Townshirt Disruptive Tactics Come To L.A. Health Care Forums

My Congresswoman, Diane Watson (D-CA), held a town hall forum in the district last night. I didn't even know about it, which is odd since I tend to pay attention to these kinds of things. Fortunately a friend did go and he told me it was a peaceful affair, with around 400 people at the AME Church in West Adams, overwhelmingly people who support health care reform. There were a few teabaggers, two of whom came in costumes-- one as Dracula and one as hideous and bloated version of Ted Kennedy. It's almost as though the two idiots were begging to be assaulted so they could go running to Fox. They sat scowling at the audience, taking photos. Congresswoman Watson was one of the first members of Congress to sign the letter to Speaker Pelosi saying she would not vote for any health care legislation that didn't include-- at least-- a public option. She's one of the 65 members of the House that Blue America has been collecting thank you contributions for. If you'd like to take a look at our campaign, or add to it, here's the link.

Meanwhile, in another part of L.A. County there was a health care town hall hosted by the Peace and Justice Committee of the Religious Society of Friends and the Claremont Democratic Club in Claremont. The area's congressmember-- David Dreier, an absentee congressman in the best of times-- predictably refused invitations to come. He runs his family's real estate development business near Kansas City and lives there when he isn't in Washington. But without Dreier, citizens of Claremont gathered for a respectful give and take about the health care debate. At least that was the intention. Teabagging rightists immediately attempted to unfurl their agenda of disruption.

The crowd was large and enthusiastic and spilled out the door of the 150 seat auditorium, many attendees straining to listen from an outdoor patio. A determined heckler, Charles Cox from an extremist group calling itself Survivors of Abortion Holocaust, was removed from the auditorium by the crowd when he shouted "Unamerican" at a panelist who was advocating for a single payer system. The heckler, who is from Riverside, muscled his way back into the forum, was disruptive again and was removed again. He the went around to a side door and was blocked from entering. When he continued to shout out "this meeting is breaking the law." Organizers were forced to shut the door leaving many people out of the town hall. The heckler's female friend, who was inside, then opened the door and he attempted to enter. One of the organizers was forced to push the heckler back, and the heckler fell to the ground loudly claiming assault-- a now all to familiar right wing self-victimization strategy-- and made a plea for the cavalry to come. While on the phone with paramedics, this disruptive outsider had to ask "What city are we in?"

Funny thing-- he refused care when the paramedics rolled a stretcher up to the door and was overheard talking about a preexisting condition. Word is, he is pressing assault charges against the volunteer who was trying to keep the peace. No doubt, he'll soon be peddling his tale of martyrdom on Glenn Beck's or Bill O'Reilly's anti-health care circus. Here, it goes to show, this is such a hot button issue, it can even get blood boiling in pacifist Claremont.

When the forum finally got back on track after the disruption many people had the chance to get up on their soap boxes and make pleas for everything from tort reform to maintaining the status quo. Russ Warner, the progressive Democrat who is running for Congress-- and has been endorsed by DWT received a huge round of applause when he acknowledged how passionate people are about the issue and how important it is to be part of the live town hall forum. "I will never hide behind the telephone."

An owner of a local small business in the district himself, Warner has been a backer of health care reform for a very long time. He's been pointing out to voters in CA-26 how the bill Congress is crafting now would bring enormous benefits to the local area, particularly to seniors and to over 13,000 small businesses in the district. Over 1,300 families in the district wouldn't have to face the trauma of health care related bankruptcy if the bill passes. Dreier isn't supporting health care reform-- he's picked up a cool $287,642 from the Insurance Business and another hefty $602,339 from the Medical-Industrial Complex-- but Warner is, and he's paying very close attention to the bills in Congress. Yesterday the Energy and Commerce Committee released a study about how their bill would impact CA-26.

• Help for small businesses. Under the legislation, small businesses with 25 employees or less and average wages of less than $40,000 qualify for tax credits of up to 50% of the costs of providing health insurance. There are up to 13,200 small businesses in the district that could qualify for these credits.

• Help for seniors with drug costs in the Part D donut hole. Each year, 11,200 seniors in the district hit the donut hole and are forced to pay their full drug costs, despite having Part D drug coverage. The legislation would provide them with immediate relief, cutting brand name drug costs in the donut hole by 50%, and ultimately eliminate the donut hole.

• Health care and financial security. There were 1,300 health care-related bankruptcies in the district in 2008, caused primarily by the health care costs not covered by insurance. The bill provides health insurance for almost every American and caps annual out-of-pocket costs at $10,000 per year, ensuring that no citizen will have to face financial ruin because of high health care costs.

• Relieving the burden of uncompensated care for hospitals and health care providers. In 2008, health care providers in the district provided $35 million worth of uncompensated care, care that was provided to individuals who lacked insurance coverage and were unable to pay their bills. Under the legislation, these costs of uncompensated care would be virtually eliminated.

• Coverage of the uninsured. There are 92,000 uninsured individuals in the district, 13% of the district. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that nationwide, 97% of all Americans will have insurance coverage when the bill takes effect. If this benchmark is reached in the district, 71,000 people who currently do not have health insurance will receive coverage.

• No deficit spending. The cost of health care reform under the legislation is fully paid for: half through making the Medicare and Medicaid program more efficient and half through a surtax on the income of the wealthiest individuals. This surtax would affect only 6,750 households in the district. The surtax would not affect 97.8% of taxpayers in the district.

The concerted astro-turfing of the health care debate is very well-documented and the Republican Party success at diverting the debate from health care reform to unfocused hatred, fears, anger, racism and generalized divisiveness has disqualified them from being taken seriously as participants.

I don't have video of either of last night's Los Angeles County town hall meetings but I'd like to share a clip from two earlier health care debates (1971 and 1974) that will probably sound awfully familiar to anyone who's been paying attention this year. First, please check how Miss McConnell (R-KY), who has received $943,507 in thinly disguised bribes from the Insurance Industry and another startling $2,770,168 from the Medical-Industrial Complex, is approaching the health care debate. Playing strictly by the Insurance Industry's playbook, he contends that everything's pretty hunky-dory-- which it is... if you're a millionaire or a member of Congress (he's both) with no worries about health care.

IS IMPEACHMENT ENOUGH OR WILL WAR CRIMES TRIBUNALS BE NECESSARY?

When I called my congresswoman's office a few days ago one of her staffers was a pleasure to talk to. He corrected me when I mentioned she had one of the most progressive voting records in the entire Congress. "It's is the #1 most progressive," he claimed. (He must be using a different measuring system that I use; Diane Watson is always way up near the top but never as near as Raul Grijalva (AZ), Barbara Lee (CA), Janice Schakowsky (IL), Linda Sanchez (CA), Hilda Solis (CA), Tammy Baldwin (WI)-- or half a dozen freshmen with incredible voting records, like Keith Ellison (MN), Mazie Hirono (HI), Yvette Clarke (NY), Hank Johnson (GA), John Sarbanes (MD), Peter Welch (VT), Betty Sutton (OH) and Paul Hodes (NH). The member representing my hometown, Diane Watson, ranks as the #50 most progressive member of the House, right between Blue America freshmen John Hall (NY) and Mike Arcuri (NY). She scores a 92.68 in the ProgressivePunch scale. I don't remember ever having a beef with any of her votes. She's no Jerry Nadler or Carol Shea-Porter, but she can pretty much always be counted on to do the right thing. So I figured maybe she'd be one of the 3 co-sponsored needed to get action on H.R. 333, the bill to start impeachment proceedings against Cheney.

She was stuck on a plane from L.A. back to DC but her legislative assistant told me to forget it and parroted the Nancy Pelosi line-- same exact words I've heard from a dozen Democratic congressmembers about why impeachment is off the table. It's political calculus and it's not about what's right for America; it's about what's right for their political party. That's wrong-- even if you equate what's right for America with what's right for your party. After all, isn't that (that equation) why a growing number of people-- from across the political spectrum-- want to see Bush, Cheney and the rest of the big players of the Regime stand trial?

This morning two former Reagan aides, P.X. Kelley and Robert F. Turner, co-authored an OpEd in the Washington Post that seems to accuse Bush and his cronies of war crimes. Reagan appointed Kelley commandant of the Marine Corps in 1983. Turner, one of the founders of the University of Virginia's Center for National Security Law and a former chair of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security, was a Reagan White House attorney who "vigorously defended the constitutionality of warrantless National Security Agency wiretaps, presidential signing statements and many other controversial aspects of the war on terrorism."

Looking at their public service records one could not conclude anything but that these two are very conservative, very partisan Republicans who have generally bought into the whole authoritarian line. But even they have to draw the line when Bush jeopardizes national security and national honor and egregiously disregards the rule of law on which our entire society is based.

we cannot in good conscience defend a decision that we believe has compromised our national honor and that may well promote the commission of war crimes by Americans and place at risk the welfare of captured American military forces for generations to come.

The Supreme Court held in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld last summer that all detainees captured in the war on terrorism are protected by Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which prescribes minimum standards of treatment for all persons who are no longer taking an active part in an armed conflict not of an international character. It provides that "in all circumstances" detainees are to be "treated humanely."

This is not just about avoiding "torture." The article expressly prohibits "at any time and in any place whatsoever" any acts of "violence to life and person" or "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment."

Last week the Regime issued an executive order weaseling out of their obligations by reinterpreting it to suit their needs, something one would expect from a fascist dictator. Basically, the stand of the Bush Regime is now that "as long as the intent of the abuse is to gather intelligence or to prevent future attacks, and the abuse is not 'done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual'-- even if that is an inevitable consequence-- the president has given the CIA carte blanche to engage in 'willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse.'"

It is firmly established in international law that treaties are to be interpreted in "good faith" in accordance with the ordinary meaning of their words and in light of their purpose. It is clear to us that the language in the executive order cannot even arguably be reconciled with America's clear duty under Common Article 3 to treat all detainees humanely and to avoid any acts of violence against their person.

Bush and Cheney want to "compromise our honor" (as well as wreck our constitutional government and disregard crucial treaties that have helped civilization evolve-- although, of course, Bush doesn't believe in evolution).

To date in the war on terrorism, including the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and all U.S. military personnel killed in action in Afghanistan and Iraq, America's losses total about 2 percent of the forces we lost in World War II and less than 7 percent of those killed in Vietnam. Yet we did not find it necessary to compromise our honor or abandon our commitment to the rule of law to defeat Nazi Germany or imperial Japan, or to resist communist aggression in Indochina. On the contrary, in Vietnam-- where we both proudly served twice-- America voluntarily extended the protections of the full Geneva Convention on prisoners of war to Viet Cong guerrillas who, like al-Qaeda, did not even arguably qualify for such protections.

The Geneva Conventions provide important protections to our own military forces when we send them into harm's way. Our troops deserve those protections, and we betray their interests when we gratuitously "interpret" key provisions of the conventions in a manner likely to undermine their effectiveness. Policymakers should also keep in mind that violations of Common Article 3 are "war crimes" for which everyone involved-- potentially up to and including the president of the United States-- may be tried in any of the other 193 countries that are parties to the conventions.

Diane Watson, Nancy Pelosi and the scores of congressmembers who have not signed on to H.R. 333 are wrong. Christy Harden Smith, on the other hand, is correct. So are Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Maxine Waters (D-CA), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), William Lacy Clay (D-MO), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Jim McDermott (D-WA), Jim Moran (D-VA), Bob Filner (D-CA), and Sam Farr (D-CA). I don't know about you, but I've suspended donating money to any House incumbent who has not signed on to H.R. 333. On our Blue America page that means Tom Allen, Steve Cohen, John Hall, Jerry McNerney, Patrick Murphy, Jerry Nadler, Carol Shea-Porter and Hilda Solis, among the best members of Congress in my lifetime-- but wrong on one of the most important issues of any of our lifetimes.


UPDATE: WHAT ABOUT THE WAR CRIMES TRIAL?

Did I leave this out? "Policymakers should also keep in mind that violations of Common Article 3 are 'war crimes' for which everyone involved-- potentially up to and including the president of the United States-- may be tried in any of the other 193 countries that are parties to the conventions." That includes Cheney.