They came, they sat, they chanted:

8 Protesters backing a universal health care system briefly occupied Sen. Joe Lieberman's office this morning.

Protesters were arrested, one by one, and dragged out of his office amid chants of "Everyone in and noone out, universal healthcare now!" and "Represent Connecticut, not AETNA!"

Activists hopefully moving the Overton Window - in our case leftward - because too many Democratic party politicians were too stupid to do that on their own at the start of the healthcare debate.

 

URGENT ACTION NEEDED - CALL NOW!

Your calls are needed to keep single payer amendments alive in the U.S. House of Representatives. The message is simple:

"Keep the Kucinich Amendment!"

 

• Speaker Nancy Pelosi:
  
  DC 202.225.4965 - SF 415.556.4862
  
  
  
• Representative George Miller:
  
  DC 202.225.2095 - Concord 925.602.1880
  
  
• Representative Henry Waxman:
  
  DC 202.225.3976 - LA 323.651.1040
  
  
  
  
• Read the National Nurses Blog Post

And don't forget to rec up the dKos diary and leave a comment thanking them for all the National Nurses Movement does if you are a member there. 

Here's an optimistic take. Seems like CBO gives Pelosi bill a positive evaluation.

Pelosi Prepares to Move Ahead from Brian Beutler in TPM.

Kristof gets this one right:

As I recently posted, the "Mobilization for Health Care for All" video reported that a campaign of civil disobedience would soon begin sit-ins in lobbies of insurance companies around the country to advocate universal health care.

The Schumer Ammendment failed by 13 to 10 with Baucus again voting against the public option. Conrad and Nelson voted for public option this go round.

The following Democratic senators voted against the Rockefeller ammendment: Five Democrats opposed the public option: Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.). They were joined by Republicans on the Committee for a vote of 15 to 8.

Dear Friend:

President Obama will give a major speech on health reform this coming Wednesday. In it, he'll lay out his vision for health reform.

Two weeks ago, on a webcast with hundreds of thousands of supporters, the President reiterated his strong support for a public health insurance option. Now, he is under enormous pressure from conservatives in both parties - and some advisers - to drop it.

Press reports indicate President Obama has not decided what his upcoming speech will say. It is at this crucial moment that he needs to hear from you most.

Posted with permission from Nick Benton, owner/editor of the Falls Church News Press.

It's hardly worth wasting the ink to say so, but shame on you, Washington Post, for whorishly pandering to those who would disrupt and derail health care reform by your choice of the photograph used of Tuesday's town hall meeting hosted by Rep. Jim Moran and former DNC Chair Howard Dean in Northern Virginia.

IMO Arianna Huffington's column today is right on target. Her point is expressed in the question: Has Obama's Handling of the Bank Bailout Undermined Health Care Reform?

I also especially like this forumaltion which goes beyond partisan politics by stating a moral truth that in these harsh times is all too frequently overlooked:

"This weekend, Sam Tanenhaus, the senior editor at the New York Times Book Review, wrote that Kennedy's passing brought to an end a vision of liberalism that "holds that the forces of government should be marshaled to improve conditions for the greatest possible number of Americans, with particular emphasis on the excluded and disadvantaged."

But shouldn't the vision of marshaling forces to improve conditions for the greatest possible number of Americans be the appropriate goal for any civilized society? We can argue about what precisely should be the proper balance between government, the private sector, and philanthropy. But is there any doubt that this goal is what our political discourse should revolve around?

After all, the vision of improving conditions for the greatest possible number of Americans is not the exclusive province of liberalism. And because it is the ultimate goal of society, it is about right versus wrong, rather than right versus left."

What do you think?

A couple of nights ago, I watched Jane Hamsher, the founder and publisher of the progressive website Firedoglake.com make a startling statement. She was a guest on The Rachel Maddow Show and was speaking about the fact that members of the congressional progressive caucus had drawn a line in the sand regarding the need for a public option, “after it became clear that Rahm Emanuel and Max Baucus were trying to deal a public plan away to the AMA, the hospitals, Pharma in exchange for keeping the money out of Republican coffers in 2010.”  I stopped my DVR and replayed this portion of the interview a couple more times to make sure that I had heard her correctly. It all started to make sense. It made me think about the healthcare debate in a different way. I realized that this debate is not about us – the American people. It is about politics pure and simple.

Published with permission from Robert Reich.

Latest word from the White House is that the President still supports a public option but is also standing by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's remark last weekend that a public insurance plan is "not the essential element" of health-care reform. So where, exactly, is the White House on the public option? Just about where it is on the question of whether it agreed with Big Pharma to bar Medicare from using its bargaining clout to get lower drug prices -- or didn't. In other words, we don't know.

Universal health care is President Obama's biggest issue, and he needs strong public support if he's going to overcome the vested money interests in Washington. Which brings us to the question of where the people who voted for Obama stand on all this.

by Robert Reich and posted with his permission.

I'm a strong supporter of universal health insurance, and a fan of the Obama administration. But I'm appalled by the deal the White House has made with the pharmaceutical industry's lobbying arm to buy their support.

by Robert Reich, posted with his permission.

On our drive across America, my son and I have spotted spiffy white vans emblazoned with phrases like "ObamaCare will raise your taxes" and "ObamaCare will put bureaucrats in charge of your health." Just outside Omaha we drove close enough to take a peek at the driver, who looked as dutifully professional as the spanking new van he was driving.