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!
DURBIN AND REID WHIPPING AGAINST THE PUBLIC OPTION! SLAM THE PHONES!!!
UPDATE: Grayson has picked up 50 co-sponsors in just 2 days
Congressman Alan Grayson, (D-Orlando), today introduced a bill (H.R. 4789) which would give the option to buy into Medicare to every citizen of the United States. The “Public Option Act,” also known as the “Medicare You Can Buy Into Act,” would open up the Medicare network to anyone who can pay for it. ...
The bill would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish enrollment periods, coverage guidelines, and premiums for the program. Because premiums would be equal to cost, the program would pay for itself.
“The government spent billions of dollars creating a Medicare network of providers that is only open to one-eighth of the population. That’s like saying, ‘Only people 65 and over can use federal highways.’ It is a waste of a very valuable resource and it is not fair. This idea is simple, it makes sense, and it deserves an up-or-down vote,” Congressman Grayson said.
Comprehensive visions for reform and incremental visions for reform have been at odds throughout this process. That was proper, in many ways: When you’re building a new structure where the different parts work together, you have to be relatively comprehensive about it. But once that structure is constructed, incrementalism makes a lot of sense. Want a public option? Write the bill. Want to outlaw fee-for-service in the exchanges, or give a tax break to insurers who are constructing networks where the doctors have a different payment structure? Offer it in committee. Think subsidies should be higher, or maybe lower? Amendments are a wonderful thing.
Sacramento Progressive Alliance presents FREE screening of THE HURT LOCKER - Friday, March 12th!
Posted by admincathlyn on 03/12 at 12:32 AM
CAP would like to extend an invitation to you to attend a FREE screening of the Academy Award winning movie, ”THE HURT LOCKER,” which is being shown by our friends and partner organization the SACRAMENTO PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE on Friday, March 12th, 6pm at Sac State
Here is their announcement:
CAMPUS PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE at Sac State is proud to celebrate Women’s History Month with a FREE screening of ”THE HURT LOCKER,” the Oscar Winner for Best Picture. Kathyrin Bigelow made history last Sunday by becoming the first woman to win the Academcy Award for Best Director for this powerful film. We congratulate her achievement… and that of all women who struggle against, and overcome, socially imposed barriers!
See you at the movies!
The Friday Night Film Series Celebrates Women’s History Month...Katherine Bigelow’s, “THE HURT LOCKER”
Time:6:00PM Friday, March 12th
Location: CSUS Student Union Hinde Auditorium
TheAtlantic.com
U.S. CITIZENS SUSPECTED OF TERRORIST ACTIVITY
COULD BE DETAINED BY THE MILITARY ON U.S. SOIL INDEFINITELY
By Marc Ambinder
03/05/10
Why is the national security community treating the “Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010,” introduced by Sens. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman on Thursday as a standard proposal, as a simple response to the administration’s choices in the aftermath of the Christmas Day bombing attempt? A close reading of the bill suggests it would allow the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens without trial indefinitely in the U.S. based on suspected activity. Read the bill here, and then read the summarized points after the jump.
According to the summary, the bill sets out a comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected enemy belligerents who are believed to have engaged in hostilities against the United States by requiring these individuals to be held in military custody, interrogated for their intelligence value and not provided with a Miranda warning.
(There is no distinction between U.S. persons--visa holders or citizens--and non-U.S. persons.)
It would require these “belligerents” to be coded as “high-value detainee[s]” to be held in military custody and interrogated for their intelligence value by a High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team established by the president. (The H.I.G., of course, was established to bring a sophisticated interrogation capacity to the federal justice system.)
Any suspected unprivileged enemy belligerents considered a “high-value detainee” shall not be provided with a Miranda warning.
The bill asks the President to determine criteria for designating an individual as a “high-value detainee” if he/she: (1) poses a threat of
An anti-gay California state senator was placed under arrest for drunk driving after leaving a gay bar. A male passenger was in the vehicle along with the lawmaker was not arrested, reported Sacramento CBS affiliate Channel 13.
State Sen. Roy Ashburn was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol at about 2:00 a.m. on March 3 when his state-issued vehicle was observed being driven erratically. The driver, identified as Ashburn, was taken in and charged for driving under the influence. Channel 13 reported that unidentified sources said the senator had been at Faces, a popular gay nightspot, prior to his arrest.
In a March 4 article, the online news site Talking Points Memo characterized Ashburn, who is married and has four children, as “a fierce opponent of gay rights” who had led anti-marriage equality rallies.
Ashburn issued a contrite apology, stating, “I am deeply sorry for my actions and offer no excuse for my poor judgment. I accept complete responsibility for my conduct and am prepared to accept the consequences for what I did.”
Ashburn will not be able to drive for a month and the vehicle he was in at the time of his arrest has been impounded, reported online news site Bakersfield.com on March 3. If the state senator receives the same penalties as do others arrested for drunk driving, the article said, Ashburn could face three years of probation, fines of up to $1,000, attendance at a “DUI offender program,” and two days’ jail time.
It is uncertain how the arrest--or his reported presence at a gay bar--will affect Ashburn’s
Exclusive: RNC document mocks donors, plays on ‘fear’
Posted by admincathlyn on 03/03 at 10:23 PM
Politico
By: Ben Smith
March 3, 2010
The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to “save the country from trending toward socialism.”
The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”
The presentation was delivered by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida on February 18, a source at the gathering said.
In neat PowerPoint pages, it lifts the curtain on the often-cynical terms of political marketing, displaying an air of disdain for the party’s donors that is usually confined to the barroom conversations of political operatives.
The presentation explains the Republican fundraising in simple terms.
“What can you sell when you do not have the White House, the House, or the Senate...?” it asks.
The answer: “Save the country from trending toward Socialism!”
Manipulating donors with crude caricatures and playing on their fears is hardly unique to Republicans or to the RNC – Democrats raised millions off George W. Bush in similar terms – but rarely is it practiced in such cartoonish terms.
One page, headed “The Evil Empire,” pictures Obama as the Joker from Batman, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leaders Harry Reid are depicted as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo, respectively.
The document, which two Republican sources said was prepared by the party’s finance staff, comes a
WBC’s Fred Phelps faces Wizard of Oz in Long Beach protestors
Posted by admincathlyn on 03/03 at 08:42 AM
Daily49er.com (CSULB paper)
By Jessica Wood
Published: Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Updated: Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Last Friday, more than 5,000 Wilson High and Cal State Long Beach students swarmed Wilson Classical High School — Bruin territory — to fight for a cause so personal to the Long Beach community: gay rights.
The members of the Westboro Baptist Church, more commonly known as the WBC, traveled on their broomsticks all the way from Kansas to bombard Long Beach with their hate-mongering message: “God Hates Fags.”
God doesn’t stop his hate at those darn “fags,” either. God also hates Jews, military soldiers, America, and basically anything or anyone else that do not fall under the WBC’s neo-Calvinistic beliefs.
Beyond a dick-move, right?
This organization, led by delusional pastor and WBC founder Fred Phelps, and even more notably his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper, has the audacity to travel throughout the United States using God as a fear tactic to capture more pawns in their game of bigotry.
Look, I know I’m not Billy Graham. I’m not a frequenter of any sort of ceremony pertaining to organized religion. However, it would be safe for me to bet that God loves everything He creates. God created “fags.” Therefore, there is no way God hates fags.
Regardless of whether or not you’re a Christian, even if you may or may not think God exists, it seems we can all reach the mutual agreement that God would never hate anything he created.
So what makes a belief morally wrong or right? Should we take the utilitarian approach, rendering the rightness of an action as a function of what creates the greatest amount of good for the largest number of people? Or perhaps look at the scripture of various religions and determine its morality on the basis of what God or someone of the like might say? Maybe the morality of an action or belief cannot be assessed using either of these principles.
Maybe it’s just a feeling in our gut.
One thing is for certain, even Shirley Phelps-Roper, also known as the Wicked Witch of the West, and the rest of her flying monkeys couldn’t sway the minds of the citizens of Long Beach. The WBC’s truly pitiful attempt at slandering the minority groups of Long Beach had Phelps-Roper “melting” into the pavement across Wilson High School.
The God Hates Fags organization expected to face the Cowardly Lion and instead they were confronted with 5,000 or so pissed-off Wizard of Ozzes — not to mention that creepy guy who opens the door for Dorothy.
The best part about this protest was that despite the fact the people of Long Beach were angry, offended and upset in general. according to what I saw, not once were they disrespectful, negative or downright mean like the members of the WBC.
With our peaceful, yet powerful demeanor, we were able to deflect the
Haiti Weather Report: Mostly Foggy With Rain Storms Expected
Posted by admincathlyn on 02/28 at 01:20 AM
Mark Hyman, MD
Posted: February 27, 2010 03:59 AM
February 24, 2009
Photo: Haiti’s “IRS” building completely demolished. Tax files lay strewn amongst the rubble and along the street
Imagine all of the Federal buildings in Washington collapsing in less than a minute killing 30-40% of our government workforce, crippling the tax collection system leaving the government no money to pay salaries or overhead. Our government, which seems to barely work at full capacity with gleaming buildings and a gargantuan budget, would come to a halt.
This is the state of Haiti today. Arriving again in Haiti, five weeks after we first landed in the chaos of the first days after the earthquake, the tarmac of the airport was eerily quiet, almost deserted. Some things had changed. There were more tent camps, a few more latrines, less rubble in the roads, more mouths fed, less acute medical injuries and trauma, more tents instead of open air surgical wards at the University Hospital where we were the first surgical team after the quake. But the layers of trauma were more apparent. At the University Hospital, the entire second year nursing class was crushed and died in the nursing school. Teachers and nearly all the schools were destroyed. During the five o’clock hour of the quake all the priests and seminarians met in their churches. Most of the priests, the future priests and their churches are now gone. The Universities with most of their precious intellectual capital of professors and the best and the brightest of Haiti are gone.
With few to govern, few to teach, few to learn, and few to help the people pray and soothe their souls, with the political, cultural, educational, and spiritual amputation of a nation, the world community must recognize the deep, cold, dark and powerful vacuum left by the quake that sucks deep into the heart and soul of every Haitian.
Now imagine New York after a similar disaster, a city of 8 million with a loss of a million citizens, with four million people living in the streets, with winter about to come and a marginally functioning government without resources to help. That is the state of Port au Prince today. With our global attention deficit disorder, we have moved on. The “donate to Haiti” banners at the bottom of our television screens have
Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif) was nothing if not brave Wednesday—attempting what many have tried but few have accomplished: silencing Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.).
Weiner took to the House floor to accuse the GOP of being “a wholly owned subsidiary of an insurance industry,” and Lungren wasn’t having any of it. The result was a bizarre back-and-forth exchange that led to three consecutive Weiner speeches.
“Oh, you really don’t want to go there, Mr. Lungren,” Weiner said tauntingly after the Republican asked that his words be struck from the record.
On the eve of President Barack Obama’s health care summit, Weiner opened his speech by accusing Republicans of having the “chutzpah” to be complete obstructionists.
“You know, you’ve gotta love these Republicans. I mean, you guys have chutzpah. The Republican Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of an insurance industry—that’s the fact,” Weiner said, voiced raised.
As the bizarre scene unfolds, whispers repeating the “subsidiary” line can be heard in the C-SPAN footage, which is when Lundgren (R-Calif.) rose to ask that Weiner’s statement be struck from the record.
Weiner then paced the floor, returned to the podium and agreed to retract his statement—only to enter replacement words in the record.
“Every single Republican I’ve ever met in my entire life is a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry!” Weiner yelled even louder than before.
The entire exchange lasted about five minutes, demonstrating a true sign of bipartisanship leading into a health care reform summit meant to bring both parties together.
We were just talking about the mouth on this guy. Today in Congress Anthony Weiner gets called by the refs twice for offensive language.
In a discussion of the Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act, apparently speaking on Rep. Peter DeFazio’s (D.-OR) time, Weiner laughs and says, “You know, you gotta love these Republicans. You guys have chutzpah.”
Then Weiner yells that the Republican Party “are a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry.” Some discussion is heard offscreen, which we thought was Republicans asking for the Yiddish to be translated, but after Weiner bounces around yelling for a while and then repeats the subsidiary charge, Rep. Daniel Lundgren (R.-CA) demands he withdraw the remarks.
Weiner says, “You really don’t want to go here, Mr. Lundgren,” The chair sends Weiner to the penalty box.
This all happens in the first minute. Much fumf-fumf as Weiner prepares to revise his remarks. Then, around 2:30, he does so: “Every single Republican I have ever met in my entire life is a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry!” Then he gets challenged and has to revise again.
Weiner, who maintains a combative Arnold Stang tone throughout, gets a lot of bravos for this at YouTube. He’s turning into New York’s Congressional performance artist.
photo of child found in rubble of demolished kindergarten
Eleven of us from Children’s Hope traveled together to Haiti to provide Humanitarian relief, specifically to bring medicine and medical supplies and to administer basic medical care. We went to Haiti to help, to be of service.
What we didn’t expect was to return from Haiti feeling so blessed, so privileged and so humbled. Not one of us wanted to leave Haiti and return home. One member of our team, an EMT, did, in fact, stay behind. Many members of our team will be returning at the end of March.
I suppose what most people would expect me to say if asked what I remember most about Haiti would be the devastation left behind from the earthquake.
Monumental and horrific as the devastation was, what I will remember most about Haiti is its peoples’ sense of community, gentle strength, enduring patience, kind respect, intelligence, curiosity, and bright smiles.
I will remember their stories. Stories that longed to be told and needed to be heard; stories that break your heart and make you weep.
I’ll remember people’s daily struggle to survive under the poorest conditions in the western hemisphere. Our Haitian guide and historian told us that before the earthquake less than 10% of the population had any kind of employment. Imagine now, after the earthquake, the fate of the Haitian people.
I will remember the dedication of the Haitian caregivers, American healthcare workers/providers and relief organizations that give all that they have, tirelessly, selflessly, from the heart, to help those who need it most. Appropriately, Matthew 25 Clinic (one of the clinics where we delivered medicines, medical supplies and provided basic medical care) is named after the verse in the Bible which says: “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me”.
I will remember our friend Rea standing next to homes reduced to rubble saying, “My student is still buried under there, and over there”.
I will remember walking amongst the rubble and finding photos of happy families, of children in their graduation gowns, report cards, and a bible opened to the chapter of Ezekiel.
I will remember a man on the road telling us the story of losing all twelve members of his family and his home. He told us that his purpose in life now was to help those less fortunate then himself.
I will remember the story of Roberta. Her father stopped us on the road. He was a single father, raising two beautiful, intelligent daughters of whom he was enormously proud of and loved deeply. Both were model students. Roberta was 14 years old and excelled in computers, so much so that she had been on Haiti TV as a model for other young teens. As he held up the two photos of his daughters, tears streamed down his face and he began to sob. Both daughters were now buried under the rubble. His shop had been looted after the earthquake. He had nothing left. No family, No possessions. No hope. We all cried. As I’m writing this story, I find the tears still flow. I’ll probably always cry when I remember this man’s tragic life story.
I’ll remember the camaraderie of our group. The bond that we all shared amidst great sadness and tragedy will always be something I hold dear. In a group of eleven people in stressful circumstances, in close quarters for long stretches of time, there was never a cross word spoken nor any kind of negativity. We traveled together, experienced some “interesting” situations, ate, lodged, served, conversed, laughed and cried together. We were an incredible team.
But what I will always remember the most profoundly are the children - how much they wanted to be loved and how much love they had to give. As a mom, I was deeply moved by their innocence while at the same time feeling surrounded by old souls for these are children who had seen and experienced much hardship and loss and had come to accept this as their way of life. They cared for their younger siblings (some without parents) and took on tasks and burdens without complaint. Their smiles and laughs were magical to us.
So, as the song goes, “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”, and as our Haitian guide said to me when I broke down crying once, “Don’t cry, Cathlyn, this is their lives.”
The question is, how can we best turn our heartbreak into a positive outcome for the people of Haiti?
The current struggles are just beginning for the people of Haiti. Hundreds of thousands of people are displaced into makeshift tent cities with no sanitation. Disease outbreaks are a constant threat. The rainy season is soon to begin. The Hurricane season will start in June. People housed under bed sheets, tarps and tents have no protection against the brutality of a storm, let alone a hurricane.
We were just a small group. However, as Margaret Meade said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Please help Children’s Hope give the children of Haiti a chance at life - the hope of a future filled with something other than misery and pain. Your donations provide Children’s Hope with the ability to purchase much needed supplies: medicines, surgical supplies, diabetic supplies, vitamins, blood pressure monitors, miniature soccer balls (the children love them), tarps, rope, tools, and so much more. The children are the hope. They are the future of Haiti.
Mesi, (thank you in Creole)
Cathlyn Daly
Donations can be sent to:
CHILDREN’S HOPE
3025-A Cambridge Road
Cameron Park, CA 95682
Top Left to Right: Chris Crabb; Paul Burke; Leisa Faulkner; Jordan Barnes; Christene Timmons; David Crandall
Bottom Left to Right: Cathlyn Daly; Grant Barnes; Brittany Barnes; Caleb Barnes
Team Member: Mostafa Noori (stayed an additional two weeks in Haiti after we departed back to the States)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Read journals of team member’s accounts below:
Cathlyn’s email exchanges with Chief of Infectious Disease at her Medical Facility upon her return from Haiti below:
Hi Dr. V,
I returned home from Haiti late last night. It was a whirlwind trip, but certainly a life impacting experience. I didn’t want to come home. I’d like to return and split my time in half with Children’s Hope and the team from here. One of my teammates, Mostafa, the nephew of Dr. N. (anesthesiologist here at our facility), chose to stay another two weeks at Matthew 25, a medical clinic/tent city that we worked at.
I apologize for not being able to post from Haiti. There wasn’t internet access from where we were. We never had more than 4-5 hours of sleep from the day we left Sacramento until we returned. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone. We never wanted for water or food. We never felt unsafe. The videos we witnessed on CNN of wild crowds did not accurately reflect anything we saw or felt. In actuality, Americans were welcomed, embraced. The spirit of the Haitian people is amazing. Not one Haitian ever asked us for anything. They have nothing. They only wanted to say “thank you” and to tell us their stories. For those that were hurt, their gratitude for our attention and care was palpable.
The earthquake situation is worse than can be described. The tent situation is desperate. In one tent city that we know of there were 40,000 people with no sanitation whatsover. There are tent cities everywhere in varying sizes. We met doctors and medical teams from all over the USA. The unofficial mayor, Rea, took us to a bluff where she had arranged for one doctor to administer to over 100 people she had gathered there from all over. The people had been waiting there for two days. The doctor never arrived. When told that the doctor wasn’t coming, the people didn’t complain. They weren’t angry. They just came up and thanked us. Their patience and kindness was/is astounding. As we drove our two vans down the street at the bottom of the bluff, people in scrubs began to exit out of a nearby building and began to follow after us. I walked back to talk to them and it was a physician who had a clinic down the street. Several minutes later his team of nurses and more doctors caught up with us. They told us that they had just completed seeing 240 patients that day and that they were with a group called Pro-Vision. I invited them to come up to the bluff with us, meet with Rea and the founder of our group, Leisa Faulkner. There’s a lot more to the story, but ultimately, the patients eventually were able to be seen by this group of physicians. It was a matter of coordination (people knowing where to find help) and negotiating with the priest in the village because patients are not allowed to be seen on a Sunday.
On the plane ride home, I sat next to a surgeon from New Hampshire. He had been part of a team which had been assembled to deal with patients whose limbs had already been amputated. Their mission was to prepare or redo patients’ amputated limbs for prostheses. They were working out of a surgical clinic in the Dominican Republic. I shared my photos with him that I had taken in Haiti (uploaded onto my netbook). I told him a few stories, sometimes unable to hold back the tears. I told him no one on our team wanted to come home. He said no one from his team wanted to come home either. They all planned to go back. While sitting on the plane talking, CNN broke the news of the man who had been buried for 27 days under rubble being rescued. The two rows of medical personnel sitting in exit rows (where we had been placed), cried.
The surgeon said to me, “we only did eleven surgeries, but then I remember the starfish story that another doctor told me. Do you know the story of the starfish?” and I said “no.”
Two men are walking along the shoreline. One of the men keeps picking up starfish and throwing them back into the surf. The other man says, “why do you bother, most will just end up washing back up. It’s futile. You’re wasting your time.” The man picks up another starfish and throws it back in and says “it matters to that one.”
Cathlyn
*****
Dear Cathlyn
Many thanks for your inspiring account. I have sent it out to the managers and all providers.
A.V., M.D.
*****
Dear Dr. V...wasn’t expecting that (should have proofed my writing...was just writing from my heart), but I’m happy if you think my thoughts are worth sharing. If it inspires or encourages any provider to go to Haiti, that would be wonderful. Doctors and nurses are greatly needed. The same day we were leaving Matthew 25 clinic, the team of doctors and nurses were also exiting, leaving behind a skeleton nursing staff (before the earthquake, Matthew 25 was not a medical clinic). So that the nurses or staff would know how to continue caring for the amputees after the medical teams had left, they were filming the physicians and nurses debriding and bandaging the amputated limbs.
The humanitarian relief effort pulling together by the various countries is inspiring. As we were leaving Haiti we saw a convoy of Italian bulldozers on their way into Haiti. The Cuban and American doctors are working together and providing much needed relief. EMT’s and medical assistants help with assisting the providers and reassuring patients. We were able to deliver medications, help set up pharmacies, bandaging, vaccinations etc. A couple of our team members were fluent in Spanish (our driver was from the Dominican Republic and spoke only Spanish) and one of our team members spoke fluent creole which was invaluable.
The downtown area was hit very hard. The earthquake struck at 5pm. Many people perished in the government buildings. We were taken to the hardest hit area of Port-au-Prince which as at the very top of a steep hill. It was wiped out, devastated. Heartbreaking. Although we saw a lot of earthquake destruction all around us, it was at this place where it all became so real. Where all the bodies still lay underneath the rubble and the stories we heard made us weep. Our Haitian guide pulled me aside, put his arm around me to comfort me and said “Do not weep for us, this is our lives.” Where on a wall, in creole, someone had written in charcoal “if you are hungry, we have corpses. If you are thirsty, we have dust.” And the Red Cross flag waved at the top of the hill.
Cathlyn
Cathlyn Daly, PharmTech, CMA
Ambulatory Care Pharmacy Technician
*****
Jordan Barnes writes:
I could not have anticipated what I was to see, or the affect that our experience in Haiti would have on me.
My fiance Christene and I left from Ocean Beach to join ten others and 1,200 lbs of medicine and supplies that had been donated. This is only a fraction of the donations that “Children’s Hope” has received since the catastrophic quake, but such was our weight allotment, the rest will go down in subsequent trips.
My mother Leisa Faulkner began Children’s Hope, a non-profit/non-religious organization, in 2004 to help the desperate situation of the children of the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. Along with humanitarian aid, my mother has become very involved in the political situation there. Our last trip down there was her 12th.
We spent most all our time in Port au Prince, where through her previous trips, my mother had established ties with community leaders. Governing now only exists at the local level, “mayors” of what are now tent cities have the best idea of what the people in their area need most.
We worked to distribute the huge quantities of medicine, stocking “pharmacies” (usually located in one of the few buildings still sound in the area) with what they needed, and then off through the debris filled streets. When we felt as if we most usefully proportioned out the medicines, we took to helping in the hospitals. Now in what used to be orphanages, schools, and soccer fields, under tarpaulin roofs, the battle is on against the second wave of this disaster. Malaria, typhoid, cholera, and hepatitis A are breaking out as sanitation is almost impossible and the density of people guarantees quick transmition. We gave vaccinations, changed bandages of amputees and helped teach them to use crutches or wheelchairs, and helped the sick in outlaying regions get the treatment they needed.
The dozen or so soccer balls we brought were worth their weight in gold, or rather smiles. Watching the children play soccer together; smiling, hugging, and laughing they seemed to forget if only for a moment the pain and just be kids.
Now what little infrastructure and “stability” the people of Haiti had is all but gone. The devastation is total; government buildings, schools, hospitals, and homes flattened.
They press on through resiliency of spirit and unity.
A unity and oneness that Fox news and CNN would not have you believe, and the mounted 50 caliber weapons on UN tanks do not promote. We never saw riot or looting, but only people pulling together, sharing, lifting each other up. Because they have to, because it is what they have always done.
As a man sitting atop a pile of rubble that used to be his neighborhood his, his family still buried somewhere below his feet proclaimed, “I realize that I am here to help those less fortunate than myself.” The only people that I can think of that are less fortunate than that man are those in that country that have lost not only family and friends, but arms and legs. It is a horrible thing to say, but we met countless Haitians, mostly very young, who fell to such a fate. A people that have endured disaster after disaster, oppression, slavery, coup upon coup are now faced with surviving the worst natural disaster on record.
The people of Haiti are the most beautiful I have ever met, their smiles beaming from under the rubble, and hand in hand they stand up and dance.
I will most likely be returning to Haiti soon, accompanied once again by my loving mother, to sit on an enormous donation (from a resident of Ocean Beach-THANK YOU!) of 15,000 bottles of antimicrobial cleanser/sanitizer and ensure its passage and proper distribution. Please continue to support, you cannot give enough. The need is truly great, and the people could not be more thankful.
Jordan Barnes
If you would like to donate through Children’s Hope:
Children’s Hope
3025 A Cambridge Road
Cameron Park, CA 95682
For more accounts of our Haiti trip, check back this weekend. I’ll be posting more journal entries along with more accounts from Team Haiti. Also, I’ll be posting a large number of photos. Some are heartwarming, some are tragic. Thank you for sharing this journey with us. ... Cathlyn
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.
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