The California Democratic Council is offering a free workshop covering a variety of different topics that activists should learn about if they want to become more involved with the party.
Whether you are a candidate or a volunteer, these topics will help prepare you for rising in the ranks of the Democratic Party.
The next workshop is on March 21, 2009 and will be held in Folsom, CA.
For full details, check out the event listing:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gptp5l
Please not that you must register here: http://www.cdc-ca.org/Training/
Don't miss out!
Today, we are trying to do our humble bit to help elect Barack Obama. On Friday, Sarah Palin gave us yet another reason to feel good about what we're doing here.
We are far from the first people to comment on this subject so we'll keep it brief. But Palin's mockery of "fruit fly research" during her October 24th speech on special-needs children was so misconceived, so offensive, so aggressively stupid, and so dangerous that we felt we had to comment.
Here's the excerpt from the speech:
"Where does a lot of that earmark money end up, anyway? [...] You've heard about, um, these -- some of these pet projects they really don't make a whole lot of sense, and sometimes these dollars they go to projects having little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not!"
It's hard to know where to begin deconstructing this statement. This was a speech on autism, and Palin's critics have pounced on the fact that a recent study of Drosophila fruit flies showed that a protein called neurexin is essential for proper neurological function -- a discovery with clear implications for autism research.
Awkward! But this critique merely scrapes icing off the cake.
Fruit flies are more than just the occasional vehicles for research relevant to human disabilities. They are literally the foundation of modern genetics, the original model organism that has enabled us to discover so much of what we know about heredity, genome structure, congenital disorders, and (yes) evolution. So for Palin to state that "fruit fly research" has "little or nothing to do with the public good" is not just wrong -- it's mind-boggling.
What else does this blunder say about Palin and her candidacy? Many people have used it as just another opportunity to call her a dummy, since anyone who has stayed awake through even a portion of a high-school-level biology class knows what fruit flies are good for. But leave that aside for a second. Watch the clip. Listen to the tone of her voice as she sneers the words "fruit fly research." Check out the disdain and incredulity on her face. How would science, basic or applied, fare under President Palin?
We have other questions. Who wrote this speech? Was he or she as ignorant as Palin about the central role that fruit flies have played in the last century of biomedical research? Or was this a calculated slight to science and scientists -- a coded way of saying, "We don't care what you know or what you think"? We find it odd that, of all the examples of dubious expenditures of public funds, the speechwriters alighted on this one.
Whatever the explanation, it scares us. Everyone who has suffered, either personally or indirectly, from an inherited illness, and anyone whose life has been lengthened or enriched by modern medicine, should channel Palin's flip comment when they stand in the voting booth on November 4th.
Eight years ago, when the country was getting ready to vote for President, I told my family that if GW Bush became president, the country would be in trouble. There was an underlying current of greed and world domination coming from him and his cronies that made me very uncomfortable.
Starting with Reagan, and his trickle down economics, the country had started down a path of borrowing money from outside the US to pay for our own infrastructure and military. Gradually, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. The Republicans claimed to not be for big government and to not be for subsidies to people, yet because of the slow slide in the country's wealth and the closing of American companies, more and more people began to lose jobs, requiring them to go on unemployment and to get food stamps, etc. More people are on unemployment now than in any other time in our country's history, all due to the mismanaged economy under the Bush Administration.
The Bush Administration has gradually taken away many of the fundamental rights of the citizens by implementing the Patriot Act, used the 9/11 tragedy as their excuse to invade Iraq to avenge Bush Sr's honor after the Kuwait War, and brought down the banks via Wall Street so that they could take them over. They have tried to circumvent the Constitution any way they could.
We need a President who can stop the continuing decline in the American way of life. My family ancestry dates back to before the Pilgrims arrived from Europe, so I feel very strongly about honoring our Constitution. My respect for Barack Obama and Joe Biden is deep and well-founded. They are true students of the Constitution and understand what it will take to overcome the manipulation and greed that have nearly destoyed our country the last eight years. That is why I urge all citizens of the United States to vote for them and take back OUR country. We, the People, are still in charge!
Hello, I found this very enlightening (but not surprising) post on a new Facebook group that I joined today.
Link to Facebook group "Women Not Falling for Sarah Palin as Vice President" http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=25055378849:
When she ran for governor of Alaska in 2006, Sarah Palin was asked if she would support abstinence-before-marriage programs over sex education, school clinics and contraceptive distribution. She was firm in her answer: "Explicit sex ed programs will not find my support."
to read entire article, click on link:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/01/MN4612MCRH.DTL
Just in case any of you missed this announcement:
It used to be that a presidential candidate announced his running mate at a carefully staged rally in a crucial swing state designed to boost buzz for the ticket and maximize media coverage.
But in a presidential cycle where so many of the conventional rules no longer appear applicable, Barack Obama’s campaign said Sunday the Democratic VP choice will be revealed via e-mail and text messages to supporters.
Read more here:
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/11/obama-to-announce-vp-via-text-e-mail/
If this is true, it's shameful...
The blogosphere is abuzz right now over the discovery that a POW story told by John McCain (R) at Saturday night’s presidential forum is eerily similar to one told by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his famous book The Gulag Archipelago which chronicled his time in a Soviet labor camp in the 1950s and 1960s.
More here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-nickolas/did-mccain-steal-his-cros_b_119471.html
...and they should! What a childish ad, I agree:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/30/conservatives-wonder-if-n_n_115936.html
Please donate here to the Obama campaign:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/myrnaforobama
I truly admire that the Obama campain staff sticks to substance rather than personal attacks.
The McCain camp just doesn't "get it" they released that ridiculous ad today about Obama being a "celebrity" and I find them to be envious of all the attention the most qualified candidate is receiving - what happened to McCain running a "respectable" campaign?
Here is the Obama ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPPLSHKH0h4
And, by the way, I don't believe in the polls. What a great observation here on McCain's grassroots effort:
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/election08/262
Yes we can!
Yep, I remeber, do you? :-)
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=3105455&page=1
Great observation:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/opinion/26herbert.html?ref=opinion
Yes We Can!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080723/wl_time/berlinawaitsthenextjfk;_ylt=AlkfDMZQEsywgEVYr9TDCQis0NUE
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080722/pl_politico/11971
Keep being "fine" with it, I'm personally thrilled!
If I were a GOPer, I would insist in MCain not speaking again until very late October, perhaps Halloween?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/22/mccain-gets-history-of-th_n_114419.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080722/pl_politico/11939;_ylt=Ah_ITSBbD1AT26l1Tt10SoQEtbAF
It's so obvious...
In trying to best make use of my time and volunteer for Mr. Barack Obama, I've decided I want to register as many voters as possible.
Does anyone out there know how to set-up a voter registration at a local BART station? I've done a Google search and cannot seem to find any information on how this is done.
Any information would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!M.
