Tricounty DFA Halloweeen Update: Meetup with Conference Call With Governor Dean, more
Hello Everyone!

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween!

In this update:

1. Bush Makes Scary Halloween Nomination
2. Meetup Wednesday With Dean Call
3. Kirsten Gillibrand To Speak Friday
4. Rally For Voting Machine Rights
5. Final Local Campaign Events
6. Dean Gets Tough
7. Bill Clinton Starts To Catch Up

1. Bush Makes Scary Halloween Nomination

It was a scary Halloween all across the country today with the surprise nomination of Samuel Alito to the Surpreme Court.

There are two ways of looking at this: A. Bush wants to drive the Plamegate spy outing scandal off the front pages, and, B. Bush is paying back his extremist right wing base. In either case, Alito is the sole judge on the Circuit Court to vote to strike down the Family Medical And Leave -- so much for "family values" -- and to allow racial, gender and disability discrimination. He has a long and disgraceful record, once actually voting to approve the strip searching of a ten year old girl and her mother by police officers who didn't have warrants to do so (don't these guys have $20 for a "lap dance" at one of those so called Gentlemen's Clubs? ).

I am sure we will be hearing and doing more on this in the next few months. For more info: http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/31/samuel-alitos-america/
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/10/31/124646/08

And a group of very good links: http://www.mydd.com/section/Judges

The Right Wing likes to pretend they are against "Judicial Activism" but they are the worse by far: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/10/31/19039/478

Moveon is calling for signatures: http://political.moveon.org/stopalito/
Also People For The American Way: http://www.savethecourt.org/site/c.mwK0JbNTJrF/b.1142525/k.3576/Stop_Alito/apps/ka/ct/contactcustom.asp

2. Meetup Wednesday With Dean Call

We will be having our November DFA "meetup," which we now call Linkups, next week, Wednesday, November 2, at the Rockhill Bakehouse Cafe in downtown Glens Falls at 7pm. There will be no Saratoga DFA meeting because of the local election.

The evening will feature a live conference call with DFA founder and DNC chair Governor Howard Dean and DFA Chair Jim Dean. This conference call is scheduled for 9pm. The Cafe has generously agreed to stay open a half hour longer so we can get in on the call. (However, we will want to vacate promptly so the staff can go home.)

This is the first live call with the Governor in a long time; so we are bound to hear a lot of exciting news. On Nov. 15th Governor Dean is having another nationwide conference call for other Democrats on the topics he intends to speak about: the Republican Culture of Corruption and organizing Democrats for victory next year. However, the Governor is going to discuss all this with us, his DFA base, first.

We will also be discussing message formation and letter writing, our upcoming Voting Machine Forum, DFA-Link and more. It should be a great meeting. Come and bring a friend.

To reach the Rockhill Bakehouse Cafe, from Northway Exit 18, travel east into Glens Falls. Past the Hannaford, bear right at the Stewart's store, go past the Post Office and the Hospital to the intersection with the light just before the five points downtown. The Cafe is on the left on the corner of Hudson Ave., Exchange Street and Elm Street.

3. Kirsten Gillibrand To Speak Friday

Upcoming Congressional Candidate Kirsten Gillibrand will be speaking at a very last minute pre-election fundraising event hosted by the Warren County Democratic Committee on November 4th from 6:30-8:30 at the Highlander Park Country Club in Queensbury Tickets are $35.00 each. For info please contact Ann Hall at ahall@nycap.rr.com or other committee members.

4. Rally For Voting Machine Rights

This came in today from Bo Lipari of New York Verified Voting -- as you may know, we are going to have him speak in Glens Falls later this month.

"This Election Day may be the last time that New Yorkers vote on mechanical lever machines. What will we replace them with? New York State citizens, legislators, and technical experts are calling for paper ballots and optical scanners (PBOS) rather than untested, unauditable, problem prone electronic voting machines (DREs).

Join New Yorkers for Verified Voting and the NYS League of Women Voters for a rally in at the State Capitol in Albany on Monday, November 7 at 12 pm. We're rallying to call for adoption of PBOS, and transparency in the voting machine selection process.

Elections belong to the public, not to voting machine vendors looking to maximize profits. Join us to tell state officials that we don't want to vote on unproven, expensive, error prone DREs.

NYS Rally for Paper Ballots
Location: State Capitol Steps, Albany NY
Date: Monday, November 7
Time: 12 Noon"

5. Final Local Campaign Events

Pat Friesen, our DFA Hostess with the mostess in Saratoga, sends this appeal for help on a big literature drop in the Spa City Saturday.

"Breakfast and Blitz
Join us for the Final Literature Drop on behalf of all the Saratoga Springs Democratic Candidates

Saturday, November 5th
10 – 11:30am at
The Parting Glass

1. Stop in and have bagels & muffins and coffee/tea/juice.
2. Head out with your pre-packed Literature Drop bags assembled with an election district map and materials for distribution that weekend.
Donations gladly accepted!
Let us know you’re coming. Email: jstuchi1@nycap.rr.com or phone 583-7855"

6. Dean Gets Tough

Governor Dean has been speaking out a lot lately and he's getting tough. It looks like he's got his medical license back and is administering another spine transplant to the Democratic Party.

First he was in the San Francisco area on a picket line for striking nurses:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/30/01040/932
Some highlights:
"Maybe if we had the foresight to start the primaries here in California, I'd be giving this speech from a much different location!"
On the Nov. 8th special election: "Vote 'no' on all of 'em. I know there are a few propositions there that are good, but it will send a message to the Governor in Sacramento and President Bush in Washington if everything goes down together. Don't worry, we'll put in the good stuff later. Just vote 'no' on everything."
"I know from my experience as a doctor -- although I haven't practiced in a long time -- that it's the quality of the nurses that gets things done."
"We can reverse the downward trend of organized labor in this country. It was our core in the '30s and '40s when we were running things."
"We need to rebuild the Democratic party from the ground up. We can't be 'Republican Lite.' It just doesn't work."
Then he came out swinging on the meaning of the indictment of Libby Lewis:
"Worse Than Watergate": http://www.democrats.org/a/2005/10/worse_than_wate.php

Today he took the cane to the Alito nomination and the link to hiding the Bush Administration's corruption:
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=55907

7. Bill Clinton Starts To Catch Up

President Clinton seems to be catching the spirit as well:

According to the AP:

"Democrats can't be afraid to talk about hot-button issues, including abortion, and should fight back against personal attacks from conservatives if they want to regain power in Washington, former President Bill Clinton said Saturday.
"You can't say, 'Please don't be mean to me. Please let me win sometimes.' Give me a break here," Clinton said. "If you don't want to fight for the future and you can't figure out how to beat these people then find something else to do."

For more:
http://www.comcast.net/news/politics/index.jsp?cat=POLITICS&fn=/2005/10/29/253079.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/30/85810/572

Things are looking up!

If you haven't signed up for DFA-Link to use the new tools and help us build up the resistance to the radical right, you can do it anytime: http://www.dfa-link.com/register.php?c=g&id=91042f3ae603ef90&

Many thanks, everyone, see you Wednesday!

Larry
- posted by Larry Dudley @ 11:26 PM