DFALA night for phonebanking on October 5!

Written by: Susanne Savage on Sep 28, 2006 4:33 PM EDT

Linked to groups: DFALA

Dear Member,

Please attend DFALA Phonebanking night on Thursday, October 5, 2006 at 7:00 PM to help Phil Angelides and the Democratic ticket. You can RSVP at:

www.dfalink.com/event.php?id=136...

What: DFALA October Meeting
When: Thursday, October 5, 2006, 7:00 PM
Where: West Hollywood Democratic Headquarters
9056 Santa Monica Blvd., #103
West Hollywood CA 90069

OR

West LA Democratic Headquarters
3314 Overland Ave. Los Angeles
Los Angeles , CA 90034
310-559-3636

Overland between National and Palm.

If you can't join us on Thursday night, please try to make it over to volunteer soon.

Say NO to Big Oil and Congress Conspiring to Drill off California's Coast

Written by: Susanne Savage on Aug 31, 2006 8:30 PM EDT

Linked to groups: Courage Campaign

Dear Network Member:

The Los Angeles Times reports that Republican California Congressman Richard Pombo continues his war against his own state. Mr. Pombo, who the environmental advocates at Ocean Champions call "Ocean Enemy #1" is trying his best to ram a bill through the Bush Congress that lifts the ban on offshore oil and gas drilling. While such drilling will have virtually no effect on the price we pay at the pump, the potential riches for Chevron, BP and others is huge. And guess what? One of Rep. Pombo's biggest benefactors are his friends at Big Oil.

Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are standing up to Pombo and the Bush corporate money machine in Washington. They are speaking out against Pombo's scheme, which already passed in the House and is due for a vote in the Senate. But they need ammunition in the form of your support.

Sign our petition, which we will forward onto our California Senators.

www.couragecampaign.org/page/pet...

"Where there is drilling, there is spilling" say environmentalists. We can not afford to spoil more of our coast line! We do not need to line the pockets of Oil Company CEOs, whose pay averaged $32.7 MILLION in 2005, and their friends George W. Bush and Richard Pombo.

Tell Senators Feinstein and Boxer, "We got your back." Sign our petition.

www.couragecampaign.org/page/pet...

Thank you for your help.

Yours sincerely,

Rick Jacobs
Chair

Attend Join Us For DFALA Meeting on September 6!

Written by: Susanne Savage on Aug 31, 2006 8:19 PM EDT

Linked to groups: DFALA

Dear Member,

Please attend Join Us For DFALA Meeting on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 at 7:00 PM. You can RSVP at:

www.dfalink.com/event.php?id=121...

What: Join Us For DFALA Meeting
When: Wednesday, September 6, 2006, 7:00 PM
Where: Wood Ranch BBQ & Grill -SIDE PATIO
189 The Grove
Los Angeles CA 90036

We will talk about ballot measures and the new Robert Greenwald movie, "Iraq For Sale."

We're two months out from Election Day. Please join us to help make sure we have a definitive win this November!

DFALA Meeting Tonight at 7pm!

Written by: Susanne Savage on Aug 2, 2006 2:44 PM EDT

Linked to groups: DFALA

Join DFALA members and Democratic Party Meetup members at the Fairfax & 3rd Farmer's Market Community Room tonight at 7pm. The Community Room is located upstairs in the balcony near the West Gate Entrance of the Market. We will be joined by 2 speakers who will talk about important propositions on this fall's ballot. There are only 97 days until the November Election! What are you waiting for? See you tonight!

Susanne Savage
DFA LA Steering Committee

Meet Air America's Sam Seder in Venice Thursday Night for Booksigning

Written by: Susanne Savage on Jun 15, 2006 2:01 AM EDT

Linked to groups: DFALA

Meet Sam and his co author, Stephen Sherrill and support them on the Los Angeles leg of their book tour.

fubarthebook.com/tour.php...
Thursday, June 15, 2006
8:00 P.M.
826LA
Sparc Building 685 Venice Blvd., 2nd Fl. Venice, CA
www.826la.org

F*U*B*A*R: America's Right-Wing Nightmare
The United States has survived clueless presidential administrations before. But no matter how enormous the crisis--the Great Depression, Vietnam, Watergate, Monica Lewinsky's thong-- America's always come out looking like, well, America.

This time, however, something's different. Things aren't just screwed up; they're f&#!$d up beyond all recognition. Welcome to F.U.B.A.R., a scathing satire of the American Right's bad behavior, by the creators of Air America's Majority Report.

On Christopher Arellano from the Endorsement Committee

Written by: Susanne Savage on Mar 4, 2006 10:58 PM EST

Linked to groups: DFALA

I wanted to address the Christopher Arellano situation to DFALA membership on behalf of the Endorsement Committee.

First of all, we are shocked and disappointed at the revelation that Christopher's second master degree was not awarded to him as he's been claiming, and were not aware of this fact when we voted to endorse his candidacy. (See full story below from the LA Times).

DFALA Endorsement Committee member, Dave Scholnick, who has volunteered on the Arellano campaign, got a phone call from Christopher apologizing. He didn't deny the allegations, but mentioned that the press has been receiving all their intel from an operative in the Mayor's office (Joe Ramallo) and Villaraigosa is supporting another candidate for School Board. Eric Bauman, Chair of the LA County Democratic Party is also supporting another candidate, so his comments to the LA Times in their story should be seen in that light.

Is this the dirty world of politics? Yes. Christopher was poised to win on Tuesday, and had a huge target on his back. Is what Christopher did excusable? Well, probably not, especially since he's running for School Board. Educational integrity matters.

One of the things that appealed to us about Christopher was his "up from the bootstraps" personal story, how he overcame a troubled childhood and youth to become a leader in his community. He may have thought a masters degree that was 6 credits shy was close enough to use on his resume. And he may have gotten some bad advice. We don't really know for sure right now.

Our endorsement of him still stands, perhaps on a technicality. We haven't discussed the mechanism for retracting one before, and it's not like he shot a guy in the face with some buckshot while quail hunting or something.

Some of us will chose to continue volunteering for the campaign, and some of us will not. The choice is up to you.

Susanne Savage
DFALA Steering and Endorsement Committee

www.christopherarellano.org

From the Los Angeles Times

School Board Hopeful Loses Backing
Democratic Party drops its support for Arellano, the front-runner in the race, after he admits to lying about master's degrees from USC.

By Joel Rubin
Times Staff Writer

March 4, 2006

School board hopeful Christopher Arellano's troubles deepened Friday when the Los Angeles County Democratic Party angrily withdrew its support for him after learning that he lied about earning a graduate degree from USC.

Arellano, a political novice who is considered a front-runner in Tuesday's race for an open seat on the seven-member Los Angeles Board of Education, has said repeatedly that he received a dual master's degree in social work and urban planning from the university. And in at least two campaign fliers mailed to prospective voters, he claimed to have earned "two master's degrees from USC."

Documents provided by the university, however, show that although Arellano, 33, was enrolled between 2001 and 2005, he was not awarded either a dual degree or two separate degrees. University officials declined to specify what requirements Arellano had failed to complete.

Arellano declined to be interviewed Friday. In an e-mail sent by a campaign consultant, Arellano said he had completed all the requirements for the social work portion of the dual degree but acknowledged that he had "one semester of coursework" to do before completing the urban planning requirements.

Heather Repenning, Arellano's consultant, said Arellano thought "it was a kind of formality" that he had not finished the program. In the e-mail, Arellano said he was allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony and had completed the comprehensive exams for the urban planning degree.

Repenning added that Arellano intends to return to USC to complete the courses, but she did not specify when.

Sheriff Lee Baca, who had endorsed Arellano, called on the candidate Friday to withdraw from the race.

"You don't run for public office and deceive the public as to your qualifications. He should know better, and it's time for him to honorably withdraw from the process," Baca said. "To me there's no margin of error in this sort of thing. It's wrong to claim you've achieved a college degree when you have not. Puffing up your resume unnecessarily is a character issue."

The controversy surrounding the degrees came after Arellano acknowledged he had twice been convicted of shoplifting in the 1990s.

That revelation did not fracture the broad and powerful base of support Arellano has won in the campaign. United Teachers Los Angeles, the teachers union that has almost entirely funded Arellano's campaign, reaffirmed its support for him earlier this week. So did the county Democratic Party and others, saying he had turned his life around after a troubled youth.

But word that Arellano had falsified the USC degrees took a toll. Eric Bauman, chairman of the county's Democratic Central Committee, said he had ended the group's support for Arellano, stopping plans for 35,000 automated telephone calls to voters this weekend. Fliers supporting Arellano had already been mailed, he said.

"I asked Christopher if there was anything else that may come out that could embarrass him or the Democratic Party, and he looked me in the eye and said, 'No,' " Bauman said.

Later Bauman learned about the university degrees.

Repenning declined to comment on Bauman's decision.

A.J. Duffy, president of the teachers union, said he was disappointed to learn about Arellano's false claim. It is unlikely, he said, that there is enough time before Tuesday's election for an emergency meeting of the 300-member house of representatives, the body that must vote to retract or reaffirm union support for Arellano.

If no candidate receives more than 50% of the votes cast Tuesday, the top two will have a runoff. If Arellano, a union employee, makes it into the June runoff and continues his campaign, Duffy and other officers said, the house of representatives would probably reconsider its support.

"You give full disclosure up front. You do not present things like this after the fact," said one union officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying he was not authorized to speak to the media. "It's just evidence that this young man is not being upfront, and that's troubling."

The union, which has about 45,000 members, has given $200,000 to Arellano -- more than the total raised by any other candidate -- has paid for campaign literature and has sent scores of teachers into the district to drum up support for him.

State Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles) said that she, too, was disappointed in Arellano but that she was not withdrawing her support.

"Do I think he has screwed up by doing this? Yes," she said. "He is a streetwise kid who needs to make the transition to the big leagues. I think he can make that transition, and I think he'll be very good for the discussions that [school] board is having about kids just like the one he used to be."

Los Angeles City Councilman Eric Garcetti and state Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) also voiced continued support for Arellano, who used to work for Garcetti as field deputy.

Arellano has described himself as a "troubled young adult," saying he dropped out of school in eighth grade and lived a poor, difficult existence for years after moving to Los Angeles.

His two convictions included one for what he said was the attempted theft of about $10 in toiletries and another for the attempted shoplifting of a jacket from a Van Nuys department store. Arellano said he was sentenced to a few days in jail for the second offense but that he was given credit for time served. He was ordered to work for 30 days on a California Department of Transportation work crew, which he said he took several years to complete.

Arellano also had to scramble Friday to clear up confusion surrounding his undergraduate degree from UCLA. Until Friday afternoon, his records there were "on hold," which often indicates that a student has completed the academic requirements but has outstanding loans or other debts to the university, officials said.

Late in the afternoon, university officials announced that the hold had been lifted and confirmed that Arellano had received a bachelor's degree in theater in 2000. They would not specify why Arellano's records had been on hold.

Arellano is running against four other candidates for the position that was left vacant when Jose Huizar won a City Council seat.

They include Maria Lou Calanche, who is no longer actively campaigning; Ana Teresa Fernandez, a former Belmont High School student; Monica Garcia, Huizar's former chief of staff; and Enrique Gasca, who owns a media relations company.

The district stretches from Boyle Heights to Mid-Wilshire and includes Chinatown, Koreatown and the Pico-Union area.

*


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Times staff writers Stephen Clark and Stuart Pfeifer contributed to this report.