DEMOCRATIC PARTY of EVANSTON

Join us for our Annual Membership Meeting and rally for the 9th Congressional District on June 3rd!

When: June 3, 2012 from 1-3 pm. The Membership meeting will start at 1 pm, followed by the rally at 2 pm.

Where: Fleetwood Jourdain Center, 1655 Foster Street  Evanston, IL 60201

Why: To elect new officers and directors of the Democratic Party of Evanston and to kickoff our fall election efforts.

Who?: We will be featuring a special guest at the rally.

Refreshments will be served.

Questions? Contact Brian Miller at bwvr@hotmail.com

*Voting for officers and directors is governed by the DPOE Bylaws, Article V, Section 1, as follows:

A. All nominations for officers and elected directors, except Township Committeeman and Deputy Township Committeeman shall be made in one of the following ways:

(1) By a Nominating Committee appointed by the Board of Directors at its regular monthly meeting in March, The Nominating Committee shall consist of five (5) members of the organization appointed by the President. It shall be the duty of the Nominating Committee to study the qualifications of prospective candidates and to announce their nominations to the Board of Directors at its regular monthly meeting in April.

(2) By any five members of the organization who shall submit their nomination(s) in writing to the President not later than 30 days before the Annual Membership Meeting. (See Article VI, Section 1.) Such nomination(s) must be with the consent of the nominee(s), which the President shall verify upon receipt of the nominating petition. Person(s) so nominated shall be placed on the ballot as described in Section 2 of this Article and notice of such nomination(s) shall promptly be sent to the General Membership of the organization. Any person nominated for more than one office shall be placed on the ballot for the position for which the nominee expresses a preference. Any person duly nominated shall be entitled to be placed on the ballot for the election of offices and elected directors.

January 11 marked a "special day" at Guantanamo Bay. Chicago attorney Gary Isaac, husband of Democratic Party of Evanston executive director Toni Gilpin, marked the occasion with the following article on the Huffington Post.

Ten years ago the first detainees were brought to Guantanamo Bay. Guantanamo has undermined American values and jeopardized our national security for a decade -- that's long enough. So I've joined a group of retired military officers and habeas attorneys calling for Guantanamo's immediate closure. We've launched www.closeguantanamo.org and have initiated a petition urging President Obama to honor the commitment he made, on his second day in office, to close the prison.

Isaac, an attorney with Mayer Brown LLP,  has played a key role in Guantanamo litigation and advocacy. A contributor to "The Guantanamo Lawyers: Inside A Prison Outside The Law," he also co-authored two “friend of the court” briefs in the Rasul case on behalf of retired military officers – one urging the Supreme Court to hear the detainees’ case, and another urging the Court to hold that U.S. courts have jurisdiction to entertain detainees’ petitions for habeas corpus. He has since played an active role in the group of attorneys bringing habeas actions on behalf of the detainees, acting as co-counsel in John Does 1-570 v. Bush, filed in 2005 on behalf of detainees whose identities the Government has refused to disclose. In addition to that, he has been involved in advocacy and lobbying members of Congress against efforts to strip the courts of jurisdiction to hear the detainees’ habeas petitions.

And he is determined to hold President Obama to his promise to close the prison, which violates fundamental human rights, serves as a powerful recruiting tool for terrorists and undermines the rule of law that is at the core of American democracy. The new website and petition, backed by prominent legal and military figures, is designed to capitalize on the Obama administration's online petition initiative dubbed "We the People." The White House has committed to respond to any petition that receives 25,000 signatures within 30 days.

The intitiative is an international effort, with collaborators from the U.K. and signers from around the globe, but the Evanston connection is strong. Democratic Party of Evanston President Adam Finlayson and Toni Gilpin both worked with the site developers to create the sign-up functionality and to link the form to the White House site. Already, the petition has attracted signers from Norway, Spain, China, Qatar, Germany, Sweden, Tunisia, Brazil, Canada, Australia, France, and Algeria, which Gilpin calls "pretty amazing."

The best way to mark this anniversary is to make sure the "legal black hole" that is is Guantanamo doesn't see another one. You can sign the Close Guantanamo petition here. Once that is done, you will be directed to Whitehouse.gov site, where you can also sign and make sure that Washington knows what Evanston thinks about the travesty of Guantanamo.

And for more timely information on the prison see these recent articles from The Nation and Vanity Fair.

After Gore lost to Bush in 2000, and Kerry lost to Bush in 2004, Joseph Fedorko did what any red-blooded, news-addicted, left-leaning playwright would do--he started a comedy troupe. 

"Sometimes you've got to laugh to keep from crying...or to keep from throwing bricks through windows," says Fedorko, the founder of Democracy Burlesque, which will perform for the Democratic Party of Evanston fundraiser on Nov. 13.

Although Democracy Burlesque began performing in 2006, Fedorko started marshaling singers, dancers, actors and musicians for a good cause back in 2003, with a benefit performance for Howard Dean. Next came a small Political Action Committee called Chicago Artists for Democracy, which donated money to several candidates, including then-Senator Obama. 

If you didn't make it to Tahrir Square, and if you can't get to London's Stock Exchange or the stone steps of Lisbon's capital or New York City's Zucotti Park, you can still participate in the international day of protest that is sweeping the globe today (October 15). While the protests, which are taking place in at least 900 cities across the world today,  have a different character in each place, they are all generally organized around the idea of the 99%. It's a simple but galvanizing notion--that people are fed up with economic and political systems that seem rigged to benefit the richest 1% at the expense of the 99%.

Occupy Chicago, the local manifestation of the leaderless Occupy Wall Street movement that started in New York City on September 17, is calling for supporters to join them today and tonight. Sleeping bags are optional, but protesters say the occupations will go on indefinitely. 

The loosely organized  "Occupy" movement has been endorsed by various groups and unions, but it is intentionally non-partisan--even apolitical--yet Reps. Jan Schakowsky and Jesse Jackson Jr. have both addressed Occupy Chicago crowds. 

The group's website calls for a rally at 6:30 tonight at the Fed (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago at 230 South LaSalle Street), followed by a General Assembly at Congress and Michigan at about 7:15. Participants are urged to dress well and bring whatever you need if you plan to stay the night. For more information check the Facebook page, the Occupy Chicago site, the Occupy Wall Street site and the We are the 99% site.