Tricounty DFA: Meeting Wednesday, Inconvenient Truth, Saratoga Women's and more
Hello Everyone;

In this update:


1. DFA Meetup or Linkup This Wednesday
2. Agenda: An Inconvenient Truth
3. Saratoga Women's Luncheon
4. Voting Technology: Federal Testers Declare Touchscreen Machines Insecure
5. Jim Dean: Sign Petition To Include Paper Ballots in 100 Hours
6. Kucinich Introduces Bill To Require Paper Ballots
7. Dean In Canada and Washington
8. Kameron Spaulding & Americaspoke.org
9. Friday Progressive Film Fest


1. DFA Meetup or Linkup This Wednesday

We will be holding our Greater Glens Falls Democracy For America December meeting this Wednesday, December 6th at the Rockhill Bakehouse Cafe at 7pm. The Cafe is located in downtown Glens Falls on Exchange and Elm Streets and Hudson Avenue. For info and directions go to DFA-Link at: http://www.dfalink.com/event.php?id=168 Come, bring a friend and meet old friends!

2. Agenda: An Inconvenient Truth

We will talk a little bit about our agenda for the New Year, then we'll be showing Al Gore's great new movie, An Inconvenient Truth. We learned last month that the video is being made available for groups like ours and there was great interest at the meeting in a showing.

3. Saratoga Women's Luncheon

The Saratoga County Democratic Women's Luncheon will be held on December 14, 2006 at Noon at Lillian's Restaurant on Broadway in downtown Saratoga Springs.

Please Join Your Democratic Women (and Men) Friends to Celebrate the Holidays, Friendship and Victory!

The cost is $20, and there will be a sit-down luncheon.

Please RSVP by December 11, 2006 to Pat Friesen 518-542-9157 or mcfriesen2@aol.com

4. Voting Technology: Federal Testers Declare Touchscreen Machines Insecure

As you all know DFA has been closely following the issue of electronic voting: this will be at the top of DFA's agenda for next year.

A very major story emerged on electronic voting this week. A Federal agency, the National Institute of Standards and Technology declared that paperless electronic voting machines "cannot be made secure." The Institute, which is advising the US Election Assistance Commission, recommended paper ballots optically scanned. This is a huge breakthrough for PB/OS-- it really cuts the ground out from underneath the advocates of touch screen machines.
For more on this very important story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/30/AR2006113001637.html

There is also a good overview of voting machines in the NY Times today. The op-ed raises the issue of vote flipping, without properly focusing on the issue of vote fraud, on why that happens: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/opinion/04mon4.html?pagewanted=all

5. Jim Dean: Sign Petition To Include Paper Ballots in 100 Hours

DFA National Chairman Jim Dean asked everyone last week to sign a petition calling Speaker-Elect Pelosi to include legislation mandating paper ballots as part of the 100 Hours of Reform she is planning in January. Sign at: http://www.democracyforamerica.com/paperballots

6. Kucinich Introduces Bill To Require Paper Ballots

Representative and former Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has introduced a bill, HR 6200, which would require paper ballots to be hand-counted at the precinct level. I assume this would be the likely bill for the 100 Hours. Check it out at Kucinich's website. http://www.kucinich.us/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8289

Rep. Kucinich has also introduced legislation to cut off the funding that keeps US troops in Iraq. Kucinich makes a compelling legal and moral case that voting for funding is inevitably an endorsement of George Bush's policies. He also makes the point that the claim a funding cut off would leave US troops stranded in the desert is a red herring. http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20061201/cm_huffpost/035299 and
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-dennis-kucinich/there-is-only-one-way-to-_b_35453.html

7. Dean In Canada and Washington

Governor Dean traveled to Canada and made a major address to the Canadian Liberal Party on the subject of grass roots politics. There are links to video and a full transcript at: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/11/30/1340/3283
Also http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/11/29/dean-liberals.html (thanks Drew)

He delivered part of the address in French, interestingly enough.

Dean also spoke to the Democratic Party's Executive Committee on Saturday in Washington. According to Dean “governing is more difficult than campaigning,” and declared that Democrats must not squander opportunities to keep building the party. The modest gains winning over evangelical voters, he said, should be strengthened by asserting that “moral values are an important part of foreign policy.”

“The other party made mistakes in the past claiming that elections are mandates,” Mr. Dean said. “Elections are not mandates. The voters of this country loaned the Democrats the power of the country for two years. Now it’s our job to earn it back again.”

http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/feeds/ap/2006/12/02/ap3222629.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/washington/03dems.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
8. Kameron Spaulding & Americaspoke.org

Many of us will remember Kameron Spaulding, the founder of Washington County Young Democrats and a regular local DFA member, especially from his performance at the Saratoga Springs forum on Social Security and his and his Mom's, the Rev. Sandra Spaulding's, being featured in the Post Star during our Leave My Child Alone initiative in 2005.

Kam is now a student at the University of Rhode Island and he has launched a new group there, America Spoke ( http://www.americaspoke.org ). It's an outstanding example of Young Democrat leadership and I am sure we will hear more about it in the future! Check it out. Kam wants to have a launch event here in the area over the holidays.

9. Friday Progressive Film Fest

Finally, the Rockhill Bakehouse Cafe continues its Friday Night Progressive Film Festival at 8pm with:

Dec 8 INCIDENT AT OGLALA (1992) Michael Apted 90 min.
On June 26, 1975, during a period of high tensions on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, two FBI agents were killed in a shootout with a group of Indians. Although several men were charged with killing the agents, only one, Leonard Peltier, was found guilty. This film describes the events surrounding the shootout and suggests that Peltier was unjustly convicted.

Thanks Everyone! See you all Wednesday.

Larry Dudley
- posted by Larry Dudley @ 11:12 AM