If you'll be in PA on June 19, you may be able to get to one of five single payer health rallies happening around the state.  Info below the fold.

After looking like they had the White House backed into a corner on the Stimulus Package, only to then talk about caving to BushCo's demands, it looks like the Senate Dems are willing to play hardball to get a stimulus package passed that would spend taxpayer money wisely and compassionately by getting dollars into the hands of people who spend it and need it the most.  

Please call your Senators right now, especially if they are likely or moderate BushCo voters, to tell them to put unemployment insurance benefit extensions, food stamp increases and money for LIHEAP in the stimulus package.  Those are among the proven ways to get the biggest bang from our stimulus buck.  Calls to Sen. Specter are especially welcome - he's on the fence.

The vote will happen 5:45pm so spread the word.

They are the 852 million people who go to bed hungry every night. They are people just like you, but because of poverty they must walk to accomplish the most basic tasks:

They walk for food.
They walk for water.
They walk for firewood.
They walk to escape violence.
They walk to seek shelter.
They walk to farm their fields.
They walk to find employment.
They walk to go to school.

I'm walking the CROP Walk with a group from my church this Sunday. I have no friends (who aren't walking on Sunday) in real life and most of my neighbors do their best to avoid me so I'm counting on readers of this blog to donate and spread the word around blogtopia (hail, skippy) so that others donate too.

Chris Dodd has been a leader in the fight to restore America to some sort of sanity once the maniacs who currently run the joint without restraint are done.   Now he's speaking out against the Levin-Reed Amendment.  Good for him.  It's a terrible bill.  But here's the thing: speaking out to potential supporters in emails asking for our contact info and a donation is not enough.   That's why I called Chris Dodd for President (202.737.3633) and politely suggested that the Senator take a stand on the floor of the Sentate and filibuster this bill until he drops or it drops and a better one has been offered in its place.  The young man who answered the phone told me that I was the third person who called with the suggestion.

This is reminder about the Town Hall event tonight in Philly:

Win Without War, Penn Faculty & Staff Against War, and Penn Action invite you to partipate in a

Philadelphia Town Hall Meeting

Exiting Iraq: Military Experts Speak Out
"Bring Our Troops Home"

7:00 pm, Monday, September 10th

17 Logan Hall, University of Pennsylvania
249 S. 36th Street, Philadelphia

On the eve of General Petraeus' report to the US Senate on the status of the surge in Iraq, join three internationally known military experts discussing why it is necessary for the United States to bring our troops home from Iraq quickly and safely.  [Information on speakers below]  After their presentations, these experts will lead a discussion on steps you can take to help end this war.

 
Win Without War, Penn Faculty & Staff Against War, and Penn Action invite you to partipate in a

Philadelphia Town Hall Meeting

Exiting Iraq: Military Experts Speak Out
"Bring Our Troops Home"

7:00 pm, Monday, September 10th

17 Logan Hall, University of Pennsylvania
249 S. 36th Street, Philadelphia

On the eve of General Petraeus' report to the US Senate on the status of the surge in Iraq, join three internationally known military experts discussing why it is necessary for the United States to bring our troops home from Iraq quickly and safely.  [Information on speakers below]  After their presentations, these experts will lead a discussion on steps you can take to help end this war.

If you've seen this post at Firedoglake or were lucky enough to be at the Coffee with the Troops discussion in person, then you know that the vets on the panel asked us all to get out and be part of the movement that is trying end this war.  

If you live near Reading, PA, or near Philly, you'll have a great chance to do exactly that this Tuesday, August 28th at 6PM.  

Please come out and be part of national Take a Stand Day.

PA Action, in partnership with Vote Vets, Move On, Lower Bucks for Democracy, Americans Against Escalation in Iraq and the SEIU wil be holding a press conference today in front of Sen. Specter's Philadelphia office.   The topic will be opposition to escalating the war in Iraq and our demand that Sen. Specter stops filibustering the troops already in harm's way and denying the American people the Iraq War debate they deserve and have long been denied.   

If you can't get to Philly, you can participate by sending a fax along those lines to Sen. Specter's office between 11:00 AM and noon.  Sen. Specter's contact info is:

        Tel: 215-597-7200

        Fax: 215-597-0406

Click on the Change America Now icon above and send a CANgram to your Member of Congress.   You can be part of the national roll-out of support for the four economic planks of the 100-Hour Agenda by getting your Congressperson to help pass them as quickly as possible when the 110th Congress hits D.C.

Do you live in a deep-Red county with no hope of change?  Is your county going Blue with or without you?   Don't feel left out.  We need your help in three of the hottest counties in nation.  From the comfort of your home, you can pick up the phone and make two hours of calls using a web-based dialer program.  On November 8, you'll be able to say that you helped bring change to Bucks, Chester and Delaware Counties in suburban PA.  

PA Action is working with US Action and Women's Votes to get likely progressive female voters to the polls on November 7th.

The field plan involves direct mail and an intense canvassing plan as well as at least one contact by phone.  If we can get 375 people around the country to make two hours of calls (about 150 calls), that will free up 750 volunteer hours for us and we can focus on the face-to-face contacts and the last three days of dragging people out.

PA Action, working with Women's Voices Women's Votes and US Action, is running a non-partisan campaign on the phones and on the ground to turnout likely progressive female voters this election.   You've probably read about WVWV over at MyDD. As Matt said in that post:

Right-wingers have two giant fears.  The first is if evangelicals stop voting, as they did from the 1920s until the late 1970s.  The second is if single women start voting.

That second part is our plan and you can help from the comfort and convenience of your home.  We need four hundred people to each call one hundred names on our list.  That's about two hours of work per person.  Trust me, it goes by more quickly than you may imagine.  The script is short and direct.  The focus voters are people we need to get to the polls if we want to see some change in the direction this country.

Please make the jump and find out how you can spend a couple of hours helping to get this country back on track.

[Promoted from the diaries by Chris. I was going to do a post linking to Robin's story, but then I realized that she had already cross posted the whole thing here. Robin originally posted this early Saturday morning. It's a very weird story, so be sure to read through the whole thing.]

I don't know what happened in the Fitzpatrick (PA-08) campaign this morning allowing a decision to be made that sent the congressman's chief of staff, Mike Conallen, dialing into a press conference call featuring Patrick Murphy and Senator John Kerry with the apparent intention of derailing it.   You may have read the story already.  I've got the partial transcript of the call.

Writing as a grassroots activist, I have had a lot of experience with organizational meetings that start with "Let's stand on the sidewalk waving signs about our issue at POLITICIAN X's limo as it speeds into the event celebrating the dedication of the community center" and end with "Okay, so we all agree that hijacking the community center dedication would be a bad idea.  How about we hold a press conference addressing our issue blah, blah, blah." 

Writing as a grassroots activist who has worked with Congressman Fitzpatrick's staff, I have some experience working directly with Mike Conallen.  Up until this minute, I always considered him to be intimidating.   During meetings or at events, Conallen was the guy who stayed quiet or out of the picture entirely while Rep. Fitzpatrick's District Director jumped around in the foreground chattering about something meant to distract from the issue at hand.  The congressman played the traditional role of the statesman/salesman.    

Writing as a blogger, who just listened to the audiofiles of Conallen's appearance on the press call Patrick Murphy had with Sen. John Kerry this morning, I can say that we may be present at the  implosion of a campaign if not an entire congressional staff. 

Frankly, I'm not even sure where to begin.   Conallen told the stunned reporters that he acted alone this morning.  But at what point does a chief of staff wake up and say to himself, "You know what would be a great idea?  Tipping our panicked hand to the national press sure to be assembled on this Murphy call with Sen. Kerry by calling in myself to ambush  Murphy and confuse everyone else on the call in the process.  Yeah, that's going to be awesome!"   At what point does the chief of staff for a congressman who has no plan about what to do in Iraq beyond needing a "new strategy for success"  figure that he should be calling into a press conference call devoted to Iraq policy and featuring not only an Iraq war vet with an exit strategy but also a sitting member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who also happens to have  an exit strategy for Iraq.  I mean, there's out of your league and then there's out of your mind. 

I agree with dKos diarist, occam's hatchet, who writes this:

This little election in Connecticut - with its retired folk manning the

polling places, its ballots not being counted by Diebold, its safely

Democratic Senate seat up for grabs, its  New England common sense at

work - is about something the American people have been craving for six

long years, and that the world has been desperately in need of from

this country for just as long:

Accountability.

Heh. Democracy is on the march. In Connecticut. And it's scaring the crap out of the Right.

The Right is holding its breath.

The whole world is watching.

Except thanks to Lieberman, the Right isn't frightened at all.  The establishment Democrats are frightened. 

As for the world watching, I hope that if that is true, then whoever is watching notices that when America votes in an election that is unfettered by electronic voting machines and in which the minority vote is actually encouraged - in other words, a free and fair election - the good guys win.   

"If you are caught in that donut hole you will be disappointed and start pressing your members of Congress to do something about it."

That bit of advice was given two years ago by Gail Wilensky, PhD, a health analyst with Project HOPE, a former Medicare administrator who also advised President Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign.

Dr. Wilensky was right.  And now is the time for all of us in Bucks County, PA to show up on July 29 to tell our congressman that we want to see Part D fixed today.

And it's not just the Donut Hole we want fixed.  PA Action, the sponsor of the event, wants the following sensible fixes made to Part D: