Elections DO have consequences!!

It’s nice to be back on the map…

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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

____________________________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                       March 6, 2009

Building on Thursday’s White House Forum on Health Care Reform, President Obama Announces Series of Regional White House Forums to be Held Across Country

California, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina and Vermont to host regional forums to continue discussion about bringing down health care costs, expanding coverage for all Americans

WASHINGTON, DC – Building on Thursday’s White House Forum on Health Care Reform, President Obama announced a series of Regional White House Forums on Health Reform that will bring the conversation about health care reform directly to communities across the country. In keeping with the Obama administration’s commitment to a transparent, accountable government, the forums will be an opportunity for Americans from all over the country to voice their concerns and ideas about reforming our health care system.

“Health care reform is a fiscal imperative,” President Obama said. “Skyrocketing health care costs are draining our federal budget, undermining our long-term economic prosperity and devastating American families. The time for reform is now and these regional forums are some of the key first steps toward breaking the stalemate we have been stuck in for far too long. The forums will bring together diverse groups of people all over the country who have a stake in reforming our health care system and ask them to put forward their best ideas about how we bring down costs and expand coverage for American families.”

The Regional White House Forums on Health Care Reform will be hosted by the states’ Governors and will include participants ranging from doctors to patients to providers to policy experts. They will be open conversations with everyday Americans, local, state and federal elected officials – both Democrat and Republican — and senior Obama administration officials. The events will begin with a video recorded by the President, a summary of the findings from the Health Care Community Discussions that took place in December, and an overview of the discussion that took place at the White House Forum on Health Reform.

The meetings in California, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina and Vermont will take place in March and early April. Further logistical information about the forums is forthcoming.

More from MyDD:

Barack Obama carried all of the five states chosen for these forums, but two of them have Republican governors (Vermont and California). Does the White House have reason to believe that Jim Douglas and Arnold Schwarzenegger will generally support the president’s health care reform agenda?

Life — the bottom line.  ‘nuf said

Liberty — people released from indentured servitude at employers (or in public assistance) because they have a pre-existing health condition, or they are responsible parents and aren’t willing to put their childrens’ health coverage at risk.  

Pursuit of Happiness — people free to start their own small business, movement to new locations and other states, and take other risks.  

How many people of a certain age are holding onto their job only because of health insurance?  How many would make a change — and open up their jobs to others?

Everbody doesn’t get everything . . . but we define and guarantee a certain level of healthcare and prevention to every individual that unleashes entrepreneuralism and creativity.  Let people rock and roll.

Scalia should like this.

Recently the Burlington   Free Press editor’s Twitterings Blog took exception to Vermont Congressman Welch’s manner of announcing his attendance at a  White House event.  Twitterings   calls it the “new era chest thumping” and follows up with a suggestion that congressional franking privileges be taken away.

Welcome to the new era of chest thumping

If it’s worth a thump, let out a squeal of political joy to the rabble. Perhaps it’s time to end franking privilege. This just in from the Welch press release machine *see offending press release below

Diss the announcement but at least love the achievement! The event Peter Welch has taken the time to announce was the White House signing of a bill overhauling contracting procedures. During the ceremony President Obama will noted the congressman’s work on this issue .The new regulation forbids awarding no bid contracts that ran into so many millions in recent years .This new rule is expected to save taxpayer dollars .What is the problem being informed that our congressman is followed through on an effort he started a while back and getting recognized for his work? I hardly think announcing this heralds a new era of chest thumping or an abuse of the franking privilege. After reading of the new law and the savings it may lead to and the waste it may stop one can only wonder in awe at why the Free Press wouldn’t want to cheer this rather than denigrate the announcement without noting the achievement.

Welch, a member of the House Government Oversight Committee, said he got interested in the topic during hearings on contracts for services in Iraq, including allegations that companies such as Halliburton

Obama’s new contracting rule forbids the awarding of no bid contracts and will enhance oversight of how successful the work is carried out, Welch said. This regulation will extend to the nearly $900 billion economic stimulus plan passed into law last month.

Obama thanked Welch for his work on this issue during the press conference Wednesday.

..Defense bloat has stunned auditors. A report last year from the Government Accountability Office found that 95 ongoing major defense programs exceeded their budgets, providing an accumulated excess cost of $295 billion to taxpayers…………….

According to the government’s Federal Procurement Database, which tracks federal contracts, the Defense Department reported over $394 billion worth of business with private contractors in fiscal 2008 alone.

*Offending press release

Congressman Peter Welch United States House of Representatives

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   Welch to join Obama at announcement of government contracting procedure overhaul

               WASHINGTON, DC – Rep. Peter Welch will join President Obama this morning for the announcement of an overhaul in government contracting procedures – a move expected to save taxpayers $40 billion.

Welch, who successfully closed the Contractor Fraud Loophole in the last Congress, will be on hand for the 10 a.m. signing of a presidential memorandum in the Old Executive Building.

Obama is expected to direct his administration to draft new rules that would make it more difficult for contractors to rip off taxpayers. The rules would reduce the frequency of no-bid contracts and would make it easier for small businesses and independent contractors to bid on federal contracts.  

Back in July, I pointed out something that no one else seemed to be saying.  Namely:

With prior references to Vermont Yankee having 30% more fence line radiation, how much of a change is that really?

[…]

I.e., if the radiation level was 14 millirems under the OLD method of calculation and then the NEW method of calculation indicates 18 millirems (after multiplying the old calculation method by .71), well, that’s not really in the area of a 30% increase.  It’s more in the area of an 80% increase.  

The problem is, the stories we’ve seen about this so far do mention the change in computation method, but don’t mention when the variation was applied.

The Rutland Herald brings this issue back up again, but still refuses to frame it in terms which are scientifically accurate about the actual change in levels, merely stating that:

Sen. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange, an outspoken critic of nuclear power, led the charge, claiming that the Department of Health was changing the way Vermont was calculating the radiation – the so-called fenceline dose – coming out of the plant to allow Entergy Nuclear to release more radiation.

While it’s no secret Vermont Yankee nuclear plant is releasing more radiation, the Department of Health maintains that it is still within state limits, which it says are the strictest in the country at 20 millirems a year. The Environmental Protection Agency limits exposure to 25 millirems a year, while the Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows 100 millirems a year.

Not to fear, however, because VY put up a concrete wall to help absorb the radiation.  In the meantime, apparently no one was supposed to talk about the scary radiation limits:

Rep. Sarah Edwards, P-Brattleboro, who along with MacDonald are the two legislative members of the panel, said Chairman David O’Brien, who is the commissioner of the Department of Public Service, limited the agenda to keep a fellow legislator from addressing the panel on the issue of the radiation limits.

Here’s what I find infuriating about the story, however:

Rep. Richard Marek, D-Newfane, chairman of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, had investigated the Health Department’s new standards and found that it violated state regulations by changing the way it calculated the radiation.

It would have been nice to know a little more than this.  Is anyone familiar with which regulations Marek is discussing?  It took some digging, but once again, bloggers came to the rescue.  I was able to track it down via Evacuationplans.org, quoting the BFP from November 13, 2008 (“Panel wants new radiological health rule”):

The Department of Health should rewrite a 1977 radiological health rule it uses to monitor radiation releases from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and make sure the public has an opportunity to comment, a legislative oversight committee concluded Wednesday.

Critics of the nuclear plant have said the Health Department had re-interpreted the emission measurement rule over the years, allowing radiation at the edge of the plant’s property to violate state standards.

Perhaps it went by everyone’s notice in all the hubbub over the U.S. Supreme Court’s having done right by pharmaceutically injured Vermont musician Diana Levine. Or maybe it was buried by Sen. Leahy’s hearings on having some form of “Truth Commission” to document the abuses of the second Bush administration.

But it’s important, and it’s a major piece of the reason Vermont should pass — and the Governor should sign or let become law sans signature — a bill granting equal marriage to same-sex couples.

Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) has filed a lawsuit that challenges the Defense of Marriage Act on behalf of eight same-sex couples and three widowers who had been married in Massachusetts when their spouses died.

This is the lawsuit we’ve been waiting for, the one that has every possibility of getting federal recognition of such things as the right to file federal income taxes as a couple (no more double-paperwork for feds and state!), the right for a surviving spouse to receive Social Security payments based on the spouse’s benefit (as do all other married couples!), federal health insurance, and even the legal adoption of a spouse’s last name (passports in the prior name may conflict with state-issued ID’s like driver’s licenses, causing trouble at the borders).

More on the flip, but bottom line is that this is the big one: Vermonters don’t even get a seat in the court room unless we call it marriage.

From the Massachusetts gay paper Bay Windows:

[GLAD’s lawsuit is] challenging provisions in section three of DOMA that bar the federal government from granting certain protections to legally married same-sex couples. If successful the suit would overturn only those specific provisions of DOMA, not the entire statute, which prevents federal recognition of any same-sex marriage and also allows states to deny recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other states.

GLAD believes the suit may ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, which would mark the first time the nation’s highest court heard a major DOMA challenge. GLAD filed the suit, called Gill, et al vs. Office of Personnel Management, et al, on behalf of eight couples and three widowers, all from Massachusetts. Among the plaintiffs is Dean Hara, widower of the late Congressman Gerry Studds.

[…]

GLAD’s suit only targets the provisions in section three of DOMA that block same-sex married couples from receiving equal treatment in taxes, federal employee spousal and survivor benefits, Social Security and name changes. [GLAD attorney Janson] Wu said despite the narrow focus of the suit GLAD believes that a Supreme Court ruling in their favor could deal a crippling blow to DOMA as a whole.

“Our legal argument is that [the portions of section three targeted in the lawsuit are] a violation of our federal government’s guarantee to treat citizens equally by refusing to recognize the marriages only of same-sex couples, and that principle of equality should apply in other contexts if we’re successful,” said Wu. While GLAD believes the suit stands a strong chance of reaching the Supreme Court, Wu said it was too soon to tell how long it might take to get there.

The Massachusetts Attorney General, Martha Coakley, has offered strong support for the lawsuit. The junior senator from Massachusetts, John Kerry, has also declared his support of the lawsuit and continued opposition to DOMA.

We’ve got a chance for equality — if we can get a seat in the court room. We can get a seat in the court room, if Vermont’s legislators and governor don’t stand in the way.

Remember Caoimhin’s formula: One Second, One Syllable (“AYE!”), One Signature for equality.

Email, call, or write your legislator to urge them to support the bill, H.178 (House) / S.115 (Senate). They need to know we’re here in numbers, and that we won’t forget the choice they made to do the right thing — or not — in November 2010.