Leah Yarrow's blog

The Obama campaign would like to connect with Illinois veterans and is hoping to enlist their help in contacting fellow veterans in Iowa. The campaign has a vet-to-vet phonebanking event planned for next Wednesday evening, July 25th, from 6 to 8 p.m.--and they can really use your help.

The Dolar campaign is looking for volunteers now through Election Day (this Tuesday) to help contact supporters and remind them to vote. It's all about turnout on Tuesday! Naisy Dolar has been endorsed by Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, Abner Mikva, the Fraternal Order of Police, SEIU IL Council, AFSCME and both the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times.

If you can help, contact Steph Lane at 773-562-7492, or via e-mail: stephlane@riseup.net

49th Ward Alderman Joe Moore, an independent and progressive voice on the city council, can use your help! Election day is a week away, and the phone banks are open every weekday evening from 5 p.m. on, as well as during the day on the weekend. Even if you only have an hour, your help making calls to identify supporters or people who need rides to the polls will make a huge difference.

I used their fancy phone system on Saturday, and it makes calling a breeze. You don’t even have to dial! Just put on a head set and wait for a connection. The name of the person you’re talking to pops up on the screen.

Senator Barack Obama will hold a town hall meeting at Loyola University’s Lake Shore Campus in Chicago on Monday, April 10th at 2:00 p.m.

Place: Loyola Lake Shore Campus, Joseph Gentile Center
6525 N. Sheridan Road, Chicago

***Please Note: Doors open at 1:15 p.m.***

"Too often, politicians end up representing Washington to their constituents rather than representing their constituents in Washington," said Sen. Obama. "These town hall meetings give me the opportunity to hear directly from people in Illinois about the issues affecting their lives and how I can help. It also gives me a chance to talk with them about the issues I’ve been working on in the Senate, like increased security at chemical plants, my plan to help reduce the influence of lobbyists in Washington, and how we can help reduce our nation's dependence on foreign oil"

Worried about problems with the new voting machines after last Tuesday's primary? Learn more about the challenges of verifiable voting in the age of computers by attending a showing of the 2004 film Invisible Ballots, an in-depth expose of all-electronic computerized voting. Members of the Illinois Ballot Integrity Project, co-sponsor of this event, will give an introduction and lead a discussion after the film. Sponsors Lori and Marc Chinitz will also offer a concept for keeping electronic voting machines honest, and other journalists and editors who write on this subject may also join the panel.

Date: Saturday, April 1
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation, 303 Dodge, Evanston

Make the 40th Ward green with support for Debra Shore and her campaign for Water Reclamation District by marching with her in this Sunday's Northwest Side Irish Parade! She'll be walking with Jan Schakowsky. 

March 5th - 11:30am

Timezone: Etc/GMT+6 Address: Onahan School, 6634 W Raven St, Chicago, IL 60631
Description: The Parade lines up near Onahan School at the 6600 block of W. Raven, near Raven and Neola on the Northwest side of Chicago. It kicks off at 12:00, so please plan on arriving around 11:30. The parade ends at Northwest Hwy and Harlem.

The Niles Township Progressive Democrats are doing preprimary voter registration at several sites in the next couple weeks. If you're a registrar and have an hour or two to volunteer, please e-mail me at lkyarrow@yahoo.com.  So far we are definitely registering at:

• Dominick's in Lincolnwood (McCormick and Pratt), Saturday Feb. 11th from 9 am. to 3 p.m. (Also Sunday, Feb. 12th, if we have volunteers. )

• Lincolnwood Library (Crawford and Pratt), Sunday, Feb. 19th, from 1 to 5 p.m.

Democratic Meetup of Niles Township Buys First Benefits Manual for VVAW—You Can Help, Too!

In response to an eloquent, educational, and impassioned presentation by Ray Parrish, GI Counselor for the VVAW, members of The Democratic Meetup of Niles Township spontaneously passed the hat at the May 26th meetup and collected $195 for the VVAW to purchase its first veterans benefits manual.

You read that last sentence right: the FIRST manual. We were incredulous when we heard that the VVAW, which offers critical assistance to veterans in their quest for their rightful benefits, doesn’t even have one benefits manual with which to train and educate counselors. The manual, which costs $225, is an indispensable guide for advocates to help veterans and their families obtain benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Several bills related to election reform are pending in the Illinois House and Senate and may not come up for a vote, let alone pass, if we don’t make it known that there is substantial support for them. There are only ten days left to this session of the General Assembly, perhaps a bit more if it goes into overtimeso time is of the essence. We can do something about this if we act right now!

Letters to the editor may be the best way to help move this legislation forward. The more letters the newspapers get, the more likely they are to print them, which will in turn attract the attention of the legislators. However, individual letters to Speaker Madigan as well as to your representatives (including Republicans, who may be less likely to support these bills), will also help. Letters to the editor need to be individualized, so I have not included a sample. Information about the bills, however, is provided below.

Niles Township Progressive Democrats Pass Resolution to Stop the Genocide in Darfur

At its monthly meeting, which coincided with the 11th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, the Niles Township Progressive Democrats unanimously passed a resolution calling upon President Bush to end his silence on the genocide in Darfur and secure a UN Mandate to protect the citizens of that ravaged country before it is too late. The resolution also asks our members of Congress to support the Darfur Accountability Act, which is pending in both the House (H.R.1424) and the Senate (S.495).