Dear Sen. Conrad: We Back a Public Health Plan. Love, N. Dakota Dems

By GottaLaff

(click on image to enlarge)

Dear stubborn Congresspeople who don't have America's best interest at heart and who are owned by Big Insurance/Pharma:

In a move that seems designed to push Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) on health care reform, the North Dakota Democratic Party voted two weeks ago to make the public option for insurance coverage a stated objective of its platform.

At a little-noticed policy committee meeting on September 19, state Democratic officials passed a resolution affirming their commitment to "universal single payer health care legislation."

You know why it was a little-noticed policy meeting? Because the corporate media didn't report on it. That's how important things like this stay little and unnoticed.

As a fallback option, the resolution read, the officials supported the creation of a government-run plan for insurance.

And that's how President Obama should have presented his health care reform push. Start with single payer and fall back on the public option.

Oh well. Too late now.

In an effort to apply the pressure to their representatives in Congress, the party also sent letters to the offices of Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, as well as Rep. Earl Porneroy, alerting them to the passed resolution. [...]

"I don't understand the votes that have gone on," said [Chad Nodland, who sits on the executive committee for the state party], in reference to the debate in the Senate Finance Committee. "What I'm saying is, I can't put together what I've watched with what has been explained to me. I'm frustrated. I wish that what we were seeing were different [from Conrad] than what we've been seeing."

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/06/north-dakota-dems-pass-re_n_311584.html

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/06/north-dakota-dems-pass-re_n_311584.html

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/06/north-dakota-dems-pass-re_n_311584.html

We all do. But thanks for trying to make a difference.

Love,

Most of America

The letter is above.

Dorgan Won't Be Energy Secretary

By GottaLaff

Aleksandar Rodic’s Energy Plant

There's plenty of energy surging through the new Obama administration, but Dorgan won't be secretary of any of it:

Sen. Byron Dorgan (N.D.) is no longer under consideration to be secretary of energy in President-elect Barack Obama's administration, according to transition officials. The decision was arrived at based on a belief within the former Illinois senator's inner circle that the plains state Democrat is more valuable to them where he is. [...]

The names still in the mix for energy secretary, according to well informed senior Democrats include: Govs. Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kansas), Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.), Bill Ritter (D-Colo.) and Jennifer Granholm (D-Mich.), Sen. Jeff Bingaman (N.M), Google's Dan Reicher, Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, former Edison International CEO John Bryson, Federal Express Chairman Fred Smith and Steve Chu, the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The decision to take Dorgan off the list is an acknowledgment by the Obama team of political reality. Dorgan is up for re-election in 2010 in a state that John McCain carried 53 percent to 45 percent in November over Obama, and that President Bush won with 63 percent in 2004. [...]

Obama and his team have been careful in their Cabinet picks so far not to hand seats to Republicans.