Talks on MCA on January 11 and 24, 2007

"So my answer [to question] is that the Military Commissions Act does not afford the detainees a fair trial, and the Congress would have been better off to take heed from what the Supreme Court was truly telling them in the decision of Hamdan, which is that if you aren't going to use the civil courts, which is where I practice, use the Code of Military Justice. We have things in place. And so you as involved taxpayers—or else you wouldn’t be here, you as involved citizens, you know, should really hear that."

—Cristi Charpentier, January 11, 2007

Coalition for Peace Action (Central Bucks) &
Upper Bucks for Democracy
January 11, 7 p.m., Plumstead Township Building
5186 Stump Road (0.4 mi east of 611 on right)
Plumsteadville, PA 18949
January 24, 7:30 p.m., Celtic Cross Room
Doylestown Presbyterian Church
127 E. Court St., Doylestown, PA 18901

Coalition for Peace Action (Central Bucks) and Upper Bucks for Democracy will co-host Cristi Charpentier and Shawn Nolan, both of the Federal Defender's Office, E.D. Pa., and recently returned from Guantánamo, where they have been working with detainee clients. They will speak about the denial of habeas corpus, the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006, and the dangers they pose for U.S. Constitutional law and basic human rights.

Ms. Charpentier, who grew up in Doylestown and graduated from CB West, will speak on January 11 at 7:00 p.m. in the Plumstead Township Building, 5186 Stump Rd., Plumsteadville, PA 18949, and Mr. Nolan on January 24 at 7:30 p.m. in the Celtic Cross Room of the Doylestown Presbyterian Church, 127 E. Court St., Doylestown, PA 18901.

Ms. Charpentier and Mr. Nolan participated in the Guantánamo teach-in on October 5, 2006, at Temple University's Beasley School of Law. Background on Guantánamo from Legal Times:

When the U.S. military began shipping prisoners from the war on terror to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, one goal was clear: to keep them outside the reach of the U.S. court system. But nearly five years later, those cases remain stuck exactly where the Bush administration didn't want them to be. [continued]

Andy Warren and Fred Viskovich, Democratic candidates for Bucks County Commissioner, will also speak on January 11 in Plumsteadville.

No monthly meeting in December

Upper Bucks for Democracy will not meet in December. See you in 2007!

Free screening of Iraq for Sale on Thursday, November 2, 7:30 p.m.

Plumstead Democrats & Upper Bucks for Democracy
Plumstead Township Building
5186 Stump Road (0.4 mi east of 611 on right)
Plumsteadville, PA 18949

Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers

The Plumstead Democrats and Upper Bucks for Democracy will co-host a free public screening of the documentary Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, by Robert Greenwald (Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed, and Uncovered). Click here to reserve your seat.

Meeting on October 5, 2006

Upper Bucks for Democracy will meet at Democratic headquarters, 17 West Court St. in Doylestown, at 7 p.m. to support our candidates by phone banking.

Meeting on September 7, 2006

Upper Bucks for Democracy
Plumstead Township Building
5186 Stump Road (0.4 mi east of 611 on right)
Plumsteadville, PA 18949

PA Action, P4P, the 2006 Elections, and the Progressive Movement

Chuck Pennacchio, Jeanne and Mike will lead a discussion of the following questions:
1. What and who is PA Action and how can we work together--locally, regionally, statewide, nationally, and internationally?
2. What can we do through the 2006 elections to advance our shared concerns?
3. How does our coalition building and election activity fit into the larger picture of movement politics in Pennsylvania and beyond?
4. What does the P4P Senate campaign of May 16 offer in the way of resources, model building, and new opportunities?

PA Action is collecting clothes, books, CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, and cassettes to raise funds to support their campaigns.

Note: Video of the Middle East War Forum with Scott Ritter and Ray McGovern on July 22 is now available for $12 plus postage. Email UpperBucksforDemocracy@yahoo.com.

Meeting on August 3, 2006

Ben Shapiro will talk about America Votes PA, a state PAC working to educate voters on the important issues in Pennsylvania. It is a partner of America Votes, the nation’s largest coalition dedicated to turning out the vote in 2006. Comprised of a historic partnership between many of the largest progressive, membership-based groups in the nation, America Votes is independent of any political party, and is singularly focused on communicating with voters on the issues. This election cycle, America Votes will work in 8 targeted states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Wisconsin, to raise awareness on a broad range of issues including the economy, health care, the environment, education, and civil and human rights.

Middle East War Forum with Scott Ritter and Ray McGovern on July 22

The Middle East War: How We Got into Iraq,
How We Get Out, and How We Stay Out of Iran

Video (4:42)

Video of Forum $12 plus postage
Email UpperBucksforDemocracy@yahoo.com

Guest Speakers: Scott Ritter and Ray McGovern

Saturday, July 22, 7 p.m.

BuxMont Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
2040 Street Road, Warrington, PA (just east of Rt. 611)

Scott Ritter: As a U.S. Marine intelligence officer and the United Nations' top weapons inspector, Scott led 14 inspection missions in Iraq between 1991 and 1998. Ritter also spent several months of the Gulf War serving under General Norman Schwarzkopf with Marine Central Command headquarters in Saudi Arabia. Scott is the author of Iraq Confidential (www.iraqconfidential.com), published in October 2005 by Nation Books. "The important thing to know about Scott Ritter is that he was right." --Seymour Hersh

Ray McGovern: A senior CIA analyst for 27 years, Ray's duties included chairing National Intelligence Estimates and preparing the President' Daily Brief (PDB). These, the most authoritative genres of intelligence reporting, have been the focus of press reporting on "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq and on what the president was told before 9/11. During the mid-eighties, Ray was one of the senior analysts conducting early morning briefings of the PDB one-on-one with the Vice President and other senior administration officials. Ray is in the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

Larry Glick, formerly a security inspector at U.S. atomic weapons facilities, will moderate.

The forum is sponsored by Upper Bucks for Democracy and U.S. Tour of Duty. Local co-sponsors are the BuxMont Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Peace Initiative, the Coalition for Peace Action, the Peace Center, the Tikkun Community of Philadelphia, Hunterdon (NJ) for Democracy, Lower Bucks for Democracy, OpEdNews.com, America Votes, and PA Action.

$10 Admission--but no one will be turned away.

For more information, email upperbucksfordemocracy@yahoo.com.

Meeting on July 6, 2006

Dani Pere will be our guest. Ms. Pere has been the lead Field Coordinator for the Alliance for Retired Americans since 2002. She has successfully worked to create, build, and politically establish the Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Pennsylvania Alliance for Retired Americans state chapters. Ms. Pere has successfully led two educational campaigns in Pennsylvania: (1) The Medicare Education Project (2004), which focused on extensive peer to peer education of the senior population concerning the effects of the Medicare Modernization Act and (2) the Social Security Education Project (2005), in which she led the Pennsylvania Alliance for Retired Americans into colleges and universities across the state to create a dialogue between seniors and students on the controversial proposals to privatize the Social Security system.

Currently, Ms. Pere is leading her newest project under the Pennsylvania Alliance for Retired Americans – the Medicare Education Project Phase II: “The Implementation of the Medicare Modernization Act: Assessing the Impact on Pennsylvania Retirees,” a pilot research study she developed with a grant for Indiana University of Pennsylvania. By designing this project to provide first-hand research on how the implementation of Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Benefit legislation is impacting Pennsylvania seniors, Ms. Pere is working to accurately document how the new Medicare Rx benefit is affecting affordability and access to prescription drug coverage for Pennsylvania retirees by utilizing the case study method.

Craig Kaufman will also join us. Craig co-founded and co-directs PA Action, a statewide organization centered in Bucks and SE PA, focusing on progressive issues, with current campaigns on Medicare Part D, federal budget/tax issues, and GOTV 2006. PA Action is working to open a long-term community center/books-clothes giveaway space this summer in Bucks. He ran Bucks offices for John Kerry in 2004 (with historic turnout and success) and swept all ten 2005 races as Bristol Democrats' campaign manager. He was an early leader of Student Environmental Action Coalition, the largest student group in the US at the time, helping defeat Hydroquebec and being a delegate to the UNCED preparatory at the UN. He founded and directed a diversity-mediation nonprofit for 8 years and built and ran a New Mexico Greens US Congress campaign in 1998 (Bob Anderson, 1998 --he was hired initially as Carol Miller's campaign manager, who along with Anderson posted the top two third-party national election results in decades). He is proud to have settled in Pennsylvania.

Note: In the wake of the recent flooding, we will be passing the hat for the extremely hard-working Upper Black Eddy Fire Department.

Meeting on June 1, 2006

Where do we go from here?

Our June meeting will be a celebration of Chuck Pennacchio's campaign for U.S. Senate and what it represented to the citizens of Pennsylvania. We will talk about how to keep the momentum going across the state of Pennsylvania.

Chuck Pennacchio; Jeanne and Mike Doyle; Roger Balson, Progressive Democrats of America; John Morgan, Berks DFA; and Jon Soden of Lehigh Valley DFA will be hosting.

June is designated Torture Awareness Month by Amnesty International USA and numerous cosponsors. Visit their website TortureAwareness.org for actions you can take. The Road to Guantanamo opens in theaters on June 23. See also AmnestyBucksMont.org.

Coalition for Peace Action Voter Guide

The Coalition for Peace Action has published a very helpful and revealing Peace Voter Guide to the Pennsylvania congressional candidates. Check it out.

No monthly meeting in May

UpperBucksforDemocracy will not hold a monthly meeting in May in order to focus all our time and energy on the campaigns of Progressive candidates like Chuck Pennacchio for U.S. Senate (Chuck2006.com) and Paul Lang for PA Senate (ElectLang.com), both of whom we strongly endorse. Members are urged to log into DemocracyforAmerica's DFALink and register their support for these candidates. (And please register as a member of our UpperBucksforDemocracy chapter if you have not already done so!)

Our next meeting will be Thursday, June 1, with a couple of steering committee meetings between now and then.

Meeting on April 6, 2006

Cyril Mychalejko, assistant editor of Upside Down World, www.upsidedownworld.org, will be traveling to Ecuador in April to work as a human rights observer with the Intag Solidarity Network. ISN is an organization formed with the people of the Intag region of Ecuador as they resist efforts by the Ecuadorian government, international financial institutions, and multinational corporations to build a large-scale copper mine near the community of Junin. Cyril will discuss the mining conflict and ISN’s Human Rights Observer Program. He has committed to stay in Ecuador for one year.

Tom Lingengelter will speak about PACleanSweep.

Mike Doyle will speak about the voting machine issue.

Note: We are transitioning from Meetup to the new Democracy for America Link software so we ask old and new members to please register at DFALink.com and help make this work!

Canceled: Meeting on March 2, 2006

Canceled due to bad weather.

Meeting on February 2, 2006

Marty Schor will discuss Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) legislative initiatives, the status of PDA organization in PA, and ratification of the PDA Spokescouncil Charter.

Dr. Lawrence Davidson, Middle East history professor at West Chester University, and Dr. Janet Amighi, anthropologist at Montgomery County Community College, will present a slide show (Power Point) of their recent trip to Iran and Syria with Conscience International. They will describe their experiences meeting with Iranians and Syrians and discuss the politics of the region. Janet lived in Iran for seven years in the 1970s and has written a book entitled The Zoroastrians of Iran. Lawrence has written three books on the Middle East: A Concise History of the Middle East, America’s Palestine, and Islamic Fundamentalism.