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LOUISVILLE /JEFFERSON COUNTY
DEMOCRATIC PARTY NEWSLETTER
Week of January 16, 2009
The link to this electronic newsletter is being e-mailed to 7,500+
Jefferson County Democrats
We hope you will forward the link to your own e-mail list.
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CLICK HERE FOR CURRENT LIST OF EVENTS
Updated on a regular basis
Bulletin Board:
- The Louisville/Jefferson County Democratic Executive Committee meets the 4th Wednesday of every month at 5:00 pm at Democratic Headquarters,
- 640 Barret Avenue .
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House Passes Expansion of
Children’s Health Insurance Program with Yarmuth’s Support
SCHIP bill will ensure 11 million kids, including 4 million who are not currently covered
Today, with the strong support of Congressman John Yarmuth (KY-3), the US House of Representatives passed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) Reauthorization, which will maintain insurance coverage for more than seven million children in working families and extend coverage to an additional four million.
The legislation, which reauthorizes SCHIP through 2013, is identical to the bills President Bush vetoed in the last Congress. The Senate plans to approve the legislation quickly, and President-Elect Obama is expected to sign the bill into law next week.
Congressman Yarmuth’s floor statement in support of the SCHIP expansion legislation is below.
Modern medicine can prevent an inconvenient infection from ballooning into a debilitating illness with a relatively simple physician's visit and subsequent treatment. And here in America, with the best medical practices and practitioners in the history of the world, we have the capabilities to keep our nation's children healthy and their futures bright.
But we aren't doing it.
Up to now, we've chosen not to guarantee the health of our children, instead forcing upon millions of parents the difficult choice of seeking treatment for an ailing child or buying food. Making that potentially life-saving doctor's visit or keeping the lights on.
Today, we have the opportunity to erase that awful dilemma for the working mothers and fathers of more than 4 million children, including tens of thousands in my home state of Kentucky, by extending the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. By supporting the SCHIP expansion we help guarantee the inalienable rights of America’s children to survive, thrive, and grow up to become healthy adults.
By expanding SCHIP we can prevent the future health problems of our youngest generation so that they never grow up to be burdens on the system. It makes economic sense, but more importantly, it is our moral obligation. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this important legislation, as we fight to ensure that a sick child in this great nation never has to go without care.
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Yarmuth Named to House Budget Committee
Will also serve on Ways & Means Social Security and Select Revenue Measures Subcommittees
Congressman John Yarmuth (KY-3) has received one of the five seats on the House Budget Committee reserved for members of the Committee on Ways & Means.
“The budget challenges we currently face are as great as any time in our nation’s history,” Congressman Yarmuth said. I look forward to working to balance the priorities that will respond to our immediate economic problems and invest in the foundation of America’s long-term prosperity.”
Yarmuth also received appointments to the Ways & Means’ Subcommittees on Social Security and on Select Revenue Measures.
The highly sought-after Select Revenue Measures Subcommittee, will be instrumental in crafting the upcoming stimulus package, as well as working on matters relating to energy policy, tax policy, and worker issues.
In addition to working to ensure Social Security’s long-term solvency, the Social Security Subcommittee has jurisdiction over matters that relate to the federal retirement age, Survivors’ and Disability Insurance System, the Railroad Retirement System, and employment taxes and trust fund operations relating to those systems.
“I will work to ensure that all economic stimuli benefit working families with tax credits for college tuition, incentives for green jobs, and funding for projects that will improve the Louisville community and put people to work again. These assignments offer an exciting opportunity to restore financial security for millions of retirees and millions more who plan to retire in the coming years,” Yarmuth said.
How Obama Can Buy Off Mitch McConnell, by John Batchelor
The senator says he’s skeptical about the president-elect’s stimulus package. Translation: More pork, please!
Sen. Mitch
McConnell of Kentucky is not a Republican leader; he is a price tag.
After his pork-consuming performance during the last year, there is no
sincerity whatsoever to his recent carping about Barack Obama's
stimulus package—"What I worry about is the haste…"—or to his
newly fashioned role
as "a good steward of the taxpayer’s money." To hear McConnell fret
that the federal deficit has ballooned to $1.19 trillion is to listen
to the prattle of a
demimondaine
who is powdering the nose and negotiating the fee. If this is a
pinchpenny conservative, what is a spendthrift liberal?
Whatever he’s saying these days, the naked fact is that McConnell is a prince of earmarks who has used his seat on the appropriations and agriculture committees to pour a gargantuan amount of our money into his state. When Obama says he needs 80 Senate votes to pass the $1 trillion stimulus package, McConnell is delighted. The Republican seats in Kentucky are for rent, though dearly.
McConnell is the leader of the Southern Republican Hole-in-the-Pocket gang that feeds like the Democrats in the Senate.
Last year, McConnell campaigned for his fifth term in the Senate by boasting that he was responsible for $650 million of the $1 billion in federal earmarks lavished on his charming pastureland of a state. McConnell's personal earmark list defies sober analysis. Why do the American taxpayer and the Treasury's ceaseless printing presses provide for such eccentric parochial desires as a $1.39 million animal waste management research laboratory in Bowling Green, or $239,000 worth of Barren County Fiscal Court mobile data terminals and other communications equipment, or a $1.1 million upgrade to Marrowbone Creek in bucolic Pike County? "The biggest issue in this race," McConnell pontificated on the stump two weeks before the election, "is whether or not our small state is going to have a person of significant clout in Washington." This does not clarify how it is prudent for Americans to pay for dung and buses, but it does hint that it was clever of us to finance McConnell's "significant clout."
If McConnell were just another bluegrass sharpie trained at the Louisville courthouse to buttonhole the big-city boys, we could ignore him as the cost of doing business with a self-indulgent state. However, McConnell is the leader of the Southern Republican Hole-in-the-Pocket gang that feeds like the Democrats in the Senate. Last year alone McConnell's example of creative earmarks led his fellow Southerners Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Mel Martinez of Florida, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, John Warner of Virginia, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Richard Shelby of Alabama, David Vitter of Louisiana, and Christopher Bond of Missouri to fashion $8 billion in pork. (The only non-Southern Republicans in their league were now-convicted felon Ted Stevens of Alaska and the Methuselahs Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.) To examine the projects purchased by these Southerners collectively is to read through lists of sewers, blacktop routes, and campgrounds that are solely for the convenience of neighborhoods that vote the right way.
McConnell’s most recent boondoggle was his conduct during the stock market crash last fall. After Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson let Lehman Brothers lurch into liquidation, the Treasury Department cobbled together a crude deal, the so-called Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, that was clearly impotent flimflam. The Republican electorate polled against it 100 to 1. After the TARP was rejected by the House Republican plebes on September 29, Harry Reid of Nevada and Chris Dodd of Connecticut engineered the Senate gambit, reversing tradition on a revenue bill and putting the Senate up for a vote before the House revote. This fooled no one except those like McConnell, who wanted to be fooled for pork in the pocket. He took the lead to shop his vote and those of enough of his caucus in exchange for a piece of the $140 billion in additional earmarks passed out by the Bush administration.
McConnell went the extra step to the microphone on the night of the vote, October 2, and made a claim so pompous that it matches the legend of cartoonist Al Capp's Sen. Jack S. Phogbound. "This has been the Senate, um, at its finest—in the years that I've been here,” said McConnell. “I can't recall a single time where in this close proximity to an election both sides have resisted the temptation to engage in partisan game-playing, if you will." Swiftly, more than half the TARP and all the pork vanished, to no recognizable change except that McConnell got himself another six years to face-lift more Kentucky waterfronts and game trails.
Now that Obama has proposed $1 trillion worth of stimulation to add to the Himalaya of the deficit, McConnell has dressed himself as a prudish sentry and warned against spending on "mob museums and water slides." The Democrats know their man and know that the Southern Regional Party in the Senate, aka the GOP, is not exactly hard to get. "We would like to offer our ideas," said McConnell coyly about the stimulus package. "And finally I think to the extent that it passes with a very large vote, it will have more credibility with the American people. And the way it's likely to pass with a very large vote is to have significant Republican participation." Parsing this McConnell-speak, the puzzle for the Obama White House is to figure how many zeroes there are this time in the word "significant," because it is a lot more costly than the word "principle."
John Batchelor is radio host of the John Batchelor Show in New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
* In the Laugh-if-it-Didn’t-Hurt-So-Much category:
In an interview with The Associated Press, Vice President Dick Cheney also said that President George W. Bush has no need to apologize for not foreseeing the economic crisis.
“I don’t think he needs to apologize. I think what he needed to do is take bold, aggressive action and he has,” Cheney said.
* Laugh and Hurt, Part II: Bush took such “aggressive action” on the economy, he must have worried a lot about it. NOT. In fact, when asked by People magazine about which moments from the past eight years he revisited most often, Bush talked passionately about the pitch he threw out at the World Series in 2001:
“I never felt that anxious any other time during my presidency, curiously enough.”
* While Bush spent his presidency reminiscing about a baseball throw, the nation lost 2.6 million jobs last year alone, and some 11.1 million U.S. workers now are unemployed. Bush has the worst record for economic gain of any president since Herbert Hoover, with 3.7 million jobs created over eight years, compared with 22.7 million created during the two Clinton administrations.
* And those unemployed workers likely have no health care coverage. COBRA—the 18th-month health insurance extension available to laid-off workers—is too expensive for most. A Families USA study found that paying for COBRA would eat up a workers’ entire unemployment check—and more. Worse, if laid-off workers with health problems do not continue their employer-based coverage through COBRA and seek coverage in the individual health insurance market, they likely will not find any insurer who will sell them a policy that will cover their pre-existing conditions.
* In the Let Them Eat category: So what if since January 2001, the month Bush took office, the percentage of unemployed workers has increased more than 84 percent? He’s got his priorities. Like ordering an entire new set of White House china that arrives two weeks before he leaves office to make sure he sticks the Obamas with yet another disaster—Lenox ware with magnolias the size of, well, baseballs.
Did you hear that mercury in fish isn’t dangerous, that earning a minimum wage is bad for workers and that Mothers Against Drunk Driving is a menace to society? If you have, chances are you’ve heard that from mega-lobbyist Richard Berman.
Now, a new website is shining a light on the man and the money behind many, many myths.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has launched “Berman Exposed,” a great new website detailing Berman’s background and just how he winds up in the middle of so many controversial issues.
Berman is an award-winning spinner of distraction, disinformation and outright falsehood. We’ve written frequently about Berman, because he’s an influential political mercenary, the guy the biggest corporations hire when they want to keep their fingerprints off a misleading and nasty public relations campaign.
He hides behind self-created organizations with deliberately misleading names like “Center for Union Facts” and “Center for Consumer Freedom.”
Through these front groups and the op-eds and advertisements placed under their rubric, Berman is an industry unto himself—and a driving force behind some of the misleadingly named front groups leading the charge against the Employee Free Choice Act. When Big Business wants to hide its agenda, Berman is there to take the call—and the big check.
Yet it seems the press must have Berman on speed dial, too. It’s all too rare that a news story on the Employee Free Choice Act doesn’t give the first quote to Berman or another corporate hack. He’s cited as an “expert source” instead of what he is—a bought and paid for shill.
“Berman Exposed” is a useful corrective to the corporate-funded disinformation campaigns that are distorting our public debate. Thanks, CREW, for shining a light on the creepier corners of how Big Business tries to mask its influence on public policy.
Obama Economic Plan: Create Made-in-America Jobs, by Tula Connell
President-elect Barack Obama today laid out some of the details of his economic recovery plan. While the current President focuses on giving the Medal of Freedom to the leader of a country that has the highest number of trade union murders in the world and on spending nearly $600,000 on new china for the White House days before leaving office, Obama is moving to clean up the Bush economic mess. Giving the Democratic radio address this morning, Obama said:
Our first job is to put people back to work and get our economy working again. This is an extraordinary challenge.
Obama said his plan was in part crafted by economist Jared Bernstein, an ally of the labor movement at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and now economic advisor to Vice President-elect Joe Biden.
We’ll create nearly half a million jobs by investing in clean energy–by committing to double the production of alternative energy in the next three years, and by modernizing more than 75 percent of federal buildings and improving the energy efficiency of two million American homes. These made-in-America jobs building solar panels and wind turbines, developing fuel-efficient cars and new energy technologies pay well, and they can’t be outsourced.
“Made-in-America jobs.” What sweet words after eight years of an administration bent on giving endless corporate incentives to move U.S. jobs overseas. Here’s more from Obama’s radio address:
- Put nearly 400,000 people to work by repairing our infrastructure–our crumbling roads, bridges and schools.
- Build the new infrastructure we need to succeed in this century, investing in science and technology, and laying down miles of new broadband lines so that businesses across our nation can compete with their counterparts around the world.
- Work to achieve bipartisan extensions of unemployment insurance and health care coverage; a $1,000 tax cut for 95 percent of working families; and assistance to help states avoid harmful budget cuts in essential services like police, fire, education and health care.
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"Intent on blocking organized labor's top legislative goal," corporations are pouring money into lobbying groups like the Workforce Fairness Institute and the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace as part of "a multimillion-dollar campaign" aimed at "killing legislation that would give unions the right to win recognition at a workplace once a majority of employees sign cards saying they want a union."
Comments:
DAILY GRILL
None this week
Quotes of the Day
"Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter." --President George W. Bush, in parting words to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy at his final G8 Summit, punching the air and grinning widely as the two leaders looked on in shock, Rusutsu, Japan, July 10, 2008
Recent Senate Votes
Cloture Motion; Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 - Vote
Passed (66-12, 20 Not Voting)
The Senate reached the necessary sixty votes to move forward on this bill,
which is a package of over 160 bills related to public lands, national
parks, and water development legislation.
Sen. Mitch McConnell voted Not Voting
Sen. Jim Bunning voted Not Voting
Recent House Votes
Paycheck Fairness Act - Vote Passed (256-163, 14 Not Voting)
On Friday, the House passed this bill to allow gender-based pay
discrimination victims to sue for more money and require employers to meet a
higher standard to justify pay disparities.
Rep. Brett Guthrie voted NO
Rep. John Yarmuth voted YES
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 - Vote Passed (247-171,
15 Not Voting)
The House passed this employee pay discrimination measure that would allow
courts to consider each new paycheck as a new instance of discrimination.
Rep. Brett Guthrie voted NO
Rep. John Yarmuth voted YES
HUMOR
"President Bush has asked all the major networks for 15 minutes of air
time on Thursday to give his farewell speech to the nation. Well, the White
House says he's going to use part of the time to list his accomplishments.
No word yet what he's going to do with the other 14 minutes." --Jay Leno
"But I think everybody has warm feelings for George Bush now. He held his
final press conference yesterday. He admitted — it takes a big man to do
this — he admitted that a couple things didn’t go according to plan. A
couple of things went haywire. His first term and his second term. Those two
things." --David Letterman
"But President Bush did take credit for a couple of things. He said, you
know, Dick Cheney hasn't shot anybody in a couple of years. So that's always
good, right?" --David Letterman
"By the way, one week from tomorrow, here's what's going to happen. George
W. Bush will be walking around on the ranch in Crawford, Texas, and he'll be
saying: 'Listen to this, boys. You ought to see it. The office, it's an
oval. Like a circle but it's an oval. I'm not kidding. No corners. It's like
an oval. Honest to God. I was there for eight years." --David Letterman
"Today was President Bush's last Cabinet meeting. At one point, Bush got
emotional and said, 'I never got to find out what HUD means.'" --Conan
O'Brien
"Well, one more week left of President Bush, and the President has been busy
saying his good-byes. Yesterday, he gave an unusually candid and animated
press conference. As you may know, President Bush was never a big fan of
press conferences because the press never really understood him, mostly
because he makes up his own words. I'm really going to miss him. Can't we
find a position for him? Something where we still get to hear the stupid
stuff, but he doesn’t actually make any decisions? I mean, I'm all for
change, but I have a show to do here." --Jimmy Kimmel
"But it's nice to know that there is one person untroubled by the Bush
presidency [on screen: Bush saying he gave the presidency his 'all' for
eight years and he didn't 'sell his soul for the sake of popularity']. You
didn't need to! You sold ours." --Jon Stewart
"In an interview that was taped yesterday, President Bush said that the
biggest disappointment of his presidency was the people who expressed
bitterness about his leadership. And that was just at the Christmas dinner
with his family." --Jay Leno
"President Bush had his final press conference today, and it went pretty
well. Only three shoes were thrown." --David Letterman
"After eight years, it is kind of sad President Bush had his final press
conference. And you know what that means for us here at the ‘Late Show.’
We’re going to have to start writing our own comedy again." --David
Letterman
"Barack Obama promised his kids he would get them a dog when they moved to
the White House. But President Bush is nervous. When he heard dog in the
White House, he thought, 'Uh oh! What if he digs up all those Al Gore
ballots in the back?'" --David Letterman
"You know, President Bush keeps giving interviews about his eight years as
president. Earlier this week, he said his greatest accomplishment ... was
his effort to privatize Social Security, even though he never actually did
it. That's President Bush. Isn't it? Your greatest accomplishment? Well,
there aren't any. But if there were, by golly, here's what it would be."
--Jay Leno
"And you know, I think he's trying to struggle to come up with some
accomplishments. They're trying to make him look good, you know. Like today,
he took credit for ending the drought in New Orleans." --Jay Leno
"It was an historic day in Washington, as all four living presidents and our
president-elect had lunch together at the White House. Presidents Clinton,
Carter, both Bushes, and Barack Obama sat down to share a meal. President
Bush was especially excited. It's his place, and when the guys all walked
in, he said, 'Hey, you're the guys from the paintings in my office!" --Jimmy
Kimmel
"On this date in 2001 ... George W. Bush was certified as the winner of the
2000 presidential election. How about that? That turned out pretty well,
didn't it?" --David Letterman
"By the way, First Lady Laura Bush, Laura Bush is writing a memoir. The name
of the memoir, I believe, is 'I'm with Stupid.'" --David Letterman
Rep. Darryl Owens Elected Chair of Jefferson County Legislative Delegation
Rep.
Darryl Owens, (D-Louisville), has been elected to a two year term as chair
of the Jefferson County legislative delegation. He replaces Rep. Joni
Jenkins, (D-Shively).
Elected as vice chairs were Rep. Ron Crimm, (R-Louisville) and Sen. Gerald Neal, (D-Louisville).
“I want to commend Joni for the fine leadership and direction she has given our delegation over the past two years and I hope to build upon her success,” said Rep. Owens. “It’s going to be a tough session, but our bipartisan delegation will be tireless in our efforts to protect Louisville and Jefferson County’s interests. “
Rep. Owens was first elected to represent the 43rd legislative district in 2005. He was recently re-appointed by House leadership to serve his second two year term as chair of the House Elections, Constitutional Amendments & Intergovernmental Affairs Committee. He also was appointed as vice chair of three other House committees: the Budget Review Subcommittee on Human Resources; Judiciary; and the Special Subcommittee on Expanded Gaming. Rep. Owens will also serve as a member of the House Health and Welfare Committee.
CIVIL LIBERTIES -- CHENEY: IT 'ALWAYS
AGGRAVATED ME' THAT THE N.Y. TIMES WON A PULITZER FOR EXPOSING WARRANTLESS
WIRETAPPING: On Dec. 16, 2005, the New York Times published an
article by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau,revealing that President Bush had
secretly authorized the National Security Agency to "eavesdrop on Americans
and others inside the United States...without
the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying."
The blockbuster article, which
exposed one of the Bush administration's biggest secrets,
won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2006. Discussing the
wiretapping program on Bill Bennett’s radio show yesterday, Vice President
Cheney defended the program as "important" and said that it "always
aggravated" him that the Times was rewarded for its reporting: "The New
York Times broke the story I think in December of '05,
won the Pulitzer for it, which always aggravated me." Cheney joins the
list of conservatives who have attacked the decision to reward those who
revealed the secret program. "They win Pulitzer Prizes -- I don't think what
they did was worthy of an award - I think
what they did was worthy of jail," said Bennett in 2006. In December,
former Justice Department official Thomas Tamm explained to Newsweek why he
blew the whistle on the program, saying that it "was something the other
branches of the government --and the public --
ought to know about."
ADMINISTRATION -- REPORT: BUSH'S EX-CABINET
MEMBERS 'MADE A MINT ON THE BACKS OF AMERICAN TAXPAYERS': According
to a
new report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
(CREW), 17
of 24 former Bush Cabinet members have taken positions with at least 119
companies, including
65 firms that lobby the government and 40 that lobby those officials'
former agencies. These include former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge,
who "accepted director's fees and consulting work from several firms
seeking contracts with his old agency," and former energy secretary
Spencer Abraham, who took a post as a director of Occidental Petroleum,
"which soon became the
first firm in 20 years to ship oil to the U.S. from Libya." Melanie
Sloan, CREW's Executive Director, said the report "has shown that most of
these former Bush administration officials have
cannily leveraged their time spent in the public sector." "By using
their government positions as springboards to new lucrative opportunities,
[these officials] have successfully made a mint on the backs of American
taxpayers," Sloan said. "It may be legal,
but it is certainly not honorable."
Congress plans to quickly pass a bill to "provide health insurance to millions of low-income children" through the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The bill will also "restore health insurance benefits to legal immigrants under 21." Bush vetoed similar legislation last year denying health coverage to four million children.
RADICAL RIGHT -- JOE THE PLUMBER: 'I THINK MEDIA SHOULD BE ABOLISHED' FROM REPORTING ON WAR: Last week, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka "Joe the Plumber," announced that he was taking on a new job as a war correspondent for the conservative website PJTV.com, which sent him to Israel for 10 days to cover the war in Gaza. Speaking to local Ohio media before he left, Wurzelbacher said he intended to "go over there an let their 'Average Joes' share their story, what they think, how they feel -- especially with, you know, world opinion." He added that he hoped to "get a real story out there." Speaking to reporters in Israel yesterday, Wurzelbacher decried the press coverage of the war, saying "media shouldn't report on war." "If you're gonna sit there and say, 'Well look at this atrocity,' well you don't know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it," said Wurzelbacher. These aren't the first radical comments that Wurzelbacher has made. Last October, Wurzelbacher claimed that Barack Obama's victory would mean "death to Israel," leading Fox News reporter Shep Smith to call him "frightening." Wurzelbacher also questioned Obama's loyalty to the United States.
Think Fast
Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner "didn’t pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for several years while he worked for the International Monetary Fund, and he employed an immigrant housekeeper who briefly lacked proper work papers." The revelations could delay consideration of Geithner's nomination as Sens. Jim Bunning (R-KY) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) "blocked a request to proceed with his confirmation hearing Friday."
Roll Call reports that some top business lobbyists are privately grumbling "that they lack the kind of access they had at the beginning of the Bush administration and wonder if their agendas are being taken seriously."
President-elect Obama and congressional leaders "plan to move soon to block the estate tax from disappearing in 2010. ... In making their case for the restoration, Democrats contend that such a large additional tax break for the rich shouldn’t go into force halfway through Mr. Obama’s proposed economic-recovery package."
INTERESTING
Dear The Women's Network members---
This is to wish you the very best for 2009 and to register our hope for
a way to build a new world as we look forward to a new administration
for our country. January 20th seems too far away. Every day seems like
a century as we await change, while we know in our rational minds that
it will not happen overnight.
I want to talk to you about The Network. This will be a very important
year for us. As many of you know, we have a lot of organizational work
yet to be done We need to complete the range of our organization in
Western and Eastern Kentucky.
We have started new branches recently in the Owensboro and
Ashland/Greenup regions. Our fairly new Purchase Area and Shelby Area
Branches are coming along very well. We need to strengthen our new
branches and to organize multi-county branches in a number of regions.
The change in our national leadership will make it easier to achieve
our goals. But it will need concerted focused work for us to become so
strong that we can be counted on to change "the face of politics in
Kentucky" as our governor has credited us with, in speaking publicly
about what our Network does.
The Network is now gearing up for what we believe will be a great event
for our members and hundreds more who will be interested in attending.
The evening of May 8, 2009, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, granddaughter of
President Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt (daughter of Anna Roosevelt)
will be the speaker for a fund raising dinner---dubbed the New Deal
Dinner-- in Louisville at the Galt House. She is Vice President for
Global Citizenship for Boeing Aircraft and travels the world building
friendships and citizenship. There will be a silent auction in
addition to a reception and dinner. Virginia Woodward is chairing the
committee preparing for this major event.
Look for full details of how you can help and make plans to attend in
the next issue of The Advocate, our Network newsletter that Editor
Barbara Hadley Smith is readying to produce and Marti Booth to design
for mailing this month.
We feel fortunate that Ms. Roosevelt has accepted our
invitation. When I talked with her, she was very enthusiastic about
what our Network does and our emphasis on the Four Freedoms. She
conveys a warmth and exuberance that should be very inspiring to our
members and the audience that gathers to hear her. We hope to more than
equal what we did with the Helen Thomas dinner that many of you
attended.
To return to the newsletter-- we always want articles about what the
individual branches and chapters are doing and any other articles you
send that Barbara may be able to carry. If you have not already
submitted articles with local news, please hurry to do so.
The newsletter will include reports about the wonderfully successful
Forum that our Northern Kentucky Branch hosted December 6th.
You can send articles to Barbara directly at
bhsmith@fewpb.
On a personal note--as some of you know—I had a setback with my plans
to spend the holidays with our son and family in the Seattle area. I
was hospitalized in Lexington on December 16th with a "mini"
stroke…what they call a TIA…. followed by a transient seizure the next
morning. I was lucky that both of the above problems have no residual
effects, and I am on my way to full recovery. I always had good blood
pressure and never dreamed I would be a candidate for any kind of a
stroke. I hope to continue getting stronger so I can write each of you
who did know about it for your expressions of concern. I am taking this
opportunity right now to thank you. It has been such positive
encouragement!
We look forward to a busy and productive year. Memberships continue to
come in from all parts of Kentucky…and a small, but growing number from
border states. YOU are the magic ingredient that keeps the Network
growing. Never lose an opportunity to mention membership to friends,
families, colleagues…keep brochures in your purse! It's amazing how
many women get interested!
Best as always,
Lil Press, President
Buy American Mention of the Week, By Roger Simmermaker
NONE THIS WEEK.
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Roger Simmermaker is the author of How Americans Can Buy American: The Power of Consumer Patriotism and writes "Buy American Mention of the Week" articles for WorldNetDaily.com and his website www.howtobuyamerican.com. Roger is a member of the Machinists Union and National Writers Union, has been a frequent guest on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, and has been quoted in the USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Business Week among many other publications.
GOOD NEWS
"The House is expected on Wednesday to pass a reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program that would enroll 4 million more children and adults at a cost of $35 billion over four-and-a-half years."
VIDEOS
None for this issue
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or candidate's committee.
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are not tax deductible.
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Charles Horton, Treasurer - Tim Longmeyer, Chairman