[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Randy Bayne
The Bayne of Blog's California Notes

In a town hall meeting to discuss health care, Assemblymember Alan Nakanishi accused labor of killing health savings account legislation because "they care about the poor who can't afford it." By "it" he means health savings accounts, his pet solution to the health care crisis.

That was about the most substantive thing in an hour long town hall meeting attended by about 40 people in Jackson. Managing to avoid spending too much time on the advertised subject of the town hall, Nakanishi started with a lesson on how a bill becomes a law. As far as I can gather, he was trying to explain how hard it is to get legislation through the system. Granted, it isn't an easy process, but neither should it be.

Copies of four bills on health care that Nakanishi is carrying in the special session were available, but only passing reference was made to them. These four are tailored to express the Republican opinion that health savings accounts are the solution to the health care crisis. This is when he blamed unions, working Californians, for the failure to pass health savings account legislation by saying, "they care about the poor who can't afford it."

by Bill Lackemacher [courtesy of Blog for America]

You Spoke – We Listened!

We’ve responded to feedback we received regarding the movie we chose for our November meeting. Since most people have already seen "An Inconvenient Truth" (and Al Gore has not yet thrown his hat into the Presidential race), we’ve decided to show another film this month. A great film recently became available, and so we’re going to take this opportunity to bring you No End In Sight!

To RSVP and watch a preview, click here:
http://www.dfalink.com/event.php?id=24756

No End In Sight, winner of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize: Documentary, has received incredible reviews. Time Magazine has called the film "Without a doubt the most important film you are likely to see this year," and it is possibly the best reviewed film of the entire year, as you can see from the selection of critic quotes below.

Join us this Wednesday to see for yourself - This film makes a case against Bush’s Iraq policy, even by some of those who helped put those policies into place.

We’ll provide the popcorn and sodas (and coffee, tea and snacks); you provide opinions and discussion!