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Representatives from a number of Houston organizations held a press conference and rally near Congressman Gene Green's east Houston office on May 11, after being prevented from holding a press conference on the property where his office is.

Fellow PAA'ers, please forward the note below to folks you know in other organizations in our area (along with an invitation from you), and ask them to come to our Feb. meeting. By inviting them to tell us how we can help their groups, we can build a larger political force for progressive change in our area, while planning some fun events that everyone will enjoy. -- Bill Crosier

In this message:
1. Thanks
2. Hope
3. The Future, What We Can Do
4. Summary

1. Thanks

The following was written by Willie Simmons, a long-time member of the Progressive Action Alliance. If you are reading this on the PAA home page, click on the article title to read the entire entry.

A number of progressive organizations have made their list of endorsements public, and since they've spent the time to look at various candidates, their endorsement lists may be useful to you, especially for down-ballot positions. If you are reading this on the PAA home page, click on the title of this article, or the "read the rest" link for details.

This is a call to action. Please help increase the pressure on our government. Give more people a chance to speak out. Take blank, stamped post cards, clipboards, pens, and officials’ address lists everywhere you go.

Kucinich to announce for President
‘Deeply concerned’ by failure of Democratic leadership to heed voters’ November call to end war

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, December 11, 2006

Again this year, we have some choices between awful candidates from the Republican party, and some less-than stellar Democrats. (I do realize that there are some excellent Dems even here in Texas, though, such as David Van Os and several running for Congress and the state legislature.)

The Texas Democratic Party has put the videos of the speeches from last weekend's state convention on youtube.com. To see them all, go to http://youtube.com/profile_videos?user=TXDemocrats My favorite is the speech by Attorney General candidate David Van Os, with an introduction by former Atty Gen.

Note 1:  Where it says "Senatorial District (or SD) Convention" below, this means the portion of your Texas senatorial district that is in your county.  In areas outside metropolitan areas, where there is only one Senatorial District for the entire county, there is a County Convention.

Note 2:  Another good and concise reference for the SD conventions is at the Progressive Populist Caucus web site at http://www.texaspopulists.com/node/899 -- Note that some of the addresses for the SD conventions in Harris Co. on that list and on the HCDP web page are not correct, though.  Check with your SD chair to make sure of the location before Mar. 25!

CHENEY GOES AHEAD WITH FOLSOM PRISON CONCERT

Vice President Dick "Buckshot" Cheney kept his word to the inmates at California's maximum security Folsom State Prison. He played a one hour set with his band "Dickie and The Trigger Happy Birdie Killers". The set received a luke warm reception until Cheney launched into his new, as yet unreleased, single "Go Fuck Yourself". During the guitar solo the Vice President thrilled the assembled audience by producing a rifle and opening fire. "He seems angry. Very angry" one inmate said "I mean, I always thought that the American people didn't like to vote for angry people but...Man, that dude is angry!" I managed to obtain a tape of the performance and am proud to present it here....

HUMOR...

Cheney Says Shooting Of Fellow Hunter Was Based On Faulty Intelligence
Believed Shooting Victim Was Zawahiri, Veep Says

A white house source stated that Congress is considering awarding Vice-President Dick Cheney the Medal of Freedom, the national highest civilian commendation, for his act of bravery in shooting an attorney.

Dick Cheney will never live down the shooting incident. There are so many people making fun of him, I simply had to document these classics. Enjoy!

• Cheney's Got a Gun - Bob Rivers version
• Cheney's Got a Gun Flash animation
• The Dick Hunt

1. Would you support requiring all electronic voting machines to print on paper for each voter a complete summary of their voting choices, which will become, after their inspection, the authoritative record of their vote?

1. Would you support requiring all electronic voting machines to print on paper for each voter a summary of their voting choices, which will become, after their inspection, the authoritative record of their vote?

Some people question why we bother with writing and promoting resolutions, and say that the candidates may ignore them or that the general public doesn't care. However, I believe there are some very important reasons why we should promote resolutions that deal with issues we care about:

Spreading Values through Social Action
Presentation by Bill Crosier to Unitarian Fellowship Church
January 15, 2006

[Note: See downloads below for handout on Elevator Speeches]

Thank you for allowing me to share this morning with you, to talk about some ideas of how we can spread our social values.

At the PAA meeting this evening, we discussed the resolutions that our group wrote two years ago, before the 2004 primaries.  Using these resolutions in the next few months, with some minor updates/revisions, along with some additional ones, can help us in several ways:

Despite movement toward new standards for machines, change may be years away

By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
Inside Bay Area
http://insidebayarea.com/ci_3268257

SACRAMENTO — For 11 years, most states have relied on voting systems tested to minimal federal standards, the results withheld from public scrutiny and given the green light by a nongovernmental agency working on a shoestring budget.

The era of approving tools of democracy on the cheap is coming to an end, and judging by talk at a national gathering of voting experts here this week, few will be sorry to see it go.

Carnegie Mellon University computer expert Michael Shamos, a state voting-systems certification official for Pennsylvania, is one of the staunchest advocates for new, fully computerized electronic voting systems.