You might say Dean Goering was scared to death.

He had known for months that something was wrong. The pain running through his leg was a lot like what he had experienced seven years ago when he was laid up in the hospital with a potentially lethal blood clot.

Goering had health insurance back then. And after years without coverage, he signed up recently with another health plan. He was just afraid to use it.

A paragraph in his new policy warned that he’d have to wait 12 months for coverage of a pre-existing condition.

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/03/15/18152...

Central Falls has had 7 principals in 6 years.

22% of the kids at Central Falls are not native English speakers. The rate for the state of RI is 3%.

23% of the kids at Central Falls are special education students. The rate for the state is 17%.

85% of the kids at Central Falls are classified as economically disadvantaged. The state average is 35%.

The number of college applications by Central Falls High School seniors has tripled during the past 5 years.

Reading proficiency at Central Falls has gone up 22% in 2 years.

Writing proficiency at Central Falls has gone up 14% in 2 years.

A state audit last year praised the school for its improvements and noted “Take the time to celebrate as a learning community the accomplishments, successes and positive changes that have taken place over the past few years.”

The dropout rate for Central Falls includes students whose parents were deported after an immigration raid in New Bedford, Mass. It also includes students who transferred when the honors program at Central Falls was eliminated.

Time for a mini lesson on how dropout rates are commonly figured: The number of graduating seniors is compared to the number of freshman who started in this class 3 years earlier. So if you have 100 freshman and 80 graduate 3 years later, your dropout rate is 20%. But what happened to those 20 who didn't graduate is not taken into consideration. If they transferred to a different high school and graduated, they are still counted as dropouts at the school where they were 9th graders. And in low income areas where schools have a high transient population rate, there is almost always a high dropout rate. Surprise!

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sh...

http://www.aft.org/newspubs/press/2010/030...

I posted in June about the bill I lobbied for.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

Yesterday I was given a framed copy, signed by the governor!



A brief summary - two of my students' families were renters who lost their homes when the landlord didn't pay the mortgage and the bank foreclosed. They were given no warning; one family came home from work one afternoon to find their belongings in the front yard. I was shocked to find this was perfectly legal and renters who don't pay their rent and are evicted have more legal protection than those who do pay their rent but the landlord doesn't pay the mortgage.

So I emailed the state rep who serves the district where my school is and she wrote a bill and it passed. Renters will now get 10 days' notice when their home is a foreclosure.

Knowing that bill passed was enough of a reward so this framed copy is just icing on the cake.

Lesson here: keep on writing, calling and bugging the you know what out of your elected officials. I figured I started contacting mine about 40 years ago and it sure feels good to know they DO listen once in awhile. LOL

I was really hoping to stay away from them. I have been to way too many events since summer with way too many tea baggers in attendance. And oh how I despise those people. But you gotta do what you gotta do to get health care legislation passed so I reluctantly went to this morning's rally.



The background: Almost immediately after the House released its Health Care Bill a week or so ago, our local right wing wacko state Senator, Mary Pilcher Cook (whose role model seems to be Michelle Bachman) announced that she would propose legislation to opt Kansans out of a public option. So our awesome Young Democrats here in Kansas got busy. They made over 2000 calls to constituents in Cook's district and planned a march for this morning in Cook's district. They planned to begin the march in a local park at 10 am and end up in front of city hall with speakers and a rally.



Just two days ago we found out that tea baggers were planning on disrupting the march. So several of our YDs planned on arriving early today to secure the site for the march and rally. When they got there very early this morning, they found the parking lot in front of the city hall packed with tea baggers. They had set up a p.a. system and signs.



There were also several cars parked on surrounding streets with out of county and out of state plates and bumper stickers indicating they were tea baggers. So yes, they do bring in out of towners for their events.





The police were also there and the organizers of our event asked them to please help us set up separate areas for both sides and they refused. So at the last minute the plans for the march were changed and we had a rally instead. About 30 minutes before 10 am, the tea baggers turned on their microphone and Senator Cook took the stage. I was busy setting up my cameras and had no desire to hear what the senator said so I didn't listen.

Here is the senator (in the green):



As soon as she was done, we turned on our microphone and our first speaker stepped up and began talking. Immediately several tea baggers came over and stood right next to our speaker and began chanting. I was standing very close to the tea baggers and a cop came over and I told him we had been respectful and had not interrupted their speakers and would he please ask these people to not interrupt our speakers. He refused. So I asked the tea baggers to please stop. They refused. Several other people also asked them to remember that we had not interrupted their speakers and they laughed. One of them was especially loud and aggressive and he caught the cop's attention and the cop finally came over and talked to him and he shut up.

One of our speakers was this young woman, who went to a town hall this summer to talk to her congress rep, Lynn Jenkins, a republican. When she asked Cong Jenkins about affordable health care, Jenkins laughed at her. Keith O talked about this incident on his show.



It was pretty much downhill from there with lots of shouting and aggression from the tea baggers. The majority of them stayed at one end of the sidewalk in front of the city hall while we were at the other end. But a precious few spent the entire time walking among us yelling obnoxious stuff. One of them was particularly hateful. At one point he pulled his insurance card out of his wallet and held it up claiming he was self-employed and paid for his own family's insurance which cost $300 a month. Several of us found this hard to believe and he did finally admit he had a high deductible. I pulled out my video camera and he held his card up to the lens and once again yelled that he paid for his own insurance. I said "Great. Now we all know your name and Social Security number. And it's on tape. Smart!" He said "Dumb. The number on this card is NOT my Social Security number. Boy are you dumb." I said "And of course no one who watches this video will be able to take this information and trace it to get your Social Security number. Who's the real dumb one here?" He put his card back in his wallet and said "Well that's not my real name anyway!" So I then said "Great. Now I have you on tape admitting fraud!"

Lovely guy, ain't he?



He walked away and I didn't see him again.

And for the record, I have no idea if you can take someone's insurance ID and use it to find their SS number. But that did seem to shut the guy up which is all I wanted to do.

One of my friends decided to walk over and talk to Senator Cook. As she approached, she noticed two cops standing there talking to the senator. One was telling her he supported her stance against health care reform and asked her to sign some things for his children. So my friend told the cops they were supposed to be impartial and telling the senator they supported her was highly inappropriate. The cops walked away without their autographs.


One neat thing was a guy who is running for state rep here came and brought two tables, two white plastic table cloths and two markers. He set one up at the tea bagger end of the sidewalk and wrote in big letters at the top: TELL THE WORLD WHY THE PUBLIC OPTION IS BAD. He set the other table up at our end of the sidewalk and wrote on the tablecloth: TELL THE WORLD WHY THE PUBLIC OPTION IS GOOD.





We asked this guy why he hated America.



This guy's shirt says RUSH LIMBAUGH FOR PRESIDENT



Other pics:

We had a Billionaires for Wealthcare Rally today in Kansas City. It was fabulously fun. We got all dressed up.






We even had a limo.





















During our get together we found out the local teabaggers were at the NBC affiliate protesting against Keith Olbermann. It just so happened that the NBC station is only 2 blocks from where we had gathered the billionaires. So we decided to join the teabaggers.

We walked over there as a group and were joined by a couple who was going to the rally. They saw our signs and said they didn't have a sign so we offered them one of ours.

As we got to the teabagger rally, we were greeted by lots of smiles and cheers. Then slowly, one by one, they figured out who we were.

We refused to stand on the sidewalk paid for with socialist tax dollars so we gathered behind the teabaggers on the grass. We had a bullhorn and we thanked them for making us wealthy and for George Bush and for Halliburton and for all that money we had made in the 21st century. You can see a couple of our signs in this picture:



For awhile, the teabaggers just stood there and looked at us. They had some woman on the other side of the street chanting things that didn't make any sense and we responded as well as we could. When she said anything about health care, we thanked them for their premium dollars that made us wealthy. If she mentioned taxes, we reminded them that we didn't have to pay taxes because they do. This really made one girl angry. She told us she was poor and couldn't afford to pay higher taxes for government health care. We assured her we opposed all govt health care including Medicare and we appreciated a tax system that allowed us to pay no taxes because she paid enough to cover our share.

This man kept running out in the middle of the street. We told him that we hoped he didn't get hit because we didn't want to spend any money taking care of him.



A few of the teabaggers finally grabbed a bullhorn and began chanting back at us. Their chant was: "BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH" then they would laugh and repeat "BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH". (Yes it felt like 3rd grade on the playground) This did remind us of school so we told them their chant was proof of the failure of socialist public education.



A grand time was had by all. What a perfect day!

Oh but one problem. The teabaggers had advertised their rally was about that evil librul Keith Olberman but they had no signs condemning Keith. Hmm.

They did have one sign I should have gotten a picture of. It said "NO END OF LIFE COUNCELLING" I asked the man holding it if he was talking about using cell phones. He gave me a funny look and I said "Your sign says coun CELL ing". He looked at his sign and then said "Oh so it's about the spelling and NOT the message, eh?" I assured him he was correct.

See, it is possible to share a message with teabaggers.

I can't thank DFA enough for giving me a scholarship to attend. What a terrific organization (go Howard Dean!) Please support DFA and join your local chapter. It is one of the best progressive political organizations we have in the USA today.



http://www.democracyforamerica.com /

The highlight had to be Bill Clinton and then Howard Dean 12 hours later. It still seems surreal. And I had a great up front seat for both.



http://journals.democraticunderground.com/...



http://journals.democraticunderground.com/...


Another high point was meeting Don Siegelman. Please visit his new website and sign his petition. This is a horrific American tragedy.
http://www.donsiegelman.org /
http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/5180/t/3...



http://journals.democraticunderground.com/...


iPhones were everywhere! I saw no Blackberrys. There were so many times when hissyspit, sharonrb and I sat and talked while we read threads on DU on our iPhones. And exchanged apps. (Thank you hissy for the awesome camera zoom - well worth the 99 cent price!)


Pittsburgh has a happening downtown area and their green convention center was awesome.




Airports suck. The security is demeaning. And will someone please tell me why a kid who wants to play video games should be able to use the only electrical outlet in the gate area when my phone needed charging.


DU needs to have a gathering like Netroots. It was neat to watch the dkos folks connect and meet in person. I have met a lot of DUers at various events but would love to see a gathering just for us to celebrate our online community. Not sure what it would take to pull it off but I would gladly help organize. And I know a lot of DUers who have the skills to help put this together. Anyone else interested?


Finally, thanks to Skinner, Elad and EarlG for their help and support in allowing us to blog from Netroots. It was great fun!

The button guy:





Love this sign:





Howard Dean party. The host arrives:





He must have left right before he filmed his appearance on Countdown last night.



As we were leaving the Howard Dean party, look who we saw:





Spent two hours with this guy last night:





This is payback to hissyspit. He put my picture up so I am putting his up. I just won't identify him. You'll have to figure out which one he is.





Cool art in downtown Pittsburgh:





Finally, sometimes if you hang out in the hotel lobby, you run into some very interesting people:




On our way in a bit to the big dkos party. Hope to get more pictures there.

It's time for Obama to clean up the justice dept.

This is not just about his freedom, it's about everyone's freedom, restoring our democracy.

The people who authorized torture, led us into war, need to be held accountable.

He is facing same Rove anointed, Bush appointed prosecuters he has been dealing with all along. Obama needs to do what Bush did and fire the US Attorneys.

They are Rove accomplices.

Husband of Don's prosecutor was his opponent's campaign manager.

Met with Valerie Jarrett this morning, shared his concerns. She said it's up to us. (The Obama answer to a lot of things.)

http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/5180/t/3... <- new website up today

No other president has left the other team in office when he became president.

Says she has never heard Obama raise his voice.

Obama wants those around him to challenge him. No 'yes men'.

Asked about cage match between her and Rahm

President wanted to make sure energy from campaigning transferred into WH. But also wants order and organization.

He is good about including junior staff in meetings, etc.

She is thrilled to have this opportunity. Humbled by it. Also scared.

Work is exhausting.

About tea parties - Obama wants to move away from that rhetoric. Small segment trying to scare people, especially elderly people. (applause)

Protesters underestimating the American people.

Thousands of meetings going on without disruptions.



Asked if there was a 'black table' in the cafeteria.

She said many don't have time for lunch.

How many of 300,000 resumes WH received were seriously considered? She said many of them. Lots of talent to consider. Still constantly looking for new people.

Lobbyist influence - So many talented people who didn't lobby, this has not been a problem. Made a few exceptions. Trying to work around lobbyists now.

Question: Will prez call blue dogs in and threaten federal funding for their districts?
Answer: She knows there is lots of frustration. Obama is not one to punish or act in anger. He is counting on us to put pressure on our reps. Works best when we pressure, rather than the prez applying it. We should organize our bloggers and work hard o get this done.

Dean said the next 8 to 10 weeks are "critical".

Primary care docs are paid less in the US than in other countries.

The current system will not control costs ever.

The teabagger protesters are angry for 3 reasons:

1. The GOP runs on anger. Rove has a history of polling for anger points.

2. These people did not vote for Obama and feel threatened. There is a younger generation in charge now.

3. There is a president in the White House who looks different from every other president we have ever had.




Their objections and anger are not about the bill. This is a major generational change. There are new folks in power in America.

We are winning this debate. That's why they are making stuff up.

When asked why the Democrats didn't start with Single Payer, Dean said "single payer" had become a bad word like "liberal".

Public option is a reasonable compromise. But if Single Payer had been on the table we would have had a better debate.

Dean was shocked that the AMA endorsed Waxman's bill.

He is grateful to the Blue Dogs. They made the bill better.



When asked how to lobby and what to say when we talk to our reps, he said to remind them the American people want reform. Will they vote for what the people want or what the campaign donors want.

About bipartisanship, Dean said Obama is doing the right thing.

Let the GOP speak for themselves and let the American people see the GOP. The GOP wants to kill health care reform so they can get Obama. The American people will see that and won't like it.

Dean would give everyone under 25 or 30 free Medicaid. They are the largest group of uninsured, they don't abide by mandates and will sell any vouchers we give them on ebay, and they are too hard to insure since they are in school, out of school and change jobs a lot. He would also let 55 year olds buy into Medicare.



Edited by Admin with proud2BlibKansan's permission to reduce image dimensions for Journal compatibility -- EarlG

A highlight! Got in the elevator this morning and struck up a conversation with a nice young lady who turned out to be Don Segelman's daughter!




Then later this afternoon, walked by this table:




Loved this area in the exhibit hall:






An all too common site (they're everywhere! they're everywhere!):







And then of course the highlight of the day was THE MAN!!








Before Clinton spoke, there were several union leaders and other politicians who spoke. One of them said the media is trying to figure out how to do what YOU do.

Another guy told us "Silence your cell phones and have your birth certificates on the table"

Brad Miller, a congressman from NC, said something really neat: "We have to prevent the masters of the universe from running with scissors again".

Then Bill Clinton took the stage. He gave a terrific speech! He started out by saying he has been on a lot of planes lately. That got a round of applause. He said he reads a lot of things he prints out and he realized he is printing out articles from blogs more and more all the time. He said he likes blogs because you don't have to pretend you're not on one side or another.

Then he said when you are an ex-president people don't care what you think unless your wife is secretary of state and you screw up.

There was a heckler. He stood up and yelled something about DODT. Clinton told the guy he needed to go to one of those health care meetings. Then he did talk about DADT and thanked the guy for bringing it up.

I'll post more about his speech later.

Edited by Admin with proud2BlibKansan's permission to reduce image dimensions for Journal compatibility -- EarlG

He told heckler "you should go to one of those health care meetings".






Edited by Admin with proud2BlibKansan's permission to reduce image dimensions for Journal compatibility -- EarlG

Midwest Caucus at Netroots Nation just voted to change its name to Midwest Death Panel. 100% vote in favor.

Next item on agenda - who's first?

Meetings just getting started. Lots of talk about heath care (hooray!). First thing I saw when I got to the convention center were 3 people standing at the door passing out Single payer info. They were thrilled to be speaking to the choir.



Just talked to Bob Borosage Take Back America/now Campaign for America's Future.

President Clinton is speaking tonight. Dr. Dean is here somewhere but I haven't seen him yet.

If you are here, please reply in this thread. If not and you have questions, then please reply.

SharonRB is here too. hissyspit is coming.

Shout out to DFA for giving me the chance to be here. And to Skinner for agreeing to allow our blogs.

Edited by Admin with proud2BlibKansan's permission to reduce image dimensions for Journal compatibility -- EarlG

I blogged from the event: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

Sorry this is more of a narrative but my battery gave out on my camera and a bunch of the pictures I thought I took didn't get taken.

Congressman Emanuel Cleaver has a coffee once a month and meets individually with constituents who come and sign up to talk to him. I have been to several of these coffees and he usually talks to the crowd for a few minutes before he starts his individual meetings, but today he did not address the crowd as a whole. Wise decision, IMO.

It was so insane. The coffee started at 8 am and we got there at 7. The place was already packed and there was nowhere to sit. Right after we got our coffee (about 7:30) they ran out of coffee.

There were a bunch of teabaggers wearing this shirt. It said '912' on the front. They also had several flags with '912' on them. Anyone know what that means?



I never did get a good count or a good picture of the crowd so I can't tell you how many teabaggers vs health care supporters were there. I think it was about half and half. But the teabaggers were determined to be louder. Sorry my camera battery gave out so I took this with my phone.



I was with a bunch of union friends and the crowd was so large the congressman's aide decided to have him sit out on the patio rather than inside. So my union friends and I formed a circle around Cleaver's table and acted as a buffer between him and the lunatics. While we waited for him, we had several interesting conversations with the lunatics.





Sorry this is a bad picture but I knew you all would be thrilled to know Glen Beck fans were out in full force.



This one citizen had a file folder full of that obnoxious Obama/Joker picture and was passing them out as we stood on the patio. He handed me one and I ripped it in half. He then walked over and taped one to the window and a man immediately walked over and took it down. A heated conversation between the two then took place. The man who took the picture down walked by us and we asked what the other guy said and he said the lunatic/citizen claimed it was his free speech rights to put up that picture and he told him no, he was the owner of this coffee shop and this was private property. Then I watched as a plain clothed sheriff's deputy followed the lunatic/citizen and stood next to him and the group he was with.

My DFA group endorsed the county sheriff and he was there in a Hawaiian shirt with about 6 plain clothed deputies. He came over and waved at us and then Cleaver came in and he immediately followed him and stood behind him as he met with folks. I talked to him about the lunatics and he said he has officers following their Tweets and reading their websites and as soon as he finds any threats or anyone urging others to be violent or bring weapons to an event in his county, they would be arrested.

A girl standing right behind us was holding one of the joker pictures up and I asked her if she was a racist. She said no and seemed offended. I asked her why she was holding up a racist sign if she wasn't a racist. She again denied she was a racist. An African American woman walking by stopped, looked at her sign and said "Yes, young lady, that is indeed a racist sign" and the girl held the sign up even higher.

When Cleaver came out and sat down the teabaggers began chanting. After a few minutes I guess they realized he wasn't going to address the crowd. The lunatics around us were complaining and we told them he does this once a month and if you want to talk to him, go right over there to his aide who has a clipboard in his hand and sign up to talk to him. They kept on about how he should talk to the entire group. Finally one of the folks I was standing with said "Why should he do that, so you people can shout him down?" And the guy shook his head and laughed.

That same guy told us that he was on welfare as a child and so he knew the system was corrupt. I said he looked like a very healthy adult so it sounds like my tax dollars kept him healthy as a child, paid for his health care, immunizations and education. He said again that the system is broken and I asked if he planned on refusing Medicare, since he looked old enough to be eligible. He said yes.

I asked several people that question. I said "Well you look old enough to be eligible for Medicare. Did you refuse it?" Even if they were obviously young, I asked them that if they seemed to be at least 40. Most did not answer.

My very favorite lunatic was this woman. Obviously old enough for Medicare. Holding a sign that said NO GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE. I stood by her for a long time and heard at least 6 people ask her if she had refused Medicare and she never answered. She was glad to talk about what was wrong with government health care but she never did admit refusing it herself.



A young woman came over to my group and asked us if we had read the health care bill. I asked which one. She said "The Pence Amendment". I said that's an amendment, not a bill. She said well it says that the government will pay for my abortion if I get pregnant. My friend said no, that's not in the bill and the girl said yes it is because there is money for Planned Parenthood in that bill. I said I was grateful for PP, that I had no health insurance for about 10 years when I was young and if it wasn't for PP, I wouldn't have had any health care at all. And I had never had an abortion. My friend asked her if she realized PP makes birth control available to many women and that actually prevents abortion. The young woman said "Well why do you need to have sex if you aren't planning on getting pregnant? That's fool proof birth control!" And a lady who just happened to be walking by stopped and said "Well I can tell that not having sex isn't a problem for you. As for me, no thanks!" I thought I was going to fall over from laughing.

Later a man came over to talk to me and an African American woman and was explaining why he opposed government health care. He said he was 56 and didn't have to worry about refusing Medicare since it would be broken by the time he was old enough to be eligible. He then said he had just had a conversation with a young "African American woman over there" and he pointed and went on to tell us what she had said. When he was done I asked him why it was necessary to describe the woman he talked to as African American. He froze. Then he stuttered "Well because she WAS African American" And I asked what difference that made. He froze again. The African American woman I was with said "Answer her question. Why did you have to describe her as African American?" He then threw up his hands and walked off.

I tell ya, it was hard not to die laughing at these lunatics. I walked by one woman and heard her say "Pretty soon the government is going to be telling me how much toilet paper I can use to wipe my ass!"

I sat down next to another older gentleman who was talking to a young man about corruption in the government and started telling him about chemtrails. Just then a plane flew overhead. The man looked up, caught my eye and I said "You guys better take cover!" He frowned and got up and walked away.

We walked by a lady holding a sign that said NAME ONE COUNTRY WHERE SOCIALIZED MEDICINE WORKS. I said "Cuba" and kept walking. By that time I was too worn out to wait for their reaction.

OMG there were dozens of petitions. I signed them all with this (and made sure I took up at least two lines):

YOU PEOPLE ARE OUT OF YOUR EVER LOVIN MINDS

One girl was walking around asking folks if they wanted to sign up for the teabaggers email list. I said sure, took her clipboard and wrote:

YOU ARE STANDING ON A SIDEWALK PAID FOR WITH TAX DOLLARS!! QUICK!! MOVE AWAY!!!

To her credit, she laughed and said "Good one!"

When the event was over several of us had a quick meeting and decided to make a petition to take to the next event that says the following:
I AGREE TO REFUSE MEDICARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY WHEN ELIGIBLE. IF I AM ON MEDICARE AND/OR SOCIAL SECURITY NOW, I AGREE TO BEGIN REFUSING THE PAYMENTS TOMORROW.

And we will then send the petition to our congressmen.

Oops edit to add I forgot to tell about the guy who claimed he was paying $6000 a month for health insurance and yes he did refuse Medicare. He later admitted he was paying for 10 employees. And we asked him if he didn't think that $600 a month for health insurance was a bit steep. HELLO?!