Democracy for New Mexico

Guest Blog: Democrats, Walking the Walk, Supporting the Troops

Delivering the packages

This is a guest blog from Terry Riley and George Boersig, who worked hard on this project along with many other Democrats in Albuquerque: We so often hear politicians talk about supporting our troops. That is usually used to encourage us to not ask to bring our troops home and to encourage the next war. It would seem that truly supporting the troops would be doing something that reduces their risk of getting killed or injured. It also should mean providing all of the health and other care that they may need after they have served for us.

This Saturday, December 22, 2007, the Bernalillo County Democratic Party delivered clothes, toiletries, and food to the New Mexico Veterans Integration Center. The NMVIC is a housing, counseling, and job placement center for homeless veterans. This is not a government institution, though they do receive some government money. There are presently 69 male residents and three female residents. Members of the party gathered the items and brought them to the Bernalillo County Democratic Party third Thursday regular business meeting and then sorted items and boxed them so that we could wrap a variety of items in one box per individual. We collected more than enough for the residents so we were able to give the extra items such as underwear and towels for the NMVIC “general store” for later use.

Members of the US military branches believe in not leaving a soldier behind on the battlefield. The NMVIC believes in “Beyond the Battlefield”. Their hope is to provide needed help to any veteran. Our country needs to adapt the policy of leaving no soldier behind, active or veteran, no matter what his or her ailment or problem may be. We must act to fully fund our Veterans Administration so that the best care is available to everyone who served, no exceptions! This is Supporting Our Troops!

Sorting and filling the packages

Walk the walk. Vote for candidates who pledge to REALLY support our troops AND our veterans. Follow through, check on the people you voted for and make sure that they do vote to provide the needed services and care for ALL of our veterans. Help your elected officials keep their promises and replace ANY elected officials who do not do everything possible to Support Our Troops!

Now, after all of this we have an important request to make of everybody. The NMVIC has a serious budget shortfall and has asked for emergency appropriations from the state legislature. If you consider that New Mexico provided approximately $275,000 this last year for operations at the NMVIC and that New Mexico spent approximately $9,000,000 for monuments and memorials for those who served and for the campaigns they served in, it would seem a better choice to spend a lot of money on people who served – AND ARE IN NEED AND STILL ALIVE, than to spend on commemorations on those who have passed.

George with wrapped packages

Please contact your state legislators and ask them to commit to always spending more money on veterans who are alive than they spend on memorials. Just imagine how many veterans could be helped and how much care could be provided if we had multi-million dollar appropriations.

This is a guest blog by Terry Riley and George Boersig of Albuquerque. Guest blogs provide readers with an opportunity to express their views on relevant issues and may or many not reflect our views. If you'd like to submit a piece for consideration as a guest blog, contact me by clicking on the Email Me link on the upper left-hand corner of the page.

Bernalillo Dems Give to Vets in Need

Lynn Jacobs helps pack the gifts at last night's potluck

‘Twas the weekend before Christmas
and all through the land
Democrats were working to give vets a hand

Packages were wrapped with paper and care
Filled with jackets and blankets to spare

Money collected was donated too
Since veterans need things like razors and shoes

The Veterans Integration Center was where they chose
To help this season in honor of our heroes

We live in a country beautiful and free
This Holiday Season it’s up to you and me

To remember our brothers and sisters in arms
In hope they return soon and safe from all harms

The gifts will be delivered Saturday at Two
To veterans who served for me and you

The Democrats will exclaim with happiness and glee
“Best wishes this season in the land of the free!”

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2007
WHO:  DEMOCRATIC PARTY
WHAT: DELIVERS GIFTS TO VETERANS
WHEN: 2PM
WHERE: VETERANS INTEGRATION CENTER
6101 CENTRAL AVENUE NE, ABQ
Join Us

From the Democratic Party of Bernalillo County
Verse by Angela Chavez


DPBC Vice Chair Jim Buhaug (C) and volunteers
Organizing the donations

Click to see more photos from last night's DPBC potluck at the Plumbers and Pipefitters Hall in Albuquerque, where Dems shared a meal and worked together to prepare the donations for Saturday's delivery to the New Mexico Veterans Reintegration Center. (Democracy for New Mexico and the DPNM kicking donkey float helped collect donations at our Meetup earlier this month.)

See our previous post on this project. Click on images for larger versions. Photos by M.E. Broderick.

Reminder: DPBC Holiday Potluck & Vet Center Benefit Set for Tonight

You're all invited to the Democratic Party of Bernalillo County's Third Thursday Meeting tonight, December 20, 2007, at 6:00 PM at the Plumbers and Pipefitters Hall at 510 San Pedro SE in Albuquerque. There'll be a festive Holiday Potluck and you're encouraged to bring donations of food, money, personal items and clothes to benefit the New Mexico Veterans Reintegration Center in Albuquerque. Your contributions will help the Center during the holiday season and beyond.

Our DPBC Chair, Ana Canales, is also encouraging folks to donate holiday wrapping paper and tape so the presents to the Vet Center can be wrapped. You can read more about the Party's Vet Center donation project here. See below for a list of other items you can donate to the cause.

DONATION ITEMS NEEDED FOR VET REINTEGRATION CENTER

• Personal toiletries: deodorant, shampoo, soap, toothpaste, lotions, toothbrushes, combs, shaving lotion, razors, etc.
• Towels: new or gently used please!! We would like one bath towel, one hand towel, and 2 wash clothes per person in each box.
• Socks, slipper socks, and underwear- various sizes and types will be fine.
• Gloves and caps- one size fits all will be best.
• Sweatshirts, sweaters, and/or flannel shirts, various sizes.
• Stationery, first-class stamps, envelopes, and long-distance phone cards.
• Home-made cookies, brownies, etc. No store bought!!
• Copier-paper boxes to pack gifts in. (This will make all gifts uniform size)

DONATED CASH WILL BE USED TO PURCHASE COATS FOR THE MOST NEEDY RESIDENTS.

Fight Against FISA Telecom Immunity: What Next?

Dodd's message to netroots on (temporary) victory

Must Read: Glenn Greenwald's post on the Anatomy and significance of Monday's FISA victory. Excerpt:

By itself, derailing a bill that Harry Reid and Jay Rockefeller, hand-in-hand with GOP followers of the White House, were working so hard to ensure would pass smoothly is a major victory. That is particularly true given that the entire cast of standard establishment defenders and propagandists -- all fed by the Jamie Gorelicks and the rest of the bipartisan slew of slimy telecom lobbyists working in the dark and suddenly feeding the coffers of key pro-immunity lawmakers with new infusions of cash -- all lined up behind giving the extraordinary gift of immunity to telecoms.

Even now, in the wake of his defeat yesterday, Harry Reid is doing everything possible to undermine efforts to defeat the telecom immunity bill that he claims he opposes. This is from today's Washington Post article detailing the defeat of telecom immunity ("in the face of more than a dozen amendments to the bill and guerrilla tactics from its opponents, Reid surprised his colleagues when he announced there would not be enough time to finish the job")

Reid spokesman Jim Manley said the decision had nothing to do with the efforts of Dodd and his allies.

There are Harry Reid's true colors: going out of his way to deny that the pernicious group known as "Dodd and his allies" had any effect whatsoever on the Senate's efforts to bow to every one of Bush's demands. We can't have any notion that the Establishment's will was disrupted in any way by dirty outside forces.

... The most important value of victories of this sort is that they ought to serve as a potent tonic against defeatism, regardless of the ultimate outcome. And successes like this can and should provide a template for how to continue to strengthen these efforts. Yesterday's victory, temporary as it is, shouldn't be over-stated, but it also shouldn't be minimized. All of it stemmed from the spontaneous passion and anger of hundreds of thousands of individuals demanding that telecoms be subject to the rule of law like everyone else. And this effort could have been -- and, with this additional time, still can be -- much bigger and stronger still.

Call to say thanks:

Chris Dodd: (202) 224-2823

Barbara Boxer: (202) 224-3553

Sherrod Brown: (202) 224-2315

Russ Feingold: (202) 224-5323

Ted Kennedy: (202) 224-4543

Bill Nelson: (202) 224-5274

Ron Wyden: (202) 224-5244

Chris Dodd for President

Keep contacting Sen. Jeff Bingaman from now until the Senate reconvenes in January after the holiday break: https://bingaman.senate.gov/contact/. Tell him any FISA bill that contains retroactive immunity for the telecoms is unacceptable.

See my previous posts on yesterday's actions in the Senate re FISA legislation here and here.

Dems Can Now Request Absentee Ballots for Prez Caucus

As of yesterday, December 17, 2007, registered Democrats in the State of New Mexico may request absentee ballots for the Presidential Preference Caucus. The request form is available at Democratic Party of New Mexico Headquarters, via fax, e-mail or for download at the Democratic Party of New Mexico website at www.nmdemocrats.org.

“The absentee ballot program is aimed at making the Presidential Preference Caucus accessible to every Democrat in New Mexico,” said Democratic Party of New Mexico Chairman Brian S. Colón. “We hope that easy access to absentee ballots will encourage more New Mexicans to participate in this historical event.”

The DPNM will begin sending out absentee (vote-by-mail) ballots on January 12th, 2008, to those who request them. The Party will accept requests for absentee ballots until 5:00 PM on January 21st, 2008. Completed absentee ballots must be returned by mail and postmarked by January 28th. Counting of absentee ballots begins on Caucus Day, February 5th, 2008.  The Democratic Party of New Mexico Headquarters is located at 1301 San Pedro NE in Albuquerque. Any registered Democrat in New Mexico can request an absentee ballot. Members of the Armed Forces, spouses and dependants of military personnel overseas and any other voter registered as a Democrat in New Mexico who is overseas may also vote by mail by requesting an absentee ballot.

The Presidential Preference Caucus is a statewide election conducted on February 5th, 2008 by the Democratic Party of New Mexico for the purpose of voting for the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. The results of this election will be used to determine New Mexico’s allocation of delegates among the Democratic Presidential Candidates to the Democratic National Convention in August 2008. There will be a total of 184 caucus sites on February 5th.

If you have any questions or concerns or would like to inquire about the February 5^th Caucus please call (505) 830-3650 or email info@nmdemocrats.org.

Click for FAQs About the New Mexico Presidential Preference. Click to download a Request for Absentee (Mail-In) Ballot.

2008 NM Democratic Presidential Preference Caucus
Important Dates:

• December 17, 2007: Registered Democrats may request an absentee (mail-in) ballot
• January 4, 2008: Must be registered to vote as a Democrat to vote in 2/5/07 Caucus
• January 12, 2008: DPNM begins sending out absentee (mail-in) ballots to those who request them
• January 21, 2008: Last day to request absentee (mail-in) ballot; must be received by 5 PM
• January 28, 2008: Completed absentee (mail-in) ballots must be mailed in and postmarked by this date
• February 5, 2008: Caucus Day, 184 Caucus sites statewide open Noon to 7:00 PM

Harry Reid Forced to Table FISA-Telecom Immunity Bill

Coverage on today's action on the FISA bill on Countdown

I'm amazed. And relieved, at least for now. The pressure from voters on the Dem Senators, as well as the pressure applied by certain Dem Senators on Harry Reid, seems to have made a dent in the process. Following up on my previous post. As reported on the Dodd blog. Excerpt:

Majority Leader Harry Reid has just pulled the FISA bill from consideration in this session. It will be brought up at some point next month. Without Senator Dodd's leadership today, it is safe to assume that retroactive immunity would have passed.

This is a great victory for the American people. His outspoken opposition to retroactive immunity and the Intelligence Committee's FISA bill made it impossible to move forward now. From a process standpoint, that took the persistent shadow of a Dodd filibuster on this legislative process, a "hold" against any legislation that included retroactive immunity, and today, a refusal to grant unanimous consent to rules of debate that would have made it harder to strip retroactive immunity from the Intel Committee's bill through the Dodd-Feingold Amendment. He brought along some of the Senate's most passionate voices -- Senator's Feingold, Kennedy, Boxer, Wyden, Brown and Bill Nelson joined him to stand up to the President today.

You can watch a video of Dodd speaking at Crooks and Liars. They also have video and a transcript of Ted Kennedy's speech. The lion roars once more. Sen. Feingold also gave a superb speech and you can read the text or view the video (wmv) at his website. As usual, Glenn Greenwald has the nitty gritty.

Bottom Line: Reid obviously wanted the process of passing what Bush wanted to be an easy and quiet one. If Dodd and the others hadn't stood their ground, that's what would have happened today. Chalk one up for the people.

Of course the fight has just begun. Both sides will be strategizing and gathering more info between now and January. We have to stay engaged. Reid himself has reportedly admitted that the massive number of contacts from the public on this were a major factor in his tabling the bill. Literally thousands and thousands of people contacted various Senators, including Reid. Many blogs, as well as Democracy for America and other progressive group,s urged people to express their views in no uncertain terms to our Senators. For once, it worked. For now.

Remember, Bush tried to set up domestic spying within two weeks of taking office. Read this for details, as reported in the New York Times. Quote:

Nearly 1,300 words into Sunday's New York Times article revealing new details of the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program, the lawyer for an AT&T engineer alleges that "within two weeks of taking office, the Bush administration was planning a comprehensive effort of spying on Americans’ phone usage.”

So I guess Bush's claims that the warrantless wiretapping was an emergency response to 9-11 are just more smoke from his blowhole. Clearly, powerful forces were behind the data mining and domestic spy programs. The only way we'll ever learn the full extent of this lawbreaking is to keep the pressure on Washington from the hinterlands. This means you (us).

I think we should all also contact our presidential candidates from the Senate, who didn't think it was important enough to be at their jobs today, to express our disgust: Senators Clinton, Obama and Biden, where were you?

Thanks for the Memories: Lieberman Endorses McCain for Prez

To celebrate, let's travel back in time to last year, when DEMOCRAT Ned Lamont won the DEMOCRATIC nomination for Senator in the Connecticut primary. That's when Joementum decided he'd form the Joe Lieberman Party and run against the DEMOCRATIC nominee. What's worse, a bunch of DEMOCRATIC Senators couldn't bring themselves to support the DEMOCRATIC nominee in the general election and either stayed neutral (in effect helping Lieberman) or actively supported the NON-DEMOCRATIC Senate nominee:

Thanks to BobGeiger.com for the images.

Now if a lowly Democratic Party precinct or ward chair, or a member of a County or State Central Committee did that, it would be grounds for banishment from the office. In the case of U.S. Senators, however, I guess Party rules don't apply. They only have to be faithful to their big donors and cover one another's butts.

Since we're not making any progress in the Senate anyway, shouldn't Democrats strip Lieberman of his committee assignments and be done with it?

(Updated) Sen. Harry Reid Caves to Telecom Lobbyists & BushFEAR

UPDATE 8:20 PM: We won this round! Reid was forced to table the bill until January. See my later post.

UPDATE 9:28 AM: Go to Thank You Dodd and participate in the effort to support the fight against the horrendous FISA bill passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee. To contact Sen. Bingaman:

Bingaman, Jeff- (D - NM)
703 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-5521
E-mail: senator_bingaman@bingaman.senate.gov

************
Oh, he's personally against extending amnesty to the criminal telecoms he says, but it would be so damned unfair if he didn't allow the Senate Intelligence Committee's version of the FISA bill to have the upper hand. After all, members of that committee, like Chairman Jay Rockefeller, might be implicated for their acquiescence to illegal operations because they sat on their hands when they found out some of the sleazy details of the law breaking in closed sessions way back when. We wouldn't want them to face any consequences for their actions. They're Senators! Very Important People! Lawbreaking is OK when they do it.

Reid got thousands of phone calls from citizens irate over his plan to help smother the Senate Judiciary's version of the FISA bill, which doesn't provide the immunity and does provide a semblance of court oversight on domestic data mining. This prompted Reid to ... cover his ass. He agreed to bring both versions of the bill to the floor today. The only problem is he'll treat the Intelligence version as the primary bill and force consideration of the Justice version as an amendment. We all know how that will turn out.

Well, our donor-ruled "leader" in the Senate DOES get lots of money from telecoms, as do many others who want to protect their lawbreaking. That's what counts most these days. Oh, and they wouldn't want to appear to be "weak on national security" and allow the Bushmongers to accuse them of being "for the terrorists" if they were to dare to stand up for the law and the U.S.Constitution!

Sen. Chris Dodd has asked for a "hold" on the FISA bills -- a request that is almost always honored in the Senate's odd tradition. This time, however, Reid feels the need to go forward NOW, despite the fact that the current abominable FISA law doesn't sunset until next February. Dodd is planning to filibuster the immunity for telecoms bill today. Last I heard, Senators Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy will participate in the filibuster. The other Dem Senators who are candidates for president claim they are against passing telecom immunity, but what exactly that means is yet to be revealed.

Here's what Sen. Feingold has to say as the debate gets underway.

Firedoglake has a terrific post on this issue entitled, Who Will Stand with Chris Dodd for the Constitution?

If you want to make yourself even sicker, read this article on Raw Story that digs out info from a long New York Times article that reports Bush started his push for domestic spying using the telecoms within two weeks of taking office. I'm not kidding.

Can it get much worse than this? We have prominent Dem Senators leading a filibuster against their own Senate leadership. We have Reid and his allies sticking up for lawbreaking by the President, the telecoms and the NSA. Is this the "New Direction" they're always touting as their response to gaining seats in the 2006 election?

Dems Capitulate: Bowing, Scraping, Caving

I was going to write a post about the DC Democrats surrendering to Bush AGAIN, but why bother when Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald has already expressed what I want to say:

Democrats show Beltway "strength," avoid being depicted as weak (updated below)

In the world of the Beltway pundit, Bush Dog Representative, and Democratic strategist, this is how Democrats prove how "strong" and tough they are and avoid being demonized as "weak" and "soft"; this is all just from today:

From The Hill:

From The Washington Post:

From CNN:

From The Hill:

And this passage from the CNN article -- in which Democrats try to explain that they didn't completely capitulate in every single way possible -- is one of the most pity-inducing of the year, and there is a very healthy competition for that distinction:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democratic lawmakers and staffers privately say they're closing in on a broad budget deal that would give President Bush as much as $70 billion in new war funding. The deal would lack a key provision Democrats had attached to previous funding bills calling for most U.S. troops to come home from Iraq by the end of 2008, which would be a significant legislative victory for Bush.

Still, Democrats are trying to sell $70 billion in new war funding as a partial victory for them. They point out that while the final numbers are still in flux during intense private negotiations, Bush is likely to get far less money than he originally requested.

"What is for sure is he will not get all $200 billion," said one senior Democratic lawmaker. "Whatever number it is, it is much less than what the president asked for. For the first time in this war, he has received less than his request."

But senior administration officials privately say they expect to be able to get at least of the rest of the president's $200 billion request passed through Congress next year.

For Congressional Democrats, the "victory" they are touting is that they are only giving Bush $70 billion for the war now, and they won't give him the other $130 billion he is demanding until they return in a few weeks. They really showed him.

Read the rest of Greenwald's post.

I'd love to require all the cowardly Dems taking this path to irrelevance to walk precincts and talk to potential Dem voters from now until at least the New Year. It would be fascinating, to say the least, to witness how they'd go about convincing ordinary people that they're doing anything at all to express the will of the people and stand up to Bush's eternal war machine. Maybe they'd wake up and get the big picture if they had to face the insults and door slamming that occurs so often these days when activists try to make a case for the Dem cause and candidates. They'd find out fast, as so many of us have, that there's next to nothing to "sell" people when we're trying to get folks excited about the Party.

Bush and his cronies played this one out perfectly. A while back Bush came right out and said that he intended to "fix" things so that the next President, regardless of who they were, would be forced to deal with Iraq on his terms, not theirs. Clearly the aim has been to saddle the next administration and the American people with a situation in Iraq that would make a timely exit next to impossible. And if and when an exit ever comes, you can guess who'll be blamed for the "failure."

Of course this tactic has the added benefit of further bankrupting government, thus making it next to impossible to do anything to effectively address our problems related to domestic spending of any kind. This, in turn, pretty much guarantees that government at every level will increasingly turn to "privatization" to perform what governments can no longer afford to do on their own. This inevitably leads to higher, not lower, costs to the taxpayers, but it does provide opportunities for the quick, if illusory, fixes of which politicos are so fond.

Meanwhile the DC Dems keep bragging about their "new direction" and touting their extraordinary achievements since we helped them take back the Congress. Can you remember what they are? Well, they did manage to raise the minimum wage to a level it should have been a decade or so ago. They keep passing SCHIP legislation and resubmitting it to Bush for his veto, something they're unaccountably afraid to do with other bills like those on Pentagon and war funding, energy, FISA and torture. They keep investigating scandals and issuing subpoenas, but nothing tangible ever seems to result from these efforts. I guess they think the publicity is enough.

I'm very tired of all the sound and fury signifying nothing, aren't you? All form, no substance. All rhetoric, no action. All bluster, no follow through. Most of all, no courage of their convictions -- if they have any left after so many years of putting their reelection and fundraising goals before the needs of the nation.

Meet Former Ambassadors Ed Romero & Joe Wilson: Last Chance to RSVP for DPNM's Luncheon

Click on image for larger version

All proceeds to benefit the New Mexico Democratic Presidential Caucus set for February 5, 2008. All the costs of the caucus will be paid by the Democratic Party of New Mexico. Have lunch with two of the most dynamic speakers in New Mexico and support the caucus process.