EMILY'S List steps up efforts
Nation's largest political action committee seeks to persuade more women to run for political office.
By Peter Hecht - Bee Capitol Bureau | Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, August 19, 2007
Cristina Uribe looks into the faces of 42 women in a hotel ballroom near San Francisco International Airport and sees the political future.
From this gathering of recent college graduates, lawyers, savvy business executives and other professional women, she envisions tomorrow's state lawmakers, members of Congress, maybe even a governor -- or a president.
But first, Uribe offers them a critical lesson: It can only happen if you "stay on message."
"If you're not sick of your message," declares the Western region director for the EMILY's List Political Opportunity Program, "you're not saying it enough."
Shaping the message is key on the training circuit for EMILY's List, the nation's largest political action committee and a potent force for luring women into politics.
Please join us at our monthly meeting on Monday, August 20th.
Location: Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA) Building
5300 Elvas Avenue
Time: 6:30 p.m. (doors open @ 6:00 - come early for refreshments and socializing)
Program:
“Bead for Life: Eradicating Poverty One Bead at a Timeâ€ÂÂÂÂÂÂ
A short video will explain this unique program. Beautiful jewelry will be available for purchase (cash or check).
Submitted by Tjadendevries on Tue, 08/07/2007 - 8:35pm
[Yes, that is a Samuel Adams glass, which I deliberately used as a metaphor]
I can't drop this.
The Democratic Leadership wanted -- needed -- the Spying on Americans Bill to pass. They actively worked and maneuvered it through the process. The Senate Majority Leader schedules which bills are voted on and when; the Speaker of the House, the Majority Leader and the Whip, marshal bills through their half of Congress; there is absolutely no way that they can claim ignorance, to do so would be disingenuous and duplicitous.
* 16th & J Streets, Sacramento (we will gather in the large parking lot across the street from Mikuni’s & PF Changs)
* Wear your Obama t-shirts & buttons and bring Obama signs!
Wednesday, August 8th, Senator Barack Obama will be in Sacramento for a luncheon. The Senator is not scheduled to speak outside the luncheon but we are going to hold a rally outside to show him Sacramento’s support. Who knows what could happen if enough people show up???
It is staggering, and truly disgusting, that even in August, 2007 -- almost six years removed from the 9/11 attacks and with the Bush presidency cemented as one of the weakest and most despised in American history -- that George W. Bush can "demand" that the Congress jump and re-write legislation at his will, vesting in him still greater surveillance power, by warning them, based solely on his say-so, that if they fail to comply with his demands, the next Terrorist attack will be their fault. And they jump and scamper and comply (Meteor Blades has the list of the 16 Senate Democrats voting in favor; the House will soon follow).
I just finished a discussion panel with ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero which was originally planned to examine his new (superb) book about the work his organization has done for years in battling the endless expansion of executive power and presidential lawbreaking. But the only issue anyone in the room really wanted to discuss -- including us -- was the outrage unfolding on Capitol Hill. And the anger was almost universally directed where it belongs: on Congressional Democrats, who increasingly bear more and more responsibility for the assaults on our constitutional liberties and unparalleled abuses of government power -- many (probably most) of which, it should always be emphasized, remain concealed rather than disclosed.
Examine virtually every Bush scandal and it increasingly bears the mark not merely of Democratic capitulation, but Democratic participation.>
Calling on the United Nations Security Council to charge Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the United Nations Charter because of his calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.
Only two representatives voted against the resolution. Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul.
Paul said:
This resolution is an exercise in propaganda that serves one purpose: to move us closer to initiating a war against Iran. Citing various controversial statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, this legislation demands that the United Nations Security Council charge Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Clearly, language threatening to wipe a nation or a group of people off the map is to be condemned by all civilized people. And I do condemn any such language. But why does threatening Iran with a pre-emptive nuclear strike, as many here have done, not also deserve the same kind of condemnation? Does anyone believe that dropping nuclear weapons on Iran will not wipe a people off the map? When it is said that nothing, including a nuclear strike, is off the table on Iran, are those who say it not also threatening genocide? And we wonder why the rest of the world accuses us of behaving hypocritically, of telling the rest of the world “do as we say, not as we do.†...