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Scott Murphy: Going covert over health care "reform"?

Submitted by Ironman on Wed, 08/05/2009 - 18:07
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Remember in the spring. Barack Obama was popular and in the NY 20 special election Democrat Scott Murphy and his allies in the press were lambasting Republican Jim Tedisco for being both on the wrong side of the stimulus bill and insufficiently vocal in his opposition to the stimulus bill.

Shoe's on the other foot now.

Murphy holds small-biz roundtable on health care … yesterdayAugust 5, 2009 at 3:35 pm by Casey Seiler

When it comes to announcements of events hosted by congressmen, the past tense isn’t usually the first tense to be used. Politicians are much more likely to alert the public, or at least the media, to events before they happen. But this morning, we received a release headlined CONGRESSMAN MURPHY HOSTED SMALL BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE TO DISCUSS HEALTH CARE REFORM — as opposed to TO HOST or HOSTS.

Since health care is a fairly red-hot topic this summer, we were kind of disappointed to have missed out on Tuesday’s Ballston Spa session, and wondered why it wasn’t included on a schedule of Murphy’s district events sent out by his office last week. That release included a half-dozen groundbreakings, forums and two upcoming “Congress-On-Your-Corner” forums (4 p.m. Friday at the Slate Valley Museum in Granville and 11 a.m. Saturday at the Golden Harvest Farm in Valatie)......

Murphy has taken a middle ground on the White House’s health care proposal, expressing support for substantial reform and the idea of a public option as well as concerns about its impact on the federal deficit. (Murphy’s fiscally cautious side was displayed as well last week in his vote against the $2 billion replenishment of the “Cash for Clunkers” program.)

Now here's real political courage. Hold meetings and announce them to the press AFTER they've occurred.  Why not just use stock photos for your franked newsletter if they are just staged photo ops, Scott?

Then again, maybe this is the way Democratic Congressmen will need to greet their constituents these days.  

http://www.celebritynooz.com/Murray_Langston.aspx

At least MD's Frank Kratovil "took it like a man"  He's the exception. 

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Submitted by FederisF on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 05:50.

Health Care Reform is the most talked topic in the White House theses previous weeks. The citizen’s complaints seem to awaken the government about the issue. Well, aside from that, there is a new talked in the Congress. The Matthew Shepard Act has been stalled in Congress. The Matthew Shepard Act, or the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (or the LLEHCPA - that's a mouthful) is intended to include homosexual persons covered under hate crimes legislation, as they are a minority.  Senator Jeff Sessions, R- Alabama, is trying to get the bill killed by putting on a "poison pill amendment" to extend more unsecured loans for the F22 Raptor program, an unnecessary cost according to the Pentagon.  (They know better than he does in this case.)  Homophobia is running rampant, but it seems civil rights aren't a priority to Sen. Sessions.  It's worth more than pay day loans to pass the Matthew Shepard Act.

Scott Murphy hosted...?

Submitted by lindal51 on Fri, 08/21/2009 - 15:38.

I, too, was disappointed that the press was not invited to Representative Murphy's meeting with small businesses in Saratoga County.  I wonder if this means he is as yet undecided about which elements of the Health Care Reform legislation he will support.  I hope that he got the message from local businesses that a public option, while imperfect, is far superior to Health Insurance Cooperative Organizations, and may be the only way we can achieve universal health care coverage.