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Fred Smith Gulf War Veteran in Election Run Against US Representative Bobby Rush 1st CD
Incumbent Rush Challenged by Three in 1st District (Bronzeville)
January 28, 2010
By Susan S. Stevens
Bobby Rush The 1st Congressional District, which forks from Bronzeville to the southwest suburbs, has incumbent U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush being challenged by three opponents: Fred Smith, Harold Bailey, and Joanne Guillemette.
Bobby Rush has represented the district since 1992, voting predominantly the liberal line. He also is the founder and senior pastor at Beloved Community Christian Church at 64th Street and Harvard Avenue. Rush, now 63, had surgery in 2008 to remove a malignant tumor from his salivary gland. A spokeswoman said he is “cancer-free and in very good health.” He lives in Bronzeville.
He is proud of shepherding the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 through to adoption. Rush has sponsored or co-sponsored more than 30 gun control measures since his son was murdered in 1999. In December, he sponsored a measure to establish a minority business development program to provide loan guarantees and other aid to businesses.
He is chairman of the Committee on Energy and of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection. He also is on the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet and is a co-chair of the Congressional Biotech Caucus.
Rush also is the only person to beat Barack Obama in an election — the 2000 Democratic primary for Congress. Rush supported Obama in 2008 over Hillary Clinton. Rush rose to prominence as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Black Panther Party. He later returned to school and earned several degrees including an MA from McCormick Theological Seminary.
Harold Bailey, to run for Congress, took a leave of absence from his post as Central Region manager of the Chicago Park District, where he has worked for 16 years.
Rush “has lost touch with his constituents,” Bailey said. “There is a void, a lack of accessibility. People have to have access to elected officials. People want to know you are listening to them.”
Bailey said that, if elected, he will work constructively toward reducing violence. “I can’t take any more marches or teddy bears and balloons,” Bailey said, in reference to Rush’s involvement with community members marching with balloons and toys to bring attention to violence in the community.
“We can do a lot positively,” he said. “We bailed out banks; why not young people?”
He wants to use federal stimulus money to create jobs focusing on green training. “Green-collar initiatives could get current unemployed workers into jobs that not only will revitalize the middle class, but…make the economy ‘greener,’” Bailey said.
He also wants to increase funding for teachers and teacher training. He called for fuller funding of the No Child Left Behind Act and proposed additional funding for public and charter schools to fulfill the act’s original purpose. Regarding health care, Bailey promised if elected to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health care. He said he will vote in favor of a single-payer and public option health care system to cover the underinsured and uninsured.
His resume includes work for the City of Chicago and the Chicago Public Schools. He grew up in the Washington Park housing development and now lives on the Southwest Side.
Fred Smith, program director at Maryville Academy, which he has worked for 14 years, believes he can bring more prosperity to the First Congressional District. After serving as a paratrooper during Operation Desert Storm, he worked at an agency that helps people overcome drug and alcohol addictions.
He does community service through the Grand Boulevard Federation Safety Net, Balance and Restorative Justice, the Promise Task Force, Fatherhood Initiatives, and Veterans of Foreign Wars.
“Creating jobs is an important aspect of economic development,” Smith said. He wants to make sure the district receives its fair share of tax revenue from Washington to stop increases in property taxes and improve schools and infrastructure. He also wants to provide tax credits to companies that create jobs in the district and envisions creating green jobs, clean energy, and Internet technology.
To halt violence in the district, “I will advocate for the increasing of funding for after school programs, community service providers, and summer programs for our youth. This is an effort to get our youth off the streets and corners and in a more productive setting.”
He wants to find ways to ensure all Americans have access to health care, and he called for a single-payer and public option health care system to cover the underinsured and uninsured.
Smith grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes housing project and currently lives in Evergreen Park. Joanne Guillemette is an attorney who ran unsuccessfully for judge several times. Efforts to reach her have been unsuccessful.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=13005
Posted by Denise Nichols on Feb 1 2010, Filed under Veterans Affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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A LINE IN THE SAND – From jacksmith – WorkingClass
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/01/30/debbie-wasserman-schultz-senators-lied-about-supporting-public-option/
Call your representatives and demand an answer. Do you or don’t you support a public option. Do you or don’t support democratic MAJORITY RULE! We DEMAND! to know.
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/01/21/fixing-health-reform-through-the-reconciliation-sidecar-13-improvements-6-ways-to-save-money-4-important-benefits/
YOU! are dying and suffering needlessly every day http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/27055
http://firedoglake.com/2010/01/21/ma-voters-seek-more-and-faster-change-economy-jobs-top-concern-taxing-health-insurance-very-unpopular-poll-says/
My Fellow Americans and People Of The World
A strong Government-run MEDICARE like Public Option is STILL! CRITICAL!
We have had a long hard struggle to find out what would be the BEST! that this congress and the Whitehouse could do to fix our highly dangerous, poor quality, most costly, and MOST! disgraceful healthcare delivery system in the world. It is clear that congress can do much more for the American people than what is proposed so far.
It is clear that congress can pass a strong GOVERNMENT-run public option CHOICE. Available to everyone on day one. Expand Medicare and not levy any new taxes on workers healthcare benefits and plans. LET THIS BE YOUR LINE IN THE SAND!
Lastly, there can be NO! INDIVIDUAL MANDATES without a strong Government-run MEDICARE like Public Option CHOICE. Or the American people WILL! and SHOULD! revolt with an all out CIVIL WAR against congress and this Government.
House and Senate progressives and the tri-caucuses should aggressively push for the inclusion of a strong Public Option, Medicare expansion, and no new taxes on workers healthcare benefits and plans. If the obstructionist kill meaningful healthcare reform, then you should kill this bill. Because it will be far worse than the healthcare disaster we have now. It’s failure will be on the obstructionist heads. And they will be punished and replaced.
WITHOUT A PUBLIC OPTION CHOICE, THIS BILL WILL KILL FAR MORE AMERICANS THAN IT WILL SAVE.
What is proposed in the Senate bill is the worst case scenario for health-care reform. It would shift trillions of taxpayer, public and private dollars into the hands of the private insurance industry (The single most costly, deadly and dangerous product sold in America). And it would compel by law millions of Americans to financially support this oxymoronic criminal enterprise. You cant have a individual MANDATE WITHOUT A STRONG PUBLIC OPTION CHOICE!
You will have NO! realistic way of controlling cost and quality. Cost will continue soaring through the roof bleeding the American people dry, and KILLing our economy. And our quality of healthcare will continue to decline below our current ranking of “WORST! quality of healthcare delivery in the developed World”.
From the very start, the American people have been crystal clear about what they wanted. They wanted a humane single payer system like the rest of the developed world has (HR676). Or at least a humane strong GOVERNMENT-run public option CHOICE!! This is what the American people gave the democrats control of the house, control of the senate, and control of the Whitehouse to do.
Those of you that can, should prepare now to remove every member of congress that fails to support YOUR healthcare reform with a strong Public Option, Medicare expansion, and no new taxes on workers healthcare benefits and plans. Run against them in teams if you have to. But take them out. And replace them with a strong single payer or PRO PUBLIC OPTION CHOICE candidate.
Now! is the time to bring maximum pressure on your members of congress. Contact your representatives and spread the word.
The Public Option http://tinyurl.com/yfftf76
H1N1 IS A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION!
I have to tell you now that the H1N1 virus is a man-made WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION! and TERROR! It is a WEAPONIZED version of a flu virus. It has swept the planet infecting millions. And causing a global pandemic that has killed tens of thousands, and injured millions.
The H1N1 virus is the product of the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! It was released in the U.S. in Texas in early January of last year, but not recognized until around April 2009 in California. The reason I know this is because when it came to America, it came to see me FIRST! How sweet…
This was around the time the MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! assaulted the Whitehouse with all their devils deals to cripple and weaken YOUR! healthcare reform. Especially your right to have a single payer system like HR676 (Medicare For All) which most of you wanted.
They don’t even want you to have your HUGE!!! compromise position of a strong government-run MEDICARE like Public Option CHOICE. To compete with their DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, MURDEROUS, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT PRODUCT (The single most costly, deadly and dangerous product sold in America).
They also wanted to take away your rights to have your government meet it’s responsibility to use it’s full power to regulate, negotiate, and control drug cost, healthcare cost and quality. Something every other civilized country in the developed World has done for it’s people. Their Greed! moral degeneracy and lack of patriotism knows no bounds.
Many of you will remember that before we knew about H1N1. I posted a open message to the President and Congress warning them to be vigilant about their health, and cautious about any medical advice they received. As I said then “they will not hesitate to try and hurt you”.
The U.S. and the World have been under a BIOLOGICAL TERROR ATTACK! for over a year now. It is CRITICAL that We The People Of The United States take away control of our healthcare system from the GREED DRIVEN MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX!
For our own National security, and the security of the world.
A Strong, government-run, MEDICARE like Public Option CHOICE. Available to everyone on day one, with the full unfettered power of the federal government to regulate, negotiate, and control cost and quality. Would be the most workable way to deal with this global crisis at this time. Including patent suspensions as needed for national security or the greater good.
As an American I invite the peoples of the World to help us fix our healthcare crisis. And bring pressure on our government to meet it’s responsibility to protect global security by controlling, and removing the corrupting influence of GREED and the PRIVATE FOR PROFIT motivations from healthcare in the U.S. and around the World.
I call on the governments of the World and the global intelligence community to track down these MASS MURDERERS, and bring them to justice. CONNECT THE DOTS! And be vigilant that they don’t slip in another viral strain on you under the cloak of H1N1 sequestration.
Further, the proposed patent protection on biologic’s must be stripped from the US bill. And greatly shorten/restricted, or abolished completely. This is a grave danger to humanity and global security.
I think President Obama is doing the best he can at playing the disastrous deck of cards he inherited from the previous administration. And I think he is doing an excellent job. But the wolves and devils of the medical industrial complex! are trying to exploit, and take advantage of his good heart, and desperate desire to help suffering Americans. But we must be strong and insist that healthcare reform be done right for the American people. Or everyone loose’s.
This is all I can say in a message post. I’ll try to find a way to tell you more later.
God Bless You My Fellow Human Beings
jacksmith – Working Class
p.s. The so-called nominal H1N1 virus is designed in such a way as to make it more lethal to children and young adults. The medical community must be more vigilant of secondary bacterial infections in the young caused by H1N1. And remember, a viral infection is also a transfer of genetic code to you. Think about it, and be vigilant.
Fred Smith, appears to be the far best of a poor bunch.
Keep going man. Tom 1st Cav Vet, Houston, Texas