Tricounty DFA Update: Spitzer In Saratoga, fundraisers, Link-up next week, more
Hello Everyone:

In This Update:

1. Spitzer In Saratoga Springs Thursday
2. Golf For Preston Jenkins
3. Friday Film Fest: Waco
4. Vigil Saturday
5. Denise King At Next Glens Falls Meeting
6. Petition Season
7. Bush & Signing Statements, Iraq Rapidly Unraveling

1. Spitzer In Saratoga Springs Thursday

Saratoga County Chair Larry Bulman sent this out tonight and I moved my update up a day to make sure everyone saw it in time!

"Greetings from the NYS Democratic Convention in Buffalo! By now you've heard that Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson have been nominated by our party as our candidates for Governor and Lt. Governor. There is so much excitment surrounding our ticket, one that we can be proud of.

Directly after the convention, Eliot Spitzer will embark on a bus tour and arrive in Saratoga Springs on Thursday, June 1st at 5pm. We will be having an ice cream social at the Carousel in Congress Park so that Eliot can meet and share his vision for NYS with you. This is a family event and we are encouraging citizens to come out and meet the future Governor. Please pass this email around to anyone who may be interested.

Hope to see you Thursday!

Larry Bulman
Saratoga County Democratic Chair

2. Golf For Preston Jenkins

Also from Larry Bulman:

On Sunday, June 4th at 2pm (rain or shine) at the Tee Bird North Golf Course the Moreau Democratic Committee will be having a "Play 18" Fundraiser for Saratoga County Democratic Treasurer candidate Preston Jenkins. There will be men's, women's and mixed foursomes. Format is "4 person-scarmble, one score per team, shotgun" whatever that means. $85 per person, includes 18 holes and cart. There is a $20 buffet afterwards. If you don't have a partner, they will set you up with one. You can also be a sponsor for $50 if you don't want to play or have no idea what "4 person-scarmble, one score per team, shotgun" means, as I don't!

For info call Dan Van Wie at 793-3265 or Jim Minnick at 793-1957.

3. Friday Film Fest: WACO

The Frirday Progressive Film Fest is up again at the Rockhill Bakehouse Cafe in downtown Glens Falls. This Friday at 8pm the Cafe is showing: WACO: THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT (www.waco93.com)

Shaking the foundation of democracy, the shocking revelations behind the tragic series of events outside Waco, Texas that killed four federal agents and 76 men, women and children of the Branch Davidian religious sect has finally been exposed. Academy Award nominee.
Director: William Gazecki Running time: 136 min.

4. Vigil Saturday

There will be another vigil to bring our troops home and for peace this Saturday at 11am at the Five Corners in downtown Glens Falls. Like those who have been making it, you will be amazed at the people who go by and beep their horns, wave and give up the thumbs up! Please come and bring a friend-- it's only one hour a week. For more info or to RSVP go to: http://www.dfalink.com/event.php?id=8729

5. Denise King At Next Glens Falls Meeting

As I announced last week, I am very pleased to announce a very special guest will attend our June 7 meeting at at the Rockhill Bakehouse Cafe in downtown Glens Falls: Denise King, the Chair of the Executive Committee of New York State Democratic Party, a member of the Democratic National Committee, Chair of the DNC's Rural Council, one of the founders and leaders of the Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee and former Columbia County Chair. She was a Gore Convention Delegate in 2000 and an Electoral College member for Clinton-Gore. As some of us old Dean people may also know, Denise has been a close personal friend and top supporter of Governor Dean for many years.

Denise will talk about the DNC's recent annual convention in New Orleans, what Governor Dean has been up to since arriving at the DNC, what's going on nationally in the Democratic Party and answer questions.

Having top ranking party official like Denise King agree to come and talk to a group like ours is very unusual, Denise is one of the Democratic Party's "big guns." We expect a lot of interest! I am therefore a bit concerned about space, so if everyone could please click on this link for DFA-Link and RSVP, that would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.dfalink.com/event.php?id=8009

If we need to move to a bigger room, we need to know soon!

We will only have Denise for an hour, so we will be starting promptly at our usual time of 7pm; again the date is June 7 at the Rockhill Bakehouse Cafe in Downtown Glens Falls.

Again, please let us know if you are coming: http://www.dfalink.com/event.php?id=8009
You will need to register with DFA-Link to RSVP if you haven't done so: http://dfalink.com/register.php?c=g&id=91042f3ae603ef90&

6. Petition Season

Also, as I mentioned last week, petition season is coming up! Although the State Convention can put state-wide candidates on the ballot, all other candidates in NYS have to file nominating petitions. During the Dean campaign many of us circulated petitions for the Governor; that was kind of tough because the filing season was in the dark and cold of December. Doing it in June or July is almost a breeze by comparison.

The Gillibrand campaign wants to combine circulating petitions with canvassing, and reach as many Democratic voters as possible (FYI if you haven't done it before -- only registered Democrats can sign a petition). Their goal is to get 12,500 signatures. Remember -- we Deaniacs went out and got 3,500 in the freezing weeks just before Christmas. So this is in fact very doable. If 125 people go out and get 100 signatures each, the goal will be reached. With more people, it gets easier.

Petitions to get candidates on the ballot have to be carried and filled out between June 6th and July 13th. After Denise King speaks at the next meeting we'll be doing a little tutorial and circulating petitions for those who want to help with this essential effort. If you want to help with this, let me know.

7. Bush & Signing Statements, Iraq Rapidly Unraveling

The situation in Iraq and here at home is unraveling with alarming speed.

Drew sends this very disturbing piece in the Boston Globe on Bush and his "signing statements." If you haven't heard of this, basically, when Bush signs a law into effect as President, he is scribbling a note on the bottom as to what he thinks it means and whether or not the new law applies to him.

Now, I would really like to be able to do that with, say, a car loan. I could sign a loan agreement for that new $120,000 Aston Martin DB-7 I've always wanted, and put a signing statement at the bottom to the effect "don't expect to get your money back..." yeah. I like that idea... Here is the link to this must read Globe piece: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/04/30/examples_of_the_presidents_signing_statements/

A Nir Rosen piece this weekend in the Washington Post details the disintegration going on in Iraq, where extremely violent fundamentalist Islamist terrorists closely linked to Iran (the Mahdi Army) have taken over one ministry and branch of the government after another. Rosen writes;

"In Baghdad and most of Iraq, the police are the Mahdi Army and the Mahdi Army is the police. The same holds for the actual Iraqi army, posted throughout the country.... The sectarian tensions have overtaken far more than Iraq's security forces and its streets. Militias now routinely enter hospitals to hunt down or arrest those who have survived their raids. And many Iraqi government ministries are now filled with the banners and slogans of Shiite religious groups, which now exert total control over these key agencies. If you are not with them, you are gone.
For instance, in the negotiations between parties after the January 2005 elections, Sadr loyalists gained control over the ministries of health and transportation and immediately began cleansing them of Sunnis and Shiites not aligned with Sadr."

As I asked last week, who exactly are the "freedom fighters" that we should be backing? In the "government" or in the streets? Read more at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052601578_pf.html

As news reports today indicated, a group of Marines are now implicated in a massacre of civilians in Haditha. Drew also sends this along: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=26295&mode=nested&order=0

Although I have to say that maybe what people really should be reading is something like George Orwell's Shooting An Elephant or Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness. Bush and the neocons in their jejune fantasy of empire never paused to consider how such power can corrupt those who hold it, even yield madness. In this sense, the murders in Haditha were not aberrations at all, but absolutely inevitable.

Add Lord Of The Flies to that list of books Bush and the neocons skipped.

Remember, please RSVP at DFA-Link: http://www.dfalink.com/event.php?id=8009

See you all soon,

Larry

Join Democracy For The Greater Glens Falls Area!

- posted by Larry Dudley @ 12:57 AM