May, 08 2009, 11:03am EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Mike Hersh, PDA Communications Director,mike@pdamerica.org,Alan Minksy, PDA Executive Director:,alan@pdamerica.org
Nurses at Forefront of Lobby Day and Rally for Single-Payer
WASHINGTON
A National Lobby Day and Rally for Single-Payer Healthcare
will be held May 13 in Washington, DC, spearheaded by the California
Nurses Association, PDA and the Leadership Council for Guaranteed
Healthcare.
The day will feature a noon
rally at Upper Senate Park near Union Station and lobbying visits to
the offices of individual lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Leading the charge
on the Hill will be 500 nurses.
"We're
going to deliver the single-payer message loud and strong for our
legislators to hear," said PDA national director Tim Carpenter.
The
day of action in Washington comes on the heels of PDA's a successful
grassroots Healthcare NOT Warfare tour in support of HR 676, Rep John
Conyers' bill to create a single-payer healthcare system in the U.S.
That week-long series of rallies and town hall events in Arizona and
California culminated with PDA leading the fight to pass a resolution
in support of single-payer healthcare at the California Democratic
Party's annual convention in Sacramento.
The tour was part of a PDA-sponsored National Week of Action for HR 676.
Progressive Democrats of America was founded in 2004 to transform the Democratic Party and U.S. politics by working inside and outside of the party by working to elect empowered progressives and by building the progressive movement in solidarity with with peace, justice, civil rights, environmental, and other reform efforts. For more information about PDA, please see PDAmerica.org.
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As the right-wing majority on the US Supreme Court on Tuesday handed down a 6-3 ruling that campaign finance reform advocates warned would give special interest groups and rich donors yet another way to curry favor with politicians, a new report from government watchdog Public Citizen revealed how "corporate supremacist" groups have already set records for spending in this year's midterm elections.
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Watch:
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Just days after Vice President JD Vance suggested that if Watergate happened today, it would barely make the news, let alone end a presidency, the US Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority on Tuesday embraced the Republican's argument against a 1974 campaign finance rule that Congress passed in response to the seismic scandal.
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