I had a note today that Marcy Winograd had re-registered into the Green Party.  I cam back to Calitics to see if anyone had commented yet…. no one had, so I guess that her change was not noticed.

As an active Green, I hope that we can help Winograd accomplish what she wants.  

MARCY WINOGRAD: FAR AHEAD OF BOTH HAHN AND BOWEN ON U.S. NUCLEAR POWER CONCERNS:



Since at least 2006, Marcy has vocally criticized the growing lobbying & influence of the nuclear power industry. She has been a visible and consistent advocate for tighter regulations & greater safety controls for existing nuclear reactors. Marcy has consistently stated up front in her congressional platforms — unlike Hahn and Bowen — her criticisms and her oppositions to the development of new nuclear power plants and the recent growth in U.S. government subsidies for nuclear power (see, e.g., http://www.opencongress.org/wi…

Marcy has always supported America’s shift to greater use of alternative energies beyond oil and nuclear — e.g., hybrid technologies, wind energy & solar power.

MARCY WINOGRAD VS. JANICE HAHN: Janice Hahn — a longtime friend of Big Oil / Big Energy — has never made taken a bold platform position against the Nuclear Power or Oil Refinery Industry. Instead, Hahn (a former Public Affairs Regional Manager for Southern California Edison & employee) has generally been a “Friend” of Edison, General Electric and other Nuclear Power Plant operators.

MARCY WINOGRAD AND HARVEY WASSERMAN: In 2006, I attended a comprehensive discussion that Marcy Winograd hosted for Harvey Wasserman (an American journalist, author, democracy activist, and well known anti-nuclear advocate for renewable energy). At that talk, both she and Mr. Wasserman extensively discussed Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl and the need to avoid in the U.S. precisely the types of scenarios now playing out in Japan. She was very clear about her calls for stronger regulations especially here in fault & quake marked Southern California.

Marcy Winograd is the sort of forward-thinking and non-Special Interest beholden politician we want and need. In contrast, Janice Hahn was a former public relations director for Southern California Edison (nuclear power contractor). She has received considerable financial support from Eidson and General Electric in the past.

The Nuclear Power Industry (Edison; General Electric, etc.) has bought politicians throughout the United States just like it did with similar politicians in Japan who are now suffering the consequences of their conflicts of interest. Marcy Winograd — far more than Janice Hahn or Debra Bowen — will stand up to those conflicts of interest and will fight for tighter regulations of nuclear power.

Please take the time to watch the following 4 minute video :

http://www.facebook.com/video/…  n

* MY ENDORSMENT OF MARCY’S CAMPAIGN (below) — PLEASE HELP US SPREAD THE WORD *

Website:  http://winogradforcongress.com…

Marcy Winograd’s Congressional recent campaign in 2010 was one about what sort of country and citizenry we want to be. I’ve known Marcy for many years. She absolutely — with no reservations — is a real leader and deserves this district’s voters’ votes and word-of-mouth support.  She is the one true progressive choice who will break with the status quo and who will immediately act to initiate positive, reform oriented change in Washington, D.C.  

Marcy Winograd has been an organized, genuine, hard working, committed and passionate activist in the Anti-War movement, the 2006-2008 Bush/Cheney impeachment movement (Kucinich’s HR 333), Health Care Reform movement and other progressive efforts to authentically restore the People’s voice to national government. Marcy received close to 38% of the vote in the 2006 primary and over 41% when she ran against Jane Harman in last summer’s June 8th primary.

She is not a machine or party sycophant who will humbly do what the party elders & attendant drones command. Marcy Winograd is a terrific individual and activist. She is a teacher & citizen who has inspired countless thousands over the last decade. She puts her time, money and — perhaps most importantly — her heart where her words are. Marcy is a thinker and a doer : an authentic voice the likes of which voters are hungry for in these cynical and hard economic times. Marcy is a real voice for for this district’s voters who is aligned with their economic & social interests and — importantly — with their deeper values and their concerns about the directions this country has taken over the last decade.

Interesting piece up on Huff Po now:  Power Struggle: Inside The Battle For The Soul Of The Democratic Party 

Excerpt:

Since 1995, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have collectively given $6.3 million directly to members of the Blue Dog and New Democrat coalitions, according to an analysis by the Huffington Post of data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s not an overwhelming sum when the average winning campaign nowadays costs more than $1 million, but it represents one-sixth of all giving from one faction within the party to another. It doesn’t include the millions that progressives have given to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — rank-and-file members are supposed to cough up $150,000 every two years (though many miss that mark), committee chairmen $250,000 and up. The DCCC turns around and funnels that money to conservative Democrats in close races. Add to that the millions spent by organized labor and outside groups such as MoveOn.org, and it’s clear that progressive donors have become major financial benefactors of the conservative Democrats who battled to undermine their agenda. “That tension exists a lot,” George Miller says about the party’s demand that progressives fund their intramural rivals. “That tension exists a lot. And it’s real.”

….

The money flows almost entirely in one direction: The conservative coalitions have given progressives less than $600,000. While Blue Dogs and New Democrats have each given their fellow travelers $2.4 million in the past 15 years, members of the much larger progressive caucus have helped each other to the tune of just $1.3 million.

Progressives have received very little return on their investment when it comes to important votes. The 34 Democrats who voted against the health care reform bill in March have collectively received $2.1 million from progressive members. More than half of that sum came in the past five years.

The costofwar.com shows the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are rapidly approaching $1 Trillion. 

That number right there is the biggest drag on our progressive hopes. 

We won’t get the real change we seek until we elect more progressives to Congress.

Re the CDP endorsement fight in between Jane Harman and Marcy Winograd:

California CD 36 (Harman) is deep blue. Democratic registration leads Republican by 18 percent. No Republican is going to win that seat. Why not support a Democrat who will stand strong for women, work toward improving healthcare AND support the rest of the CDP platform? Why should the California Democratic Party give its endorsement to a half-a-dem like Harman?

The CDP endorsement process is deliberately complex. It allows for second chances and political manuevering. The Party endorsement is a valuable commodity and deserves to require a series of trials to earn it. 

A question I have is this: I wonder if any electeds from the rest of the State handed some of their appointed slots to Harman for her local endorsement? I know my Assemblywoman up here in Berkeley gave some of her delegates to Karen Bass. I don’t like that part of the process, but that’s what we have. 

I think it’s appropriate there’s a path to to let the Convention as a whole make a final determination after all the inner manueverings for hotly contested races are done. It is indeed a statewide prize to be fought over. From past experience, I know delegates don’t overrule local endorsement votes lightly.

I think it’s a fair fight.

(Elections for sale! Elections for sale! Diebold’s offering them up at bargain basement prices! – promoted by SFBrianCL)

cross-posted at skippy as well as a literal cornucopia of other community blogs.
skippy the bush kangaroo attended the townhall meeting for voting accountability tonight in venice, calif, hosted by the lovely bradblog, and featuring a plethora of speakers who had a strange combination of both a lot of bad news and inspiration for the 100 or so citizens who showed up.

our report after the jump:

rob cohen, documentarian of the film votergate (name change imminent…tho we kind of like “de-voted,” the crowd went for “hacked”) showed a small clip of his movie, currently in production.

in the clip, bev harris of black box voting was seen visiting patty newton, a poll worker in san diego for the recent california 50 busby-bilbray election. patty told bev that after a brief afternoon of training, the poll workers were literally handed the voting machines and told to take them home and store them there until the election a few weeks later.

patty showed bev the garage where she stored her charges, and explained that all the poll workers had to do to receive the machines that would decide the fate of san diego county’s senatorial concerns was sign a piece of paper. but don’t worry, folks, there was an official seal over each of the voting machines: a xerox of the county registrar’s seal stuck on with sticky paper. talk about security!

the lovely bradblog gave some good news: that looney tinfoil hat wearing lefty communist lou dobbs has been reporting on the widespread problems with election machines, under the banner “democracy for sale.”

as an example of the problems inherent with electronic voting, bradblog told the story of harri hursti who proved the diebold machines were hackable with the mock election held in leon county, florida, in december of 2005. 6 mock voters voted “no” and 2 voted “yes” to the question “can diebold machines be hacked via their memory card?” the voters retained their paper ballots. but when the results were run thru the optical scanner, the machine tallied the votes as 1 “yes” and 7 “no’s.” no, there’s no problem with diebold!

more problems with the san diego elections: cal. sec. of state bruce macpherson re-certified diebold machines, even tho the software contains “interpretive code,” which is strictly forbidden by section 19250 of the fec guidelines. of course, skippy has reported on macpherson’s sneaky re-certification.

next, the wonderful actress and chair of the progressive democrats of america, mimi kennedy, took the microphone (you know her as dharma’s mom). mimi warned everyone that the propaganda will start coming hard and heavy against all our efforts, such as the la times completely unsourced and citeless sunday column “the gop knows you don’t like anchovies.” mimi pointed out how incredibly difficult it would be to have accomplished, over one weekend, the voter outreach and absentee ballot distribution that the column attributed to the gop, even with a data base and plane tickets.  she warned that the media will be doling out propaganda to make voting activists depressed, and feeling as if our efforts were not worth the trouble.

but, mimi mocked the very imagery that the paper ascribes to the gop’s efforts.  “the voter vault?” she asked.  “it sounds like a superman comic book.  with dick cheney in his fortress of solitude!”

“but,” mimi concluded, “they are not invincible.  the rule of law is their kryptonite.”  she received a standing ovation.

next marci winograd, who gave jane harman a run for her money, let everyone know the “help america vote act,” the registrars of every county is obligated to hold quarterly meetings with any citizens who want to attend and ask questions (skippy plans on being at the next one for los anageles).

marci also warned against the concept of “voting early,” which is being offered in some parts of the country (for instance, here in los angeles).  tho voters are asked to believe that coming into the polling place and voting a few days early is more convenient, what they aren’t told is that the diebld tsx machines being used have a 30% failure rate.

this issue affects everyone.  during the course of the evening, bradblog played a clip of the roger hedgecock radio show he appeared on, during which ultra-conservative roger (who subs for rush) agreed 100% with bradblog, “that if we have any bedrock notion in this country, it ought to be that the votes be fully and fairly counted.”

other speakers were jeeni criscenzo, darryl issa’s upcoming opponent, who said that when someone steals a vote, they steal the essence of democracy; they’re not a thief, they are a traitor, and judy alter who told of the various lawsuits being brought against the various registrars who violate election laws.

this townhall “train,” as they so metapoorically put it, will be chugging down to san diego on wednesday, to convene at the oceanside civic center on 330 n. coast highway at 7 pm (with a rally at 6pm).  we urge anyone and everyone in so socal to go there and hear these speakers.  it will make you angry.

when all is said and done, this issue could be primarily the most important that we are facing today (even more than net neutrality).  all the blogging in the world about all the political machinations is not going to do any good for anyone if our votes are not accurately counted.  skippy international is proud and happy to stand with the blogs who insist on talking about this elephant in the room.

(at this point we must also give bradblog a big thanks for using his podium on the townhall stage to single out skippy in the crowd and plugging our humble blog as one of those working on this issue.  we are happy to do our part.  but don’t worry, skippy reciprocated by giving bradblog and bradblog’s girlfriend each a complimentary skippy tee shirt!)

we must have accountable elections, we must have methods that are auditable, we must have a process in which the entire country can trust, and most of all, we must make sure democracy is safe for future generations.