SEIU to Support and Recruit Primary Challengers with "Accountability Project"
(Roatti)
That's why SEIU is set to endorse a "Justice for All" platform during our June Convention -- a plan that includes $150 million and a 1/4 of our organizing staff budgeted to win health care, restore the middle class, work towards ending the war, and hold politicians accountable AFTER the election.
This also includes SEIU running and RECRUITING primary challenges in some cases. We consider our support of Donna Edwards to be a dramatic preview of the "Accountability Project."
Learn more about the central issues in the campaign, and how this works.
You should also know that in addition to Donna Edwards, SEIU sponsored a group of relatively unknown pro-worker candidates who ousted seven incumbent Chicago Alderman allied with the Chicago Mayor Daley political machine.
We really hope to foster a partnership with you in this project. SEIU is already a founding member of "They work for us," and we see this as a financial and organizational extension of that commitment.
In the wake of the failure of congestion pricing to go to the Assembly floor for debate or receive a vote (at least a public one), several Democratic legislators are singing a similar-sounding tune-the bad news is really good news.
In defense of the non-vote they point out that the practice of mulling things over in party conference has yielded many progressive victories by blocking consideration and (they claim) likely passage of a new capitol punishment law or choice issues like parental notification and consent
Without commenting on those specific issues, the problem with this explanation is that it's a tacit admission that the Assembly speaker retains top-to-bottom control over the body.
Please join
Host Committee Co-Chairs
for a brunch reception
in honor of
Rep. Vito Fossella
Republican, Thirteenth Congressional District of New York
Member, House Energy & Commerce Committee
Member, House Subcommittees on: Environment and Hazardous Materials; Telecommunication and the Internet; Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection
With Special Guest
Vice President Dick Cheney
Monday, April 21, 2008
11:00 a.m.
Guests please arrive no later than 10:30 a.m.
to allow for required security checks
At the home of
David and Julia Koch
740 Park Avenue
New York, New York
The documents offer no support for her claims, made during the presidential campaign, that she helped to negotiate the Irish peace accords or facilitated the flow of refugees in the Balkans. Neither is there evidence in them to back up her claim that she helped pass the Family and Medical Leave Act, the first legislation Mr. Clinton signed as president.
Fierce competition from new providers has pushed the level of broadband subscriptions in eight European countries above the levels in the United States and Japan, according to figures to be released Wednesday.
(snip)
The commission says the European Union added 19 million broadband lines in 2007, the equivalent of more than 50,000 households per day.
(snip)
In addition to the three Nordic countries and the Netherlands, four others - Britain, Belgium, Luxembourg and France - had surpassed the United States by July 2007. By January 2008, Germany had also done so.
In an interview Tuesday, Ms. Reding vowed to press ahead with an effort to give regulators powers to force the so-called incumbent telecommunications companies to run their businesses in a way that would make it easier for new competitors to enter the market. In countries like Germany and France, former state monopolies have fought fiercely against such a move.
Vitter: "There's an enormous difference" between Spitzer and me
(phillip anderson)
There are indeed differences. The first two that come to mind are that Vitter is a Republican. The second is that Vitter is still in office. Details here.
But in spite of the dire need for better health care, more electricity and clean water, a functioning sewage system and other services, the accountability office has previously estimated that Iraq spent only 22 percent of the oil money set aside for reconstruction in 2006. And in January, the office, which is charged with overseeing the Iraqi government's finances, reported that Iraq had spent a meager 4.4 percent of its 2007 reconstruction budget by August of that year, the most recent figures available at the time.
As a result, the letter from the Armed Services Committee says, "we believe that it has been overwhelmingly U.S. taxpayer money that has funded Iraq reconstruction over the last five years, despite Iraq earning billions of dollars in oil revenue over that time period that have ended up in non-Iraqi banks."
The letter was signed by Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is the committee chairman, and Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who is a former chairman. Senator John McCain of Arizona, the ranking Republican on the committee and the presumptive Republican nominee for president, did not sign the letter.
Bloomberg Doesn't Fare Well in NYC as 3rd Party Candidate
(The Maven)
In what should be seen as a clear sign of an absence of any local groundswell for a presidential run by Mayor Mike, WABC-TV had SurveyUSA run a poll of New York City voters for various potential matchups with Mike Bloomberg as an independent.
The result? Bloomberg is consistently loses by huge margins to the Democrat, though he would finish ahead of any Republican (including, thankfully, Dear Old Rudy). The poll of 808 registered voters was taken Jan. 10-13.
Martin Luther King said, "The time is always right to do what is right." So I'm choosing this time to share an important decision I've made, one I believe is right for this country.
The JohnKerry.com community has been very important to me and very important to the Democratic resurgence over the last couple of years, so I wanted to let all of you know my decision before I confirm it with anyone else. I want to share with you my conviction that in a field of fine Democratic candidates, the next President of the United States can be, should be, and will be Barack Obama. Each of our candidates would make a fine President, and we are blessed with a strong field. But for this moment, at this time in our nation's history, Barack Obama is the right choice.
I'm proud to have helped introduce Barack to our nation when I asked him to speak to our national convention, and there Barack's words and vision burst out. On that day he reminded Americans that our "true genius is faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles." And with his leadership we can build simple dreams, and we can turn millions of small miracles into real change for our country.
At this particular moment, with our country faced with great challenges in our economy, in our environment, and in our foreign policy, and with our politics torn by division, Barack Obama can bring transformation to our country. With Barack, we can build a new majority of Americans from all regions who can turn the page on the politics of Karl Rove and begin a new politics, one worthy of our nation's history and promise. We can bring millions of disaffected people - young and old - to the great task of governing and making a difference, child to child, community to community.
The moment is now, and the candidate for this moment is Barack Obama. Like him, I also lived abroad as a young man, and I share with him a healthy respect for the advantage of knowing other cultures and countries, not from a book or a briefing, but by personal experience, by gut, by instinct. He knows the issues from the deep study of a legislator, and he knows them from a life lived outside of Washington. His is the wisdom of real-world experience combined with the intellect of a man who has thought deeply about the challenges we face.
History has given us this moment. But we need to decide what to do with it. I believe, with this moment, we should make Barack Obama President of the United States.
