. It’s a strong stand, and it’s the right thing to do.

  #2 is the most obvious straw man of all. Cheney is way more guilty on all counts than Bushie. And the conspiracies behind covering up the NSA business and Iraq weapons intel hits just about everybody else. Hastert would sit impotent in office until removed with the rest of the cabal at the newly scrutinized ballot box.
  I must admit I was stunned and disappointed to hear this bogus argument being proferred by Bernie Sanders in response to my letter to him urging investigation and impeachment. But Bernie is Bernie, and for now I will reluctantly cut him some slack during this campaign. But not much. Vermont is perfectly situated to be ground zero for State Based Impeachment.

  #3 is put forth as a negative, but is in my view a positive. Dig this: The impeachment of two presidents in a row would be a wake up call to Americans that something has gone terribly wrong in our government, in a way that affects them. This can only serve to increase citizen involvement in politics. That has never been a bad thing for the Left. Never. Witness GOP voter suppression, swift boat, and myriad other ways the peddlers of the failed ideology of the Right have tried to pare down public involvement and awareness. 
  Furthermore, Clinton was never a media darling. From Hillarycare to Filegate, every manufactured “scandal” was given weight by the manure-spreaders on TV and in Congress, whereas every violation of law under this beast has been tempered with “supposed” or “some say”.  The media hasn’t given any of this fair play, but swearing witnesses has a way of cutting through spin. I welcome the comparison. Hell, I DEMAND the comparison, and so should every American who thinks a) Clinton got shafted by the GOP’s abuse of impeachment power, and/or b) Bushco deserves to be tried for these crimes. 
  In short, BRING IT ON, because it’s the right thing to do.

  #4 is another positive. By all means, trot that troglodyte base right out for everyone to see. They now represent less than one third of America, and are growing more shrill with every self-inflicted embarrassment of the GOP. This, in my view, is the best way to tie the GOP to Bushco. Put Dobson, Robertson, Mehlman, and DeLay on TV 24/7 defending King George in their usual way, by smearing an ever-growing number of Americans. Hell, throw McCain and Frist on, too. Pandering to their base is NOT going to result in a groundswell of support for their criminality. That bandwagon swerved to avoid Terry Shiavo, broke down during Katrina, and got totaled by Dubai Ports World.

  #5; King George is a lame duck. More like a duck with mutated bird flu. Somebody show me how he’s been stopped.  They’re fixin to go after Iran, fer cryin’ out loud. Those fuckers are nothing if not tireless. Political hacks are STILL driving career experts out of federal agencies from the CIA to NASA to the Forest Service. Halliburton is STILL getting no-bid contracts and is immune from investigation. New Orleans is STILL waiting for help. Bushco is STILL raising the debt limit (think this was the last time? puh-leeze). Oh, and we’re STILL in Iraq with no exit plan. Basically, he’s STILL running amok in our country and the world, and must be stopped. It’s the right thing for America.

  #6; “It will backfire”. Yeah. Like the BS impeachment of Clinton backfired. Or the pending impeachment of Nixon backfired. Poor GOP. After that `98 fishing expedition (not to mention petulantly shutting down the government), how they paid for it at the polls. Sure taught them restraint, huh?…It was an early abuse of power that, unchecked, has since become SOP in the GOP. Or how about the Democrats back in `74. Too bad they stood up to Nixon. Voters punished them by electing one of only two Democratic presidents in the last thirty years. Mainly `cuz he kept it simple.  Yup.  It’s surely political suicide to take a strong stand.  Never works. Except every time it’s done.

  And finally, my favorite; “it’s a distraction”.
  Without a discussion of censure and/or impeachment, none of the crimes of the GOP will enter the national discussion surrounding the `06 elections. We will once again allow the GOP to frame the issues and maximize their smear potential. The Republican Party is the default choice of millions of Americans because it successfully lies to them.  And the entire GOP power structure is involved in a conspiracy to hide vital  truth from the American people. Pretending that it is not is to be complicit.

  If Americans never hear the charges and the evidence, will they have any reason to doubt their electronic paperless votes have been counted correctly? Will they believe that torture is policy if they never see the evidence of its ongoing and widespread use? Will they believe 9/11 could have been prevented if there is no investigation into why the warning signs were ignored? Will they be skeptical of claims about Iran and Syria without investigation into intelligence manipulation, past and present? Will they have reason to wonder if it’s their phone or email being watched, if nobody checks on the watchers? Will the further amassing and abuse of power stop at some point all on its own? Will we ever be anything but a cowed minority if we play the same strategy that has lost us three very important elections in a row?

  Distraction? No.  It’s the focusing lens of the comeback of law and sanity.
  Unrealistic? Not if you shift stategies from DLC-inspired Repub-lite to true opposition. 

  None of the naysayers I’ve been reading can base their positions on anything other than political tea leaf reading, and recent history shows that Democrats suck at tea leaf reading. Leave the supernatural crap to the other side. We all know impeachment is the Constitutional option, the right thing to do. Hell, most of us feel it’s necessary to save our country from dictatorship, but we dither. And fret. About even bringing it up. It’s not exactly inspiring.

  Triangulation and politesse are DEAD. It didn’t work with King George III or the Confederacy and it will not work against the neofascists.  They made great strides powerwise by shouting and screaming about every little thing, even many made-up things. They have been so successful at it they’ve managed to sweep all three branches of government and dominate national discourse with an agenda that actually hurts the vast majority of those who back it.

  We can take back power by taking it to the opposition. Adopt their tactics, but not their philosophy. We have the truth and the law (what’s left of it) on our side. Imagine what we can do. We can do what’s right.

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( – promoted by odum)

The Vermont Guardian has a good piece covering the presentation in Washington of the Vermont town impeachment resolutions to House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Their coverage was inaccurate in one significant way, though:

An effort that began in March culminated Monday when three Vermont communities delivered a message to House Speaker Dennis Hastert: Start the process to impeach Pres. George Bush.

“Culminated?”

Not by a long shot…

Click on “theres more” for the “Statement from Dan DeWalt on the delivery of Vermont’s petitions to impeach Pres. George W. Bush”

Mrs. Tenney went to Washington, and the speaker of the House ran for cover

By Dan DeWalt

Three years ago, Pres. George W. Bush stuffed some padding in his pants, flew dramatically onto an aircraft carrier anchored a few hundred yards offshore, and declared “mission accomplished.”

Today, in memory of the thousands who have since died in Iraq, and fulfilling their obligations as citizens to protect the U.S. Constitution, Ellen Tenney and Julia DeWalt presented the first three Vermont town resolutions calling for Congress to impeach the president to the U.S. speaker of the House. Except the speaker was afraid to meet them.

He was afraid to face the naked truth that Congress will now have to be dealing with the wrath and determination of forthright U.S. citizens who are calling their government to accountability. Congress now has to answer to a public that does not rely on timid political advisors, repeating the same outdated and losing conventional wisdom, worrying about potential “backlash” to ideas that are true and to demands that are just.

The night before her scheduled meeting with the speaker, Tenney went to the Jefferson Memorial and laid the petitions at his feet. It is, after all, section 603 of Jefferson’s manual that gives towns the right to bring impeachment resolutions to Congress. From the memorial, Jefferson looks directly at the White House, and we can be assured that he doesn’t like what he sees. Section 603 is a natural outcome of his distrust of an all-powerful executive branch of government. America had just freed itself from the tyranny of King George, and Mr. Jefferson was determined to prevent another one from taking his place.

We see that the so-called opposition politicians, as well as their supporters in the popular and news media, are unwilling to take seriously their duty to uphold the Constitution.

Therefore, we must step into the breach and take action before the nation sinks under the weight of corruption, corporate domination and creeping fascism. Some nations have proud histories of “peoples’ revolutions” wresting power from corrupt governments from the Philippines to South America to Eastern Europe. Tens of thousands would take to the streets and stay there. Or most of the nation would go on strike, or as www.therudeguy.com puts it, they all call in “well,” saying I’m not sick, but I’m not working until you and your lousy government are out of here.

For whatever reason, America today is not ready for those sorts of mass actions. When massive protests greeted the Iraq war, they were met with a collective yawn and a few dismissive jokes by the government and the media. Protests just aren’t seen as part of the process.

Impeachment however, is absolutely part of the process. Correctly worded impeachment resolutions must be passed from the speaker to the Judiciary Committee. If only one member of the House brings one of these resolutions to the floor, the House must debate it. Thanks to Jefferson we have the power to force this conversation. The time for a constitutional People’s Revolution is at hand.

The March town meetings followed by The May 1 delivery of the petitions/resolutions are our declaration of independence and battle of Bunker Hill. If the Speaker of the House is on the run, let’s give him something to run from and keep a barrage of resolutions and declarations coming his way.

Now is the time to take your senators and House representatives to task for not upholding their obligations to the country and its Constitution. Now is the time to write letters to the editor demanding that we begin a national conversation about the rule of law. Now is the time that we demand that morality and truth take center stage in our governance.

Thomas Jefferson said that the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants. Charlie Parker said, “Now’s the Time.”

Last year, a non-binding resolution was overwhelmingly passed in the Vermont Senate calling for Vermont to join Illinois, New Jersey and Oregon in divesting it’s state pension funds from corporations doing business with, and therefore economically enabling, the genocidal Sudanese government. Nearly a year later, Vermont still has holdings of nearly $3,000,000 in Schlumberger Ltd, a powerhouse Austrian-based multinational that runs oilfields in Sudan, as well as several other countries.

UVM voted a few days ago to divest it’s holdings in such companies. Other states and universities are joining (or have joined) the divestment movement. The counter argument, as we heard in the debate on divestment from apartheid, is that divestment will economically impact the poor, and bring more suffering to those who are already hurting. It is a reasonable argument that would seem to make the situation ambiguous. However, as with apartheid, when the correct next step is ambiguous, rather than paternalistically attempt to judge from afar what is best for the victims in Sudan’s Darfur province, we should instead turn to the survivors and activists from that region to ask how they would have us aid in their plight.

And they say divest.

For some background, if you’re not aware (from Salon):

For more than three years, the Janjaweed, backed by the Sudanese government, have waged a brutal war against two rebel groups, the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement. In a vicious campaign, labeled genocide by the U.S. in 2004, they have murdered tens of thousands of civilians who belong to the same ethnic groups as the rebels…

…Yet the U.N., the U.S. and the European Union have consistently failed to take any serious punitive actions against the Sudanese government. The U.S. has pushed for a stronger world response to the crisis, but its diplomatic efforts have continued to flounder…

…The Bush administration may be talking tough on Darfur, but critics say its war on terror has caused it to act with trepidation. Since the ’90s, when it harbored Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, Sudan has been designated a terror state by the U.S., meaning American companies, with few exceptions, have not been allowed to operate there. But in recent years, U.S. intelligence has turned to Sudanese officials, including some considered architects of the Darfur genocide, for information on suspects in the global war on terror. Critics charge that the U.S. has been reluctant to take tough action because of the Sudanese government’s strategic importance in the fight against al-Qaida.

The divestment movement has been assisted in recent weeks by a dramatic ratcheting up of coverage in the popular media. Hollywood stars like George Clooney have become very active on the issue, and his television alma mater ‘ER’ has been showcasing the situation there in it’s current story arc. Last week, five Democratic US Representatives were arrested during a protest of the Sudanese government’s policy of genocide — including the Congress’s lone holocaust survivor, Rep. Tom Lantos.

It is as if something has collectively popped among the general US public, which has offered little recognition and outrage up to this point. As if this was a back page story that was supposed to have passed into history by now, and the amazement that it is still being allowed to continue in the face of 400,000 dead (through the most horrific means) and millions more displaced, is finally giving way to shock and rage.

Reading about a sociopathic corporation like Schlumberger brings up disturbing reminiscences of Syriana, but it is one of several foreign companies on watch lists like this one, which include Royal Dutch Shell — a familiar name not only to US drivers, but for international Human Rights watchdogs. In fact, Schlumberger was one of the companies at the table with Dick Cheney discussing how the spoils of the Iraq War were to be divided (according to this piece from the Wall Street Journal), while all the while the administration was insisting the Iraq invasion had nothing to do with oil.

US companies are currently not legally able to do business in Sudan because it’s on terrorist watch lists at the State Department. This makes the economic card a bit more complicated. China, Russia and India (the former two having UN Security Council veto power) have consistently blocked action against Khartoum (Salon again):

Putting pressure on Chinese companies like PetroChina and Sinopec means that those companies wouldn’t have to actually withdraw from the country for the divestment to have an effect. John Prendergast, senior advisor for theInternational Crisis Group, explains: “The likelihood of the Chinese withdrawing investment in the Sudan is nil. One of the objectives of divestment would be to reduce the share price of publicly traded Chinese oil companies, raising alarm bells in Beijing, and forcing the Chinese in its own interest to go to the Sudanese government and say: ‘Enough is enough.’ There has to be a cost, and the cost has to be reducing their share price, reducing the value of their company, because investors would, in mass, head for the exits.”

Currently, Treasurer Spaulding is (from Seven Days):

participating in a working group with other state treasurers’ offices and public pension funds to try to be “agents of positive change” in Sudan. Their approach appears to be more one of “constructive engagement” with companies that do business in Sudan, rather than blanket divestment,

Spaulding is a very good guy, but this sort of engagement is not what is called for here, and in fact activists have put together a “targeted divestment” strategy that goes after companies supporting the regime, rather than supporting the populace. In fact, the case for divestment is probably stronger than it was for South Africa, given the immediacy of a full-blown, officially sanctioned campaign of human extermination.

And, as Salon again says:

Jerry Fowler, staff director of the Committee on Conscience at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, sees such efforts as important for raising awareness in the U.S., as much as putting economic pressure on the Sudanese government: “It helps alert a wider audience to the issue, and the seriousness of the issue. That is its primary benefit. In terms of an actual effect on the Sudanese government itself, any effect it will have, I think, will be in the long term.” …

…Yet the activists say that the only way to put economic pressure on the country is to take on the companies doing business there. “The U.S. is left without its biggest economic stick now,” says Miller. “What are we going to do? We can’t do anything more from a government standpoint on the economic side. So far, the Sudanese government has felt nada, zip, zero economic pressure.

So, the Treasurer’s office should do the right thing and dump this stock immediately. If Spaulding still feels hesitant, the legislature should return to this issue now – before the session is over. We should in no way shape or form allow ourselves to become even remotely morally complicit in this:

… for a moment.

Here is the contact information for the Treasurer’s office:

Vermont State Treasurer • 109 State Street • Montpelier, Vermont 05609 • 802-828-2301

And you can find your Representative and Senators contact info here.