Sen. Landrieu To Get Nelson Treatment Over Health Care Reform
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) took quite the political heckling in Nebraska the past few weeks. Both he and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) have come under fire for their on-again-off-again opposition to a public health care option as part of the overhaul now in Congress.
Nelson has said he won't filibuster a bill with a public option in it, so his foes have moved on.
Now Landrieu will be getting the Nelson treatment. Change Congress, the group that sniped at Nelson the last few weeks, is now setting its (web) sites on her. She'll be on the receiving end of $10,000 worth of online ads targeting her for taking $1.6 million from big health care and insurance interests.
The ads link to a petition calling on Landrieu to back a public option and break with big insurance companies.
The Howard Dean funded group Democracy for America will also go after Landrieu, sending e-mails to its 20,000 Louisiana members asking them to call her office and press her to back a public option.
If Landrieu doesn't move back in support of a public option, said Adam Green of Change Congress, direct mail will be sent to Louisiana donors calling on them to withhold campaign funds -- call it fund-suppressing. DFA, meanwhile, is working on a TV ad set to attack Landrieu for her opposition to a public plan.
Before opposing the public option, Landrieu signed a letter declaring, in specific terms, her support for it.
It's literally unbelievable to me that when you have polling that shows that the public supports a public option for health care by enormous margins (83-14%) and yet we have Democrats dithering over it. The Change Congress ad hits home to Louisianans pretty effectively:
Will Mary Landrieu sell out Louisiana for $1.6 million in special-interest money?
Or will she stand with her constituents--people like Karen Gadbois?
Karen runs Squandered Heritage, a non-profit that roots out post-Katrina corruption. She was The Gambit's 2008 New Orleanian of the Year. Here's her story:
"I'm a breast cancer survivor, so I know how important it is to have affordable health care. Right now I'm uninsured, even though I work full-time.
Even worse, my 19-year-old daughter is also uninsured. I worry about her every day. President Obama's public health insurance option would force private insurers to compete, making insurance affordable for families like mine.
Mary Landrieu needs to stand up for people like me instead of the health and insurance interests that gave her over $1.6 million and now oppose Obama's plan. Please, Senator Landrieu, fight the special interests."
On June 9, Mary Landrieu said "I'm not open to a public option" that would bring Louisiana families competition and choice. Is this why?
Sen. Mary Landrieu raised $1,668,693 from insurance and health care interests in her races for federal office. -- Public Campaign analysis, Center for Responsive Politics data
Please pass this on to your friends (especially those in Louisiana) and sign the petition at Change Congress. We're going to have to force Congress to do the people's work rather than the special interests.
Bitch slapping politicians needs to become a major American sport.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
They are vociferously opposing it - to build popular momentum for it.
It will cost the taxpayer more money - and all that money will go to the Health Insurance Companies.
Single Payer is the only REAL option to being held hostage by the Health Insurance Companies.
Excellent Chart Comparing Single Payer to Public Option (thanks to the League of Women Voters):
Single Payer v. Public Option Chart
More information here:
Single Payer Action
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
"It will cost the taxpayer more money - and all that money will go to the Health Insurance Companies."
Yes, exactly! I'm afraid that this smells like a scam to move taxpayer money to the health insurers: just as the Medicare Part D (pharmaceutical option), with its provision that FORBID the government from negotiating drug prices, was a way to move taxpayer money to the pharmaceuticals; and just as the 'bailout' was a way to essentially dump the contents of the Treasury into the overstuffed pockets of Wall Street.
Hoodwinked again.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
For the great chart! I'll pass it far and wide.
I joined Physicians For A National Health Plan (they support Conyers H.R. 676) today and just signed the petition to Sen. Landrieu.
I also sent her a letter and included this quote from an excellent article written by Derrick Z. Jackson in the Boston Globe:
"Insurance companies and pharmaceuticals, the nation's top two lobbying industries, have Capitol Hill on lockdown. They have spent $2.8 BILLION since 1998 on lobbying and $76 million in the 2008 elections in campaign contributions, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Faster than you can say Obama, contributions historically weighted heavily toward Republicans are swinging to the Democrats."
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Do you have a link to this, please? I'd like to use that quotation in a letter to the editor.
They are SUCH whores, and codependent whores at that, they have to stay
loyal to the same evil forces that are killing the country. It's like a
collaborator in an invaded and occupied country. They have thrown in
with the oppressors and have no where else to go, even to the bitter
end!
Welcome back...
Democracy for America is not 'funded' by Howard Dean. Founded, yes. Funded, no.
why doesn't this site start calling a spade, a spade.
your headline should say "Corrupt Sen Landrieu"
... technically Landrieu is many things other than corrupt, so introducing her as "Corrupt conniving incompetent lying sack of sh*t Senator Landrieu" may take waaaay too much useful real state.
Her handling of Katrina was so incompetent, that sometimes reading the news I had the feeling she was conducting a personal competition with Bush to see who could outdo each other's incompetence...
So tell me again, what is the difference between the Dems and the GOP. Because in this so-called health care reform, so far, I fail to see any.
the gop has red knee-pads....Dems where pretty blue ones....
Cue the Kabuki....
Umm . . spelling?
The Republicans spit in your face while they screw you, the Democrats close their eyes and pretend you're not there.
People like Landrieu need to remember that they are serving the PUBLIC interest, not the backward looking and defunct status quo.
Ignore the public will at your peril, Mary. Many others like you have failed because they thought their haughty and self serving corporatist viewpoints from their big money donors were more important than listening to their constituents.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
...Joseph Lieberman.
Nevertheless, I say go for it. Dean has a loyal following. If he sends out mailers saying "Donate," many of us do. I'd love to have a little part in removing her--or Nelson, or Lieberman--from office.
I have NEVER known Ms. Landrieu to take the interests of her constituency with more urgency than her corporate benefactors. She, and the Landrieu dynasty in Louisiana have always completely self serving, to the detriment of the democratic party and the Louisiana citizens.
money-hungry, morally vacuous, quisling democrats?
I sure don't.
We're not gonna get 60 votes... that much is obvious. So all this attention on people like Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson, etc. really means jack shit.
Bottom line is, make the republicans fillibuster. Make them stand up and day after day to let Americans get a real sense for who they really are and who they're really looking out for.
I totally agree with your comment. I would hunker down and watch this on C-span. Man, oh man, what an eye opener it would be for the over eighty crowd, like my Aunt Pat. Raised an yellow dog Democrat, she turned after she got up in the big bucks. Still, she remembers what it was like to grow up in the post-depression era poor as hell.
The old timers that sit in front of Faux snooze would have a real Aha moment, to say the least.
rally simultanously outside the capitol while they're fillibustering, where people come and speak before a crowd, telling their healthcare horror stories and how it effected their lives, their family's lives and so on.
I know I could contribute my share, and millions of others in this country could too.
We need to be creative, we need to break out of our sourpuss, push-over, Oh-Golly attitude if this is gonna happen.
We're getting punched in the mouth over and over, and are asking if their knuckles are okay.
We need to kick 'em in the groin and then demand they pay for our new shoes!!
... I am certainly tired of them kicking us in our collective groins and having to pay for their new shoes.
If I had the money Landrieu has taken from the 'health-care industry' and she had a feather up her twat...we'd both be tickled.
Imagine if the government competed with Blackwater's business by having some sort of Federal Army, or with UPS by having some sort of Federal mail delivery system, or with the Airlines by having some sort of Federal Airforce. It's just bizarre, and un-American.
.
thankfully the private sector does such a GREAT job that not only are their prices LOWER but they are much more EFFICIENT. Man, I feel dirty even saying such things as a joke.
Replace Senators like Landreu with Bernie Sanders clones?
almost all those voting against health care reform just got elected/re-eledted in 2008 and won't face the voters until 2014.
The Public Option is not the same as Single Payer. Even the Dems that are on-board with Obama are screwing us.
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She's got the best health care plan in the country - and WE pay for it.
Why should she care about the rest of us? As long as we pay for her health care -- Socialized Single Payer -- she doesn't give a goddamn about the voters.
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Always seemed like a sellout Democrat. I wasn't very impressed when she threw her little hissy fit in that helicopter soon after Katrina. Thought it was all an act. Look at her snooty arrogant look in that picture!
BOO!
HAHAHAHA Oh thats me still laughing about how you desperately try to find any difference between DEM and REP guess what there is none including this new group they all dance with the devil. They are all Rich they became Rich by selling their soul along time ago. Their job is to keep the masses quiet. They put on this show of good and evil and we follow along like good lemmings. It would at least be more entertaining if we made them wear costumes and scream and throw chairs then they would look like who they really are WWF wrestling. They could have Vince Mcmann in charge of the REPS and Jesse Ventura in charge of the DEMS. NOW thats a Government I could get behind.
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