by Downtowner, posted on Saturday, February 25th, 2017 at 11:11 pm
This morning between 10:00 a.m. and noon I attended a healthcare rally. It was a little bit different than your standard protest. Rather than standing in one spot, groups of us were assembled on all four corners of Route 64 and Randall Road in St Charles, and when we had walk signals several of us would cross to another corner.
The ability to keep moving was an advantage in keeping our energy up, and in making sure those in cars stopped for the light got a good look at our signs, but it also helped to keep us warm. I had a lot of layers of clothes on, topped with my longest and warmest coat, two hats, two pairs of gloves, and was still freezing. I really think the fact that a couple of hundred of his constituents would spend their Saturday morning freezing to try to a message across would give Randy Hultgren pause for thought.
It was nice to see news crews from the Chicago stations, and photographers from local papers there, but I think the most encouraging part were the honks of support from passing motorists. They were constant. And I had not previously considered whether the majority of truckers were ACA supporters. Now I’m convinced of it.
Today’s healthcare rally was planned by Indivisible Illinois Congressional District 14…I think. I say that because there are so many of these groups mushrooming up that when I attended a meeting for Indivisible Fox Valley last week there were people there from two other groups and at one point we were discussing coordinating between the groups and it was decided that someone would first have to make a chart to figure them all out. And all of the groups I’m aware of have future rallies and protests planned. All of them.
I’ve named just two of the groups that I’ve interacted with in this post, but I know there are more, and I keep running into people I know, but not from any previous political effort of mine. Today I ran into a former co-worker. Last week I dog-sat for my downstairs neighbor so she could go to a rally at Trump’s place in Chicago.
I really don’t think these Republican constituent dodgers have any idea what they are up against. Their bubbles are thick indeed.
by Downtowner, posted on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2017 at 6:24 pm
Not that long ago I wrote about my Congressman’s attempts to kill me. Since then I’ve joined in an ongoing game of “Where’s Randy?” with many — oh, so many — of my fellow residents of IL-14. We’ve been calling his office, we’ve been visiting his office, we’ve been relentlessly commenting on his Facebook page with several concerns, but one unified message: When’s your town hall Randy?
There has been a deafening silence in response to all of our Facebook pleas for a town hall. Our calls to his office have yielded an array of answers from “no news on a town hall yet,” to “we’re looking for a venue, just let me take your name and number and we’ll get back to you when it’s scheduled,” to (and I am NOT making this up) “he’s leaving the country.”
Just now Randy the Elusive took the cowardly step of posting a recorded video to his Facebook page saying “I’m answering your most pressing healthcare questions from your recent phone calls, emails and meetings with me. Take a look.”
Yes indeed, please do take a look at the soon to be former Congressman Randy Hultgren reading cherry-picked letters and spouting vague talking points.
Guess Randy will be back from Africa by then. We are working on a way to, er, greet Randy appropriately without disrupting this event for the Veterans attending, so if you think you can make it, please say so in a comment, or message me and I’ll respond with information about that.
Meanwhile, beyond spreading word of Randy’s cowardice I’m at a loss for how to get him to face his constituents, so any suggestions would be welcome.
by Ellen McClennan, posted on Saturday, October 12th, 2013 at 6:25 pm
By now, it is quite clear Randy Hultgren has aligned himself with the far right wing Republican contingent responsible for shutting down our government and threatening the debt ceiling crisis. Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer has actually termed Hultgren and his contingent of about 79 other representatives as the “suicide caucus.”
Hultgren and the rest of the Republican politicians known as the “suicide caucus” are called that because they signed Republican Mark Meadows’ letter, known as The Meadows Letter, which demands that House Speaker Boehner pass legislation to defund the Patient’s Rights and Affordability Care Act (ACA–Obamacare) and to commit to defund the ACA by using the continuing resolution to fund the government. In other words, shut down our government.
by Ellen McClennan, posted on Sunday, September 29th, 2013 at 9:00 am
We can’t afford to keep Randy Hultgren and Peter Roskam in office any longer. They continue to waste our taxpayer money in vain attempts, 42 at last count, to end the Affordable Care Act. Each Hultgren and Roskam attempt to defund the law, which was enacted by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court, costs us taxpayers (according to research by CBS) approximately $1.45 million.
Hultgren and Roskam join with the rest of the House Republicans in collectively spending 15% of its activity since 2011 on repealing the ACA (Obamacare), or about $17 million in Congressional Republican salaries– according to a recent report published by the New York Times.
When considering all the facts, it becomes quite clear that the Republican temper-tantrum over the ACA is nothing more than them serving the financial services industry–their primary campaign donors–rather than any concern about American people.
by Ellen McClennan, posted on Saturday, August 24th, 2013 at 11:57 am
For a politician claiming to value fiscal responsibility, 14th Congressional Representative Randy Hultgren certainly has wasted a lot of our money.
Hultgren has voted with the rest of his Tea Party coalition to repeal Obamacare 40 times. According to a recent CBS study, each Republican vote to repeal costs all of us American taxpayers $1.45 million—for a total of about $58 million.
Question: Why would Hultgren be so focused on wasting our money to repeal a law voted in by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court?
Answer: Hultgren’s largest campaign donors come from the Securities and Investment (i.e. Insurance) industry. Check it out at OpenSecrets.org. Hultgren is protecting Insurance CEO’s paychecks at the same time he is attempting to take insurance coverage away from those who need it and billing American taxpayers millions for his efforts.
Question: So what’s so bad about Obamacare that the financial services industry wants to repeal it? After all, Obamacare just delivered millions more people into their coffers.
Answer: Obamacare restricts the profit insurance companies can make.
National Coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program and newest member of Progressive Democrats of America’s Advisory Board, speaks to PDA IL on the future of single payer and building a strong progressive movement.
As the corporate media covers every move made by Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney and Democratic incumbent Barack Obama, we go to Baltimore to cover the Green Party 2012 National Convention. “We need big solutions, you know, not solutions around the margins. We really need to end unemployment, we need to put 25 million people back to work with good paying jobs,” says presumptive presidential nominee Dr. Jill Stein, who is running on a platform called “the Green New Deal” that emphasizes economic justice, tough financial regulation, the repeal of Citizens United and a transition to a “green economy.” The Green Party expects to be on the 2012 ballot in at least 45 states and plans to spend approximately $1 million on its campaign. Stein is the party’s first candidate to independently qualify for federal matching funds, a milestone for this 11-year-old third party.
“Yeah, that one,” he responded. “I sent that piece to my neighbor who voted for Hultgren because he is a Christian. I thought she would see this as the betrayal of Christian morals it actually is.”
“But she didn’t see it that way, Ellen. I don’t get it,” he continued. “Didn’t we learn the Golden Rule? You know, do onto others as you would have them do onto you?”
by Ellen McClennan, posted on Thursday, June 28th, 2012 at 7:01 am
“I have a job and I have health insurance,” Representative Hultgren (R IL-14) said, and then paused for a moment proudly emphasizing the Republican spin talking point that when one has a job, one automatically has health insurance. It’s as if life is that simple. If you work, the spin goes, you have insurance. He was attempting to say that if we have jobs, we don’t need a national health insurance plan. We don’t need “Obamacare.”
The subtle part of this ‘argument’ is that not only is it flawed logically, it blames the victim. If you don’t have insurance, it’s because you don’t have a job. A job will furnish good insurance. And if you don’t have a job, it’s because you’re either not looking, or—to serve the Republican spin even further—it’s because Obama won’t do what the Republicans want so people can have jobs. So therefore, we can all blame Obama.
But this time his audience at the Oswego Town Hall meeting was not buying it as I noticed they have in the past. No one applauded. No one said, “Yeah!” There was silence as Hultgren paused and looked around for support he did not get.