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John Edwards - Just Say No
Great diary, Wade! Just saw it this morning.
Edwards is right to be visibly angered. We all are angry.
It is not abstract. The lack of universal health care in this nation means real people die. Unless we change this nation, more will die like Natalie. That is the deadly reality that exists.
"The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels." Al Gore, 7/17/08
by TomP on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 07:15:16 AM PDT
[ Parent ]
i heard this story about Nataline on my flight home for Christmas. I was so angry. I got in at 1 am and checked the news. My heart was lifted when I saw that someone who is a leader was already in the forefront - taking on this issue for us.
For those here who think threatening the congress' healthcare or being radically bold is ineffective, look at another example of leadership changing the way Washington works... http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com... December 20, 2007 Clinton announces new bill one day after Edwards challenge
Just one day after a challenge from presidential rival John Edwards to commit to raising the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton announced that she had already introduced legislation to do just that. "With stagnant wages and skyrocketing costs for healthcare, energy and college, working families in America need a break. That is why yesterday I introduced legislation to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011, and link the minimum wage to Congressional pay raises after that," said Clinton in a Thursday statement. The senator said the measure was "the first bill ever to call for a $9.50 minimum wage."
Just one day after a challenge from presidential rival John Edwards to commit to raising the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton announced that she had already introduced legislation to do just that.
"With stagnant wages and skyrocketing costs for healthcare, energy and college, working families in America need a break. That is why yesterday I introduced legislation to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011, and link the minimum wage to Congressional pay raises after that," said Clinton in a Thursday statement. The senator said the measure was "the first bill ever to call for a $9.50 minimum wage."
Thank you Senator Clinton, for following the leadership of the next President. May you continue to do so in the future.
UP News - News from the people, not corporations UP News
by wade norris on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 08:16:38 AM PDT
She will adopt any position that she thinks can help her, but she won't really fight for it. Soon whe will adopt all of Edwards agenda, except for lobbyist money.
"I am glad Senator Clinton has joined me in supporting a further increase in the minimum wage. Over five months ago, I challenged all of the candidates to help hard-working families and join my effort to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour, and now, just 14 days before the Iowa caucuses, Senator Clinton has answered my call. "But changing America demands all of us do even more. In this spirit, I hope she will join me in rejecting the money of Washington lobbyists that is corrupting our system and hurting middle-class families."
"I am glad Senator Clinton has joined me in supporting a further increase in the minimum wage. Over five months ago, I challenged all of the candidates to help hard-working families and join my effort to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour, and now, just 14 days before the Iowa caucuses, Senator Clinton has answered my call.
"But changing America demands all of us do even more. In this spirit, I hope she will join me in rejecting the money of Washington lobbyists that is corrupting our system and hurting middle-class families."
Edwards Statement On Clinton Accepting His Challenge To Raise The Minimum Wage To $9.50 An Hour
by TomP on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 08:35:55 AM PDT
care long before Edwards. she fought the healthcare lobbies, republican attacks, branding her as socialist.. and everything else.. and yet you think she will follow Edwards. crap.. she has been advocating for wage increase for middle class for a long long time!
by kydem 768 on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 08:39:06 AM PDT
a $9.50 minimum wage until Edwards challenged her in it this week.
In addition, notwithstanding her plan to run for Presdient since probably 2000, she did not have a universal health care plan until at least six months after Edwards announced his.
Does anybody really believe Clinton will fight her drug company and health care industry financers to actually implement it?
Remember how she said we might have health care reform by the end of her "second term"? We can't wait that long.
You know, President Kennedy said in his inauguration that he wanted to have a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Well, I want to have universal health care coverage by the end of my second term. Source: 2007 AFSCME Democratic primary debate in Carson City Nevada Feb 21, 2007
You know, President Kennedy said in his inauguration that he wanted to have a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Well, I want to have universal health care coverage by the end of my second term.
Source: 2007 AFSCME Democratic primary debate in Carson City Nevada Feb 21, 2007
Hillary Clinton in 2007 AFSCME Democratic primary debate in Carson City Nevada
by TomP on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 09:13:18 AM PDT
I sure as hell don't want to way for any president's second term! The people need coverage NOW!
What doesn't kill you simply makes you.. stranger - The Joker(Heath Ledger)
by Johnny Venom on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 09:27:29 AM PDT
Any of the Democrats running who would WIN in November will make the changes so that insurance companies can't pull this and will address health coverage.
So the key is to find the Democrat who will win. For me, I don't see it being Clinton. I don't see it being Edwards, I think the Republicans can take him down. I see it as Obama.
We will need more than a 51% win in November. We will need 54% or 56% just to come out on top. I see Edwards as vulnerable to YouTubism. This will be a general election campaign unlike 2004 and 2000.
I'm not so concerned about policy differences between the Democrats.
by joan reports on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 02:38:13 PM PDT
Which is the most important issue ?
by joan reports on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 02:42:47 PM PDT
presented a plan, but It seems to me that she didn't fight for it very long. There was a couple few months there when she tried, but the Clinton's dropped it pretty quick and moved on. Never to be heard from again. Laudable in the short-term, but opportunistic in the long-term.
This is understandable (in the narrowest tactical sense) given the political capital spent on getting NAFTA passed. But then HRC has to own up to the priorities of the Clinton administration given her claim of leadership experience during that time.
by Terra Mystica on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 09:44:09 AM PDT
that's what she does. The only reason she even came up with a health care plan(basically Edwards' plan) recently, is because Edwards pushed her into a political corner and forced her to. What would happen if she was elected? Who is going to force her to fight for us?
by 123Mary123 on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 10:07:18 AM PDT
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country"
by Barth on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 10:29:03 AM PDT
approve of her plans...
she won't fight them; but Edwards will
by 123Mary123 on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 02:23:32 PM PDT
she fought for UHC years ago, and then became the most well funded politician out of both parties by the health care industries. I hope her intentions were to throw it in their faces at a later date, but you gotta admit, that's kind of scary.
Netroots Director for Oregon Senate Candidate Jeff Merkley
by sarahlane on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 10:37:16 AM PDT
I do trust Obama though. I just am not as familiar with him as with the Clintons.
by Miles in WesternWA on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 10:40:32 AM PDT
he's never taken a dime from Washington lobbyists that have corrupted the system.
by BBelle on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 11:03:05 AM PDT
although I think Edwards will fight harder than anyone and has experience taking insurance companies head on. I think an Edwards/Obama ticket would be unstoppable! Imagine having a lawyer who fought big corp. and won and a constitutional lawyer leading the country!
by sarahlane on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 11:07:12 AM PDT
well.. she has been fighting for universal health care long before Edwards.
...zero. zip. nada. Fighting for a "long time" (to hear her tell it ever since her husband's first term) and still no universal healthcare.
She threw up her hands and walked away from the fight many years ago. Now, she wants to bargain with the bas$tard$. Same with BHO.
"A time comes when silence is betrayal." ~ MLK, Jr.
by liberaldemdave on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 11:02:20 AM PDT
Clinton's 1994 healthcare plan because it wasn't much different from the one we have now. The issue then was the rising cost of healthcare - not health insurance - and her plan was geared towards keeping costs down complete with people not having a choice of their physicians. The only reason the Clintons were denied their plan was that the coporate interests and the Republicans at the time understood that they could build a better (for them) and even less accountable one than she had - but that doesn't mean Senator Clinton's was any great shakes.
The main thing you have to keep in mind is that at that time the debate was about cost not care.
by inclusiveheart on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 05:49:56 PM PDT
he was specific in details months ago. HRC seems to be saying this about minimum wage as a "last minute booster" instead of standing for it in the Senate months or years ago.
by wade norris on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 08:54:12 AM PDT
is going to be debating the Nataline case in the next segment. I know I shouldn't be watching Fox but it's primary season and they are the only ones with political news on right now.
Edwards is raising the issue, the MSM is picking it up. This is a good thing. Everyone, and I mean everyone needs to talk about this travesty. I don't want to make an example out of Nataline, but I also don't want this to happen to anymore Americans.
by sarahlane on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 10:49:47 AM PDT
by making this tragedy known, felt, and understood, and the point from which we won't back down on the way to universal healthcare.
Democracy isn't something you have, it's something you do! "Granny D"
by chuck in NH on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 02:20:40 PM PDT
Unfortunately, too many DC politicians weigh these 2 options. It's the moral dilemma of their day. Sadly, choosing the politically expedient thing over the morally right thing infiltrates and corrupts their very souls. What we're left with is our current 110th Congress!
John Edwards, I believe, can fill this obvious void. He can restore our Moral Compass. And ALL of America will be better off because of it!
COME ON, IOWA! COME ON NEW HAMPSHIRE!! COME ON SOUTH CAROLINA!!! Be the First snowballs that begin the Avalanche! You will go down in History as the first to save America!
GWB + GOP = WMD
by Shaking the Tree on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 03:49:24 PM PDT
The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all - JFK- 5/18/63-Vanderbilt Univ.
by oibme on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 09:54:34 AM PDT
John isn't interested in greed, celebrity, and serving himself. That''s all the Clintons are good for.
The longer I live, the clearer I perceive how unmatchable a compliment one pays when he says of a man "he has the courage to utter his convictions." Mark Twain
by Persiflage on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 12:44:17 PM PDT
by oibme on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 12:52:26 PM PDT
Our health-care system means-tests the right to life.
This is a perfect "moral" wedge issue for Democrats.
And yet, outside of Edwards, the Democratic consultants who speak of the need to "reach out to evangelicals" won't take this mind-numbingly obvious angle.
I pray that Edwards wins Iowa. We need this discussion.
"Le ciel est bleu, l'enfer est rouge."
by Buzzer on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 08:17:23 AM PDT
I've asked Republicans this before, how come you can be pro-Iraq war which results in thousands of American deaths and not be for UHC which will save thousands of American lives? Why the disconnect?
by sarahlane on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 10:38:45 AM PDT
...because they're not really pro-life. They just like to toss the phrase around to try to claim some moral high ground on the abortion debate, but they don't really believe it.
Speaking of which, have any organized churches spoken out about this case? They were quick to swoop on Terri Schiavo...
by Buzzer on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 11:03:49 AM PDT
...because they're not really pro-life
it's a fetus in a petri dish (snowflake babies) or someone in such a far gone vegetative state (Schiavo) that there's no hope for normalcy. Then it's all about "life".
Yeah, that's snark from this old cynic.
by liberaldemdave on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 11:07:50 AM PDT
So is UHC. So is Iraq. So is Minimum Wage. So is poverty, homelessness, and starvation!
It's quite sad (pathetic, really) that in the 21st Century we even have to point out that basic humanitarian issues are the right and moral things to preserve and protect. These should be no-brainers to us all, yet the republiCons and their Corporate Masters continue to muddy these very obvious waters!
{{{{{sigh}}}}}
by Shaking the Tree on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 03:58:53 PM PDT
wide narrow
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