DCDL

If you want to see the Democrats take back Congress and you have some money you can devote to that cause, there are several opportunities coming up (plus one rally that asks only for your enthusiasm):

• Tuesday, September 19:
  • Reception for John Cranley, running against Rep. Steve Chabot in Ohio’s 1st District, at the Hawk and Dove, 329 Pennsylvania Ave SE (Capitol South or Eastern Market Metro), 6–8pm, with special guest Paul Begala.
  • Reception recognizing 20 terms of service by Rep. John Conyers Jr. with special guest Howard Dean, 5:30–7:30pm, Jones Day, 51 Louisiana Ave NW. Donation levels start at $150.
• Wednesday, September 20:
  • If you’re feeling particularly rich this week: Lunch with Sen. Byron Dorgan and Jon Tester, challenging Wyoming senator Conrad Burns, City Club of Washington on Franklin Square, 1300 I St NW, 11:45am. Donation levels start at $500. RSVP to LaVonne Franklin, lfranklin{at}mckennalong.com.
  • Rally (free) with Sen. Barack Obama and Jim Webb, running against Virginia senator George Allen, 5:30pm, Market Square, 301 King St, Alexandria.
• Thursday, September 21: Fundraiser for Jim Webb and former governor Mark Warner at the Torpedo Factory, 105 North Union St, Alexandria. Local activist Howard Park says, “If you only go to one big Jim Webb event before the election, this is the one!” Tickets start at $100.
• Monday, September 25: Join Reps. John Murtha and Allyson Schwartz at a fundraiser for Fighting Dem Chris Carney (challenging Rep. Don Sherwood in Pennsylvania’s 10th District), American Legion Hall, 224 D St SE (Capitol South Metro), 5:30–8pm. Suggested donation is $100, but you can come for less if you mention Blue Catapult. RSVP to vince{at}carneyforcongress.com.

Hear about the Guantánamo Bay detention camp from someone who’s visited it. Our guest speaker at DC Drinking Liberally Thursday, September 21, will be Charley Carpenter, a partner at Pepper Hamilton LLP, primarily engaged in civil litigation. Since January 2005, he’s been representing a couple of prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay in their petitions for habeas corpus, and related matters. He’ll talk about his experiences and answer questions.

My starting point for news on Guantánamo Bay detainment has been posts by Hilzoy and Katherine at Obsidian Wings, along with the comments there, which tend to be well above average in blog comment quality. The latest Guantánamo-related post is “Numbers”, from yesterday.

Drinking Liberally starts with a happy hour at 6:30, and the talk will begin at about 7:30. We’ll be in the back room Timberlake’s, 1726 Connecticut Ave NW (Dupont Circle Metro). To be informed of future events, subscribe to our e-mail announcement list.

Via the Maryland blog Crablaw, I see that supporters of Maryland 4th District congressional candidate Donna Edwards will hold a rally Monday morning, September 18, at 9:30 at the Montgomery County Board of Elections (751 Twinbrook Parkway, Rockville) “to coincide with the counting of the large number of uncounted Montgomery County ballots of all sorts for Edwards and all candidates running within that county.”

I don’t want to compare the rally to the Brooks Brothers Riot of 2000, but it’s time progressives started standing up for themselves. The events of September 12 in Montgomery County may very well have resulted only from incompetence (and the unnecessary complication of introducing electronic voting machines into the process), but regardless of the cause, people were disenfranchised, and that must not be allowed to recur in November. I’m distressed that the election-day chaos in Maryland hasn’t gotten much coverage in the national media.

This afternoon I noticed that the lampposts, trees, and bus shelters along Connecticut Avenue and some side streets around Van Ness have been blanketed with bright yellow signs reading as follows:

PETITION CAMPAIGN
Earn $500-$100 weekly
Hiring Immediately!!
202-544-6359
Work FT/PT
Citywide Signature Drive - looking for circulators
Requirements:
Must be 18 years or older & eligible to vote in D.C.
Must have valid D.C. ID

The signs are attached with plenty of strong tape to make them hard to remove, and there are many per block. Granted, such illegal postings occur all the time, but this one seems particularly egregious.

Google reveals that the number belongs or belonged to someone named Odell Mcdaniel, but the trail goes cold after that (I’m not a real reporter).

This sounds like the work of the unethical proponents of the unkillable slots initiative, people who never let little things like telling the truth or obeying the law get in the way of attempting to make big bucks at the expense of District residents. If they are the ones behind it, I’d suggest that any circulators demand payment up front, to avoid being stiffed like the homeless people they hired last time around.

I’ve already mentioned that the Washington Post had all seven of its endorsed candidates win in Tuesday’s DC primary, but I thought I’d see how well other groups and publications did with their endorsements. My simple scoring system awards 1 point for each endorsed candidate who won and subtracts 1 point for each endorsed candidate who lost.

Here are the scores:

(more…)

I see that NOW (WETA Friday 8:30 PM, MPT Saturday 1:30 PM) is doing a segment on the lefty blogosphere airing locally tonight and tomorrow afternoon:

NOW visited one of the blogosphere’s biggest events, the YearlyKos convention in Las Vegas, to see if the bloggers can turn their online advocacy into on-the-ground results.

[…]

NOW also talks to Markos Moulitsas, founder of DailyKos, one of the Internet’s biggest and most influential political blog sites. “You have a couple million people reading liberal blogs…and they’re looking for ways to get involved. And they’re looking for ways to participate and take hold of their own democracy. And that is powerful,” says Moulitsas.

I’m glad to hear that PBS is giving some visiblity to the lefty blogosphere. I do sort of wish we could get beyond the notion that Kos is the lefty blogosphere.

I should also mention they have a link for finding a progressive blog in your area, or a conservative blog.

Did you know that there’s no progressive blogs in DC? Sorry, you’re just out of luck. Plenty of conservative blogs, though.

The partnership between DC Drinking Liberally Wednesdays and Mark & Orlando’s has come to an end, so the group must find a new location. Here’s what Micha, the DCDL Wednesdays organizer, has to say about his search:

I am currently looking at other venues in Dupont Circle, and have contacted Frontpage about the possibility of moving there. However, my knowledge of DC bars is limited. We need a place which has either a separate room, or an area which is somewhat separate from the main bar so our speakers don’t have to shout over the rest of the bar. If the venue has a TV as well, we could continue to host occasional movie screenings as well. And, of course, if anyone knows the owner or manager of a place, that’s helpful as well. I am considering the Dupont Circle and Capital Hill areas right now. (and, for people who suggested Busboys and Poets, it is a wonderful venue, but they do charge for their space, and they already have events scheduled for most Wednesdays)

If you have any ideas or connections, e-mail Micha at dcwed{at}drinkingliberally.org.

Is a squeeker.

Al Wynn and Donna Edwards are neck and neck for House District 3. The Baltimore Sun has the online results.

Looks like it’s going to be a couple hundred votes either way.

Update: If you want to read a horrific first-hand account of voting in Maryland, I suggest Avi Rubin’s blog. I gather he’s a CompSci professor at Johns Hopkins and has been looking at issues of electronic voting.

Here’s a choice excerpt:

“I shouldn’t be telling you this, but it’s all money. They are too cheap to do this right. They should have a real tech person in each precinct, but that costs too much, so they go out and hire a bunch of contractors the day before the election, and they think that they can train us, but it’s too compressed.” Around 4 pm, he came and told me that he wasn’t doing any good there, and that he was too frustrated, and that he was going home. We didn’t see him again.

If you’re tired of the current fashion of nail-bitingly close elections decided only after recounts and court battles, yesterday’s DC primary is the election for you. In every one of the ten contests, the winner beat the closest opponent by at least 15 percentage points. You can get results from the Board of Elections site.

Here are the winners (almost certain to be the winners in November as well):

• Mayor: Adrian Fenty
• Council Chair: Vincent Gray
• Council, At Large: Phil Mendelson
• Council, Ward 1: Jim Graham
• Council, Ward 3: Mary Cheh
• Council, Ward 5: Harry Thomas Jr.
• Council, Ward 6: Tommy Wells
• US Delegate: Eleanor Holmes Norton
• Shadow Senator: Michael D. Brown
• Shadow Representative: Mike Panetta

All seven candidates endorsed by the Washington Post won, as did all three incumbents running for reelection (Mendelson, Graham, and Norton). Despite the victories for incumbents, the council will see a big turnover (assuming no bizarre occurrences in November), since next year we’ll have to have a special election to fill the seats in Wards 4 and 7 that Fenty and Gray are leaving for higher offices. So within several months the seats for Wards 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, as well as the chair, will likely have new occupants.

On Thursday, September 14, DCDL regular Ian Fried, director of Blue Catapult PAC, will be among the panelists discussing “Taking Over Congress: Democratic Chances in the 2006 Elections” from 6 to 8pm (including dinner) at the Woman’s National Democratic Club, 1526 New Hampshire Ave NW (Dupont Circle Metro). The discussion will be moderated by Shelly Livingston, chair of the WNDC PAC. The other panelists are

• Joshua Ulibarri, vice president of Lake Research Partners
• Jim Gerstein, executive director of Democracy Corps
• Phyllis Busansky, Democratic candidate for Congress (FL-9)

The event is free (though you’ll have to pay if you want dinner or drinks). Sounds like it’ll be an interesting conversation. For more information and to RSVP, see the Blue Catapult announcement.