Capitol Area Progressives Endorses Brad Parker for Chair of the Progressive Caucus of the CDP
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.
further…
Our movement and our caucus is the fiery generator of bold ideas. We are the citizen response to too many years of the Blue Dog DLC moderate’s electoral flops. Standing for nothing with the DLC cost the Democratic Party everything from 1994 to 2006. Progressives are the first wave of new Liberal activists and the spark that lit the fire resulting in Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008. We are a key part of the new Democratic electoral majority - Labor, Progressives and minorities.
There is a great debate going on in the CDP for the soul of the Democratic Party. On one side are those who say electing Democrats, especially incumbents, is the only purpose of the CDP. On the other side are the members who say that the Party should be the incubator of Progressive Liberal policy. Some say money is everything but we say - in this “Age of Information”, ideas are the greatest capital of all. So, policy and issues are our Progressive focus, not personalities.
I believe that when principled candidates who embody Progressive ideas are joined by modern GOTV operations, then the change we have hoped for and believed in will be possible. Then the Democratic Party will be living up to its mandate.
Change is the only permanent feature of nature. The Progressive Caucus must change as well as the Democratic Party. We need to leave the comfort of our home - the caucus - and reach out to the entire Party. It is time for us to inspire the rest of our Party to invest in our policy proposals. It is time to take the Progressive Platform into every corner of the Democratic Party and America.
Our determination and dedication to open, accessible, transparent and accountable politics have changed the political dynamics of America. Our Progressive ideas and actions have come to demand everyone’s attention. I propose that we go further, much further.
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
Attention Delegates! - VOTE FOR HILARY CROSBY FOR CONTROLLER OF CA STATE DEM PARTY
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
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.”
Moreover, the Obama White House is now trying to work out an agreement with former Bush administration staff—seemingly going over the head of the man some once dubbed “Bush’s brain.”
Craig’s statement does, however, seem to suggest that Bush’s former adviser will be granted some leeway as to the form of his deposition to Congress in lieu of President George W. Bush’s claim that Rove is protected by executive privilege.
President Bush’s former White House counsel Fred Fielding told Rove last month not to testify to Congress in a letter issued to Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin.
In the letter, Fielding told Rove that President George W. Bush would not allow Rove to testify about the firing of nine US Attorneys, a matter which has raised the hackles of Democrats, who contend the firings were political.
“Please advise Mr. Rove (i) that the President continues to direct him not to provide information (whether in the form of testimony or documents) to the Congress in this matter… and not to appear before Congress in this matter,” then-White House Counsel Fielding wrote, citing “absolute” presidential immunity.
Rove himself recently told a California crowd that he would not honor a congressional subpoena.
The winds appear to be changing. Obama lawyers and Bush representatives are now “engaged in discussions that could clear a path for congressional testimony by onetime Bush aide Karl Rove, three sources familiar with the talks” told Johnson for Saturday’s Post.
The negotiations surfaced on the same day House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) issued his third subpoena compelling to Rove to testify in less than two years. Seeing that Conyers is not backing down, Rove’s attorney has hinted at a more conciliatory position, and Bush advisers seem to have all but conceded that they must allow Rove to testify in some form.
“Democrats say President Obama’s view of the matter may open the door for Rove’s eventual appearance on Capitol Hill,” Johnson said.
After Bush blocked Rove and former Bush counsel Harriet Miers from testifying last year, Conyers sued the administration over its executive privilege claim.
Bush’s Justice Department played defense, but lost the case in court. They subsequently appealed the decision and kept Rove from testifying during the interim. The case is now in the hands of Obama’s Justice Department, which must file a briefing indicating their position by Feb. 18.
Rove’s attorney Robert Luskin has offered his client’s testimony regarding the alleged political prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman. Siegelman’s case is the focus of the second half of Conyers’ subpoena.
But Conyers said he would not accept testimony about Siegelman without testimony about the US Attorneys.
“I do not believe it is acceptable for the Committee to allow witnesses to unilaterally determine what they can and cannot testify concerning,” he wrote yesterday.
In an email exchange with Raw Story last week, Luskin hinted that Rove’s cooperation with Congressional investigators was all but inevitable.
“We’re continuing to engage in constructive discussions with the committee to that end, and I’d hesitate to speculate about what form Rove’s cooperation might ultimately take,” he said.
Documentary - Tribute: Stanley Tookie Williams, 1953-2005
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.
Mandy Darkin said she was working at a restaurant “like nothing was going on” until they were suddenly told to go home.
“I looked outside the window and said: ‘Whoa, we are out of here, this is going to be bad,’” Darkin said. “I could see it coming. I just remember the blackness and you could hear it, it sounded like a train.”
Only five houses were left standing out of about 40 in one neighborhood that an Associated Press news crew flew over. Street after street was lined by smoldering wrecks of homes, roofs collapsed inward, iron roof sheets twisted from the heat. The burned-out hulks of cars dotted roads. A church was smoldering, only one wall with a giant cross etched in it remained standing.
Here and there, fire crews filled their trucks from ponds and sprayed down spot fires. There were no other signs of life.
From the air, the landscape was blackened as far as the eye could see. Entire forests were reduced to leafless, charred trunks, farmland to ashes. The Victoria Country Fire Service said some 850 square miles (2,200 square kilometers) were burned out.
Rudd, on a tour of the fire zone, paused to comfort a man who wept on his shoulder, telling him, “You’re still here, mate.”
Police said they were hampered from reaching burned-out areas to confirm details of deaths and property loss. At least 80 people were hospitalized with burns.
On Sunday temperatures in the area dropped to about 77 F (25 C) but along with cooler conditions came wind changes that officials said could push fires in unpredictable directions.
Thousands of exhausted volunteer firefighters were battling about 30 uncontrolled fires Sunday night in Victoria, officials said, though conditions had eased considerably. It would be days before they were brought under control, even if temperatures stayed down, they said.
Residents were repeatedly advised on radio and television announcements to initiate their so-called “fire plan” _ whether it be staying in their homes to battle the flames or to evacuate before the roads became too dangerous. But some of the deaths were people who were apparently caught by the fire as they fled in their cars or killed when charred tree limbs fell on their vehicles.
Rudd announced immediate emergency aid of 10 million Australian dollars ($7 million), and government officials said the army would be deployed to help fight the fires and clean up the debris.
Australia’s previous worst fires were in 1983, when blazes killed 75 people and razed more than 3,000 homes in Victoria and South Australia state during “Ash Wednesday.” Seventy-one died and 650 buildings were destroyed in 1939’s “Black Friday” fires.
Wildfires are common during the Australian summer. Government research shows about half of the roughly 60,000 fires each year are deliberately lit or suspicious. Lightning and people using machinery near dry brush are other causes.
Victoria police Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe said police suspected some of the fires were set deliberately.
Dozens of fires were also burning in New South Wales state, where temperatures remained high for the third consecutive day. Properties were not under immediate threat.
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
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