It was a long hot August for those who would like to see health care reform, as rabid “Town Hall” protesters proffered visions of public options that would lead to death panels and socialism and government tax collectors with special alien mind control powers that would use sex education and child indoctrination and black helicopters as the means for gay people to impose their dangerous agenda on the innocent, God-fearing citizens of someplace in Mississippi that I’m not likely to ever visit.

Part of the reason that opposition was so rabid was because health care interests were spending millions upon millions of dollars doing…well, doing whatever the opposite of giving a distemper shot to the angry mob might be, anyway.

So wouldn’t it be great if all the CEOs of all those health care interests were to gather at one time and place so you could, shall we say, gently express your own thoughts regarding the issues of reform and public options?

By an amazing coincidence, that’s exactly what’s going to happen Thursday in Washington, DC, as the Patient Centered Primary Care Cooperative (PCPCC) holds its Annual Summit.

Follow along, and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.

The Who, The What

There are two important bits of setting up that are required to make this story work; and the first is to explain who the PCPCC is, exactly. To quote their website:

“The Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative is a coalition of major employers, consumer groups, patient quality organizations, health plans, labor unions, hospitals, clinicians and many others who have joined together to develop and advance the patient centered medical home. The Collaborative has well over 500 members.

The Collaborative believes that, if implemented, the patient centered medical home will improve the health of patients and the viability of the health care delivery system. In order to accomplish our goal, employers, consumers, patients, clinicians and payers have agreed that it is essential to support a better model of compensating clinicians.”

The “patient centered medical home”?

Is that anything like “precious bodily fluids“?

Actually, the original idea was to create a “home” where a patient’s scattered medical records could be gathered. Forty years later, the concept has evolved to a “home doctor” who coordinates all your health and wellness care from all your providers.

This is a huge shift in how care is delivered (and how healthcare dollars would be distributed), which is why the Collaborative has so many members…including seven of the top ten health insurers in the country.

The Why

I’ve been getting emails that tell me CEOs such as Stephen Helmsley of UnitedHealth and Angela Braly of WellPoint (insert booing and hissing here) will be present–and these are the exact people that you should be giving a “Town Hall-like” welcome of their own when they hit Washington.

Groups such as Democracy for America and TrueMajority will be working together to bring people who have been personally affected by the insurance crisis to the meeting–even though we’re not invited inside to support something like, oh, I don’t know…maybe a public option?

They want you to attend as well, to make lots of noise, and to send the message that we won’t be ignored. It’s a critical time in the debate, as there are Democrats yet to be convinced, and if you can be at this meeting it will capture media attention that could help move those Democrats to our positions.

The Where, The When

The event takes place in Washington DC all day Thursday (from 9-4:30) at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, conveniently located at 801 Mount Vernon Place NW; just six blocks from the Executive Office Building and the White House complex…and, on its south side, just 50 feet from K Street, the “Glitter Gulch” of lobbying.

There’s a handy Metro station, and if you walk to the south end of the Convention Center (the Mt. Vernon Square end of the building) you’ll find that the American Federation of Labor occupies a building across the street from the Square on the west side–and National Public Radio occupies a building diagonally across the Square on the east side.

So if you’re planning to be in Washington Thursday–or you’ve been looking for an excuse to visit–make a day of it: stroll by the White House, see lobbyists and unions and National Public Radio at work…and most importantly of all, make sure the CEOs of the health insurers in attendance get the same kind of rousing “Town Hall” welcome at the Convention Center that they spent millions of dollars to create in our own home towns.

In other words, bring Mr. Bullhorn–and the extra batteries.

Of course, I don’t want to make this too much of a hard sell.

After all, it’s not as if your life depends on you attending some–hey, wait a minute…actually, I guess it kind of does.

WASHINGTON (FNS) – In a startling development related to the recent disruptions of town hall meetings, FNS is now able to confirm that the Obama Administration, with the assistance of Unilever Group and Queen Beatrix, both of the Netherlands, PepsiCo, Skull And Bones, and the Bilderberg Group, is unleashing a secret plot to dispatch fleets of unmarked aircraft and helicopters to prevent teabag protesters from having access to teabags.

The goal of the plot: to disrupt protesters’ plans to save America from the destruction of our health care system.

FNS reporters have been following a trail of information that includes airport noise abatement records, classified documents, and the testimony of insiders, some of whom are now willing to be publicly identified.

We’ll begin our story by reporting on three events that occurred the evening of Friday, August 8th.

Residents near the Suffolk Plaza complex in Suffolk, Virginia reported seeing unmarked black helicopters landing in the industrial area just to the east of the Suffolk Golf Course. According to our informant, the helicopters settled in behind the truck parking area of the Unilever/Best Foods distribution center. This facility, in addition to distributing Lipton Tea products, is the largest tea processing plant in the United States.

It’s reported that the helicopters spent nearly five hours loading inventory at the location before departing just before sunrise, and that before they left certain records had been erased from the memories of the Markem SmartLase systems used at the plant to encode lot, packdate, and expiration date data onto boxes of teabags before distribution.

A similar sighting was reported the same evening at another Lipton distribution center, the International Food Solutions facility in Wichita, Kansas. In this case, however, after the helicopters landed an unmarked locomotive and three box cars moved to a position just outside the plant gates. Several forklifts carried pallets out the entrance normally reserved for employee parking to the train, which was located roughly 100 feet north of the driveway on South Water Street.

The loading process took almost seven hours, we are told, after which the helicopters and the train left the area. Security guards at the Pepsi plant across the street reportedly kept plant workers away from the west side of the building during the operation.

The third Lipton distribution center to be hit that evening was the Unilever/Best Foods facility in the City of Industry, California. An eyewitness sighted two helicopters, landing at the very end of Otterbein Street. A few minutes later several unmarked tractor-trailers approached the loading docks. Two hours later, the trucks drove away, heading for the Pomona Freeway.

There are rumors that other facilities were being targeted, but we were unable to obtain official comment from representatives of Unilever/Best Foods, nor from Celestial Seasonings, who operate a processing and distribution facility Boulder. Colorado, nor from R.C. Bigelow, Inc, who process both the “Constant Comment” brand and their line of herbal teas from their Boise, Idaho location.

We were able to obtain noise abatement records from the Ontario International Airport and the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport that confirm that aircraft were operating at the times reported by our informants, and that no other air traffic was operating in the area at that time.

Who is organizing all this? That information was recently provided to us by an informant who has only recently agreed to come forward. Harry Paratestes is an Assistant Program Manager who was previously employed by FEMA but now works for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management (ASAM) at the Department of Health and Human Services:

“I was assigned to the ASAM Program Support Center (PSC) in March, after the Tax Day protests. The ASAM PSC is a clandestine office that was charged with coordinating with another clandestine office (the Administrative Services Division of the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis), the HHS Office of Global Health Affairs, FEMA, and the White House to shut down any efforts by citizens to prevent the Obama Administration from socializing the larger American economy; and we had finalized the plans that were used Friday night in early June.

From the beginning we were aware of the powerful impact of the Tea Party protests, and we knew we would have to block access to those tea bags if we were going to nip this in the bud.”

Who stands to profit from all of this?

There are rumors that Queen Beatrix and members of the Bilderberg Group hold enormous investments in Sanofi-Aventis, AstraZeneca, and Hoffmann-La Roche, three of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, and that the Queen influenced Netherlands-based Unilever to cooperate.

In addition, confidential sources have reported to us that during President Obama’s spring visit to Europe he was offered membership in the Bilderberg Group, as well as a multimillion-dollar “recruitment package”, in a late-night meeting at the US Embassy in Paris (along with agreements to allow “rendition” of Tea Party protesters to secret French tropical prisons if necessary) in return for guarantees of future access to the US market on favorable terms.

To summarize: so far we have been able to substantiate that the President has ordered secret seizures of a major portion of the national tea bag supply in just one night, that the plan is part of a larger Federal program to shut down the Tea Party protests, that France has agreed to accept “renditioned” Tea Party protesters, and the this President has agreed to join the Bilderberg Group as part of his plan to “internationalize” American health care.

The best advice we can offer to patriotic Americans is to immediately purchase any remaining tea bags at your local grocery store and to make the purchases in cash, in case Government agents use Federal Reserve Bank records to direct FEMA agents in their future home seizures of the tea bags—and Tea Party protesters.

The long, lazy days of summer are upon us, and it’s time to have a little fun—but it’s also a great opportunity to volunteer a bit of spare time for a good cause.

So imagine how cool it would be if you could combine the two…and even better, do it in a way that doesn’t take a bite out of your wallet…and even better yet, if it was something you and the kids could do together.

Imagine no more, because it has been done; which is why today we are going to be talking about lead in the soil of New Orleans, Operation Paydirt…and Fundred Dollar Bills.

So here’s what’s up: in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina all sorts of specialists went to New Orleans to see how they might help. Among those were environmental artist Mel Chin (who had previously participated in the GALA Committee’s project to “sneak” original works of conceptual art into the show “Melrose Place”).

Chin studied the community, and came to the conclusion that a huge problem existed that had nothing to do with Katrina: lead had contaminated the soil…and it was collecting in the blood of the children living there.

This is not good: lead poisoning in children has been linked to anemia, permanent nerve damage, mental retardation…and behavioral disorders that can result, literally, in a life of crime.

As it turns out, lead had been accumulating since the 1920s, either as lead paint scrapings or paint dust had fallen to earth or as the exhaust smoke from automobiles burning leaded gasoline settled to the ground. (It’s estimated that every year as much as five tons of lead were deposited in New Orleans’ soil as a result of the volume of vehicle traffic before leaded gasoline was banned.)

Hotspots exist throughout the city, but the worst contamination is to be found in the city’s Uptown, Downtown, and French Quarter Districts, with levels as high as 1200 parts per million (ppm) reported in some soil samples (levels below 150 ppm are considered “lead-free”).

The Department of Health and Human Service’s Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry reports that in 1993 nearly half of the city’s children (44%) were designated as “lead poisoned” by virtue of having blood lead levels above 10 micrograms per deciliter (ug/dL). 14% of the children tested had levels above 20 ug/dL, double the “not poisoned” standard.

“The disaster was in the soil before the disaster.”

–Mel Chin, March 2008

Are you thinking “I’m glad that’s not my city’s problem?” Are you sure about that? Boston, Baltimore, and Minneapolis/St. Paul are among the many US cities known to have serious contamination issues. (The locations most likely to be affected are older cities with higher traffic volumes.)

Until now, no one has been willing to provide the money to get a cleanup underway…and that’s where Mel Chin—and you, Gentle Reader—come into the picture.

Chin has begun a project that seeks to gather 3,000,000 “signatures”, if you will, to an “art petition” that he intends to present to Congress this fall in an effort to shake the money loose.

Art petition, you say?

That’s exactly correct: Chin wants you to create what he calls “Fundred Dollar Bills”, which are made from blank “templates” that resemble US $ 100 bills. You, the kids, and more or less 3,000,000 of your closest friends do your part by first downloading and then filling in the templates with designs, drawings, personal statements…pretty much any darn thing you can fit into a seven by four inch space…and then returning the completed bills to the nearest collection center.

The bills will be collected and transported to Washington, DC. Chin hopes to “exchange” the $300,000,000 represented by the Fundreds for $300,000,000 in real live Congressional appropriations to start the cleanup process in New Orleans (“Operation Paydirt”, as he’s calling it).

This had been promoted, in a big way, as a classroom project, and lots of schools and arts organizations around the country are joining in the effort.

“…we’re asking children [to produce the art] not because we want to use them, but they are the most affected by lead, and they have a right to have some expression in this.”

–Mel Chin, March 2008

The pickups are scheduled to begin in November, which means it’s time to get out the crayons, or gel pens (or, if you really take your conceptual art seriously, a garden pond pump, bucket, hose, sprinkler, and several colors of acrylic paint; the idea being to create the perfect Jackson Pollock effect), design some Fundreds, and let’s see if we can’t help make lives better for some kids that have been dealing with this for so long that some of them are today collecting Social Security.

So how about that?

A project that seeks money to clean up soil that is causing brain damage to the kids of New Orleans…money that, as far as I can see, is the truest form of “stimulus spending” there could ever be…and you get to help create the art petition that could really make a difference in deciding whether this happens or not.

All in all, that’s a pretty good way to spend a lazy summer day.

It has not been my practice to engage in a great deal of self-promotion in this space, but I’m going to make an exception today…which means you are hereby warned that a commercial lies ahead.

I promise I won’t be asking for your money, only for a couple of minutes of your time.

What are we selling?

Your friendly fake consultant is competing for a scholarship to the Netroots Nation Convention this August in Pittsburgh…and I’m looking for your support.

“Things are more like they are now than they have ever been.”

–President Gerald Ford

What is Netroots Nation?

To put it simply, it’s the annual gathering of Progressive bloggers…and those who seek to reach them…and those who help make the Progressive movement happen. The meetings were originally incarnated as YearlyKos in ’06, but by the ’08 event in Austin, the name had changed to Netroots Nation; the Nation having grown into a partnership that now includes the Democracy for America community among its members.

Attendees last year heard from General Wesley Clark, some guy named Howard Dean (who I understand had been registering voters in Crawford, Texas, earlier that same day…which I assume was why they invited him to speak), and Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi, who shared the stage for their presentation.

Panels included “Growing the American Dream Movement” with David Bonior, Markos Moulitas and Harold Ford’s “Keynote Discussion on Party Infrastructure”, and “Energizing America: Setting an Agenda for Progress”, which featured former mayor, and now Alaska Senator, Mark Begich, former Speaker of the Oregon House, and now Oregon Senator, Jeff Merkley, and one of my favorite bloggers, A Siegel, who publishes the “Get Energy Smart! NOW!!!” blog.

As they did last year, the Netroots Nation community is awarding 30 scholarships to bloggers and Progressive activists—and I would like to convince them to award one to me.

And that’s where you come in.

The fine folks at Democracy for America have posted pages with information about all the candidates for scholarships, along with pages that allow you to see the information about each candidate (and where you can, for the first time ever, see my actual picture), and also allow you to “voice your support”.

I would very much appreciate it if you would swing by the site and say a few nice words about the blog, or whatever other supportive words might come to mind.

You need to be registered at Democracy for America to offer support, and this is a great time to get involved over there if you’re not already…so, register, already (and yes, it’s free…).

“One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president, and that one word is ‘to be prepared’.”

–Vice President Dan Quayle; December 6, 1989

So what’s in it for you?

For starters, we hope to make these conversations better by reaching out more directly to the people who are the source of our news…and with any luck, we can make contacts at the Convention that help make that possible.

Beyond that, signing up at Democracy for America will get you access to the most excellent “DFA Night School” archive, which is created from an ongoing series of practical political training classes, the most recent of which was “Building a Better County Party”, held just a day or so ago…which, if you watch the videos, will make you a smarter activist.

Finally, you’ll get a chance to find out about what happens at Netroots Nation not just from the inside…but from your very own fake consultant’s “just slightly skewed” inside view of the thing.

So there it is: I’m a candidate for one of the Netroots Nation scholarships, you can offer your support at the Democracy for America website (and it won’t cost you a dime), and by signing up at Democracy for America you can get access to lots of practical, professional, political education…that also won’t cost you a dime.

And with that, we thank you for your time and attention…and we return you to your regular programming, already in progress.