Samurai Mom Goes to Washington *Edit*

You might remember how I went to a Washington County Town Hall meeting with Congressman David Wu a while back.

A new video has been edited with different footage from the other camera in the room. The audio is much better.

Congressman Wu meets Samurai Mom from WashCoGOP Oregon on Vimeo.

I am Not Laughing, Congressman

This is the opposite of funny but Congressman Hoyer from Maryland certainly seems to find in humorous. Here is a brief snippet:

"House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it."

Oh, really? Somehow I am not seeing that as a bad thing.

After you read that article and your head explodes, you can listen to this as you are sharpening your pitchforks it will give you some hope at least and let you know who not to attack during revolution. It is 12 minutes long but worth every second.


Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma, a stand up guy in Washington. Can you imagine it? Read more about the bill here.

You may have noticed that there was not a quorum at the time that this speech was delivered. It is probable that your senator didn't hear it. Maybe you should send him the link.

Thanks to Jeanette (whom I will henceforth refer to as "My Friend's Wife") for the Coburn link. It salvaged my afternoon.

Samurai Mom Goes to Washington

...or to the Sherwood Town Hall meeting with Congressman Wu to be precise. The questions were not pre-screened.

Near the end of the meeting I was called on. I reminded the Congressman that he had not answered the gentleman's question about whether or not he had read the "cap and trade" bill before he voted on it. I also reminded him that he had not answered the lady's question as to whether he would commit to reading the health care bill before voting on it. I then said that I would like to know if he read any of the bills passed recently that spent gigantic amounts of money and that I would like to know if he would to commit to reading all future bills before voting on them. Then I said
"As someone that votes and sends you to congress I expect you to read every bill before voting. If you cannot do so or don't have the time I expect you to abstain or vote "no." If you can't do that, if you think that that is to much of a work load then maybe this isn't the job for you."

Wild applause from the audience.

He insisted that he had kept all of his campaign promises over the top of people yelling "Answer her question!" He did not, and I am still waiting for a satisfactory response, Congressman.

I was lucky that he called on me, I owe it all to my youthful and demure appearance Appearances can be deceiving as Congressman Wu found out. He went right back to asking questions of the frail looking elderly who were angry but a little more reserved and less pointed.

After the meeting was over I was congratulated many (20?) times, had my hand shaken repeatedly, was called a patriot and was accused of being just 18!

There were oh, so many other things I wanted to chastise him for but this one is what fit with the meeting. I am amazed that the thoughts came out so calmly, clearly and in order. I didn't lose my head and I didn't call anyone names! I was so angry but I don't think I gave that away in my voice.
The beauty of what I said is that it runs across the board. EVERY voter wants their congressmen to read bills before voting on them. No one but congresspeople think that not reading bills before passing legislation is OK. I realize that it is probably impossible to read every word of every bill. That just makes my point; the bills are too long, too complex, too full of pork and there are too many of them. If people refuse to support a bill until they have read it thoroughly then eventually the "way it is" will change!

As we heard tonight, Congressman David Wu has repeatedly refused to commit to reading bills before voting on them.

***This video will be active shortly, as it turns out it remembered it fairly well, and honestly, people did yell for him to answer my question.***

War Whoop!

Read the story of The Boston Tea Party to the kids today as we addressed envelopes to our senators, representative, Pelosi, Reid and the President. We filled the envelopes with tea bags and did a war whoop as we went out to the mailbox in a line.

Our story was written for children and put emphasis on The Sons of Liberty dressed as Indians and whooping their war whoop. I imagine whooping out to the mailbox in our own little tea party will be a memory that they remember forever.

God Bless America.