Good morning and thanks!

Awesome, Jane. Just awesome.

Blue Dog Mike Ross will hold a town hall on Aug. 14 at 2:00 p.m. in Arkansas Hall on the Henderson State University Campus in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Arkadelphia is a small town, so we might see fewer hot-blooded operatives disrupting the affair. Then again, flying monkeys might kidnap my dog today…

Whats the latest on the violence or Preferably the lack of it at Town Hall meetings?

I’ll go to Susan Davis’. Should be fun!

I’m wondering how people think this landscape is going to change with the big-Pharma ad buy, in terms of public opinion and the town halls (authorized over the weekend – an unprecedented $150-$200 million, much of it running non-stop on your TV sets all during in August, into the Fall)… basically, effectively all of Madison Avenue has been told to clear its docket for the biggest spin exercise in memory, in support of the president.

NPR actually offered a very fair assessment of Canada’s health care system this morning. I was shocked.

I showed up at an event with my Blue Dog rep Saturday and it seemed to me there were many more of us in support of reform than those against — and I’m in an extremely Republican county. So that’s good.

I cannot for the life of me figure out what her problem is (on this issue). Neither her fundraising patterns nor her increasingly progressive constituency nor even her own published constituent surveys (which overwhelmingly favor single payor, of all things) explain her total non-leadership on healthcare.

This is great. I’d like to sign up and attend Jackie Speier’s event but the link goes to Henry Waxman’s event.

Eddie Bernice Johnson’s session should be interesting. She’s holding it in conjuction with Pete Sessions at SMU. The invasion of University Park and the SMU campus by the hoi polloi is highly unusual. I don’t think many of the conservative “protestors” I’ve seen look like SMU grads.

If anyone hasn’t read the Hunter post, on DKOS, about the true, either conscious or unconscious, motivation of the protestors, I think it nails it and says it in a way which would be hard to improve.

I’d like to sign up and attend Jackie Speier’s event

08/11 07:00 PM: Telephone Town Hall

• 08/20 05:00 PM – 7:30 PM: Town Hall Booth – San Carlos Hot Harvest Nights, 700 Block, Laurel Street, San Carlos, CA

• 08/23 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM: Congress on the Coast – Cypress Meadows Conference Center, 343 Cypress Avenue, Moss Beach, CA, 94038

• 08/29 09:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Family Day – Burton Park, 900 Chestnut Street, San Carlos, CA, 94070

OT Jane if your here the blogroll needs some updating – Dan Froomkin is no longer at Wapo

Put this is the WTF file.

The teabagger [Gladney] who claims to have been assaulted and injured at a townhall meeting in St Louis had his lawyer [Brown] issue this plea for help.

Brown finished by telling the crowd that Gladney is accepting donations toward his medical expenses. Gladney told reporters he was recently laid off and has no health insurance. [emphasis added]

and when asking her to take The Pledge, remind the good congresswoman of her words at her Campaign Kick Off:

“The vision to create universal healthcare for all Americans, to put an end to the 47 million who go without.”

This might help to encourage people to go too:

Tracking Your Representatives’ Health Care Cash
http://www.opensecrets.org/new…..ealth.html

TBogg has more

Wonderful article all the way ’round! Needs to be shared widely.

Health care’s big money wasters
More than $1.2 trillion spent on health care each year is a waste of money. Members of the medical community identify the leading causes.
By Parija B. Kavilanz, CNNMoney.com senior writer
Last Updated: August 10, 2009: 9:37 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Down the drain: $1.2 trillion.
“That’s half of the $2.2 trillion the United States spends on health care each year, according to the most recent data from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute.

“What counts as waste? The report identified 16 different areas in which health care dollars are squandered. But in talking to doctors, nurses, hospital groups and patient advocacy groups, six areas totaling nearly $500 billion stood out as issues to be dealt with in the health care reform debate.”

Link.

Eddie Bernice Johnson.

had to Wiki that one for a gender check.

54% waste is.. well, positively Nigerian.

Well living here in the San Francisco East Bay I am represented by Barbara Lee and George Miller. They have been interested in reform, single payer and/or the public option all along. Perhaps I can help out at Pete Stark’s meeting over in Alameda,CA.

flying monkeys might kidnap my dog today…

Video at 11, I hope.

I received an e-mail from the Obamabots [OFA] [don’t they read those nasty responses I send them to all their pleas for $$$ and letter-writing?] alerting me that Sen. Inouye [whom I wish flying monkeys would kidnap] is having “office hours” in his office here on Maui — although I doubt he’ll actually be here.

They had a kinda neat little widget that allowed me to make an “appointment” and they have their “talking points,” none of which includes either single payer [duh] or even a strong public option.

Needless to say I’ll be going [Friday], but I think I’ll have a few stronger points than Obama’s weak tea. [Their stuff is really bad.]

And I represent 4 “constituents” — self, spouse, + two college students. We all vote.

Correction to table is needed. The Jim Moran/Howard Dean event has ‘Alhambra, CA’ as the location. Click on details, and you’ll see it’s in Virginia.

Waxman’s only listed meeting in his district is on global warming, not health care.

I’ve written him to say that if it’s going to be the Senate’s Baucus’s bill, I want him to vote against it, because even the current (broken) system would be better.

There’s a problem in the chart. It gives the location of Jim Moran’s event w/ Howard Dean as Alhambra, CA, rather than Reston, VA.

Moran event corrected, thanks.

On short notice:
Joe Sestak just announced that he will be a guest at a health care town hall in Philadelphia at the Broad Street Ministry.

Broad Street Ministry
Philly.com Article

I entered the event in the FDL event tool.

WHEN: Wednesday, August 12th, 6:30 – 7:30 pm

WHERE: Broad Street Ministry
315 S. Broad St., Philadelphia, PA
(between Spruce and Pine, across from UArts and Kimmel Center)

This event is free and open to the public.

(Broad Street is between 13th and 15th, in other words it’s actually 14th Street).