Air America Radio Celebrates 1st Birthday with HBO Documentary

Tomorrow (31 MAR) is the one year anniversary of Air America Radio taking to the airwaves. The right wing said it wouldn’t last and were positively giddy anticipating its failure when AAR was having financial problems early on. Today AAR is doing great and has grown to 51 stations nationwide (None in Tallahassee…yet!) and reaches roughly 50% of the American population. Progressive talk has become one of the hottest formats in the radio industry today!

HBO will be airing a documentary called Left of the Dial that chronicles AAR’s first year. Left of the Dial premieres on HBO tomorrow, Thursday, March 31 at 8:00 PM.

Also, Jerry Springer’s progressive radio talk show debuts on AAR on Friday, April 1 at 9:00 AM (No foolin’!)

Sadly, Springer is replacing my favorite show on AAR: Unfiltered. He better be damn good.

LCYD Veep Slams Grippa in Newspaper

Kudos to LCYD VP Josh Hicks who had a scathing letter to the editor published in today’s (30 MAR) edition of the Tallahassee Democrat. He really ripped into County Commissioner and partisan hack Tony Grippa, as well as other local Republicans, for their divisiveness and he stuck up for Democrats Cliff Thaell and Allan Katz.

Solid work, Josh!

Redistrict That!

The Committee for Fair Elections has launched their petition drive to remove redistricting from the hands of politicians.

There are three proposed constitutional amendments that will remove politicians from the redistricting process, create standards for the process and enforce those standards for the 2008 election.

This is a huge issue for Democrats and we need 75,000 signatures to pass the first phase of the campaign. Please sign the petition and pass it along to your friends.

President's staff censors the loyal opposition

Wow...Check the link in the title bar. It is to a AP Story that gives insight into how people are being banned from the President's speaking events. An excerpt from the article tells how the Republicans and the President's staff sell this events as a place to hear multiple view points, but this article reveals the truth. Check it out!

"During a news conference Tuesday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president hears different viewpoints on the news and the events are meant to educate the American people about the problems facing Social Security.

"That's what they're designed for, to talk about the problems that we face and to talk about possible ideas for solving it," McClellan said." Link

State Senators Want College Students to Bear Unfair Tax Burden

Senate Bill 2236, co-sponsored by Senators Lee Constantine (R – Dist. 22, Orange & Seminole Counties) and Walter “Skip” Campbell (D – Dist. 32, Broward County.), imposes stiff penalties on Floridians in the state university and community college systems for earning more than 115% of the credits required for a degree. Under this proposal, students exceeding this 115% limit will be required to pay out-of-state tuition rates!

(By the way, that's the same Republican Senator Lee Constantine who sponsored legislation in 1998 to toughen drunk driving laws and then was arrested in May of 2004, earning his second DUI conviction.)

According to the Florida State University catalog for the 2004-05 academic year, the in-state tuition rate is $90.42 per credit hour. The out-of-state rate is $458.02 per credit hour. The cost of a typical 3-credit hour course at FSU will skyrocket from $271.26 to $1374.06! That's an increase of over 400%!!!

This bill may actually do more to prevent people from getting degrees than anything else. There will be students who will be forced to drop out the day it becomes law.

This bill is nothing less than a huge, regressive tax on college students. Students whose parents have an income well into the six-figure range will be able to absorb this tax much more easily than a student whose parents earn $40,000 per year or a returning older student who is struggling to make ends meet and just wants to improve his or her lot in life. Once again, the bulk of the tax burden falls on low- and middle-income Floridians. Shame on these Senators for trying to balance the budget on the backs of college students!

They seem to want us to think they're targeting undisciplined, drifting slackers while ignoring the fact that there are students who want to earn a double-major (perhaps with a minor), or they want to go back and get a second degree, or maybe they are lifetime learners and then, yes, there are people who get to college and end up changing majors, but that’s a normal part of the college experience. Young adults in their late teens and early twenties should not be punished because they discover that they aren’t cut out for math and want to study political science instead.

This bill actually says, “It is the intent of the Legislature to discourage undergraduate students in postsecondary education from exceeding the number of credit hours required to complete the students' respective degree programs.”

Why on earth would we want to discourage people who want to improve themselves and learn all they can? Why would Florida not want to cultivate the best and the brightest right here in our own state? Higher education helps develop qualified workers. Education helps people, it helps business, it helps Florida and it helps America.

S 2236 imposes a steep and unfair tax on higher learning. It’s anti-education and anti-growth.

I want to encourage everyone to mobilize your friends, especially college students and their parents, in opposition to this bill. Write/call/e-mail to your state legislators; write to the sponsors of the bill, Senator Constantine and Senator Campbell; write to university and community college presidents; write letters to the editor of newspapers around the state; write articles for your school newspapers; start petitions; post flyers, etc. Do whatever it takes! Make your fellow students aware that they stand to get screwed by this proposal.

This legislation may directly affect YOU and it will probably somebody you know.

Sancho reaffirms that he wants paper trail when people vote!

Here is an article from the Tallahassee Democrat discussing the fact that the Secretary of State's office is encouraging local (Leon County) Supervisor of Elections offices to start using the Diebold systems for touch screen voting system. Fortunately, our elected officials know better, and our Supervisor of Elections, Ion Sancho, works hard to legitimately count every vote.

Voting machine advice irks county
Tallahassee Democrat, 3/30/2005

Secretary of State Glenda Hood's elections office has advised Leon County to provide handicapped voters a touch-screen-voting system made by a company whose president caused a stir in last year's campaign by promising to help deliver Ohio to President Bush.

Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho objected Tuesday to a brief letter sent to county officers by Paul Craft, head of voting-systems certification for the Division of Elections in Hood's department, touting a Diebold system. State law requires counties to have handicapped-accessible equipment in every voting precinct by July 1. 'Your immediate, and probably most cost-effective, option is to upgrade your voting system to the Diebold Election Systems Inc.... System as certified Oct. 14, 2004,' Craft wrote to Sancho. He sent copies to County Commission Chairman Cliff Thaell and Herb Thiele, the county attorney.

Craft wrote that in regional conference calls last week, several counties asked for advice on meeting the accessibility deadline. 'My personal view is that it's a bunch of hooey,' Thaell said. 'It's inappropriate for the state to be so heavy-handed with an elected constitutional officer such as the supervisor of elections.' Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for Hood, said there are three touch-screen systems certified for 'audio-ballot' voting by the handicapped. She said they are made by Diebold Election System of McKinney, Texas, Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, Calif., and Election Systems & Software Inc. Of Omaha, Neb.. 'I think we recommended Diebold because he already has Diebold equipment and it would be compatible,' Nash said. She said the department recommended other brands for other counties. 'Since Florida began using these voting systems in 2002 the disabled community, for the first time ever, was able to cast an independent ballot,' she said of the touch screens.

But Sancho said Diebold optical scanners are not compatible with Diebold touch-screen systems unless a third piece of equipment is bought. He said the ES&S 'AutoMark' system - not a touch screen - is probably what he will recommend to Thaell for handicapped voting. 'The problem is that election regulation in this state is administered by people who have never run an election,' said Sancho, who has been elections supervisor since 1988.

The use of touch-screen-voting machines, and their lack of paper records, was a source of lawsuits and political posturing in last year's Florida campaign. Hood defended their accuracy while Democrats argued that without paper ballots no recounts would be possible.

Leon County uses Diebold optical-scanning voting machines, on which voters mark an oval next to candidates' names and computers count their ballots. Touch-screen systems, similar to those in some supermarkets and banks, are used in 15 Florida counties with more than half of the statewide vote - allowing voters to touch a spot next to candidates or ballot issues. 'People in Leon County would rather vote on paper than on vapor,' Sancho said. Diebold's chief executive, Walden O'Dell, was harshly attacked by Democrats and other Bush critics last year because of a 2003 fund-raising letter he sent for a Bush-Cheney '04 event. O'Dell wrote that he was 'committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes for the president next year.' Ohio turned out to be the tipping point on Nov. 2. O'Dell explained during the campaign that he only meant that he would support Bush personally - adding that Diebold's election-systems division is located in Texas and is run by a Democrat.

Although the federal Help America Vote Act gives states until Jan. 1 to have accessible voting equipment at every precinct, Sancho said, Florida requires counties to get them by July 1.

Sancho said Craft told him the AutoMark optical-scanning system should be certified by September for handicapped voters. Since there are no statewide elections until September 2006, Sancho said, counties should be allowed to wait until other handicapped-accessible scanners are approved. 'If you buy the AutoMark system you don't have to buy a third piece of equipment,' said Sancho. Previously, Sancho said he has had two poll workers - a Democrat and a Republican - go with handicapped voters into a private area to fill in the ovals on a scanned ballot. One poll worker verifies that the other has accurately marked the ballots, he said.

Redistrict This !

Well the time that so many of us have been waiting for has finally arrived, the redistricting Florida ballot initiative petitions have finally been approved and are ready for mass distribution!

Here is a snippet from their website which shows why their mission is so important (the link is in the title bar):

"Not a single incumbent in Florida's State Legislature or in Florida's U.S. Congressional delegation was defeated in 2004. In that cycle, 72.5% of state legislative races had only one major party candidate. Of the 142 seats up for re-election, 103 were uncontested by a major party. That made Florida the second least competitive state behind Arkansas. "

How does this happen? Computers have made the process of redistricting a process where whoever is drawing the lines can decide who wins the district before the candidate gets in the race. You can draw squiggly lines that circle in and around Democrat and Republican voters to make sure that you slant the numbers in your favor. Once you are elected in Florida you are in your seat until the district is re-drawn or until you are term limited out, which ever comes first.

I am excited because if we re-draw the lines in Florida it will allow us to make house, senate, and congressional districts competitive.... So that we elect the best candidate no mater the party, and Democrats can win more seats and we can have an actual two party system in Tallahassee again. There are 400,000 more democrats in Florida then there are Republicans link . A non-partisan redistricting panel will only help everyone receive better representation in the state and federal houses.

We will discuss this further at our next meeting, but I am hoping that the LCYDs join together to gather petitions and to help promote this initiative around the area.

If a 24 hour news barrage isn't enough for you

John Reid, Immediate Past president of the Florida Young Democrats sent the email that I am excerpting from out over the FYD list service yesterday. Many of you may have already received it. I have taken this excerpt because I thought that John did a good job of explaining one of the issues that is being discussed during the Terry Schiavo situation.

I would like to stress that this issue is not a partisan issue, Democrats and Republicans are working together on both sides of the debate. For instance Republican Senator King voted to not reinsert the feed tube, while our senator for Tallahassee, Democratic Senator AL Lawson, voted to reinsert the feeding tube. link

Here is what John Reid said:

"The real issue is that whether it is life by artificial means or death with dignity, what is important is that the wishes of the individual be respected.

In the case of Terri Schiavo, it is a shame that it has been portrayed as a battle between the husband and the parents. That is really not what this is about. The issue is government intervention versus the wishes of the patient. While Terri Schiavo never executed a living will, she did make oral statements to three individuals on three separate occasions stating that she never wanted to be kept alive by artificial means. The trial court has found, and the state appellate court, the Florida Supreme Court, the U.S. District Court, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeal, and the U.S. Supreme Court have upheld, "clear and convincing evidence" that Terri did not want to be kept alive by machines and/or feeding tubes. This is the issue.

The Schiavo situation is not about life or death. It is about honoring the wishes of the patient, and it is about keeping the government out of our end-of-life decisions. Once we allow the government to start making this decision, we have opened a can of worms that we don't want opened. (Of course, the goal of the religious right, as stated in the Miami Herald two weeks ago, is to require that the government keep all people alive by artificial means, regardless of their wishes. This is the long-term goal of those leading the protests in Pinellas Park and Tallahassee.)

It is important that everyone do as (LCYD Vice-President) Josh and execute the necessary legal documents. I have attached a pamphlet from the FL Dept. of Elder Affairs regarding end-of-life decisions. (Unfortunately, this is not just for the elderly.) I have also attached samples of a living will and a designation of health care surrogate. If there is any silver lining resulting from the Schiavo situation, it is that more people will become prepared for the unthinkable.

You can find more at: Living Will

Sorry for the long email; I had a lot to say.

Take care."

~John Laurance Reid

Easter Sunday Service Project

The Leon County Young Democrats will be volunteering their time this Easter Sunday, March 27, at the annual City of Tallahassee Easter Egg Hunt at Meyer's Park from 1:00-3:00. The egg hunt is for the families and children of Tallahassee and surrounding areas. We will be helping with the set-up, clean-up, and hiding of the eggs. We will be meeting near the basketball courts at Meyer's Park starting at 10:00 am. We have several volunteers who will be helping out all day (10:00-4:00), but any time you can spare to come out is welcomed. If you're going to come out, please try to wear a shirt that identifies you as part of the Young Democrats or the Democratic Party. I recommend wearing a "Donkey's Rock" or "Door-to-Door 2004" shirt if you have one. Please dress appropriately, and don't wear a shirt that could be considered offensive or that is associated with a specific campaign.

I hope to see a lot of you out there this Sunday. This is a great opportunity for the Young Democrats to be an example of positive leadership in our community.

Growth Management Action Alert from 1000 Friends of Florida

A pretty important growth management bill appears to be making headway in the Legislature. Even though Bush vetoed a similar bill last year, there's no guarantee he'll do it again -- without pressure. 1000 Friends of Florida describes the impact of the bill on their site, linked above:

Under the proposed Act, vacant, undeveloped areas up to 5,120 acres (parcels bigger than many Florida towns) surrounded on 75 percent of their borders by lands designated for industrial, commercial, or residential uses are deemed "agricultural enclaves." Landowners can compel local governments to designate these "enclaves" for more intensive uses similar to the adjoining lands, regardless of what is called for in the legally adopted local comprehensive plan.

Further wresting away local control, if the local government does not take action within six months, comprehensive plan amendments and developments of regional impacts pertaining to development within these agricultural enclaves would be automatically approved. The Act would also give landowners additional rights to sue if local government changed the zoning on agricultural lands.

1000 Friends of Florida, Florida League of Cities, Florida Audubon, and others are asking voters to call their legislators and the governor's office to oppose the "Agriculture and Economic Development Act" (Senate Bill 716 and House Bill 5621).

Susie Caplowe at 3/28 Exec Meeting

Folks,
Susie Caplowe, a lobbyist for Sierra Club and Florida Consumer Action Network, will be coming to the next executive board meeting (next Monday, 3/28, 6 PM at FDP) to talk to the group about how we can help out during the session. I will be out of town, as usually happens when there's something going on that I want to attend, but I hope you'll show up and make her feel welcome and energized about the help that the LCYDs can provide.

Advocacy Ideas for Sessions

What issues would you like to see the Leon County Young Democrats support over the next 60 days? Is there a advocacy group that you would like to see us partner with during this session? One of our goals is to help raise awareness on democratic issues and the legislative session is a great time to have a large impact.

Easter Weekend Service Project

I just wanted to start a discussion about a potential service project for the last weekend of March. Here's one option: The City of Tallahassee can use volunteers to help with their Easter Egg hunt, which in on Easter Sunday.

The City of Tallahassee Parks and Recreation Department will host its annual Easter Egg Hunt for children between the ages of 0-10 on Sunday, March 27, 2005 at Myers Park from 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. [...] Volunteer opportunities for civic organizations or groups are also available. If you are interested in making a donation or volunteering, please contact Kristy Carter at 891-3887.

I think this would be a great civic event and would be a fun way for those of us who'll be in town to volunteer. Opinions? Comments? If we get a few positive responses, I think we should have Chad Fetrow contact Kristy at the number above and ask her how we can get involved.

Why Are You A Democrat?

Why are you a Democrat? Too many people don't know the answer to this question, or they answer in vague cliches. If we want this organization to grow, and the Democratic Party to succeed as a whole, we have to know what we believe in. We need to be a party of ideas. I encourage you to post here and continue this conversation.

The often quoted end of President Kennedy's Inaugural Address is a good place to start:

"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own."

Front of Shirt Debate

Also, a suggestion given to me for the front of the shirt is to have the following question across the front of the shirt: WHAT ARE YOUR VALUES?

What is everyone's opinion on this idea? I still like the Jefferson/LCYD logo, but this question might be more appropriate for the shirt we've been discussing recently. Maybe the Jefferson logo should be used for the next shirt. Discuss.

T-Shirt Debate

I think we should limit the number of values words/phrases to about ten,twelve max. Once we settle on 10 or 12 words, we can arrange them in order.I think the words/phrases with the highest impact should be placed at thebeginning and the end.We have nine words/phrases that are pretty strong right now (in alphabeticalorder):
1. A CLEAN ENVIRONMENT (ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION, ENVIRONMENTALISM, AHEALTHY ENVIRONMENT or something like that.)
2. THE BILL OF RIGHTS
3. COMPASSION
4. EQUALITY
5. FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
6. FREEDOM
7. SOCIAL JUSTICE
8. STRENGTH
9. TOLERANCE
The above list is not etched in stone. If you think a word/phrase should bedropped or substituted, go ahead and make a case.I would like poll everyone by getting a list of 15 words/phrases from eachmember, in order of preference with #1 being your favorite. This is not avote, but it should give us a good starting point from which we can whittledown the list.Below is a list of other possible words/phrases to choose from. This list isnot comprehensive. If you have an idea that isn't listed, let's hear it.
* CIVIL RIGHTS
*CIVIL LIBERTIES
* COMMUNITY
* COOPERATION
* DEMOCRACY
* DIVERSITY
* EDUCATION
* EMPATHY
* FAIRNESS
* FAMILY
* HEALTH CARE
* HONESTY
* HUMAN RIGHTS
* INCLUSIVENESS
* INTEGRITY
* JUSTICE
* JOBS FOR AMERICANS (AMERICAN JOBS, AMERICAN WORKERS, AMERICAN WORKMANSHIP, MADE IN USA or something like that)
* LIFE, LIBERTY & THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
* LIBERTY
* OPPORTUNITY
* PROSPERITY
* PROTECTION
*RESPONSIBILITY
* SAFETY
* SECURITY
* SERVICE
* TRUST
* WISDOM
*VOTING RIGHTS

******************
sustainability
fair trade
conflict resolution
alternatives to violence
pacifism
nonviolent action

******************
SERVICE
ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION

Why it is time for a message board

I have created this message board so that we can communicate with each other at our convenience, without having to receive 10 emails to continue a conversation. I am hoping that this 'Blog' will help us debate everything from T-Shirt Designs to what we believe. Hopefully this new tool will make our organization stronger.