Drinking Liberally Hopkins
Monday, May 21st at 6:30 p.m.
VFW Post 425
100 Shady Oak Road, Hopkins

So just how should we frame the issue of climate change to build support for action to control it? Maybe all the storms, droughts, fires, and water shortages will turn the tide. Polls are saying people believe by a 2 to 1 margin that there is a problem, but some who say it's a problem don't think it's serious or urgent. Chuck Prentice, a MN350 outreach volunteer, will provide information and lead discussion about how to communicate effectively about climate change and renewable energy. Please join us!

“We have many advantages in the fight against global warming, but time is not one of them. Instead of idly debating the precise extent of global warming, or the precise timeline of global warming, we need to deal with the central facts of rising temperatures, rising waters, and all the endless troubles that global warming will bring. We stand warned by serious and credible scientists across the world that time is short and the dangers are great. The most relevant question now is whether our own government is equal to the challenge.”

JOHN MCCAIN, speech, May 12, 2008

Drinking Liberally Hopkins meets every 3rd Monday

Drinking Liberally Hopkins members asked to hear in advance about marches for progressive causes. This looks like it is going to be a big one! Notice all the sponsoring organizations.

It is surprising how little time it takes to do this. If you want you can drive in, march, and be home in as little as two hours! I recommend everybody attend at least one of these to show "We are mad as hell and we aren't going to take it anymore!"

The marches last summer and fall really had an effect. Let's get that momentum going again this spring! Bring your home made signs for the cause nearest and dearest to your heart.

May 11, 2012
MARCH for Jobs, Working Families, Racial Justice, & Economic Fairness and a BETTER MINNESOTA

Join us at Peavey Plaza (by Orchestra Hall)
1111 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis
1:00 Sign making and fellowship
2:00 Rally followed by march
4:30-6:30 Democracy Celebration

1% vs. Democracy

Minnesotans for a Fair Economy
www.mnfaireconomy.org
@FairMN

Event Co-Sponsors:
TakeAction Minnesota, SEIU, ISAIAH,
Jewish Community Action,
Minnesota Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, CTUL, SEIU AFRAM MN Chapter, UFCW Local 1189

Drinking Liberally Hopkins meets every 3rd Monday.

Good news: Companies are starting to distance themselves from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)

Let's write to the listed Minnesota companies and ask them leave ALEC immediately or we stop using their products and services!

From MinnPost:

Trayvon Martin case leads to corporate exodus from ALEC
By Beth Hawkins | 04/16/12

REUTERS/Gary W. Green

George Zimmerman invoked the ALEC-supported 'Stand Your Ground' law to justify his killing of Trayvon Martin.

Last week, as George Zimmerman was being charged with second-degree murder for killing Trayvon Martin in Florida, big business began a quiet stampede away from the organization that is promoting “shoot-first” laws throughout the country.

The organization, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), is a far-right policy incubator whose members include corporations, think tanks and lawmakers, who introduce its model bills simultaneously in statehouses nationwide. The proposed legislation ranges from industry-specific measures such as a bill vetoed last week by Gov. Mark Dayton limiting liability in asbestos injuries to the ideological, such as voter ID and shoot-first.

In total over the last two years Minnesota lawmakers have introduced some 60 bills identical or very similar to model legislation drafted by ALEC. Seven of Dayton’s 12 vetoes so far this year have been of ALEC-promulgated measures, including a shoot-first or Castle Doctrine bill.

ALEC has been in existence since 1973, but in the last year a handful of organizations including Common Cause, Parents United and the progressive Center for Media and Democracy have begun tracking its activities. It wasn’t until the high-profile Trayvon Martin case, however, that ALEC’s activities drew widespread attention.

Neighborhood Watch captain Zimmerman told police he thought he was justified in shooting the unarmed teen under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, a National Rifle Association-promoted act which states that “a person is justified in the use of deadly force” if “he or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony.”

In the wake of the shooting, a number of grassroots and civil-rights organizations began pushing ALEC’s corporate members, whose dues underwrite the group’s activities, to cut their ties. Companies pay tens of thousands of dollars a year to join; ALEC routinely pays for lawmakers, whose dues are just $50 a year, to travel to meetings at resorts where they are handed policy playbooks.

Ten had resigned by end of week

By close of business Friday, the list of corporations and nonprofits dropping memberships in ALEC had lengthened to 10: Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft Foods, Intuit, McDonald's, Wendy's, Mars, Reed-Elsevier, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Arizona Public Service Co.

"We made the decision after considering the broad range of criticism being leveled at ALEC," said a Reed Elsevier spokesman.

"At this point, we've decided that it's not the right environment to continue working with them," a Gates Foundation spokesman told Reuters. Separately, the foundation said it did not intend to support ALEC’s ideological work but had thought it was paying for distribution of its education reform research.

Even corporations no longer affiliated with the controversial arch-conservative policy incubator appeared to be trying to distance themselves. Ticketmaster last week sent a letter to the Center for Media and Democracy, which operates the website ALECexposed, “advising” the organization to "cease and desist from including Ticketmaster on your site" and threatening to sue for libel and defamation.

An exhaustive catalog of information on past and present ALEC members, the site listed Ticketmaster as a one of the corporations that was known to be a member in 2000 but was not currently.

By midweek, the normally secretive ALEC was swinging back. “Over the last 24 hours, ALEC has been inundated with letters of support from elected officials, community leaders and concerned citizens in response to the intimidation campaign launched by a coalition of extreme liberal activists committed to silencing anyone who disagrees with their agenda,” said Executive Director Ron Scheberle.

Local group presses MN members

Common Cause Minnesota, meanwhile, called for ALEC’s local corporate members to follow suit. Minnesota members include 3M, UnitedHealth Group, Xcel Energy and Cargill. Update: After publication of this story, a Cargill spokeswoman informed MinnPost that Cargill is not and has never been a member of ALEC and doesn't know why it was listed in a 1998 ALEC annual-meeting program, obtained by Common Cause, as a member and sponsor.

Other companies with deep ties to Minnesota and memberships in ALEC include Thomson Reuters, Comcast, Corrections Corporation of America, Time Warner and State Farm.

“It’s time for Minnesota legislators to quit promoting corporate special interests at the expense of middle-class families,” said Mike Dean, executive director. “As the country’s largest corporations end their relationships with this radical group, Minnesota corporations should too.”

Minnesota’s elected ALEC members, most of them GOP lawmakers, have been distancing themselves from the group ever since its efforts were first revealed by a variety of local organizations in the wake of the 2011 legislative session. Confronted about introducing a bill that is identical to an ALEC model or quite similar, local lawmakers have protested that they haven’t had the time or the money to attend the group’s gatherings or that they got the idea for the legislation elsewhere.

Drinking Liberally Hopkins
Monday, April 16th at 6:30 p.m.
VFW Post 425
100 Shady Oak Road, Hopkins

Our guest speaker tomorrow is Ken Avidor, "comic book artist by trade, rabble-rouser by avocation!" He co-authored the recent book "The Madness Of Michele Bachmann." Avidor is a contributing blogger and artist extraordinaire at dumpbachmann.com and a frequent contributor in the CityPages blogs: http://blogs.citypages.com/author.php?author_id=1570

Ken Avidor has drawn nearly every moment of the over-the-top drama in Ponzi schemer Tom Petters' trial. He will be talking to us about the legal problems of Frank Vennes, a major donor to the Republican Party in general and Michele Bachmann in particular, who was indicted in connection with the Tom Petters' Ponzi Scheme. More info here: http://vennesinfo.blogspot.com/

Avidor lives with his wife, two daughters and two cats in Minneapolis; if the weather is cooperating he'll be riding his bicycle and hopefully he'll bring his sketch pad with him!

Drinking Liberally Hopkins meets every 3rd Monday

Next meeting: 6:30 Monday, March 19th
VFW Post 425
100 Shady Oak Road, Hopkins

So what district are you in now? Who are your candidates? How will redistricting affect our local and state races? Join us tonight to get some answers!

Peter Wattson, world renowned redistricting expert and former general council to Gov. Mark Dayton AND Mike Dean, Common Cause Minnesota, who led the Draw the Line effort to gather public input in the redistricting process, will be joining Audrey Britton to discuss redistricting at Drinking Liberally Hopkins, March 19, 6:30 p.m.

Audrey is an announced candidate again for new House district 44A, Plymouth. Her opponent, Sarah Anderson, chaired redistricting. Audrey followed redistricting closely and submitted her own maps.

Watch an interview with Peter Wattson and Audrey here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd0H282TTkQ

Drinking Liberally Hopkins
Meeting the third Monday of each month