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This week on Uprising:

* Democrats Create Final Push for Healthcare
* Black Agenda Report about Kucinich’s Vote on the Healthcare Bill
* Nation’s Leading Scientists and Economists Deliver Urgent Letter on Global Warming
* Coffee, Tea, Democracy? A Look at the Growing Coffee Party USA

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Democrats Create Final Push for Healthcare

Senior House Democrats cobbled together a new bill on healthcare this week, attaching a student aid bill that passed last September to the existing proposed healthcare legislation. The student aid bill, would cut out private lenders from student loan programs altogether. Attaching the bills together allows them to be voted on by a simple majority in the Senate, using a budget reconciliation process. Under reconciliation rules, there can be no filibuster. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the bill will cost $940 billion over ten years, opening the way for a vote on Sunday. As of this program’s recording, the House will consider two versions of the bill: the $875 billion plan that the Senate passed in December and the revised $940 billion measure. If the former is passed, it goes directly to the President desk to be signed. If the revised bill passes, it goes to the Senate for a majority vote. In recent days, the White House has been intensely lobbying House Democrats who have expressed opposition to the bill, while Republicans are still sticking to their tactic of completely opposing any healthbill. Joining us to discuss what’s in the newly revised version of the bill is …

GUEST: Ellen Shaffer, co-director of the California-based Center for Policy Analysis, focusing on health policy.

Find out more at www.centerforpolicyanalysis.org.

Sign a Petition to urge Nancy Pelosi to preserve the Public Option: http://act.boldprogressives.org/cms/sign/petition_pelosi_po/

Black Agenda Report about Kucinich’s Vote on the Healthcare Bill

Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is about Kucinich’s Vote on the Healthcare Bill.

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Nation’s Leading Scientists and Economists Deliver Urgent Letter on Global Warming

An annual Gallup Poll released earlier this month shows an increasing number of Americans are less concerned about the threat of global warming. In the highest numbers since tracking began thirteen years ago, forty-eight percent of those surveyed believed that the dangers posed by the changing climate are exaggerated. Despite a consensus within the scientific community, the Gallup Poll also found that forty-six percent of Americans now believe that scientists are unsure about global warming or think that it is not occurring at all. The general reversal of attitudes charted over the past two years was attributed to the media framing and prominence of, among others, the so-called “Climate Gate,” email story and the blistering snow storms and cold temperatures this winter. Partly in response to the increasingly effective campaign of disinformation against climate science, Nobel Prize-winning scientists and economists delivered a letter on Thursday urging the Senate to immediately address global warming through responsible legislation. More than 2,000 signatories warn that failure to act will be costly both in economic and environmental terms. The letter was delivered to every member of Congress and calls for deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. According to the nation’s leading scientists and economists, limiting the warming of the planet to two degrees Celsius would require the United States to reduce emissions by eighty percent below 2000 levels by 2050. The letter concludes that “There is no time to waste. The most risky thing we can do is nothing.”

GUEST: Kevin Gurney, Professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Purdue University, Member of the Union of Concerned Scientists

Find out more at www.ucsusa.org.

Coffee, Tea, Democracy?

After dumping tea into the Boston Harbor in July of 1773, the Continental Congress decided to declare coffee the national drink of the United States. On January 26th of 2010, a movement called the Coffee Party called for a return to the democratic ideals that had sprung from rebellion. Coffee Party USA began with a Facebook post by documentary-filmmaker Annabel Park. Frustrated by the Tea Party movement’s rabble-rousing antics, Park ranted, “let’s start a coffee party…a smoothie party, red bull party, anything but tea…let’s get together and drink cappuccino and have real political dialogue with substance and compassion.” Before even she could fathom what had happened, Park was the de facto coordinator of a grassroots movement that “aims to reinvigorate the public sphere, drawing from diverse backgrounds and diverse perspectives … to transform our disappointment in our current political system into a force that will return our nation to a course of popular governance, of the People, by the people, and for the people.” However, Park says that she doesn’t want the Coffee Party to be seen as the “anti-Tea Party,” noting that both movements have shared goals. Above all, the movement appears to promote deliberation and dialogue–among community members, with political leaders, and among people of all political stripes. Even some Tea-Partiers joined discussions that took place this past Saturday, March 13th which was declared National Coffee Party Day. Thousands of Americans met in more than 350 coffee shops to express themselves and discuss the local, state, and national issues important to them.

To help understand this very fast growing movement are three organizers from Southern California’s Coffee Party USA:

GUESTS: Eileen Cabiling, writer and producer, Kim Ly, film maker, Will Scoles, student of social work

Find out more at www.coffeepartyusa.org.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.” — Sydney J Harris