Capitol Area Progressives is dedicated to the development, promotion and implementation of progressive policies and legislation. Capitol Area Progressives advocates progressive issues and candidates at local, state and national levels through a variety of mechanisms: campaign consulting and training; community education and action; grassroots organizing; lobbying; and fundraising. Capitol Area Progressives believes in returning the power of our democracy to our citizens and, as envisaged in our constitution, establishing a government "of the people, by the people and for the people."
CAP Blast!
CAP & SAC PA w/Brad Parker & Ahjamu February 25th details to follow soon
Leaving on a Humanitarian Mission to Haiti with Children’s Hope
Posted by admincathlyn on 02/04 at 09:33 PM
Dear friends,
As many of you know, I am headed to Haiti with my friends and colleagues, Leisa and Paul and six other volunteers. We are part of an organization called Children’s Hope, a local organization, based in Cameron Park, CA (Leisa is the founder and Executive Director). We were due to leave Thursday, Jan 28th, but our trip has been delayed until next Thursday, February 4th. This will give us more time to purchase medical supplies, medicines and tarps (the rainy season begins in 9 days). Many of you have asked me “what is Children’s Hope, who are Leisa and Paul and how can I help?” I’ve attached a few links and info for you below.
For those of you who have been so kind to donate money, thank you from the bottom of my heart. 100% of the money will go towards medicine or much needed supplies. All of us are volunteers. We are paying for our own plane tickets and all of our own expenses. There is no overhead in anything Children’s Hope does.
If you would like to donate money to help Children’s Hope purchase desperately needed medicine and supplies to take to Haiti for the next trip on March 29th, you can send a check to Children’s Hope, 3025 Cambridge Road #A, Cameron Park, CA 95682.
Any amount you would be able to contribute would be greatly appreciated.
I feel privileged to be able to go on this humanitarian mission and I’m honored to be able to go with such a good group of people.
With much gratitude and love,
Cathlyn
President, Capitol Area Progressives
LOOK FOR POSTS HERE ON THE CAP WEBSITE - I WILL TRY TO POST FROM HAITI
Below are snipits of Leisa’s recent Haiti Journal posted in California’s National Organization for Women
http://www.canow.org/
This series of guest posts is written by Leisa Faulkner, founder of Children’s Hope.
Haiti Journal #4: Carrying Babies Out of Haiti
The following post was written on January 20th.
There is so much to tell...latest news first:
We aren’t sure we are coming home yet.
Not five minutes off the small plane last night from the Dominican Republic (story next time), we were asked to go back into Haiti to hand-carry out babies that need transport. Paul turned to me ans said, “I guess you want to go do that”.
I nodded. He said he couldn’t let me go back alone. We are waiting for details now.
We are emotionally on over-load. As Doctor Jim Morgan confided in me yesterday in Cite Soleil, the transition between depression and manic doesn’t seem to happen in these conditions, they just exist together. He had seen between 45-50 amputations in two days at the bigger hospitals where he pulls two and three shifts. Dr Joey said that yesterday was the first 24 hour period without “after-shocks”. Everything is a shock in Haiti, even for those of us who have been going in for years.
Continue reading “Haiti Journal #4: Carrying Babies Out of Haiti” »
Haiti Journal #3: Arrival
The following post was written on January 17th.
We got in!
What a relief! And the miracles keep happening. Neil Kopple, (yes, a relation) donated his time, his jet and his bagels to the cause. After “Clean The World“‘s Shawn Seiple connected us with Neil, a humanitarian/benefactor who generously flew us into the U.S. Air Force controlled Port au Prince airport, then handed us bag after bag of fresh bagels and cream cheese.
The tower was down, the terminal in shambles and coated with a layer of water, and yet things ran with amazing success and a chaotic sort of precision. Though there was a moment just before landing that our co-pilot (Paul Burke) later reported to us that we lost audio connection with ground control.
The Obama administration has announced it won’t sign an international convention banning land mines. This is the first time the Obama administration has publicly disclosed its position on the Mine Ban Treaty, which bans the use, stockpiling, production or transfer of antipersonnel mines. We speak to Stephen Goose of Human Rights Watch’s arms division and a co-founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which received the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.
NEW YORK, 23 Nov (IPS) - With the health care debate preoccupying the mainstream media, it has gone virtually unreported that the Barack Obama administration is quietly supporting renewal of provisions of the George W. Bush-era USA Patriot Act that civil libertarians say infringe on basic freedoms.
And it is reportedly doing so over the objections of some prominent Democrats.
When a panicky Congress passed the act 45 days after the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, three contentious parts of the law were scheduled to expire at the end of next month, and opponents of these sections have been pushing Congress to substitute new provisions with substantially strengthened civil liberties protections.
But with the apparent approval of the Obama White House and a number of Republicans – and over the objections of liberal Senate Democrats including Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Dick Durbin of Illinois – the Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to extend the three provisions with only minor changes.
Those provisions would leave unaltered the power of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to seize records and to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mail in the course of counterterrorism investigations.
The parts of the act due to expire on Dec. 31 deal with:
Testimony of Wendell Potter, Philadelphia, PA Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
June 24, 2009
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to be here this afternoon. My name is Wendell Potter and for 20 years, I worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies, and I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick — all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.
I know from personal experience that members of Congress and the public have good reason to question the honesty and trustworthiness of the insurance industry. Insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and they make it nearly impossible to understand — or even to obtain — information we need. As you hold hearings and discuss legislative proposals over the coming weeks, I encourage you to look very closely at the role for-profit insurance companies play in making our health care system both the most expensive and one of the most dysfunctional in the world. I hope you get a real sense of what life would be like for most of us if the kind of so-called reform the insurers are lobbying for is enacted.
When I left my job as head of corporate communications for one of the country’s largest insurers, I did not intend to go public as a former insider. However, it recently became abundantly clear to me that the industry’s charm offensive — which is the most visible part of duplicitous and well-financed PR and lobbying campaigns — may well shape reform in a way that benefits Wall Street far more than average Americans.
A few months after I joined the health insurer CIGNA Corp. in 1993, just as the last national health care reform debate was underway, the president of CIGNA’s health care division was one of three industry executives who came here to assure members of Congress that they would help lawmakers pass meaningful reform. While they expressed concerns about some of President Clinton’s proposals, they said they enthusiastically supported several specific goals.
Call for Action from the Hmong Community in Sacramento
Posted by admincathlyn on 05/30 at 10:05 AM
Dear Friends,
Doctors without Borders has pulled out of Thailand leaving 5,000 Hmong hopeless, starving, dehydrated and ill. Please spread the word to your families, friends, and neighbors and ask them to call the White House to pressure the Thai government to stop the humanitarian crisis, to stop the forced repatriation and resettlement of the Hmong to third countries.
Our Hmong familiies are in desperate need of help from the International Community.
The calling campaign will start on Monday June 1 to Friday June 5, 2009. Our goal is to deliver at least 500-1000 messages to the White House so they will pay attention to the crisis in Thailand.
Below (click on the link “read more") is the phone script and phone # to the White House. Also listed below (click on the link “read more") is the Press Release from Doctors Without Borders reaching out to the International Community for help for the Hmong in Thailand. Our fellow Hmong brothers and sisters deserve respect and dignity here and abroad.
Please help the Hmong community and their families who live in Thailand and Laos by calling the White House this week. Thank you for any help you can provide. It will be sincerely appreciated.
GOP Wastes No Time In Embracing Frank Luntz’s Vapid ‘Patient-Doctor’ Health Care Rhetoric
Posted by admincathlyn on 05/07 at 10:54 PM
Earlier this week, a memo written by right-wing message guru Frank Luntz was leaked instructing the Republican Party on how to frame the health care debate in order to defeat progressive reform. Since his pivotal role in helping craft Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, Luntz has had an impressive record of cloaking regressive and conservative policies with carefully poll-tested language. For instance, Luntz is credited with persuading Republicans to use the intentionally misleading term “death tax” to describe the estate tax.
According to CQ, Republicans are enthusiastically embracing Luntz and his health care memo. At a private workshop organized by the House leadership, Luntz was welcomed with applause and cries of “Welcome home!” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) gushed, “We look to him for how do we express the things that we believe in ways that are effective.”
Luntz’s health care memo urges Republicans to denounce progressive reforms as ideas based upon a “committee of Washington bureaucrats.” The memo then calls for Republicans to strongly emphasize the “protection of the personalized doctor-patient relationship” because this approach allows Americans to believe that the GOP is doing something to “protect and improve something good“:
ThinkProgress compiled a video featuring Rep. Phil Gingrich (R-GA), Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) all embracing the vapid “patient-doctor” talking point in the past 48 hours. Watch it:
As the Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky details, Luntz’s strategy is to “obstruct health reform by ignoring what Obama is actually offering.” In all fairness, Luntz is very candid about his strategy of misdirection. Since Republicans currently have absolutely no plan for reforming health care, Luntz says to avoid projecting a policy plan and instead focus on language that “captures not just what Americans want to see but exactly what they want to hear.”
Indeed, Luntz also provides his polling and language advice to a plethora of health insurance companies.
Gov. Schwarzenegger Declares Swine Flu Emergency in California
Posted by admincathlyn on 04/28 at 02:34 PM
abcnews.com 04/28/09
By ZOE MAGEE, LAUREN COX, KATE BARRETT and DAN CHILDS
Alarmed by the growing number of swine flu cases and the possibility that a California man may have died from the disease, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency today to help deal with the outbreak.
The swine flu virus outbreak spread to two more states and the total number of cases confirmed in the U.S. jumped to 69, health officials said. That figure is expected to keep rising.
“I do expect more cases and expect more states to be affected,” Rear Admiral Dr. Anne Schuchat, interim deputy director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s science and public health program, told a Senate hearing today. “I think we need to be prepared that even if it starts to look a little better, it may get a little worse.”
California has confirmed 13 cases of swine flu, and today it was investigating whether two deaths occurred as a result of the virus. According to Los Angeles County public health official Jonathan Fielding, one of the deaths has been discounted as resulting from swine flu, but the other is still being investigated. If this case is confirmed, it would be the first death in the U.S. attributed to the illness.
Richard Besser, acting director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, declined to comment on the California investigation, but said, “I fully expect we will see deaths from this infection.”
Bachmann: It’s ‘interesting’ that the last swine flu outbreak also occurred under a ‘Democrat President’
During an interview with PajamasTV today, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) falsely claimed that the last swine flu outbreak occurred under “another Democrat President, Jimmy Carter.” Bachmann, however, insisted she was not trying to blame either man for the outbreaks:
BACHMANN: I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under Democrat President Jimmy Carter. And I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it is an interesting coincidence.
The only problem is that the last U.S. outbreak of swine flu did not begin under Carter. Rather, it began in February of 1976, when Republican Gerald Ford was president.
Attention Convention Delegates Re Death Penalty Resolution
Posted by admincathlyn on 04/19 at 03:27 PM
04/19/09
Dear Convention Delegate
Over the past 20 years, four or five resolutions have passed in favor of eliminating the death penalty in California. The normal progress of issues is from Resolutions, to Platform, to Legislative action. Nonetheless, this specific class of resolutions has consistently died after passage.
For many years we have tried to get opposition to the death penalty into the CDP platform, reflecting the stated position of a long string of conventions, but have been stymied at every turn.
I understand that there are those who still support the death penalty, but it is the opinion of many, including many law enforcement and legal professionals, that the punishment fails on all counts. It does not deter crime. As many relatives of victims oppose the death penalty as support it, putting in question the subject of “closure”, particularly when almost all discussion of :closure” is in terms of revenge. It costs the state and local governments millions of dollars a year that other remedies do not incur. To many it is morally repugnant to have the government kill anyone except as a last resort in defense of everyone.
A poll was taken at the 2007 convention which showed overwhelming support for abolition of the death penalty. A subsequent poll was taken by email to all delegates, which again showed support for abolition by a huge majority.
Most recently a resolution was presented at the November Eboard meeting, but due
A former prosecutor examines the special prosecutor debate
There is no doubt that sometime in 2002 - if not before - Bush administration officials and their lawyers began orchestrating a torture campaign, which they calculatedly attempted to justify through specious legal memos. They continued to abuse prisoners, and to conceal that mistreatment from Congress and the public, through at least 2008. In all of this conduct, they have committed grave crimes for which they must be held accountable. I believe this to be a national imperative of the highest order. I have pored over every available book and report about torture, disturbing as they are, and I have read the lurid facts and twisted legal reasoning laid out in the Office of Legal Counsel torture memos just released by the White House. I am increasingly outraged by the day, disgusted by years of inaction, and impatient for results. Consequently, I would like nothing more than to join with so many friends and associates whom I respect in calling for immediate appointment of a special prosecutor.
Unfortunately, however, I can’t do it. Not yet. We must have a prosecution eventually, but we are not legally required to publicly initiate it now and we should not, as justifiable as it is. I’m not concerned about political fallout. What’s good or bad for either party has no legitimate place in this calculus. My sole consideration is litigation strategy: I want us to succeed. And our best hope of doing that is to unflinchingly assess - just as any lawyer would do when contemplating choices of action in a case - what we would have tomorrow if we got what we think we want today. We should obviously think twice about pursuing an intermediate goal, however satisfying it may appear, if it would be counterproductive in the long term. There are times when it’s smarter to wait before taking a prosecutive step and this is one of them.
By Brad Parker, April 2009, Officer of the Progressive Caucus
Endorsed by CAP
Candidate for Chair of the Progressive Caucus
California Democratic Party
Like Dorothy and her intrepid trio of lovable dreamers arriving at Oz, the Progressive Movement barreled into the Democratic Party in 2005 with high ideals and even higher hopes. Now, four scintillating years later we realize it was all a mirage of our own creation. The Party of the Left has been reduced to an incumbency business commandeered by Crony Corporate Pirates off the coast of reason and principles. With some notable exceptions like the 2008 CDP Platform, the Net Neutrality Resolution and the Out of Iraq Resolution our Party is fast becoming a dog and donkey show. The drawbridge is being pulled up and the leadership is retreating into a Walled Garden. The Democratic Party is risking irrelevancy as Decline To State registration increases. More and more it appears that, as Gertrude Stein once famously remarked about Oakland, California - there is no there, there. Or so it seems.
Today, our Progressive beachhead inside the Party feels more like washing up on the island in the TV show LOST. You can never tell who is on your side or what year it is. Winning the last two election cycles has only made matters worse. A crazy mad circus of ascendancy is consuming the body politic. In the center ring of the circus, the Blue Dogs are squared off against the Progs in an epic struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party. On the periphery Crony, grasping to maintain status quo hegemony, is manipulating as many ambitious pols as possible. Washington, Sacramento and your local City Hall have become closed systems operated more by lobbyists, consultants and big donors than citizens. The Party is hunkering down in arrogance and obstinacy, while the members clamor for a bigger piece of the pie. What then shall we do?
Bachmann Blasts Obama’s “Economic Marxism,” Calls For “Orderly Revolution” To Save Freedom
Posted by admincathlyn on 03/27 at 03:14 PM
Talking Points Memo DC
By Eric Kleefeld - March 27, 2009
Wow. Just plain wow. This past Wednesday, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show, and sharply reiterated her calls for revolution in America, warning against the imminent dangers of tyranny under Barack Obama:
“We are headed down the lane of economic Marxism,” said Bachmann. “More quickly, Sean, than anyone could have possibly imagined. It’s difficult for us to even keep up with it day to day.”
And then came this:
At this point the American people - it’s like Thomas Jefferson said, a revolution every now and then is a good thing. We are at the point, Sean, of revolution. And by that, what I mean, an orderly revolution—where the people of this country wake up get up and make a decision that this is not going to happen on their watch. It won’t be our children and grandchildren that are in debt. It is we who are in debt, we who will be bankrupting this country, inside of ten years, if we don’t get a grip. And we can’t let the Democrats achieve their ends any longer.
“If Tim Geithner is successful under President Obama, and they move us to an international currency,” Bachmann warned, “Then we have no hope of standing on our own as a sovereign nation with our own economic system. It’s over. We can’t do that.”
Bachmann also declared: “Economics works equally in any country. Where freedom is tried, the people rejoice. But where tyranny is enforced upon the people, as Barack Obama is doing, the people suffer and mourn.”
Circuit court judge, county clerk, and election officials among eight indicted for gaming elections in 2002, 2004, 2006
Used popular, unverifiable ES&S touch-screens to flip votes…
[Now updated at bottom with details from the indictments.]
Those of us who have demanded transparent voting systems because we understand that only the ability for complete citizen oversight and transparency can effectively counter those who would game elections, have been disingenuously criticized over the years as somehow questioning the integrity of the hard-working, honest election officials out there.
The fact is, those who know anything about computer security understand that it is the insiders who are, by far, the greatest threat to security on such systems, as even the phony, GOP-operative-created [1] Baker/Carter National Election Reform Commission determined [2] in its final report: “There is no reason to trust insiders in the election industry any more than in other industries.”
The best election officials in the country, however, will underscore that point, and agree that there is no reason any citizen should ever have to simply “trust” them.
Over the years, we’ve detailed the arrests and other unsavory behavior of many of the not-so-good election officials who, we were told, should simply have been trusted (our “favorite” has always been the case of Monterey CA’s Tony Anchundo [3], who told us on air we should “trust” him, just a month or two before being arrested on 43 counts).
Well, now we’ve got a whole passel of still more crooked officials to add to the list. Moreover: The Kentucky officials arrested and indicted today, “including the circuit court judge, the county clerk, and election officers” of Clay County, have been charged with “chang[ing] votes at the voting machine” and showing others how to do it!
Edward Liddy, chairmain and CEO of AIG The appearance by AIG CEO Edward Liddy before Congress on Wednesday was billed as an epic confrontation between the angry tribunes of a furious public and an arrogant Wall Street. Chris Matthews hyped it on MSNBC as “Watergate Redux.” But the actual hearing—Liddy’s appearance and questioning lasted barely longer than the two-hour preliminaries—was disappointing and misguided.
Watch Edward Liddy at a congressional hearing on AIG:
The proximate cause of the hearings was the revelation that AIG had paid $165 million in “retention businesses” to executives at AIG’s Financial Products division, the tiny unit whose reckless bets and issuance of insurance on financial products blew up the whole company. Liddy acknowledged that
The Obama Administration’s Treasury Department pushed to strip language that would have restricted the bonuses paid to staffers of bailed-out companies from the stimulus bill, a Democratic senator revealed late Wednesday.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) disclosed that he was responsible for inserting a clause into the stimulus bill that allowed bailed-out firms to continue forward with eye-popping bonuses to executives that may have shared responsibility for some of the companies’ woes in the first place.
In a step further, though, he told CNN that the language was sought by the Obama Administration’s Treasury Department, which feared that the government would face lawsuits by including the provision.
A senior Treasury Department official purportedly confirmed Dodd’s assessment. It remains unclear whether the Treasury Department knew the insurance behemoth AIG planned to pay some $165 million in bonuses to employees at the time.
The Connecticut Democrat appears to have gotten caught on the spot by the cable news network. On Tuesday, he told the network that he had nothing to do with the bonus language—which now seems to have been a lie.
On Wednesday, a Treasury Department official confessed to CNN that the administration had pushed to have the bonus measure nixed, forcing Dodd’s hand.
With McClintock in D.C., why hire lobbyists? Another View
Posted by admincathlyn on 03/05 at 03:17 PM
By Charlie Brown
Like many California counties facing huge budget shortfalls this year, the Plumas County Board of Supervisors recently decided, by a 3-2 vote, to spend $25,000 retaining the Ferguson Group to lobby for funds made available by the recently enacted $787 billion federal stimulus package.
In a spirited debate on whether a county that already implemented a 25 percent general fund cut, layoffs and furloughs, could afford to spend its limited resources on such an effort, newly elected Supervisor Lori Simpson — an opponent of the contract — asked, “Well, we have three representatives in Washington now … what are they doing for us, what do they get paid for?”
As President Obama prepares to address a joint session of Congress, what can we expect to hear?
The pundits will stress the nuts-and-bolts policy issues: the banking system, education, energy, health care. But beyond policy, there will be a vision of America—a moral vision and a view of unity that the pundits often miss.
What they miss is the Obama Code. For the sake of unity, the President tends to express his moral vision indirectly. Like other self-aware and highly articulate speakers, he connects with his audience using what cognitive scientists call the “cognitive unconscious.” Speaking naturally, he lets his deepest ideas simply structure what he is saying. If you follow him, the deep ideas are communicated unconsciously and automatically. The Code is his most effective way to bring the country together around fundamental American values.
For supporters of the President, it is crucial to understand the Code in order to talk overtly about the old values our new president is communicating. It is necessary because tens of millions of Americans—both conservatives and progressives—don’t yet perceive the vital sea change that Obama is bringing about.
The word “code” can refer to a system of either communication or morality. President Obama has integrated the two. The Obama Code is both moral and linguistic at once. The President is using his enormous skills as a communicator to express a moral system. As he has said, budgets are moral documents. His economic program is tied to his moral system and is discussed in the Code, as are just about all of his other policies.
Behind the Obama Code are seven crucial intellectual moves that I believe are historically, practically, and cognitively appropriate, as well as politically astute. They are not all obvious, and jointly they may seem mysterious. That is why it is worth sorting them out one-by-one.
1. Values Over Programs
The first move is to distinguish programs from the value systems they represent. Every policy has a material aspect—the nuts and bolts of how it works— plus a typically implicit cognitive aspect that represents the values and ideas behind the nuts and bolts. The President knows the difference. He understands that those who see themselves as “progressive” or “conservative” all too often define those words in terms of programs rather than values. Even the programs championed by progressives may not fit what the President sees as the fundamental values of the country. He is seeking to align the programs of his administration with those values.
Capitol Area Progressives Endorses Brad Parker for Chair of the Progressive Caucus of the CDP
Posted by admincathlyn on 02/16 at 10:05 PM
I ask for your vote for Chair of the Progressive Caucus and I thank you for your support
Brad Parker
Valley Democrats United, President
Progressive Caucus of the CDP, Officer at Large
Platform Committee of the CDP
DSCC, Delegate, 42nd AD
Progressive Democrats of America, Board of Trustees
A.F. of M. Local 47
riozen@riozen.com
Progressive Democrats,
Email, meetups and rabble-rousing speeches. Enewsletters, blogs, websites, listserves and labor rallies. PDA, DFA and MoveOn. CODEPINK, Wellstone Action! and the Courage Campaign. Like a phoenix from the ashes of the Liberal ideal we rose, just four short years ago. We are the resurrection of the Spirit of 76’. We are the flame of liberal thought burning down the neo-con, neo-liberal, DLC Blue Dog, stand for nothing house. We are the Progressive Movement. We are the Progressive Swarm. We come to every Democrat with the Progressive Plan in our left hand and with our right hand open, extended in inclusion and dialogue. We are the circle that draws everyone in. The Progressive Caucus is our home in the California Democratic Party.
I have worked with many of you over the last four years on issues of importance to Progressives across the country. It has been a pleasure to serve the membership as an officer of the caucus. In fact, it has been lightning in a bottle. We have had some successes like the Net Neutrality resolution that I brought forward in 2007. Collaborating with Labor Chair, Jim Gordon, we produced an unprecedented victory for all of America on this essential issue. After that I chaired and co-wrote the Internet plank of the CDP platform with Dante Atkins. I worked with our Co-Chair Jo Olson and our Vice Chair Ahjamu Makalani on the “Immigration Town Hall”. Once again, our caucus blazed a new trail in the CDP by organizing a multi-caucus event on a critical social issue.
The proposal that I worked on the hardest and am most proud of is the, “Progressive Plan” (http://www.progressivecaucuscdp.org). I co-authored this blueprint for Progressive organizing, strategizing and energizing with Ahjamu Makalani. We also received valuable editing from our fellow officers - Jo Olson, Joye Swan, Dotty LeMieux and Mayme Hubert. Not only does the analysis of the CDP and Democratic Party political infrastructure, found in the plan, still hold true today but also our proposals for change have been fundamental in building our Progressive movement in California and across the nation.
Because I believe that I have the vision and a plan to represent you faithfully and forcefully over the next two years - I am a candidate for Chair of the Progressive Caucus. Over the next few weeks I am going to share with you my plan for our next Progressive Caucus agenda. In this article I want to share my core policy initiatives. I look forward to your collaboration on all of these proposals.
PROGRESSIVE POLICY
My principal issues objective, as Chair, would be to build on our original platform and the policy initiatives it embraced. That platform changed our state Party, the national Party and the political dialogue in America. Even with the invigoration it provided for all Americans, its goals remain to be achieved:
– Out of Iraq
- Immediate withdrawal and renunciation of preemptive war
– Universal Healthcare
- Single-payer healthcare for all Americans
– Election Integrity
- Election Protection (count every vote as cast)
- Clean Money (public financing of campaigns)
– Poverty
- Eliminate its causes
- Alleviate its affects
PROGRESSIVE GRID
Progressives have pioneered the use of the Internet and its micro-media communications in the 21st Century. Progressives use the modern technology of the Internet to organize in a new way and yes - we do get people elected. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. In the coming years, we need to up the ante of our technological innovation. What we need to do now is project our liberal ideals across the Party and the nation by building a Progressive Grid.
I propose to you that we build a network of networks, linking the local Progressive clubs, statewide activists, the AD groups and individual members from around the 58 California counties with the Progressive Caucus. We should then link the Caucus to national organizations and build out through the states across the nation. Most importantly, we must actively help to create a Progressive Caucus in each of the 50 state Parties and add them to the grid.
With a Progressive Grid, a Smart Grid, we can focus Progressives, from local to state to national, to wherever the most activism is needed. In essence, we will create an inter-connected communications wheel with the Progressive Caucus at the hub - a multi-directional democratization of information. The Internet not only makes this possible but achievable through the social networking software already available.
PROGRESSIVE ECONOMICS
Crafting initiatives of sound Progressive economic policy should be an integral part of the work of the next Progressive Caucus.
The economic theories of the last thirty years of unbridled greed have collapsed. We must demand that the DLC Blue Dog practices of compromising the needs of the people to Crony corporate protocols of narrow self-interest must give way to enlightened self-interest. America needs a complete reexamination of the entire monetary and fiscal policy apparatus as well as a more local, sustainable, renewable and humane ethic for all businesses, going forward.
Progressive economics is the best long-term design for creating prosperity and opportunity for all. To that end, I have been writing and collaborating on the problem and the solution. You can find my essay, “Who’s Minding The Store?” at: http://www.riozen.com/salon2.html. In it, I explore the social aspects of the new economic realities. Then please read, “Progressive Economic Principles Essay” at: http://www.economicsfordemocrats.com. I co-wrote that article with Mark Pash. In it, Mark shares his vision for creating a quality economy through Progressive economics.
Attention Delegates! - VOTE FOR HILARY CROSBY FOR CONTROLLER OF CA STATE DEM PARTY
Posted by admincathlyn on 02/15 at 03:06 PM
OUR SEAT AT THE TABLE FOR CRITICAL PARTY DECISIONS
As Party Controller, Hilary Crosby will be our seat at the table to make sure our grassroots voices are heard and our knowledge and experience are factored into critical decisions. Successful Party fundraising and implementation of the 58-County Plan will depend on both sound financial management and on a strong partnership between the Party and its grassroots. Hilary is the candidate with the right finance skills and perspective to strengthen and build the California Democratic Party.
GRASSROOTS ACTIVIST
President, El Cerrito Democratic Club
Member, Contra Costa County Democratic Party Central Committee
Treasurer, West Contra Costa County United Democratic Campaign
Assistant Treasurer, Take Back Red California
PROFESSIONAL FINANCIAL SKILLS
Bookkeeper for the ACLU of Northern California
Controller for HERE Union Local #2
Treasurer and auditor of local PTA
Professor of nonprofit management for the University of San Francisco Nonprofit Management Masters degree program
CPA, Partner in woman and minority owned accounting firm for 15 years for nonprofit organizations: education, health policy, environmental justice, media, the arts, social justice, access for all and law
Served on fundraising committees for organizations and political campaigns. Meaningful financial information bolsters fundraising.
INDIVIDUAL DONOR PLAN
Expand CDP fundraising base with aggressive Individual Donor Program. The CDP currently raises less than 8% of revenues from individual donors, yet California Democrats donate millions for political aims. The CDP needs to make the case to its voters as potential donors.
Tie fundraising to specific goals: 58 County Plan, help Democratic office holders fight back against Republican dirty tricks, support Democrats running to unseat Republicans, support Democrats running for non-partisan office. Fill the pipeline.
Form a training/collaborative network for DCC and Dem Club treasures to manage ramped up local fundraising.
_______________
Hilary Crosby
Hilary Crosby will bring decades of professional experience to the Democratic State Party Controller’s office — helping to create a stronger, more accountable, and more responsive party. Over the years, our Council has experienced Hilary’s selfless hard work in action, especially in support of grassroots activists around northern California. We applaud her commitment to better training for treasurers so Central Committees are more empowered. The Take Back Red California (TBRC) Council strongly supports Hilary Crosby for Democratic State Party Controller.
- Take Back Red California (TBRC) Council
_______________
Congressman Bob Filner Endorses Hilary Crosby for CDP Controller
Dear CA Democratic Delegates,
I am endorsing Hilary Crosby for CA Democratic Party Controller because we, as a state party, especially during these trying times, have a great opportunity to put a real professional and grass roots activist at the helm of our financial organization.
She has a great resume as a CPA with a California based accounting firm that specializes in non-profits for the last 13 years. Her website says she works exclusively with non profit organizations and with their boards, finance staffs, and finance committees. Most organizations are active in environmental justice, labor, faith, the arts, and community organizing. How fortunate to have Hilary, who takes a financial leadership role every day with her clients, willing to do that for our State Party!
She’s also a lifetime, dedicated, Democratic activist with sensational ideas about fundraising, accountability, responsiveness and truly fueling our 58 county strategy. This includes creating a network of mentors amongst county and club treasurers.
Vote Hilary Crosby, a Certified Public Accountant and a Grass Roots Activist, for California Democratic Party Controller.
Take it from me,
Congressman Bob Filner, CA 51
Chairman, Veterans’Affairs Committee
Rove may be forced to testify as Obama’s lawyers get involved
Posted by admincathlyn on 02/14 at 12:24 PM
rawstory.com
John Byrne, 02.14.09
Bush proxies now negotiating with new administration
White House counsel Gregory Craig issued a statement late Friday encouraging former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove to cut a deal with Congress, an indication the new administration has begun to put pressure on President George W. Bush’s former chief adviser.
“The president is very sympathetic to those who want to find out what happened,” Obama’s White House counsel Gregory Craig said in a statement yesterday to The Washington Post’s Carrie Johnson. “But he is also mindful as president of the United States not to do anything that would undermine or weaken the institution of the presidency. So, for that reason, he is urging both sides of this to settle.”
Documentary - Tribute: Stanley Tookie Williams, 1953-2005
Posted by admincathlyn on 02/13 at 03:46 PM
February 13, 2009
Sacramento State University
Union - Hinde Auditorium
Movie Short @ 6:45 p.m.
Event Feature: 7:00 p.m.
Followed with discussion [Q&A] led by Barbara Becnel
8:40 p.m. clear the auditorium
Tribute: Stanley Tookie Williams, 1953-2005
Produced by: Barbara Becnel, Shirley Neal 2008
This 66-minute film--TRIBUTE: Stanley Tookie Williams, 1953-2005--is a powerful documentary that examines death row prisoner, Crips gang co-founder, children’s book author and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Stanley Tookie Williams. The international campaign for clemency to save him from death by lethal injection ended on December 13, 2005, at 12:35 a.m., when he was pronounced dead after clemency was denied by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
TRIBUTE includes scenes from a staged reenactment of that execution. The reenactment--as well as TRIBUTE--were produced and directed by writer Barbara Becnel and producer Shirley Neal, longtime friends of Stanley Tookie Williams. It was based on their real-life experience at San Quentin’s death chamber witnessing his botched execution--it took him 35 minutes to die. The two women filmed the staged reenactment, enabling TRIBUTE to offer a very intimate view of capital punishment. ‘We created and staged a play that replicated the execution because we wanted people to see exactly what the State of California does in the middle of the night in the name of the people of the State of California,’ explains Barbara Becnel.
TRIBUTE includes provocative eulogies by Snoop Dogg, Tony Robbins and Louis Farrakhan--speaking at the memorial service of Stanley Tookie Williams--and never-before-seen footage of his ashes scattered by Becnel and Neal in Soweto, South Africa. This was his last wish.
Stanley Tookie Williams Foundation
Sacramento Progressive Alliance
CAP Capitol Area Progressives
DPF Death Penalty Focus - Sacramento
CEDP Campaign to End the Death Penalty - Bay Area
AI Amnesty International - California
California People of Faith
Green Party of Sacramento
Justice Reform Coalition
ACLU Sacramento
A fire truck moves away from out of control flames from a bushfire in the Bunyip Sate Forest near the township of Tonimbuk, 125 kilometers (78 miles) west of Melbourne, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2009. Walls of flame roared across southeastern Australia, razing scores of homes, forests and farmland in the sunburned country’s worst wildfire disaster in a quarter century. (AP Photo)
HEALESVILLE, Australia — Entire towns have been seared off the map by wildfires raging through southeastern Australia, burning people in their homes and cars and raising the death toll to 84 on Sunday in the deadliest blaze in the country’s history.
Searing temperatures and wind blasts created a firestorm that swept across a swath of the country’s Victoria state, where at least 700 homes were destroyed and all of the victims died. More victims were expected to be found, officials said.
“Hell in all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria,” Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said. “It’s an appalling tragedy for the nation.”
The skies rained ash and trees exploded in the inferno, witnesses said, as temperatures of up 117 F (47 C) combined with blasting winds to create furnace-like conditions.
The town of Marysville and several hamlets in the Kinglake district, both about 50 miles (100 kilometers) north of Melbourne, were utterly devastated.
At Marysville, a winter tourism town that was home to about 800 people, up to 90 percent of buildings were in ruins, witnesses said. Police said two people died there.
“Marysville is no more,” Senior Constable Brian Cross told the AP as he manned a checkpoint Sunday on a road leading into the town.
At least 18 of the deaths were from the Kinglake area, where residents said the fire hit with barely any notice.
To donate to the Red Cross State Government Victorian Bushfire Appeal Fund:
* Visit http://www.redcross.org.au
* Phone 1800 811 700
International callers seeking information about family and friends should call 0011 61 3 5332 5015 or 0011 61 3 8327 7814
Remember back in the good ole halcyon days when the whole world, including Iraq, was our oyster and America, to paraphrase Chuck Krauthammer, bestrode the world like a colossus arrogantly dangling its unilateral genitalia over that oyster of a world?
Judith Miller notwithstanding, the American mainstream media, while it didn’t exactly lie us into Iraq, nonetheless acted like a gigantic cheerleading squad repeating everything ever uttered by Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan as if they were the fifth gospel of Jesus fucking Christ. “Gimme a Dubya!” “W!” “Gimme an A!” “A!” “Gimme an R!” “R!” “What’s that spell?” “P-E-A-C-E!”
Note that all these pronouncements of early victory came before George W. Bush’s famous goony bird landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003 to announce the end of major military operations in Iraq. Note, also, that not all of these blowhards are of the odious ilk of Krauthammer, Judith Miller or Bill O’Reilly and the other fortune cookie prognosticators at Fox “News” but the “liberal” NY Times, the LA Times, NPR and Fox’s token liberal, Alan Colmes.
“Iraq Is All but Won; Now What?” (Los Angeles Times headline, 4/10/03)
“Now that the combat phase of the war in Iraq is officially over, what begins is a debate throughout the entire U.S. government over America’s unrivaled power and how best to use it.” (CBS reporter Joie Chen, 5/4/03)
“Congress returns to Washington this week to a world very different from the one members left two weeks ago. The war in Iraq is essentially over and domestic issues are regaining attention.” (NPR’s Bob Edwards, 4/28/03)
From the pains Democrats take to out-argue and/or to compromise with the fringe minority party called the Republicans you’d think no other course of action was available, specifically you’d have to assume that the filibuster—the power of senators representing 11 percent of us to block all work by the House and Senate—is written in stone. In reality, 51 senators could eliminate the filibuster or change the number of votes required to use it. This nation got along for many years without the filibuster and could do so again. It is no more a part of our Constitution than the CIA, enemy combatants, corporate persons, or the political parties that allow the filibuster to wreak such havoc with our so-called democracy.
For the most part we no longer have representatives in Congress, because of the corruption of money, the weakness of the media, and the strength of parties. There are not 535 opinions on Capitol Hill on truly important matters, but 2. Our supposed representatives work for their party leaders, not for us. Luckily, one of the two parties claims to want to work for us.
When the Democrats were in the minority and out of the White House, they told us they wanted to work for us but needed to be in the majority. So, in 2006, we put them there. Then they told us that they really wished they could work for us but they needed bigger majorities and the White House. So, in 2008, we gave them those things, and largely deprived them of two key excuses for inaction. We took away the veto excuse and came very close to taking away the filibuster excuse, and—in fact—the filibuster excuse could be taken away completely if the Democrats didn’t want to keep it around.
This is not to say that either excuse was ever sensible. The two most important things the 110th Congress refused to do (ceasing to fund illegal wars, and impeaching war criminals) did not require passing legislation, so filibusters and vetoes were not relevant. But the Democrats in Congress, and the Republicans, and the media, and the White House all pretended that wars could only be ended by legislation, so the excuses for not passing legislation loomed large. The veto excuse is now gone. The filibuster excuse could be gone this week if Senator Harry Reid wanted it gone, or if President Obama appointed a Republican senator from a state with a Democratic governor to a cabinet position without allowing a corrupt deal on the senator’s replacement, or if the House and Senate were to give Washington D.C. voting representation.
The filibuster excuse works like this. Any 41 senators can vote No on “cloture”, that is on bringing a bill to a vote, and that bill will never come to a vote, and anything the House of Representatives has done won’t matter. Plus any of the other 59 senators, the 435 House members, the president, the vice president, television pundits, and newspaper reporters can blame the threat of filibuster for anything they fail to do.
As the senate version of the economic recovery package makes its way through Congress, a significant (though misguided) criticism of the package from Senate Republicans is that it is “too big.” For example, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) claimed, “from the very first moment of this debate, there’s been strong bipartisan agreement on one thing: the original version of this bill was too big.”
Similarly, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) lamented, “[T]his bill spends far too much,” while Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) said, “It’s very wasteful…if you throw in the interest it’s about $1.3 trillion.” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) called passing such a large package this week “just unthinkable.” Watch a compilation of these and other complaints about the size of the package:
John Byrne and David Edwards
Sunday February 8, 2009
A U.S. Attorney’s office “erroneously” sent a confidential court document to The Washington Post after the Post requested a different file, exposing that the newly-elected chairman of the Republican National Committee had his 2006 Senate campaign pay his sister’s defunct company for services that were potentially never performed—including $37,000 for “catering/web services” paid to her company 11 months after she filed to have it dissolved.
Federal agents have contacted Steele’s sister, the chairman’s spokesman told the paper. Former Steele campaign finance director Alan Fabian offered the information to the US Attorney’s office as part of attempt to seek leniency for himself in another case.
Wikileaks publishes a billion dollars of semi-secret reports
Posted by admincathlyn on 02/08 at 10:23 AM
RawStory.com
02/08/2009
The whistleblower site Wikileaks has released more than a billion dollars of Congressional Research Service Reports, semi-secret reports that are prepared for Congress and not classified but not deliberately circulated to the public.
The publication of the reports online marks a new day for public transparency in government.
Many of the reports had been made available by blogs like Secrecy News, which regularly posts Congressional Research Service reports, but their publication has never been so extensive.
CHICAGO - Little in Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich’s background prepared the people of Illinois for the man who was revealed in the criminal complaint that dropped like a bombshell here on Tuesday. Delusional, narcissistic, vengeful and profane, Mr. Blagojevich as portrayed by federal prosecutors shocked even his most ardent detractors.
‘I was speechless and sickened,’ says a critic of disgraced Gov. Blagojevich
“I almost fell over,” said Cindi Canary, executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform and a frequent critic of the governor. “I was speechless and sickened. In all of the millions of indictments I’ve read over the last years, I can’t remember anything as vile as this.”
Mike Jacobs, a Democratic state senator and former friend of the governor, suggested that Mr. Blagojevich may have lost his grip on reality.
“I’m not sure he’s playing with a full deck anymore,” Mr. Jacobs said. “I think he brought a lot of this on himself. He’s so gifted, but so flawed in a number of fundamental areas. It’s like he dared the feds to come get him.”
As President-elect Obama works to make good on his promise to shut down Guantanamo Bay, including the military commissions system that his predecessor put in place, and which has become the butt of worldwide ridicule, the Defense Department’s close-knit circle of neoconservatives is busy laying traps and bombs to obstruct Obama’s plans. Their objectives are clear: they want to push the process of the commissions as far as they possibly can so that by January 20, Obama is presented with a fait accompli. This strategy has led, among other things, to the extraordinary meeting arranged among defendants at Gitmo to push them into guilty pleas; next, I expect to hear still more charges and cases announced in advance of the transition in power in Washington. But of course if the 9/11 defendants really do want to plead guilty, that’s all the more reason for this to occur in a federal court context, where the process and the punishment stand some chance of being viewed credibly by the world. Adam Zagorin at Time reports:
Remember that long-ago news conference when George W. Bush couldn’t think of any mistakes he had made? Unbelievably, he still can’t.
When ABC’s Charles Gibson, interviewing Bush at Camp David, asked the president what one “do-over” he’d like to have, this was Bush’s reply:
“I don’t know—the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn’t just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington, D.C., during the debate on Iraq; a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that’s not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.”
Fellow sufferers from Bush Derangement Syndrome, mind your blood pressure. Just seven more weeks. Hang in there, because there are two more snippets from the interview that I have to quote.
WASHINGTON (CNN)—Terrorists are likely to use a weapon of mass destruction somewhere in the world in the next five years, a blue-ribbon panel assembled by Congress has concluded.
They are more likely to use a biological weapon than a nuclear one—and the results could be devastating, the chairman of the commission told CNN.
“The consequences of a biological attack are almost beyond comprehension. It would be 9/11 times 10 or a hundred in terms of the number of people who would be killed,” former Sen. Bob Graham said.
He cited the flu virus that killed millions of people in 1918 as an example.
“Today it is still in the laboratory, but if it should get out and into the hands of scientists who knew how to use it for a violent purpose, we could have multiple times the 40 million people who were killed 100 years ago,” he said.
The U.S. government “needs to move more aggressively to limit” the spread of biological weapons, the commission said in its report.
Graham warned that such measures would be costly, but were necessary.
World Leaders Don’t Shake Bush’s Hand At G20 Summit (VIDEO)
Posted by admincathlyn on 11/20 at 02:04 PM
It appears in this video that President Bush’s approval is in a sorrier state than polls indicate. In a video taken at the G20 summit, Bush walks across a line of world leaders without shaking or being asked to shake any of their hands. Whether the President is being rejected by the world leaders or he is rejecting them, CNN’s Rick Sanchez aptly says that Bush looks like “the most unpopular kid in high school that nobody liked.”
In a Senate hearing room in September, weeks before Barack Obama won the election, a series of law professors, lawyers and civil libertarians outlined one of the biggest challenges that will be facing the next president: bringing the United States government back under the rule of law.
Over the past eight years, they testified, American legal traditions have been degraded in areas ranging from domestic spying to government secrecy. The damage that has been done by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others is so grave that just assessing it will be an enormous task. Repairing it will be even more enormous.
This was not a new complaint. Civil liberties advocates have been sounding the alarm for years. The difference now is that a Democrat is about to assume the presidency, and one of the most ardent defenders of civil liberties in his party — Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin — is dedicated to putting the restoration of the rule of law on the agenda of the incoming government, with the support of the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups.
New York Times
By JESSE McKINLEY and KIRK JOHNSON
Published: November 14, 2008
Frank Schubert was the chief strategist for Proposition 8, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman in California.
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
SACRAMENTO — Less than two weeks before Election Day, the chief strategist behind a ballot measure outlawing same-sex marriage in California called an emergency meeting here.
“We’re going to lose this campaign if we don’t get more money,” the strategist, Frank Schubert, recalled telling leaders of Protect Marriage, the main group behind the ban.
The campaign issued an urgent appeal, and in a matter of days, it raised more than $5 million, including a $1 million donation from Alan C. Ashton, the grandson of a former president of the Mormon Church. The money allowed the drive to intensify a sharp-elbowed advertising campaign, and support for the measure was catapulted ahead; it ultimately won with 52 percent of the vote.
As proponents of same-sex marriage across the country planned protests on Saturday against the ban, interviews with the main forces behind the ballot measure showed how close its backers believe it came to defeat — and the extraordinary role Mormons played in helping to pass it with money, institutional support and dedicated volunteers.
“We’ve spoken out on other issues, we’ve spoken out on abortion, we’ve spoken out on those other kinds of things,” said Michael R. Otterson, the managing director of public affairs for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormons are formally called, in Salt Lake City. “But we don’t get involved to the degree we did on this.”
HONDURAS: UN APPEALS FOR GREATER AID AS FLOODS CAUSE FURTHER DEATHS AND DAMAGE
7 November 2008 – United Nations aid agencies are stepping up their relief efforts and appeals for funding in Honduras, where a persistent tropical storm has intensified in recent days and spread to new areas of the Central American country.
At least 60 Hondurans have now died as a result of Tropical Storm Paloma, and the number of people affected by the flooding has risen this week by about 50,000 to nearly 320,000, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported today.
Paloma first struck the region as a tropical depression in mid-October, causing floods and destruction in neighbouring Guatemala as well. But in recent days Paloma has intensified into a bigger storm and struck different parts of the country with torrential rainfall.
Less than 10 per cent of the $17 million flash appeal launched last week by UN agencies and their non-governmental organization (NGO) partners has been received so far, and the amount received includes $1.5 million allocated from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).
OCHA called on donors to immediately increase their support, warning that urgent assistance is needed to avert a further deterioration of the humanitarian situation.
How the economic crisis can help Obama redefine the Democrats.
As Roosevelt did with the New Deal, Obama has represented different versions of moral leadership to different groups of voters.
Liberals In September, 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Democratic nominee for President, was asked by a reporter for his view of the job that he was seeking. “The Presidency is not merely an administrative office,” Roosevelt said. “That’s the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is preëminently a place of moral leadership. All our great Presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.” He went down the list of what we would now call transformative Presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson. (He also included Grover Cleveland, who hasn’t aged as well.) Then Roosevelt asked, “Isn’t that what the office is, a superb opportunity for reapplying—applying in new conditions—the simple rules of human conduct we always go back to? I stress the modern application, because we are always moving on; the technical and economic environment changes, and never so quickly as now. Without leadership alert and sensitive to change, we are bogged up or lose our way, as we have lost it in the past decade.”
When the reporter pressed Roosevelt to offer a vision of his own historical opportunity, he gave two answers. First, he said, America needed “someone whose interests are not special but general, someone who can understand and treat the country as a whole. For as much as anything it needs to be reaffirmed at this juncture that the United States is one organic entity, that no interest, no class, no section, is either separate or supreme above the interests of all.” But Roosevelt didn’t limit himself to the benign self-portrait of a unifying President. “Moral leadership” had a philosophical component: he was, he said, “a liberal.” The election of 1932 arrived at one of those recurring moments when “the general problems of civilization change in such a way that new difficulties of adjustment are presented to government.” As opposed to a conservative or a radical, Roosevelt concluded, a liberal “recognizes the need of new machinery” but also “works to control the processes of change, to the end that the break with the old pattern may not be too violent.”
NO ON 8 RALLY IN ELK GROVE - MONDAY, NOV 3, 5:00-7:00pm
Please join supporters of “NO on Proposition 8” for a rally in Elk Grove on Monday, November 3 from 5pm-7pm. The rally will take place on the corner of Elk Grove Florin and Bond Road. Saturday and Sunday, supporters of No on 8 held successful rallies with nearly 90 attendees at each rally! ONLY one more day to rally and show support for NO on 8!!
Elk Grove has been bombarded with YES on 8 supporters, primarily Mormon church members and their children standing on many major intersection corners in Elk Grove with their signs. Every evening you will find these misguided “religious” families standing in mass on the street corners with a lone, brave NO on 8 supporter standing in their midst. The Elk Grove Citizen ran an article last week stating how Yes on 8 lawn signs were being stolen all over the City of Elk Grove - no mention was made of the fact that No on 8 lawns signs have been stolen at a much higher rate! Two days ago, 4x8 foot signs for “Yes on 8” were hung on overpasses along Highway 99. The Elk Grove office called Cal Trans to have the signs removed.
Please show your support of NO on 8 by attending this rally and by putting a window sign up in your home or a lawn sign in your yard.
A delivery of No on 8 Lawn Signs and Rally Signs to the Elk Grove Campaign HQ is expected Monday 11/03 around noon. The SIGNS ARE FREE!
GOTV, Election Day Activities, ELECTION NIGHT, and Afterwards
Posted by admincathlyn on 11/02 at 09:55 PM
ELK GROVE VOLUNTEERS ROCK!!
Thank you Elk Grove volunteers for all the hours and hard work you have given to the Democratic cause! We have been inspired by your enthusiasm and commitment to electing Democrats to ALL levels of government. You ALL are awesome!
We had 164 volunteers RSVP for Saturday, Nov 1. On Saturday, November 1st more than 182 of you came through the Elk Grove Campaign HQ - 96 of you showed up, including Assemblyman Dave Jones, to walk precincts in Elk Grove, Stockton and Galt despite the pouring rain. Our phone banks were full all day and our office volunteers were busy all day as well. Some of you brought along your children to walk or phone bank with you (to record on the tally sheets and to watch the process). High School students earning Community Service hours also showed up to help us prepare and deliver our Obama door hangers. Thank you for your dedication.
SINCERE THANK YOU FROM CATHLYN DALY
It has been a privilege to serve as the Director of Operations for the Elk Grove Democratic Campaign HQ. I sincerely appreciate the time and effort each of you has put into the campaigns. It has been a great deal of hard work and much sacrifice for many of you, but your efforts have not gone unnoticed and have certainly made a difference. You have been an instrumental part of changing the course of our community, our state and our country.
The Elk Grove Campaign HQ served as a base for 9 campaigns: Lois Wolk (Senate District 5), Joan Buchanan (Assembly District 15), Alyson Huber (Assembly District 10), Katherine Maestas (Elk Grove City Council), Rod Brewer (Cosumnes Community Services District), Sandi Russell (Cosumnes Community Services District), Doug McElroy (Cosumnes Community Services District), Davies Ononiwu (Florin Resources Conservation District/Elk Grove Water Board), Doug Elliott (Florin Resources Conservation District/Elk Grove Water Board) and provided support and/or distributed materials for Nancy Bui (SMUD Board), Dr. Bill Durston (Congressional District 3) and Barack Obama (President).
It has been a pleasure to work with all of the candidates and their staff. The coordinated effort between campaigns and the team effort has been groundbreaking and outstanding.
Thank you for all you have contributed and, most of all, thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve my fellow Democrats.
Sincerely,
Cathlyn Daly, Director of Operations
Elk Grove Democratic Campaign HQ
Democratic Party of Sacramento County
Latest GOP smear plot revealed: Professor paid to try to tie Ayers to Obama biography
Posted by admincathlyn on 11/01 at 09:58 PM
Rawstory.com
John Byrne, 11/01/08
The brother of a Republican congressman and a Republican businessman attempted to pay an professor in Oxford to use software he designed to “prove” that 1960s radical William Ayers helped write Sen. Barack Obama’s biography.
The professor, Dr. Peter Millican, teaches philosophy at Hertford College, Oxford. His software is designed to detect when works are by the same authors by comparing the use of similar words and phrases.
The offer was revealed Sunday in a British newspaper.
“He was entirely upfront about this,” the professor said of the Republican businessman who made the offer. “He offered me $10,000 and sent me electronic versions of the text from both books.”
Millican said he took a preliminary look and found the charges that Ayers had had a hand in ghostwriting Obama’s book “very implausible.” A deal was agreed for “more detailed research,” the paper said, but when Millican “said the results had to be made public, even if no link to Ayers was proved, interest waned.”
The Republicans sought to allege similarities between Obama’s Dreams of My Father and Ayers’ Fugitive Days.
The offer was made by Robert Fox, a California GOP businessman and brother-in-law of Republican Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT).
Documents reveal how Ohio routed 2004 voting data thru company that hosted external Bush Admin
Posted by admincathlyn on 11/01 at 12:14 PM
Rawstory.com
Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane
Friday October 31, 2008
Newly obtained computer schematics provide further detail of how electronic voting data was routed during the 2004 election from Ohio’s Secretary of State’s office through a partisan Tennessee web hosting company.
A network security expert with high-level US government clearances, who is also a former McCain delegate, says the documents – server schematics which trace the architecture created for Ohio’s then-Republican Secretary of State and state election chief Kenneth Blackwell – raise troubling questions about the security of electronic voting and the integrity of the 2004 presidential election results.
The flow chart shows how voting information was transferred from Ohio to SmarTech Inc., a Chattanooga Tennessee IT company known for its close association with the Republican Party, before the 2004 election results were displayed online.
Ever since Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s poisonous comments on Hardball ten days ago, it has looked increasingly possible that her deep red district might turn blue next week.
Her Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party opponent, Elwyn Tinklenberg, a former mayor and state transportation commissioner, has raised more than $1.5 million since Bachmann channeled Joe McCarthy on MSNBC. The Washington Post reported today that Tinklenberg’s fundraising “in a single week, is more than what any other Democratic challenger has raised in a fundraising quarter in the entire two-year election cycle.”
Bachmann’s constituents seem to be rejecting her politics of division, distraction and demonization as well. According to a new Minnesota Public Radio/University of Minnesota Humphrey Institute poll, Tinklenberg – previously considered a long-shot – now leads Bachmann 45 to 43 percent. Approximately 40 percent of the district’s voters say that they have “re-evaluated [Bachmann] and are less likely to support her,” and two-thirds disagree with her comments.
Today in an interview with CNBC, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) blasted unions:
But this is — we’ve been talking about it for a long time — this is a threat to the fundamental of labor-management relations. It’s fundamental to democracy, the right to have a secret ballot.
The way that Senator Obama envisions — and the unions, and this is their big push, they’ve gotten commitments from Senator Obama and Senator Biden — union organizer goes to your house and says, Hey, Joe, can I sign you up for the union?
That is — we all know what that opens the door to. It’s dangerous for America, it’s dangerous to small business. And I think it’s a threat to one of the fundamentals of democracy.
McCain added that he would veto the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) in a “New York minute.” Watch it:
ES&S Touch-Screen Votes Now Flipping in TX Too! Obama/DNC Attorneys Still AWOL!
Posted by admincathlyn on 10/25 at 04:54 PM
State After State, ES&S iVotronics Are Flipping Democratic Votes to Republican!
What You Can Do About It, And Where the Hell Are Those ‘Thousands’ of Obama/DNC Attorneys?…
Posted By Brad Friedman On 24th October 2008
This is just getting worse and worse. Now it’s happening in Texas. (And in MO, if you read to the end of the article). And the vaunted “thousands of attorneys” from the Obama campaign and the DNC are still nowhere to be found.
With every incident so far reported of touch-screen vote-flipping during early voting in this year’s general election --- from county [1] to county [2] in WV and in Nashville, [3] TN) --- it’s been the ES&S iVotronic touch-screen machine that has failed, flipping votes from one candidate to another not chosen by the voter. In most every instances [see update below], it’s been an attempted Democratic vote, flipped to a Republican, or another party.
These are the same machines that lost 18,000 votes in Democratic-leaning Sarasota County in the 2006 U.S. House Race for Katherine Harris’ old seat. The Democrat, Christine Jennings, was declared the loser to Republican Vern Buchanan (whose own wife had trouble voting for him that day), by just 369 votes. Several academic studies, and even the GAO, have been unable to rule out either tampering or hardware/software error for the disappeared 18,000 votes.
As we wrote earlier this week [4], after there was finally one report of a vote flipping from Democratic to Republican in TN (a very rare instance, btw), these machines need to be taken out of service now, impounded and quarantined immediately, and every voter needs to be given a paper ballot where these machines are currently being used. Voters who have such problems need to inform other voters waiting in line which machine should not be used (and we offer other tips below, as well).
[Update: The rare vote-flip from Republican to Democratic now seems to have been a hoax carried out by local Republicans, according to a TN election integrity activist who did some digging and reporting. Details here… [5]]
The latest reports today of ES&S vote-flipping [6] come from Palo Pinto County, TX, where two voters --- one of them an alternate election judge and office manager of the Palo Pinto County Democratic Headquarters --- saw straight-ticket Democratic votes flipped to straight-ticket Republican votes. Two times for the first person, and three times for the alternate election judge!
McCain campaign paid Republican operative accused of voter fraud
Posted by admincathlyn on 10/23 at 12:47 PM
TimesOnline.com.uk, 10/22/08
McCain campaign paid Republican operative accused of voter fraudHannah Strange
John McCain paid $175,000 of campaign money to a Republican operative accused of massive voter registration fraud in several states, it has emerged.
As the McCain camp attempts to tie Barack Obama to claims of registration irregularities by the activist group ACORN, campaign finance records detailing the payment to the firm of Nathan Sproul, investigated several times for fraud, threatens to derail that argument.
The documents show that a joint committee of the McCain-Palin campaign, the Republican National Committee and the California Republican Party, made the payment to Lincoln Strategy, of which Mr Sproul is the managing partner, for the purposes of “voter registration”.
Mr Sproul has been investigated on numerous occasions for preventing Democrats from voting, destroying registration forms and leading efforts to get Ralph Nader on ballots to leach the Democratic vote.
In October last year, the House Judiciary Committee wrote to the Attorney General requesting answers regarding a number of allegations against Mr Sproul’s firm, then known as Sproul and Associates. It referred to evidence that ahead of the 2004 national elections, the firm trained staff only to register Republican voters and destroyed any other registration cards, citing affidavits from former staff members and investigations by television news programmes.
The Department of Homeland Security will take over responsibility for checking airline passenger names against government watch lists beginning in January, and will require travelers for the first time to provide their full name, birth date and gender as a condition for boarding commercial flights, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Security officials say the additional personal information—which will be given to airlines to forward to the federal agency in charge—will dramatically cut down on cases of mistaken identity, in which people with names similar to those on watch lists are wrongly barred or delayed from flights.
The changes, to be phased in next year, will apply to 2 million daily passengers aboard all domestic flights and international flights to, from or over the United States. By transferring the screening duty from the airlines to the federal government, the Secure Flight program marks the Bush administration’s long-delayed fulfillment of a top aviation security priority after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) chief Kip Hawley said yesterday that, except in rare situations, passengers who do not provide the additional information will not be given boarding passes.
“If you don’t provide the data, then you are going to put yourself in a position where you are probably going to be a selectee,” subject at a minimum to greater future security scrutiny, Chertoff said in remarks announcing the program at Reagan National Airport.
WASHINGTON—Colin Powell demonstrated his eponymous “Powell Doctrine” of overwhelming force on Sunday when he endorsed Barack Obama on Meet the Press. The one-time chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff systematically marshaled his assets to neutralize the Republican endgame strategy, which is to suffuse the air around Obama with a vague mist of terrorism, socialism and “otherness.”
Powell was so definitive that it was easy to forget the disconnect: Obama made his reputation with a speech in 2002 warning against war in Iraq, while it was Powell who went before the United Nations and used his credibility to build support for the Iraq invasion.
Powell told Tom Brokaw that he still believes that war was the right course of action, based on what he and other officials knew—or thought they knew—at the time. He said he believes the war was mishandled. And he said he still opposes a “deadline” for withdrawing U.S. troops, though he added that a “timeline” for withdrawal is beginning to emerge.
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