The NYT is reporting just now that Charles Rangel, the NY Democratic US Representative who (now formerly) chaired the powerful Ways and Means committee, will step aside amidst the swarm of ethics inquiries he has faced.
Archive for the 'Congress' Category
If this request offends, I’m sorry. Please delete it and understand that I believe that everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
This weekend, it appears that the United States House of Representatives is poised to pass broad legislation that will guarantee that nearly everyone in the United States be covered by health insurance. This is a boon to the health insurers, to be sure, but more than this, it is the centrist legislation that, through mainly private, market-based means, guarantees every United States citizen fair access to the health care that they need.
EVERY VOTE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COUNTS, and EVERY VOICE THAT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES HEAR TODAY IMPLORING THEM TO VOTE YES for this measure is a VOICE that will COUNT to bring this change.
EVEN THOUGH my representative, the honorable representative Illeana Ros-Lehtinen, has stipulated that she will NOT vote for this, I am calling her as soon as I send this e-mail, and will IMPLORE her, as a taxpayer of this great nation, that I believe that this investment in our nation cannot be passed up any longer.
Without the competitive advantage brought about by guaranteeing EVERYONE coverage and access to the highest quality health care that we, as a country, know we can provide, we will continue to slip into economic decline. Every other industrialized nation on the face of this planet has recognized what we, somehow, have failed to see: a healthy, active, and robust populace is the ONLY thing standing between us and returning to the stature of once again becoming the strongest economic powerhouse.
I beg you to PLEASE CALL your representative today. Remember: even if they say they are voting “no,” your voice will have been heard. It’s not a wasted call.
Go now! Call. Be politically active this one time like your life depends on it. Some day, it may.
Steve Schale, former (and quite successful I might add) head of the Florida for Obama campaign committee will endorse Kendrick Meek as Democratic candidate for US Senate in the upcoming 2010 race to replace retiring senator Mel Martinez. Schale will announce this in a press conference today.
This is great news, since most of the mainstream media buzz surrounding the race appears to focus solely on the single-term republican governor Charlie Crist versus Marco Rubio race as though those two are the only ones running.
With the race for healthcare reform stuck in the doldrums, and Bill Nelson on the fence about a public-run option, we need to help elect a candidate who embraces the liberal progressive agenda.
I think the race just got kicked up a notch with this hugely important endorsement.
I wrote all of my elected Federal representatives yesterday, encouraging all of them, in both houses of Congress, to support the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). EFCA adds the ability of a simplified “checkbox” style vote for employees to vote to form a union. My state’s senators, Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez came down on different sides of this issue – and both wrote me to explain their positions; but, both also wrote me two diametrically opposed points of fact.
