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Saturday, July 18, 2009

Health Care Tea Party After-Action Report

As they are still coming in, I have not seen the totals for the nationwide numbers, but if OH was any indication, but I am overly confident this was a smashing success. Now we will have to wait to see how effective it was, and I believe a difference was made. Here is a post at American Power highlighting some of the events at the nationwide Tea Party Patriot Health Care rallys.

On the Cleveland front, Patriot Brian manned the Kucinich office, Diana, head of the Cleveland 9.12 group and CTPP supporter, lead up the efforts at Sherrod Browns office for us. I was at the sleeper's office - Marcia Fudge. I call Fudge a sleeper as many people are not yet familiar with her. Fudge will make the late Stephanie Tubbs-Jones look like a conservative. This woman is driven by entitlement type of thinking and race-driven politics.

On to the report...

From Brian at the Kookcinich location;
Where to begin? Our group was lively and about 80 strong.

Very interesting to see the reactions of the cars passing by on busy Detroit Avenue. Reactions ranged from wild horn honking and raised fists of defiant support, to ambivilence, to confusion, with a very few hostiles.

The Kucinich staffers were caught entirely off guard. They did come out to speak with us, making every effort to be good soldiers for their boss. They listened, occassionally responded, asked for our individual names and specific questions (this did not play well with some). At one point, one of the staffers wondered out loud if we had been paid by outside interests to show up for an hour. This elicited the indigant response you imagined it would and showed us all that these libs just don't get it. We are here, we're for real, and we're not going anywhere. I think they now have a sense of that where they did not a few short hours ago.

I did give them the List Of Questions from Teaparty.org and they promised a reply. Uh-Huh........riiiiiiiiiight.

We did what we set out to do. Now we need to follow up and follow through.

I have been going to tea parties from their inception. There was a real undercurrent of anger at this one. I think people understand that they are tightening the screws and that there is urgency in all of this. We were, of course, civil but one has to wonder how long that will last.

I want to ask these folks, "What makes you think that the hard-working among us are going to sit by while you redistribute wealth as you see fit? What makes you think we won't push back? Do you really think you can govern without the support of the industrious?"

Anyway, we did our jobs and can't wait to do it again.

Brian... and it was a job done well!

From Diana on the Sherrod Brown location;

Our protest exceeded my every expectation. I anticipated maybe 10 - based on the sickly number of RSVP's. But there were over 30 of us, and I don't know how many more, because some contingent went straight up to Brown's office, while the other 30 were on the sidewalk. TV8 Fox showed up.

At about 12:45 we went up to Brown's office, and it's a good thing I had called the office the day before. It got our protest signs past the security lady who was presiding over her petty fiefdom and expedited our passage into the elevators. Brad, a 26-year old staffer, met with all 30 of us in the conference room. I gave him the questionnaire and the press release on the bill removing Congress's exemption from national health care. Brad the Brat was unprepared for the level of anger, articulately expressed by most of the citizenry, and was pretty condescending (even so, I wrote him a thank you, as we are supposed to be the grown-ups).

My report on the 9.12 page does not quite reflect what we thought of him - but it's a semi-public record. Brad could not get it through his head that government health care = rationed health care. He continues to insist that the Senator opposed rationed care. Well, that's what we are up against. This group challenged him effectively, and then he just got snarky.

What I got from the meeting - which lasted over an hour, was (1) Brown doesn't care what his constituents want, his office just goes through the motions (2) he might be persuaded for whatever reason to vote no on cap and trade, even though he is 100% wrong on the causes of climate cycles. (3) He's a lost cause on healthcare.


Even though Brown appears to be a clueless cad, tries protecting himself from the public with a paid storm trooper and his office is staffed by a little snot-nosed, snarky, not so thrilled-spitless staffer paid for with our tax dollars -- Diana's & the others efforts at this location -- was surely NOT a lost cause!

My report from the discreetly hidden offices of Rep. Marcia Fudge...
Upon arriving, we went in Fudges office, introduced ourselves and asked if Rep. Fudge was available. The aide stated Fudge was at the Wolstein Center for a seminar. We then handed him the TPP Health Care quiz for Fudges with the instructions one where she could forward her answers and then kindly asked if would like to join us.

At Fudges office we had 17 the whole time and then a few people stopped by during lunch and a couple even pulled over and joined us. We even had a Bedford Councilman (a registered Democrat) come out and join us. All together we had about 20-25 people show up through the hour. Shortly after we started, the horns started honking in support of our efforts.

During the time we were there, we had several people stop, and then voice their support after learning what we were doing. Some even stuck around and joined us. One gentleman left work after a fellow worker told him about the protest. He said he loved it and had to come and make sure it was true!

The manager at the Citizens Bank next to Fudge's office came out and stated that we were hurting her business by protesting against Fudge. ( I wonder if they got bail out money Though she was dealt with kindly, she was told socialized health care would hurt her bank much more than our protest. Funny that as the bank employees were going for lunch, most gave us a thumbs up and a acknowledging nod of approval.

For the District Fudge represents, I am thrilled with the turn out we had. In fact, I am happier than Obama would be at a Saul Alinsky book club meeting or a Rev. Wright sermon. This S/E area of Cleveland is a democrat stronghold. I really thought we would only get maybe 3 or 4 other people.

For those curious about the content of the Tea Party Patriot Health Care quiz delivered to these tormented electors, you can read it here. Kookcinich, Brown & Fudge were asked to submit their answers back to us no later than Tuesday July 21. They were informed that the answers will be made public. They were informed "no comment" is unacceptable and/or failure to reply would indicate a "refusal to answer."

NOW WHAT?
Now we pick up the phones and work on the Blue Dog Democrats. I called them yesterday and the voicemails of all but one were full. That means we need to call them again, and again and again. We need to fill their voice mails up every day. This will only take about 5-10 minutes of your time.

There are eight “Blue Dog Democrats” who sit on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. If these eight Democrats do not support the terrible House version of the health care bill, we may be able to stop it.
It is CRITICAL to contact them TODAY and make your voice heard.
John Barrow (GA-12) (202) 225-2823
Bart Gordon (TN-06) (202) 225-4231
Baron Hill (IN-09) (202) 225-5315
Jane Harman (CA-36) (202) 225-8220
Jim Matheson (UT-02) (202) 225-3011
Charlie Melancon (LA-03) (202) 225-4031
Mike Ross (AR-04) (202) 225-3772
Zack Space (OH-18) (202) 225-6265
In another twist, we aks you to also contact your congressperson and urge them to put our money where their health is. Ask your congress critter to support HRes. 615.
This resolution states that, "Members who vote in favor of the establishment of a public, Federal Government run health insurance option are urged to forgo their right to participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) and agree to enroll under that public option."

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