Thanks and thoughts

Some follow-up to yesterday's post. Please email Ed Schultz at his radio or TV show to say thank you, he's approaching this crisis as though it was his own family seeking help. You can also tweet him at @wegoted, @edshow.

I had a chance to review Rep. Alan Grayson from two nights ago. I hoped the 99ers would get an advocate on their behalf similar to Alan Grayson for health care reform. Sure enough someone claimed that mantel: Rep. Alan Grayson. Why can't anyone else be Grayson? Is he the only Democratic in the house with heart, soul and guts?

A friend suggests that Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Jim McDermott are amongst the most likely to champion additional unemployment extensions. Please contact either or both (especially if you are a constituent) to urge their vigorous participation. For anyone without benefits for months, patience is poison and action is everything.

Please participate in the "Send a Shoe to Washington" Campaign. There are so many in danger of losing everything. A coordinated campaign makes us newsworthy, which generates press. News coverage guarantees the 99ers will not be ignored.

Finally, thanks to Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Olympia Snowe. It takes strength and courage to buck your party. Still, part of me has to ask, $25? It took $25 per family per week to get this going? Is that what it takes to get this going? $25? Now my family has to go to Martha's Vineyard for just a week in August. $25? I'll have to suffer with domestic caviar. $25 is $108.33 a month. $108.33 is bread, eggs, milk, peanut butter, jelly, ground beef, noodles, tomato sauce and canned vegetables. Don't worry. We will all figure it out. Sen. Collins, Sen. Snowe and any Democratic Senators that hid behind Sen. Collins and Sen. Snowe, don't consider me ungrateful. I am grateful checks will be out soon. I am grateful to pay my bills. If $25/week was what it took to get these extensions funded, I am grateful it wasn't more. So I am grateful. I am so grateful I could puke.