Burbank Democratic Club

Marc Sandalow: Pelosi to Convene House January 4

Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi will open the House for the first session of the 110th Congress on January 4, and keep it in session for the first several weeks of January.

While that may not sound remarkable outside-the-beltway, it is departure from tradition that is certain to prompt some teeth gnashing among Republicans.

Congress typically convenes the first week of January after a holiday recess just long enough for new members to be sworn in, and then promptly adjourns until the president's State of the Union Address toward the end of the month.

Pelosi's team apparently figures there's no reason to allow President Bush to set the agenda in January by leaking bits of his speech. Instead the Democratic Congress will immediately plunge into its lengthy to-do list, starting with an ethics reform package, and perhaps have some bills on Bush's desk by the time the State of the Union is ready for delivery.

"From economic security to national security, the American people have resoundingly called for a new direction,'' Pelosi said in a just-released statement. "It is imperative that we waste no time in addressing the pressing needs facing our nation.''

SFGate

Remember William Jefferson, he of the frozen assests (90K in his freezer)? Well, he's in an run off election for his house seat agasint another Democrat in LA-02 and his opponent, Karen Carter, needs help. I sent $50 last week. Read the story over at DailyKos and if you can, help her out through ActBlue.

Our shiny new congress is picking it's leaders and doling out committees, and already they are looking the other way when it comes to ethical standards (though the positions aren't picked yet....so maybe we need to write to our representatives..)

From TPMuckraker:

Rep. Alan Mollohan (WV): He's set to take the chair of the very appropriations panel in whose purse strings he has already entangled himself. (He has helped steer nearly $500 million in taxpayer money to his rural district, half of which has gone to five organizations Mollohan created with friends.) As a result, he's under FBI investigation. Enough said.

and there are more....

Lots of talk on the TV about how the Democrats won by being conservatives; that, no, the voters didn't move left, the Democrats moved right; the "conservative movement" is alive and well in the Democratic party.

Well, ok. So who needs the Republican party then?

In fact the center moved left and the lie that all Democrats are all wild eyed communists was laid waste. Lo and behold, Democrats include people who will balance the budget; who don't necessarily want to take away your right to bear arms; and who can be Anti-Abortion and Pro-Choice at the same time, because reasonable people see the difference. We can want to help the disadvantage and the innocent and do it without destroying our economy or giving up our rights. We can fight the terrorists and not sacrifice our ideals.

This is the beginning of a revolution where government is once again seen as a source of good rather than of waste and corruption. This is the revolution where the people take their government back, perhaps even more fully than the founding fathers ever imagined. There is a lot of work still left to do: Major ethics reforms, major campaign finance reform, an end to gerrymandering, publicly funded elections, limits on political spending, secure and verifiable voting.

Twelve years out of power and the successful Republican effort to un-fund the Democrats have left our party open to, indeed in need of, new influences. It is natural and best that be from us, the grassroots, the citizens, from whom all power in our democracy must emanate or the democracy fails (as it has been failing for the last 6 years and perhaps much longer.)

On Tuesday, the citizens of America stood united under the banner of the Democratic Party not because the Democratic Party has moved ideologically to the right; not because the Party has fielded more conservative candidates; but because the force that was behind those candidates and this party (at least on a local level, thank you Dr. Dean) was the very same people who would be voting and, consequently, represented. The people fielded their own candidates, in many cases people the Party Establishment didn’t want and didn’t help...at least until it became clear they would be supported.

If the Democratic Party looks any different today than it did before the election, it’s isn’t because we have adopted our rivals ideas and techniquies, it is because the party has giving up on centralized power and given that power back to the people.

The bad news? Centralizing power seems to be an inevitable desire of people given a little power. We must watch over our representatives diligently. We must hold them accountable.

The revolution has only just begun. This was only our first victory and it is a victory for all of us, regardless of party or ideology because it leads inevitably to a government more representative of all of us.

Yes, I am an optimist.
(cross posted at DailyKos.)

Well! Happy days are here again! I write this just as Felix Macacawitz takes a break from eating a ham sandwich and conceeds to Fightin' Jim Webb, thus locking our control of the Senate. Being a Virginia transplant, I take especial pleasure in seeing that rascist pig slink away. That is one less reactionary cretin for the Rethugs to choose for Sock Puppet In Chief.

While we cannot feel certainty that this coming Senate will block any wingnut reactionary Judicial nominations that may come from the fevered brows of The National Idiot, Bush, we should have some hope for moderation.

An Item that has concerned me is the outlook for the Senate in '08, and Daily Kos has ridden to my rescue: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/11/9/141055/253

The short story is that this year should have been easy for the Republicans. The number of seats that they had at risk verses us was in their favor.

2008 is the reverse. We have many solid seats and the Rethuglicans have many seats in purple states that we should have a chance to poach.

Oh, one other lesson from this election in general is also illustrated in the Senatorial results; we need to compete everywhere. we almost did not have a candiate to run against deWine in Ohio. Imagine if we had a strong candidate for Hastert's seat? I'm not saying that the DCCC or DSCC should be expected to fully finance every seat right to the end. But we could have knocked off Hastert if we had found an Assistant DA to challenge, just on principle, Hastert. Who'da guessed that Hastert would pop stupid-clueless pills all through 2006?

No, Howard Dean is right, we cannot gain and hold a majority without contesting EVERY seat. We need to be prepared to recruit candidates like Jim Webb, who is no '60's era bleeding heart, but he ozzes competence and clearly is a fair-minded populist.

Back to the question of the 2008 Senate contest, I'm going out on a limb just now and predicting that we pick up eight seats. Sure, two years out and what do I know? But eight seats leaves us one short of party line clouture power, and I think that we have just about that much luck right now.

Unique Interactive Library Discussion Session
Examines Lobbying Scandal and Other Issues

Moyers On America Citizens Class

Thursday, November 16, 7 – 8:45 pm

Glendale Central Library Computer Learning Center

Reservations: (818) 548-2040 or in person at theCentral Library Reference Desk

The Glendale Public Library will begin a unique series of
three interactive discussion sessions using the PBS Moyers
on America Citizens Class format popularized by journalist
Bill Moyers. Session attendees will view video-streamed
clips of selected segments from the Moyers programs
recently broadcast on PBS and will discuss the issues from
various perspectives. Visit or contact the Reference Desk at
the Central Library to reserve a seat for this new interactive
discussion session. Please ask about the Moyers on
America Citizens Class.

Twelve "computer-savvy" participants will be able to respond
immediately to the national Citizens Class “blog” during and
after the discussion, joining a “national dialogue” with other
participants who have attended discussion sessions around
the USA. There is room for ten more participants to join in
the discussion because the main content will be projected on
a large screen in the Learning Center

Librarian Bill Trzeciak will facilitate the first session on
the Moyers on America topic of Capitol Crimes that was
originally broadcast on October 4. The program investigates
the Abramoff lobbying scandal revealing the web of
relationships, secret deals and political manipulation and
opening a disturbing window on the dark side of American
politics.

The session will include multi-media discussion and
reference material summarizing the key aspects of differing
perspectives; posing questions for reflection, consideration
and response; and stimulating a deep and thoughtful
dialogue about the issues raised in the series.

Additional discussion sessions based on upcoming Moyers
on America programs are planned for December 2006 and
January 2007.

Glendale Public Library
222 East Harvard St.
Glendale, CA 91205
(818) 548-2040

From DC Pol Sci at DailyKos:

It's all over in Virginia, but the pundits don't seem to realize it. The media insists on painting the race as "too close to call." A simple look at Virginia election law concerning recounts and provisional ballots demonstrates conclusively that there is almost no way that George Allen can overcome the approximately 7,000-vote lead Jim Webb had in the unofficial results.

The following simple points will be addressed in this diary:
* - The official canvass will change numbers little, if at all.
* - Almost no provisional ballots will count, and even if they did, they'd go for Webb.
* - A recount will change nothing

Call the race already, networks and wire services. This thing is over.

With even right-wing bloggers calling for Allen to 'be a man' and conced, I think it's safe to say the Dem Wave got us both houses of Congress....Bush can't get any more judges or other appointments through without a democratic OK this time.

UPDATE: AP and NBC calling it for Webb.

For those of you familiar with the MacOS...

It looked bad last night, but with 100% reporting, we have a new Secretary of State, Debra Bowen.

Phew....

And the early returns from CA looked bad, but hold the phone....looks like we didnt' do so bad.

Holding my breath for the Seante too.

This morning I went to vote, as I have done without fail in every election since I came of voting age.

There was a polling place directly across the street from our house at the Burbank Adult School, so naturally I walked over there. They couldn't find my name on the list, though, and so told me that my polling place was "the school."

So I got into my car and drove to Luther Burbank Middle School, where I have voted a few times. I parked and walked all around and could see that it wasn't a polling place.

Then I decided that by "the school," perhaps they meant Bret Harte Elementary School. So I got back into the car and drove over there. By now, I was about a mile away from my house -- notably farther away than, say, the polling place across the street from my house.

I walked in and a, well, let's put it charitably, hippie, said, "Are you here to vote at the Green table?" This sort of electioneering is illegal -- and whether or not I'm going to vote Green (which I'm not), it's none of his business. So I said, "I'm here to vote."

He asks my name and address, I tell him, and he scans the rolls and says, "You're not registered to vote."

I said, "WHAT?!?!?!?!" What I should have said is: Tell that to the 1000 prerecorded callers who have bombarded our home phone and my cellphone, let alone the seemingly hundreds of organizations that have emailed me, all of them seeking money and my vote. They all sure think I'm registered to vote.

He said, "Are you sure of your address?"

I said, "Given that I live there, yes."

At this point, an older man came over and said, "You have the wrong polling place." I said, "This is my third one." (Counting "the school" that was no longer a polling place.) He takes me outside to look at a map taped on the exterior wall. It is a zigzag of district lines, with rarely a street name or number. He says, "Where do you live?"

I give him my address and he says, "Where is that on this map?"

Looking again at the map, which looks like a spectrographic survey of the Earth's core and nothing like a map of Burbank, I say, "If you can't find it, I sure can't." Then I spot the Burbank Adult School on the map. (Big letters: "BURBANK ADULT SCHOOL." The one thing on the map that seems to deserve being named.) "Wait," I say, "I live across from that."

Now he's staring at the map quizzically again and trying to determine just which polling place would cover that. Then someone from inside the building yells, "Wait! We found him!"

A woman comes outside and tells me that I should be voting at the ORANGE table. Evidently, there's a "green" table and an "orange" table, hence the hippie's question. I forestall the obvious question: What the Hell is this, and why are there "green" and "orange" tables at the same polling place, what could that possibly mean, and how is someone expected to know that?

A little background here: I have lots of education, I am a local political activist, vote in every election, and read lots of newspapers and magazines. So it's not like I'm uninformed.

Now I enter the school's auditorium just in time to hear the woman admonish the hippie: "You have to check the master list." (Oh, of course: The master list. Don't check the junior list, or slave list -- whatever he's got.) How many people have already been sent away?

Sure enough down front at the apron of the stage there is another table area set up, this one manned by someone I know: Lisa, the mother of one of my daughter's friends. Since I know her, I take the opportunity to vent, making it plain that I'm not holding her personally responsible.

"In the past three years, I have voted at Bret Harte, Luther Burbank, the White Chapel church, the Burbank Adult School, someone's home, another church, and, most recently before today, an auto body shop," I say. "Why is my polling place constantly moved? Why is there a polling place ACROSS THE STREET FROM ME that is NOT MY POLLING PLACE? A suspicious person would reason that a game is being played here! This isn't Florida and I'm not black, but I'm starting to think there's active disenfranchisement at work here!"

She seeks to reassure me by saying, "You work here just once as a poll worker and you see how things can go wrong." This in no way reassures me.

I get my ballot and go vote. Then I see -- wait for it -- that the little inking stamper is not correctly blotting out every circle I choose. In most cases, I have to stamp it two or three times for it to work.

I go back to Lisa. "The inking stamper isn't working properly. I had to do it two or three times. It doesn't work."

"Oh, I know," she says. "The same thing happened to me."

Now, she's been there all day. I can only assume she voted four or five hours before me. So... how many ballots didn't get marked? How many people noticed?

By the end of all this, I felt like I'd been polled all right -- right where it hurts.

Is it really this complicated to vote?

And while we're busy "exporting Democracy," are we exporting this voting system?

Sharing a good, "check your expectations at the door," post from Chris Bowers at MyDD...

All I can say is, since this is a personal post, at least we are still meeting all of the conditions on the primary checklist, and most of the conditions on the secondary checklist. That still means, in my mind, that the odds still heavily favor a Democratic takeover of the House. However, it also means that such a takeover is no longer a 99% chance.

Tonight on HBO, watch "Hacking Democracy" - the show Dielbold tried to have pulled.