Politics
Entries related to things political.
New England News Forum and Quinnipiac University co-sponsor symposium on Gambling
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 03/07/2008 - 13:12The New England News Forum together with Quinnipiac University will be co-sponsoring a symposium on gambling next Tuesday from 7 until 9 PM at the Mancheski Executive Seminar Room at the Lender School of Business Center at Quinnipiac. There will be two movies and two half hour long panels.
The first panel will be moderated by William "Liam" O'Brien, a media-production professor at Quinnipiac. It will include Attorney General Dick Blumenthal, Massachusetts secretary of economic development Dan O'Connell, as well as Barry J. Cregan, interim president of the Foxwoods casino and UMass Dept. of Public Health Adjunct Professor Rachel A. Volberg.
The second panel will “will cover the challenge of reporting on the news and effects of casinos in Connecticut.” It will include UMass journalism instructor Stephen J. Simurda, New York Times editorial writer Maura J. Casey, David Collins, editorial columnist at The Day, Marvin Steinberg , founder and director of the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling , and Indian Country Today staff reporter Gale Corey Toensing.
Earlier in the day, starting at 4:30, two short documentaries about gambling will be screened.
More information can be found on The New England News Forum website
Mental Health and the Executive Branch
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 03/06/2008 - 14:20Some people may wonder what the two topics, Mental Health and the Executive Branch have to do with each other, especially these days, but they are two important issues that came up this morning on a conference call for bloggers and online journalists with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
The announced purpose of the conference call was to discuss the contempt charges that Congress will be filing as a civil lawsuit against Joshua Bolten and Harriet Miers for their refusal to respond to subpoenas from Congress. At the center of this is the issue of executive privilege. How far does it extend? The same issue came up in the discussion about FISA. The positioning around the FISA bill seems to be all about attempts by the executive branch to usurp power from the legislative and judicial branches.
So where does mental health fit into all of this? The call started with Speaker Pelosi talking about congress passing the Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act on Wednesday. She described it as a tremendous, historic victory and spoke about the late Sen. Wellstone’s son, David Wellstone and Former First Lady working hard to help get this bill passed.
On Wednesday, I met with a past president of the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA) to discuss how AGPA could better get its message out. Group Psychotherapy has played an important role in helping people deal with issues that disasters like 9/11 or Katrina have caused. Some of the early work in Group Psychotherapy was around treating soldiers traumatized by their experiences in World War Two, and it would seem like Group Psychotherapy could be very useful in helping veterans returning from the Iraq War.
We spoke about how AGPA can better interface with the media, including bloggers, about its efforts on Capitol Hill and its work with Roslyn Carter to promote awareness of group psychotherapy.
This brings us back to the Presidential Branch. Roslyn Carter has done great work in help our country address issues of mental health. Both Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama have spoken about the importance of mental health parity in their health care platforms. Let us hope that our current President sees the importance of addressing issues of mental health.
On Our Watch: Stopping Genocide in Sudan
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 03/05/2008 - 18:56Humanitarian and author John Prendergast will deliver a lecture, "On Our Watch: Stopping Genocide in Sudan," at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 6, 2008, in Alumni Hall at Quinnipiac University. The free event is open to the public. Prendergast is co-chairman of Enough, an organization creating policy recommendations and engaging activists to stop genocide and crimes against humanity. Predergast was involved in various peace processes throughout Africa while working at the White House and State Department during the Clinton administration. Prendergast also has worked for the United Nations and members of Congress. He has authored eight books about Africa, the latest is a New York Times best seller, "Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond," co-authored with actor Don Cheadle and published by Hyperion in 2007. Prendergast travels regularly to Africa's war zones on fact-finding missions, peacemaking initiatives and awareness-raising trips involving network news programs, celebrities and politicians. For more information, call Quinnipiac's public relations office at (203) 582-8652.
Connecticut Delegates
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 03/05/2008 - 18:29Various people have expressed confusion between the different types of delegates, so I thought I’d take a few moments here to make sure that everyone is clear about the different types of delegates. This is based primarily on the Connecticut Delegate Selection Plan for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, as well as on additional sources such as some CNN and blog reports and the Superdelegates.org
Connecticut has sixty delegates at the convention. Thirty-one are pledged district level delegates (Section III A). According to CNN and other sources there are twelve unpledged delegates, commonly referred to as Superdelegates. According to the selection plan, one unpledged delegate will be selected on March 26th, based on candidates for superdelegate filing a statement of candidacy by March 19th. The superdelegates are the congressman, the DNC members, and a few others. You can see a list at Superdelegate Transparency Project or the Superdelegates.org page. It is worth noting that Superdelegates.org lists 12 superdelegates, but the Superdelegate Transparency Project lists 11. I believe that Mona Mohib may be incorrectly identified as a superdelegate on Superdelegates.org, but I haven’t verified this.
The two sites generally agree that of the superdelegates, 7 have endorsed Obama, 1 has endorsed Clinton, and the rest are undeclared at this point.
There are also six pledged party leaders and Elected Officials (PLEO) delegates (Section III C). Matt has taken a look at possible candidates for these positions. People interested in being PLEOs need to file by March 20th. They will also be selected on March 26th. It is worth noting that the PLEOs will be selected after the district delegates and the add on unpledged delegate.
Then, there are the eleven at-large delegates (section III D). You must file by March 17th if you wish to be an at-large delegate and these delegates will also be elected on March 26th.
Those wishing to see Ned Lamont attend the convention as a delegate of one sort or another should encourage him to decide which type of delegate he wishes to attend as and to file with the State Democratic Party. Then, they should attend the post-primary caucuses to be held on March 19th to work to elect district level delegates that will support Ned as a delegate.
Whether or not you are interested in working to get Ned to be a delegate, it is probably a good thing to attend the post-primary caucuses. If things get hairy and there is a brokered convention, it would be good to have the best possible delegates at the convention.
Lots of Random Stuff
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 03/03/2008 - 15:03Slowly, I’m digging out of all the emails and other content that has piled up. I’m down to less than 400 unread emails in my inbox, not counting the 3000 or so that I’ve moved to folders and will probably never get around to reading. I’ve also flagged around 500 for following up. Some are email discussions that need to be had. Others are ideas worth investigating. Some are simply interesting things that I want to highlight.
So, with that, I’m going to spend a little time highlighting some of them that are out there to at least clean up my list a little.
Tom Atlee sent out an interesting email wondering what public engagement looks like to Barack Obama. I think this is a great question. With Sen. Edwards out of the race, I’m now supporting Barack Obama, in part because of the way he is encouraging public engagement. However, public engagement is about much more than people chanting “Yes we can”, or “We are all individuals”.
So, would an Obama election be a mandate for him pushing through his agenda? Would it bring about a more open government where people can see more clearly what is going on and take a more active role? Will it support a more deliberative democracy, where people can come together and develop wiser solutions to the problems our country and our world changes? Will it bring about systemic changes that will make things like deliberative democracy easier and more likely?
Natasha Chart has a blog post up on BlogsUnited entitled, Internet Marketing: They Copy Us, If They Know What's Best. I’ve scanned it, and it looks like a good starting point, especially for progressive bloggers that want to get their message out more widely.
Avery Doninger invited me to the Purple for Peace - Genocide Awareness Day. Wear purple on March 14th, to get people to think about genocide in places like Darfur.
Various people have written to me about EENR blog. Since there was a discussion about it up on MyDD, it seems like it is public now.
Sue Henshaw wrote about the CT For Lieberman statewide party meeting on March 6th at 6:30 PM at 243 Zion St.,Hartford, CT 06106.
There are plenty of other things, but the Metanomics forum in Second Life is about to start, so, I should post this as is.
