One Thousand Progressive Activists Gather at the Campaign for America's Future's Take Back the American Dream Conference 2 of 5 >
June 18, 2012--Roger Hickey, of the Campaign for America's Future, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (IL), Molly Katchpole of Rebuild the Dream, and Damon Silvers of the AFL-CIO spoke at the afternoon plenary "Jobs First: Prevent the Fiscal Train Wreck in December."


June 19, 2012--Gloria Totten of Progressive Majority moderates a plenary on "99 Elect: Building Progressive Power in 2012" featuring Howard Dean and Congressman Keith Ellison (MN).  Ellison, who is co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), said progressives need to be "tied together by values, not by charismatic personalities."  Among the issues he addressed were Citizen United, on which he stated that there are 14 different bills to overturn the Supreme Court's ruling.  Rather than supporting a specific piece of legislation he said the CPC has united around a declaration in support of amending the Constitution.  Ellison also spoke to the much anticipated upcoming Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act, stating that progressives need to be "prepared to pounce" if the individual mandate gets thrown out.
While expressing some reservations, Howard Dean pointed out positive aspects of the Affordable Care Act.  Bernie Fetterly and Rebecca Elgie of Ithaca strongly disagreed.  They (and many of those at this conference) favor a single payer system.  Fetterly said the Affordable Care Act is "really a bad health care plan" because it will leave millions uninsured and underinsured.  "He [Obama] took single pay health care off the table," said Fetterly.


June 20, 2012--Activists from a range of groups spoke at the closing plenary "Power--It Takes A Movement."
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