| Greetings! Good Morning
Make sure you buy your tickets to the Texas Democratic Women of Collin County
3rd Annual Dinner Blue Boots Bash and Silent Auction. Also consider joining the Healthcare not Warfare vigils at Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's North Texas office every Saturday in the month of October.
Please encourage folks from your Democratic club and progressive groups to sign up for this free weekly newsletter. You know how great this newsletter is; please help us get the word out. Send folks to the NTX Progressive website [http://www.northtexasprogressive.org/ ] and ask them to put you their email address in the subscription box.
Thanks and consider sponsoring a week of the newsletter in October !
Thanks, Nancy Cunningham | | Environment Texas get involved! | |  Environment Texas is a statewide, citizen-based environmental advocacy organization.
Our professional staff combines independent research, practical ideas and tough-minded advocacy to overcome the opposition of powerful special interests and win real results for Texas' environment. Environment Texas draws on over a decade of success in tackling our state's top environmental problems. Also get copy of fall newsletter.
Environment Texas Director
action@environmenttexas.org
http://www.environmenttexas.org
| | Democracy Now | |  Dr. Cornel West Releases Long-Awaited Memoir, "Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud"
Dr. Cornel West, the celebrated Princeton University professor of religion and African American studies, has just come out with his long-awaited memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. In it, he writes, "Until now, I've never taken the time to focus on the inner dynamics of my soul." In a wide-ranging conversation, we speak to Dr. West about his upbringing, public healthcare, post-election disappointment, the role of music in his life, his spat with former Harvard president and current White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers, and more.
Listen/Watch/Read
Rethink Afghanistan: Filmmaker Robert Greenwald Launches Film Opposing Escalation of War
As the eighth anniversary of the US-led bombing of Afghanistan draws closer, the Obama administration continues to debate the best way to fight this ongoing war. Senate Democrats voted Thursday to delay a congressional briefing by General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, a NATO air strike on a compound in southern Afghanistan has reportedly killed a family of six. As the civilian death toll in Afghanistan continues to rise, we turn now to an excerpt from a new documentary by filmmaker Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films. It's called Rethink Afghanistan and premieres today in New York.
Listen/Watch/Read
| | Air America and Progressive Talk News | | 
Air America keeps WWRL (1600 AM) as its New York affiliate
The progressive radio network Air America announced this morning it is sticking with WWRL (1600 AM) as its New York affiliate.
Under the contract extension, terms of which were not disclosed, WWRL will continue to carry three Air America programs: the Rachel Maddow show, 5-6 a.m., "Montel [Williams] Across America," 3-6 p.m., and "The Ron Reagan Show," 6-8 p.m. Other Air America hosts can be heard over satellite radio or at www.airamerica.com. Read more
WWRL and Mark Riley launch new program "Working New York"
WWRL proudly boasts the most progressive talk in the nation. WWRL 1600AM, is licensed to Access 1 Communications Corp., and is a 24-hour African American owned and operated radio station serving the New York metro area. ...here
Franken making his mark in the Senate Al Franken vowed on the campaign trail to end the war in Iraq, reform the nation's healthcare system and bring down college tuition costs.
As a senator, the former "Saturday Night Live" star has delivered only one speech on the floor, introduced low-profile legislation and declined many media interview requests.
It is not unusual for a freshman senator to adopt a deferential approach in a chamber that is high on decorum and seniority. But the former entertainer has gone out of his way to deflect attention away from himself.
A review of Franken's Senate website shows only a biography, contact information and links to other congressional sites. There is no button for press releases. And unlike many lawmakers, Franken doesn't Tweet.
Read on | | Dem Notes and News | | 
Garland Democratic Voice
Garland Democrats have a great new newsletter contact Peggy to make sure you receive your copy! pjhenger@tx.rr.com
Midcities Democrats
Please join the Mid-Cities Democrats and the Tarrant County Democratic Party in honoring Speaker Jim Wright, Saturday October 10 at the 2009 North Texas Salute to Speaker Jim Wright, a reminiscence program featuring Jim Hightower and Speaker Wright.
The dinner will be held at Trinity Terrace, 1600 Texas Street, Fort Worth, from 5:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Dinner will be served at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $50 each before October 1st and $65 after.
RESERVATIONS ARE REQUIRED. Reserve your tickets by calling 817.798.5242, then pay for your tickets online or mail your check to the Tarrant County Democratic Party, 3004 W. Lancaster, Fort Worth 76107. (Payment by check saves us online transaction fees.)
Dallas Democrats
Saturday, October 17: PRECINCT CHAIR TRAINING 101 Open to all precincts. This is a basic level training class to help prepare Democratic Precinct Chairs how to organize their precinct and increase the number of people voting Democratic in their area. (9 - 11:30 AM, La Madeleine, 3906 Lemmon Ave, #110, Dallas)
Dallas Young Democrats
General Membership Meeting: "Faith, Social Action and Politics"
October 13 (Tuesday) 7 p.m. Zubar /2012 Greenville Avenue /Dallas, Texas 75206
For more information, please contact Renee Hartley at rlh.hartley@gmail.com.
| | North Texas Progressive Book Suggestion | |  Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
by Jon Krakauer by Doubleday Hardcover ~ Release Date: 2009-09-15 
List Price: $27.95 Our Price: $12.99 Buy Now The bestselling author of Into the Wild, Into Thin Air, and Under the Banner of Heaven delivers a stunning, eloquent account of a remarkable young man's haunting journey.
Like the men whose epic stories Jon Krakauer has told in his previous bestsellers, Pat Tillman was an irrepressible individualist and iconoclast. In May 2002, Tillman walked away from his $3.6 million NFL contract to enlist in the United States Army. He was deeply troubled by 9/11, and he felt a strong moral obligation to join the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Two years later, he died on a desolate hillside in southeastern Afghanistan. ...
In Where Men Win Glory, Jon Krakauer draws on Tillman's journals and letters, interviews with his wife and friends, conversations with the soldiers who served alongside him, and extensive research on the ground in Afghanistan to render an intricate mosaic of this driven, complex, and uncommonly compelling figure as well as the definitive accountof the events and actions that led to his death. | | Film Screening: Frozen River | | 
Tuesday, October 6, 7:00 p.m.
This film deals with a very current topic - social and ethical issues related to immigration. This movie is a prime example of the desperate measures decent people will take when things turn bad and all hope for a better future is gone. From the smugglers to the smuggled, they all have something to gain and something to lose and a story to tell. October's film is a drama that captures this moment and gives us a chance to walk in another's shoes. Nominated for 2 Oscars in addition to 24 awards won and 14 other nominations. The movie won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance film festival and was the opening night feature at New Directors/New Films in New York, a high honor.
The 1st Tuesday Social Action Film Festival is presented by the Unitarian Universalist Church of Oak Cliff Social Action Committee and is co-sponsored by the Dallas Peace Center. Films are free, but a donation is suggested to defray costs. | | Constitutional Amendments Discussion | | 
Get together to read about and discuss the constitutional amendments
we will be voting on in the upcoming election. We will have a member
of State Representative Allen Vaught's staff to attend and discuss
with us (or if the representative himself can join us he may possibly
do so as well!)
Time: Tuesday, October 13 at 7:00 PM
Host: Crispin Reedy RSVP to: HERE
You can download and print out a copy of the proposed amendments Here | | Wolf Blitzer gets 'schooled' in journalism by Michael Moore | | 
Michael Moore appeared on CNN Thursday evening with Wolf Blitzer to discuss his new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story. This is Moore's first interview with Blitzer since his film SICKO was released, and as Moore puts it, they had a 'YouTube moment.' Well, they had another one last night. Blitzer begins by pointing out that there are people who don't like Michael Moore.
"Let's talk about...most people who are going to see this movie who don't like you are going to say, 'you know what, Michael Moore has done pretty well in this free-market, capitalist system-you've become a fairly rich guy yourself.' " states Blitzer. Read /Watch here
| | Roll Call: The 50 Richest Members of Congress | | 
The 50 Richest Members of Congress: "Even membership in Congress' most exclusive club couldn't insulate lawmakers from the economic downturn. According to Roll Call's annual examination of House and Senate financial disclosure forms, while the 50 richest Members of Congress remain financially flush - each with a minimum net worth of nearly $5.5 million - many of them suffered significant financial losses in 2008. Lawmakers on this year's list reported a combined loss of more than $275 million from their minimum net worth since 2007. While the combined wealth of the 50 richest Members tallied approximately $1.3 billion in 2008, that figure falls nearly $171 million short of the previous club, which put up a total of almost $1.5 billion. Among the 38 lawmakers who return to the 50 richest club in 2008, the average reported wealth has declined more than 10 percent. Those who ranked at or near the top of the list last year reported some of the biggest losses, including Rep. Jane Harman's (D-Calif.) decline of more than 50 percent, or $114 million less than she previously reported." HERE
Two of these members of congress on this list have been heavily in the news this week concerning the heath care bill in Congress. What two members and does this tell us something ? Hint they are both in the top 15! | | Stephen Colbert: Let Freedom Ka-Ching! | | 
(VIDEO) Stephen Colbert: Let Freedom Ka-Ching!
Somebody's gotta stand up for the rights of corporations.
more | | Obama's War PBS Frontline Season Premier | | 
Tens of thousands of fresh American troops are now on the move in Afghanistan, led by a new commander and armed with a counterinsurgency plan that builds on the lessons of Iraq. But can U.S. forces succeed in a land long known as the "graveyard of empires"? And can the U.S. stop the Taliban in neighboring Pakistan, where U.S. troops are not allowed and the government is weak?
In FRONTLINE's season premiere, Obama's War, airing Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings), veteran correspondent Martin Smith (Beyond Baghdad, Return of the Taliban) travels across Afghanistan and Pakistan to see firsthand how the president's new strategy is taking shape, delivering vivid, on-the-ground reporting from this war's many fronts. Through interviews with top generals, diplomats and government officials, Smith also reports the internal debates over President Obama's grand attempt to combat terrorism at its roots. read on
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/obamaswar/
| | Beyond a Reasonable Doubt by Bob Moser of the Texas Observer | |  Rick Perry has spent much of 2009 on a one-man mission to ensure that Texas retains its reputation, in the post-Dubya era, for swaggering backwardness and proudly willful ignorance. With his battle against unemployment benefits, his George Wallace impersonation at the tea parties and his batty crusade against health-care reform as a violation of "states' rights," the governor has kept non-Texans chortling, tut-tutting and begging us to secede-while keeping rational-minded Texans cringing and wondering why the best chance to unseat him next year has to come in the form of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.
We could have a long, lively and dispiriting debate about the single most ridiculous thing Perry's done or said in his pandering to the fearful, the dimwitted and the hateful. But for my money, nothing sums up the essential character of this politician quite so neatly and damningly as his reaction to the evidence that he permitted the execution of an innocent man. read on
Make sure you have read the series of outstanding articles by Dave Mann HERE
This story was covered this week By Ed Schultz HERE
My Bad! Texas Apologizes For Executing an Innocent Man (SATIRE)
Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 for a fire that killed his three young daughters. Now it looks like he didn't do it. Oops! more
Read more on The Innocence Project HERE
Hear Dave Mann on NPR
| | Demonstration against war in Afghanistan every Saturday in October | |  As the Obama Administration, military planners and Congress debate the future conduct of the war in Afghanistan, the Dallas Peace Center will mark the beginning of the ninth year of the war with vigils at Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's North Texas office every Saturday in the month of October. The vigils will call on Obama to reconsider policies that have cost more than 1000 Afghan civilian and more than 200 U.S lives in 2009 alone. Since October 2001, when the US invaded, the war has cost American taxpayers $228 billion and has brought death and destruction to an innocent Afghan population reeling from decades of war with two super powers and internal strife between ruthless warlords.
According to Lon Burnam, director of the Dallas Peace Center, "President Obama has stated there aren't any military solutions in Afghanistan, but for every dollar spent on war efforts only seven cents goes for reconstruction. That ratio must be reversed. The real enemy in Afghanistan is extreme poverty, which serves as an endless source of recruits for extremists." In his inaugural speech, the President said, "Leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict: know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy."
A recent poll reported that less then half of Americans believe the war is worth fighting. More importantly, Afghani people opposed the increase in troops the beginning of this year, and most do not support western forces being there. In a poll taken the beginning of this year, only 18 percent of Afghans wanted to see an increase in U.S. and NATO forces.
What: Vigil to mark 8 years of war in Afghanistan.
Where: Sen. Hutchison's Office 10440 N. Central Expwy (I-75 and Meadow Road )
When: Saturday Oct. 3. Vigils will be held every Saturday in October 10 am - Noon
Rick Perry has spent much of 2009 on a one-man mission to ensure that Texas retains its reputation, in the post-Dubya era, for swaggering backwardness and proudly willful ignorance. With his battle against unemployment benefits, his George Wallace impersonation at the tea parties and his batty crusade against health-care reform as a violation of "states' rights," the governor has kept non-Texans chortling, tut-tutting and begging us to secede-while keeping rational-minded Texans cringing and wondering why the best chance to unseat him next year has to come in the form of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.
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| | The Politics of Spite by Paul Krugman NYT | | 
| | There was what President Obama likes to call a teachable moment last week, when the International Olympic Committee rejected Chicago's bid to be host of the 2016 Summer Games. Skip to next paragraph Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times Paul Krugman Go to Columnist Page » Blog: The Conscience of a Liberal Ask Paul Krugman About the Economy
Leave your questions about the economy for the columnist on his blog. He will be answering a selection of them in the coming days.
Post a Question » Readers' Comments Readers shared their thoughts on this article. Read All Comments (83) » "Cheers erupted" at the headquarters of the conservative Weekly Standard, according to a blog post by a member of the magazine's staff, with the headline "Obama loses! Obama loses!" Rush Limbaugh declared himself "gleeful." "World Rejects Obama," gloated the Drudge Report. And so on.
So what did we learn from this moment? For one thing, we learned that the modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old. members to take?
read on | | North Dallas Texas Democratic Women | | 
| | please get involved!
Lenna Webb, President North Dallas Texas Democratic Women www.nddw.org
You can buy great t-shirts and more from the NDTDW cafe press shop with the cool new 'donkeys with attitude' design.
http://www.cafepress.com/ndtdw
| | Rockwall County Democrats | | 
Get involved with one of the best Democratic groups in North Texas !
website
http://www.rockwalldems.com/
Rockwall County Dems Book Club
Dr. Stephen Taylor's blog at
Rockwall County Democratic Doctor
| | The Progressive Talk Station of North Texas! | | 
KMNY (1360AM)
Schedule
Monday through Friday 5-7 AM The Bill Press Show
7-9 AM Rational Radio Report /Bishop
9-11 AM The Radio Shopping Show
11 AM - 1 PM Thom Hartmann Show
1-4 PM Pugs and Kelly
4 PM - 6 PM The Richard Hunter Show
6 PM - 7 PM The Ed Schultz Show
7 PM - 8 PM Point Blank Tunde Obazee
8-11PM Mike Malloy
You can also stream online here
| | Medea Benjamin in Dallas ! | | 
Friday, October 16
6:30 p.m., SMU - A Humanitarian Forum on Gaza, with Medea Benjamin & Rami Khouri (flyer here http://www.codepinkdallas.net/)
immediately following: Code Pink Choir Practice.
Saturday, October 17
9:00 a.m. - Code Pink Choir Concert, under the direction of Medea Benjamin, at Bush's gates ~ we'll serenade him & see if he'll come out and turn himself in!
10:00 a.m. - Healthcare Not Warfare demonstration at Kay Bailey Hutchison's office (Central Expy & Meadow). Medea will speak and "Billionaires for Wealthcare" will debate her. Billionaires will sing their song, and Code Pink will sing us out. Demonstrators will give a send-off to the "Care-A-Van" leaving for the Regional Healthcare Not Warfare Rally in Austin.
2:30 - 6:00 - Regional Rally ~ Healthcare Not Warfare, Austin City Hall; Medea speaks; we support Code Pink Austin.
For information contact: Leslie JHarris866@aol.com
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| | Acorn : Stand up! | | 
ACORN ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities.
Rachel Maddow on Acorn
WELCOME to your local ACORN (The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) website. ACORN members are proud to organize for social justice and better neighborhoods. Join us, and let your voice be heard in your local community. Express your immediate concerns through e-mail or by contacting us by phone.
Dallas ACORN
5353 Maple #200
Dallas, TX 75235
txacorndaro@acorn.org
Phone: 214-823-4580
Fax: 214-823-1090
| | The Wizard of Beck by David Brooks NYT | | 
Let us take a trip back into history. Not ancient history. Recent history. It is the winter of 2007. The presidential primaries are approaching. The talk jocks like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and the rest are over the moon about Fred Thompson. They're weak at the knees at the thought of Mitt Romney. Meanwhile, they are hurling torrents of abuse at the unreliable deviationists: John McCain and Mike Huckabee.
Yet somehow, despite the fervor of the great microphone giants, the Thompson campaign flops like a fish. Despite the schoolgirl delight from the radio studios, the Romney campaign underperforms.
Meanwhile, Huckabee surges. Limbaugh attacks him, but social conservatives flock.
Read on
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