FEMA Trailers Sit Empty in Hope, Arkansas Airport

[Note: This is a cross-posting from Turn Maine Blue.]

by: Spud1
Fri Nov 30, 2007 at 10:23:45 AM EST

It's been over two years since hurricane Katrina hit Lousianna and Mississippi, and the subsequent levee failures that inundated low lying parts of New Orleans. Through FEMA, the Fed ordered temporary housing in the form of mobile homes and travel trailers, but some never made it to their intended destination, and still sit in a staging area at the airport in Hope, Arkansas.

Did I write "some?" I meant to write eighteen thousand. While some evacuees from New Orleans still do not have even temporary housing, a total of 18,000 have been sitting empty for two years, units that cost the Fed $418 million (the Fed also spent $4.5 million preparing the site to store them).

You're invited!

We're planning a big Open House bash for next Friday, December 7, from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM at our campaign headquarters, 567 Congress Street in Portland. Chellie will be there (of course!) and so will the campaign staff and many volunteers. Please stop by and say hello. To RSVP, click here.

The Open House coincides with December's First Friday Art Walk. Since we're located in the arts district, this is a great time to visit the open studios and galleries celebrating the fantastic array of artistic talent in Portland. Go to http://www.firstfridayartwalk.com/ to learn more about this monthly event.

Here's a photo of state representative Cynthia Dill decorating the windows at headquarters in preparation for the Open House.

In Iraq Now and Forever?

Pull-out day from Iraq has been postponed again. The day before yesterday (November 26, 2007) the White House announced it would begin negotiations for what amounts to a permanent American military establishment in that wounded and bleeding nation.

All particulars are shrouded in secrecy, as is the way with President Bush. According to the President it is the Iraqis who are imploring us to stay, though every public opinion poll taken there shows the exact opposite. Nevertheless, Mr. Bush says that Iraqi politicians "understand that their success will require U.S. political, economic, and security engagement that extends beyond my presidency. These Iraqi leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America. And we are ready to begin building that relationship - in a way that protects our interests in the region and requires many fewer American troops."

Note to Congress: Subpoena McClellan

Are Scott McClellan's soon to be published words (already leaked by his publisher) going to be the beginning of the end for the president? If they are true, they should be. Here is what he said, according to the New York Times:

bq. In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby were ''not involved'' in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.

''There was one problem. It was not true,'' McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. ''I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself.''

The president promised, way back in 2003, that anyone in his administration who took part in the leak of Plame's name would be fired. He neglected to mention that, according to McClellan, he was one of those people. And needless to say, he didn't fire himself. Instead, he fired no one, stonewalled the press and the federal prosecutor in charge of the case, and lied through his teeth.

The American people should not have to learn the details of this offense on the website of a book publisher. It is not the responsibility of that publisher (who, after all, is just trying to sell books before Bush is out of office and McClellan is just another Republican flack out of a job) to tell us the truth. That responsibility lies with this administration, the people that committed the offense to begin with.

The judiciary committees should hold hearings immediately, subpoena McClellan, and demand that he testify under oath about the betrayal of Valerie Plame's identity. Congress must act! That it has taken so long to find out the truth is a sad reflection on our democracy.

If what McClellan says is true (and after his willingness to lie to the press, who knows...), it will call into question the legitimacy of the entire administration. And we may see a changing of the guard at the White House sooner than expected.

(I cross-posted this on The Huffington Post last night, and John Nichols referenced my post in his on The Nation blog, Will McClellan Be John Dean to Bush's Richard Nixon?)

New website, great article

There's a new Maine political website/blog worth checking out: PolitickerME.com. Writer Jessica Alaimo has written a very comprehensive article about Chellie and Hannah Pingree, Small island, big names: How North Haven produced two prominent politicians . You can find it here.

Sign our petition: No More Iraqs

Are you worried that President Bush will launch a surprise attack on Iran? Every day the administration's rhetoric makes it seem like they're just counting the days until they give Tehran the "Baghdad treatment." Sign on to our petition demanding that Bush seek explicit congressional approval for any attack on Iran.

Many fear that the increasing rhetoric coming from the Bush administration about taking aggressive action in Iran suggests that we are headed, once again, toward actions that we Americans don't want taken in our name.

Congress must fulfill its responsibility to those who have served our country

Veterans' Day is important -- a time to honor our veterans and focus on all that we owe them -- but I believe we shouldn't limit our appreciation for our veterans' accomplishments and sacrifices to one day out of the year. Here are some sobering facts that I carry in my mind day in and day out as I think about Congress and its responsibility to veterans -- particularly Maine veterans.

Veterans make up nearly 16 percent of Maine's civilian population over age 18 -- that's 154,000 men and women. The percentage of veterans in Maine's population is the fifth highest in the country. About 25 percent of Maine's veterans get their health care from the VA, and officials expect the enrollment of Maine veterans in VA health care to grow by ten percent over the next five years. Many soldiers are returning from the Middle East with severe injuries and high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder. Currently, Maine's VA expenditure per patient is about $800 less than the national average. The Bush administration has consistently vetoed attempts to raise the amount of federal dollars spent on veterans, but the U.S. House just passed a bill with the biggest increase in funding for the VA in history -- $6.6 billion more than was allocated in 2007. I certainly hope this increase will be signed into law.

Currently, there are more than 700 Mainers on active duty service in Iraq. Each of them is a son or daughter, and many of them are husbands, wives, mothers, or fathers; what happens to them now and in the future will affect many people in Maine and across the country. Congress must ensure that our soldiers receive the support they need while on active duty, but we also need to fulfill our responsibility to them after they come home. We ask the world of them -- it's the least we can do in return.

I hope you'll join me in honoring all veterans and the sacrifices each and everyone of them has made -- both those who are returning from today's ongoing wars and those who have fought for our freedoms in years past -- today and all throughout the year.

An interesting day in Brunswick

I am really grateful to Rep. Stan Gerzofsky for putting together a very informative day in Brunswick -- catching me up with a few people I had met before and introducing me to many new ones. As always, the trip left me looking forward to my next visit to this wonderful community.

I started the day learning more about the role of home health care in a variety of situations, with the wonderful people at CHANS. I am very grateful to Juliana L'Huereux, the executive director of CHANS, and her colleagues for all the time they devoted to filling me in on their current challenges with keeping their essential services going during a time of declining federal funding. They provide an impressive and diverse range of services from supporting ALS patients, hospice care, pediatric patients, and helping with surgery recovery. I am very grateful that they were willing to include me in an actual home health care visit, where I saw firsthand the very important ways that home health care (and in this case, skilled nursing) benefits patients in their recovery. I can't thank the home care nurse and her patient enough for letting me visit and chat with them.

Making sure that homecare and long-term care services are properly funded is essential. By keeping people at home, through home visits, homecare and hospice services, we save the health care system an enormous amount of money and we make patients' lives more positive by allowing them to stay at home. Plus, we save our health care system money when people avoid or reduce their time in long-term care facilities.

Stan also took me to Parkview Hospital to meet Ted Lewis, the president and CEO at Parkview, Sheryl McWilliams, a vice president, as well as Bill McQuaid, Parkview's chief information officer. We discussed their hospital's emphasis on wellness and prevention (among staff as well as patients), and they gave me a tour of the impressive work they have done using technology to make the hospital more efficient.

President Bush has talked a lot about funding electronic medical records as a way to save the health care system money and reduce medical errors. Getting electronic medical records to Maine's non-profit health care providers has significant costs, but huge benefits. I believe that the federal government should step up to the plate on this key technology. So far Bush has been a lot more talk than action on this subject.

We then headed down Maine Street to Grand City, which has one of the old-time lunch counters that you don't see much of anymore. Lunch is a real bargain at Grand City - and very tasty. I know why the place is always filled with lots of great "regulars."

Our other visits for the day included a stop at Pjepscot Terrace, a senior housing complex, and as well as other senior centers and businesses. I ended the day with a tour of the Brunswick Times Record's new facilities. I had time to speak briefly with managing editor Jim McCarthy, along with a few other editors: Robert Long, Chris Cousins, and Beth Brogan, and will look forward to stopping by again as the campaign progresses.

I really appreciated the time Stan spent as my tour guide in Brunswick - he and his mother Molly are embedded deep in the heart of the Democratic party in Brunswick. Their advice is always essential to any candidate and they both care deeply about the community -- and know just about everyone!

Here's the photo of Stan that appears in the Legislature's website:

Health care: we are angry and motivated

I meet and talk to a lot of people every day. While there are a lot of things that people want to discuss -- from the need to end the war now and their worries about the talk of agression in Iran to their frustration with Democrats in Congress -- there is one thing that I hear about everywhere I go and from everyone I talk with: their extreme frustration with health care in our country. Last week, in an email, we asked people to tell us more. While I knew how strongly people felt about this idea, the number of emails we received and personal stories people were willing to share -- reflecting a very broad range of anger and frustration -- were impressive.

When you read through the responses, here is what you will see: virtually everyone has lost patience with the pace of health care reform in Congress. Even if you yourself have adequate health insurance, you feel it is not right that so many people don't. Quite a few of you mentioned that Medicare works well and could be a model....the "Medicare for All," idea. And, growing numbers of people are increasingly pushing candidates and policy makers to talk about single payer health care -- clearly a reflection that people no longer trust that "incremental change will get us where we want need to be -- and need to be -- now."

There are great variety of proposals on the table from the Democratic presidential candidates -- from single payer to all kinds of hybrids. The good news is that there is a war of ideas emerging, and people are letting every politician know that they expect them to do something about this worsening problem. I have to admit that I think we have the best chance to make real changes when people are angry and motivated -- as long as politicians say no to the insurance companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers (and the long list of special interests who don't want to see a change) and get down the the business of change.

I had a lot of experience with these fights when I was a state legislator -- fights that we won -- and I can't wait to do the same in Washington. I believe that if the Democrats are in the White House in 2008 and have the majority in Congress as well and don't solve the health care crisis in this country, we won't deserve to govern in the future. And, I intend to be a part of making that happen.

Maine College Democrats convene

Guest blogged by Cassie Mann, Pingree Campaign Deputy Finance Director

We spent last Saturday afternoon at the Maine College Democrats convention at Bowdoin College. Chellie and the other five candidates all answered questions posed by students, covering a range of topics from the skyrocketing costs of higher education to global warming to the nation's dysfunctional health care system.

One student asked the candidates about their position on the Iraq War and Chellie said, "I was publicly opposed to this war back in 2002 - even though many of my Democratic colleagues and advisors disagreed. Now we find ourselves in a real quagmire. My plan to end the war would include immediate withdrawal of 50,000 troops with a planned pullout of all troops over the next 18 months or less. We should not have a permanent military presence in Iraq--it is too harmful to our international reputation to continue to be viewed as occupiers."

Your comments on health care

When we sent out the email with the poll on Tuesday, we had no idea that so many people would not only answer the poll but also write in the box that asked for "additional comments." These comments are incredibly insightful -- we are thrilled to read them and we want to share them with the world. (If you'd like to add your own comments, go to the poll.) Here they are, in alphabetical order, and unedited except for clarity and to remove personal information:

• A big part of the problem, not always mentioned, is our HEALTH. Improving that is another whole can of worms. I'm sure Chellie knows this.
• An off the scale disaster.
• As a nation, we spend way too much on health care, and it costs way too much for the average self-employed person. The system is broken, and we need a major overhaul.
• As a small business owner, it has been extremely disheartening to see premiums rise 10-40% per year while benefits keep decreasing.
• As someone who has spent a lifetime of research on health care systems (e.g. Health Care Reform Around the World, 2002), I know that we have one of the worst systems in the world if you measure it by infant mortality, percent of population without access to care, inconvenience of utilization or any other measure of service. It is the most successful in generating profits. I have seen our medical care converted from a professional activity to a business with adverse consequences for physicians, nurses, other health occupations and, most of all, patients. It is time that we joined the civilized world in providing universal coverage and a system where the primary concern in patient welfare, not profits.
• At present, I am a senior who has assistance from Medicare and Mainecare. It was Chellie - if I recall correctly-who was instrumental in getting prescription aid for us when she was in the legislature. Bless you.
• can you say single payer?
• Chellie, anything short of a single-payer system related to the approach used virtually all over the world (except here) is, simply put, a fraud on the American public.
• Congress doesn't even have the heart to insure CHILDREN! I can't consider that a "bold" action. What is needed in Washington is a shred of humanity. That that is considered "bold" is a sad statement of just how far we have to go.
• Cut to the chase and work out a single payer system. We can't afford to pay insurance companies a huge amount of money to try and figure out how not to pay. I know a lot of Canadians and NONE of them are complaining.
• Everyone should have Medicare - it works.
• Expand Medicare to everyone, remove subsidies for RX private insurance plans. Provide incentives for those who live healthy lifestyles.
• Go, Chellie, go!