Iowans Bridge The Gap For Health Care: June 19th

On Saturday, June 19th, tens of thousands of people will join together across the country to bridge the gap in health care.  From the Golden Gate Bridge to the Brooklyn Bridge, be a part of a national action to call for quality, affordable, health care for all!

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LOCAL EVENT:  Iowa City

11:00 AM (local time), Saturday, June 19, 2004

Iowa Avenue Bridge
Iowa City, IA 52240

More than 277,000 Iowans – 17 percent of whom are children – have no health care. On June 19th, join us as we call attention to the health care crisis by focusing on the experiences of people fighting to preserve their health benefits or struggling to gain them. Iowans from across the state – working families, local leaders, health care workers, small business owners, seniors, students and others – will walk across the Iowa Bridge to “bridge the gap” in health care. We’ll kick off the day at 11:00 am on the west side of the Iowa Bridge, followed by lunch and a rally on the east side of the bridge at Hubbard Park.

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Go here to coordinate your own local event.

They have downloadable flyers in English and Spanish, and an event planning guide.

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When you schedule your event, please let us know at Blog for Iowa.

Thanks to Bev for sending this in.  She's clearly way ahead of the game, as, only today, DFA has asked us to include this in our June 2 Meet Ups.

DFIA Joins DFA State Groups Across Country for Global Warming Event

The DFA State Group Listserv is finally up and running and the first thing the State Groups have agreed to undertake together is to join MoveOn.org's Memorial Day weekend "event."

On Memorial Day weekend, Hollywood is releasing a summer blockbuster movie that's making the Bush administration very nervous. In fact, they'd rather you didn't see it at all.

Why? Because it's a disaster movie about global warming.

While "The Day After Tomorrow" is more science fiction than science fact, everyone will be talking about it -- and asking, "Could it really happen?" This is an unprecedented opportunity to talk to millions of Americans about the real dangers of global warming and expose Bush's foot-dragging on the issue.

So here's the plan: On Memorial Day weekend, grab a few friends and go see "The Day After Tomorrow" -- the movie the White House doesn't want you to see. At the theater, meet with other like-minded folks to give out flyers that explain, in everyday language, what causes global warming, how Bush's environmental policies could lead us into a real-life climate crisis, and what we can do together to meet this challenge.  (You might want to leave the movie just a bit early and catch viewers outside the theater after they have seen the movie.  That way, your flyers won't end up on the floor of the theater.)

Go here to sign up to help and to download the flyer:

http://www.moveon.org/dayafter/

Please also sign the MoveOn.org petition calling on Bush and Congress to prevent a climate crisis, at:

http://www.moveon.org/climatecrisis/

Maybe you've already seen the trailer for "The Day After Tomorrow": tornadoes whip through Los Angeles and Manhattan is frozen over as global warming triggers an Ice Age across North America.

Nearly 20 million Americans are expected to see this movie, with as many as 7 or 8 million over Memorial Day weekend alone. Because the movie capitalizes on our real-life concerns over climate change, audiences are likely to walk out of the theater asking themselves: "Could it really happen?" We'll be there to answer that question with our flyers.

The right wing has already cranked up its PR machine to discredit the movie as "fright flick" propaganda cooked up by climate change conspiracy theorists. Never mind that they're relying on stone-age science, or that they're light-years behind the curve on the public's acceptance of global warming as a real environmental threat.

The news media are already buzzing about the MoveOn.org plans. Two days ago, MoveOn.org held a press conference to officially launch the campaign, and stories have already appeared in the Associated Press, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times.

We can't afford to wait until the day after tomorrow to address the climate crisis. We hope you'll be part of this fun summer campaign to elevate global warming from movie-house thrill-ride to White House priority.

http://www.moveon.org/dayafter/

And please write up your experience for Blog for Iowa.  Send it in to Linda at blog@democracyforiowa.com.  Thank you!

You can see the movie trailer at:

http://www.dayaftertomorrowmovie.com/

DFIA Meet Up Tomorrow (Thursday)

The Democracy for Iowa Meet Ups meet tomorrow night at 7pm.  Contact Karene 'kid' Nagel, the DFIA Meet Up Coordinator, for more information, or go to Iowa Meet Up Central to check out the agenda.

And Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Tips For Finding Uncontested Races

by 21st Century Democrats

1)  Pick a race that you want to research.
 
You can find elected officials by zip code, along with district information, at http://yahoo.capwiz.com/y/dbq/officials.

2)  Find the filing deadline for the race.

You can find a list of all state filing deadlines at the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee website, http://209.61.210.12/pub_filing_deadlines.html.

You can find federal filing deadlines by contacting your state election agency. A directory of state election agencies is online at http://www.nased.org/statelinks.htm.

You can find local filing deadlines at your local board of elections, via your county or city government web site. You can usually find your county government website by typing the name of your county and state into the search engine at www.google.com. Another good portal to local government sites is www.capitolimpact.com/gw.

3)  Ask your State or County Democratic Party if a candidate has filed for the race or intends to file.

Finding candidates to run for office is one of the primary objectives for state and local Democratic committees. You can find a directory of state and local committees at http://democrats.org/states/index.html.

4)  Ask your state election agency (Secretary of State or State Board of Elections) for filing information.

If you can't get the information you need from the party, you can get it from state officials. See http://www.nased.org/statelinks.htm for a directory. You may have to talk to a few people at the agency to get an answer, but persistence will be rewarded.

Updated DFIA Meet Up Agenda for May 6th

First, after introductions and welcoming of all new members, Meet Up hosts should do a recap of April happenings.

National - Old Business

  1. DFA formed two important partnerships during April.  First, we formed an alliance with Wellstone Action, this being the on-going legacy of Paul and Sheila Wellstone. Together our organizations will be mobilized and in a position to accomplish a wide variety of progressive political actions. Please visit the Wellstone Action website at: www.wellstone.org for more info and to join and contribute to this great organization!  We also joined with America Votes...and we will discuss this alliance in our new business discussion later.

2. Governor Dean did his first Live Web Chat (and you can read some parts of the transcript if you have time, available at both http://www.blogforiowa.com and http://www.blogforamerica.com.)

3. Our grassroots steering committee formed a delegation of over 1,000 people for the March for Women's Lives in Washington D.C. and Gov. Dean himself joined us in D.C. on April 25th. The March was the largest gathering ever in D.C. as the crowd size was estimated between 1/2 Million to over 1 Million!!! (No official crowd estimates are done by the police anymore). Also over sixty countries were represented in the March.

(If anyone has personal accounts they could share them with the group now.  Also, we are looking for an Iowa Dean supporter to report on the March for Blog for Iowa.  Please ask anyone you find to turn in the information to Linda at blog@democracyforiowa.com.)

Iowa - Old Business

4.  Discuss how your District Conventions went on April 24th, do an update on Dean Delegates to Boston, and a reminder that the State Convention is on June 26th and that we need a big turnout there.  You can find more information on this here.

http://www.blogforiowa.com/blog/DeanDelegates

5.  Remind your groups to visit Blog for Iowa daily for updates, events, and Iowa news.  http://www.blogforiowa.com 

Make sure everyone in your group has registered with Democracy for Iowa, either from the Blog for Iowa site or have them fill out a sign-up form (which you can download from the Download Flyers Here component on the right sidebar of Blog for Iowa.)

NEW BUSINESS

1.  Project Myth Breaker:  We still need to hand-deliver copies of Myth Breakers for Election Officials to a large number of Iowa County Auditors.  You will find complete information and instructions here. 

http://www.blogforiowa.com/blog/ProjectMythBreaker

Please see that someone in your group downloads and delivers a copy to the County Auditor in your county and in the surrounding counties.  You can check here for updates on which counties still need to be done. 

http://www.votersunite.org/

(Consider all of District 1 complete even though those counties may not yet have a star.)

2. Local Candidates:  What can you do to elect those progressive candidates running in your areas of Iowa? If your group feels strongly enough about any local candidates, then you should be organizing your DFIA people and contacting that candidate to offer your help. Have people sign up with their info and see if they have preferences of what type of volunteer work they like...calling, door knocking, computer help, etc.  Also, be sure to turn in the name and contact information for every progressive candidate you know to Linda at blog@democracyforiowa.com in addition to filing your usual report with national.

3. DeanCorps:  Are you working on any upcoming DeanCorps projects? Do members have suggestions for something that needs to be done in this next month? Possibilities are clean-up projects, helping at food kitchens, Habitat for Humanity works, etc.

4.  May 8th:  Need I say more?  I have not yet received additional details; but I believe all DFIA Meet Up locations will have an ACT office opening on May 8th, and we should get all we can to sign up for this day (and they should sign up thru the website with the local contact person). Go to:  www.americavotes.org and look in our state.  We should contact past Dean Meet Up attendees and our Dean Delegates/Alternates and find out if they want to participate with this day and with this on-going project.  For more information on this as it pertains to DFIA Meet Up, go here.

http://www.blogforiowa.com/blog/MeetUpCentralIowa

Karene 'kid' Nagel, DFIA Meet Up Coordinator