Roz,

Your comment, "Who changes a phone call to an earlier time two minutes before it is going to be made, and 15 minutes before it was originally scheduled? Eric Swalwell I guess" seems a little unfair. Congressional voting schedules are not fixed in stone, so I would give him a little leeway there. I, too, was expecting a phone call (which seems backwards from any other phone conference I\'ve attended) regarding the telephone town hall, but it never occurred. In talking to Congressman Swalwell\'s Pleasanton office today, they apologized and said the vendor for the phone calls apparently had problems connecting with constituents.

I was looking forward to the phone call, however, I can forgive the lapse. Mr. Swalwell\'s website has a lot of information on it. He also helped a local non-profit that I volunteer for with an IRS issue, so I can give him the benefit of the doubt. I\'ve signed up for his email newsletter and have received several informative pieces from his office. When sending him a petition, I get an acknowledgement. Today\'s hiccup does not make me believe that he does not "deserve" to be there.

mr swalwell is a younger pete stark.

Thank you, PW Reader. I really wanted to give Rep. Swalwell an opportunity to change my mind about him.

Congressional schedules may change and if that happened he should have rescheduled to another day, instead of starting earlier than originally scheduled. That just demonstrates a complete lack of contingency planning and consideration for the people who expected the phone Town Hall to start at 10 am.

So far Swalwell has disappointed me in several areas, but the election is still 9 months away. I'll be waiting for the Phone Town Hall to see if there's more to him than campaigning.

Roz

I awoke at 11:30 today and had a wonderful cup of English tea and boysenberry jam on a whole wheat English muffin. I checked my answering machine and it told me that my cousin called last night from Orono Maine. I'll keep you all apprised. Stay tuned.

I think having to go to the levels of using stock photos really says it all. I just wish politicians would stop being so fake - on both sides of the isle.

Well Roz, I'm not in favor of this type of campaigning whatsoever - you're far more patient than I in this regard. I hope this type of thing "goes by the wayside" as a less than worthy manner in which to communicate during election(s) Not to mention, robocalls as well. Truly pointless, useless and annoying. I think we all realize? Medicare benefits WILL undoubtedly be reduced in future years due to the huge growing demographic of the aging population. For instance, right now I hear they are pretty generous with the allocation for cataract removal, though I fully expect that allowance to be reduced down the line along with other types of generic benefits. It is inevitable if they wish to sustain care a reasonable level of care for all? -That we'll be paying more "out of the pocket" expenses for such surgeries.

Pajamas = Web Link

yum yum plenty!

i mean it!

Ms. Bunny,

I posted this link on my Obamacare vs. Medicare blog, but it fits your comments here too. Web Link

Are Conservatives now so anti-Obama that they prefer "Socialist Medicare" to Conservative-originated Obamacare? Seems so.

Roz

As usual the dems/progressive spout off half truths or lies.

First off, yes, 25 years ago a person at the Heritage Foundation wrote a piece about individual mandate regarding health insurance, but....

1) It wasn't his or the foundations idea. They did not invent the individual mandate.
2) They later withdrew support and changed their position on the individual mandate because of health research and advances in economic analysis.
3) Their mandate wasn't for routine health care, but rather was for catastrophic coverage, emphasising on protecting society from the heavy medical costs of free riders, akin to auto damage liability insurance, so hospitals and taxpayers would not have to foot the bill for the expensive illness or accident of someone who did not buy insurance ? the low cost policies that Obamacare outlaws.
4) The Obama government never bothered obtaining the consent of its citizens before imposing the ObamaCare compact. The Dems, all 100% of them, never read the bill, instead kowtowed to The Obama White House to vote yes on it. Your favorite bay area congresswoman stated they needed to pass the bill to see what was in it. What? Really?

But most importantly, before the bill was passed, the President and democratic leaders LIED to the American people about the bill. (You know what I'm talking about.) And to this day have never acknowledged the lies. And you still believe in these people?

Keep living in your insulated bubble, unfortunately my kids (and their kids) will be paying for your progressive ideas long after your gone.

Ben,

Now that you are done with your rant, who said I believed Obama or that I'm a Democrat?

You want the truth, neither of those things are true. I'm still a registered Republican, not that you need to know that, and I'm still an intelligent pragmatist, which means I support whatever works regardless of which party thought it up.

So far Obamacare doesn't appear to work very well. I've been on Medicare for six years now and it works well for me. I'm hoping Obamacare doesn't mess up what works about Medicare, or that Obamacare can be fixed so that it will work better than it has so far.

And since when does Nancy Pelosi represent the Tri-Valley. This blog is about the guy who does and I don't like him much so far.

Roz

These phone town halls are a sham. It is a concept dreamed up by Nancy Pelosi's staff to ensure that Democrat Congresspersons don't have to take the heat for their constituents. Congressman McNerney started doing these phone town hall meetings after he experienced significant heat in some real town hall meetings. The reason they are a sham is they resort to skullduggery to ensure there are very few people on the call that aren't their supporters. So they do things like changing the time of the call at the last meeting and not calling people they don't want on the call. An example of the latter is once you have registered to be on the town hall call, they check voter registration. If you are a registered Republican, you almost certainly will not be connected to the town hall. As lousy, heinous, and crazy as Pete Stark was, he did at least have the guts to have real town hall meetings.