We need people who would be willing to register students to vote and sign people up to join the Drexel Democrats. If you show up at the tables and say "I want to volunteer" we will give you a clipboard and a sign up sheet, and post you nearby to register students and sign them up. The table organizers will show you how to register students (there's just a form for them to fill out) and the table will be nearby if you have any questions.

Additionally, if any debate volunteers don't show up for their assignments, we may need to grab some more volunteers at the last minute. By going to the table and working for us, you will be our reserve volunteers. Any cool debate jobs that we need done, you will get the opportunity.

So come down to campus and hang out all day! There are a ton of events going on all day, and whenever you aren't doing something, you can always help us out and be a standy-by volunteer. You'll get a free button for volunteering!

The basic logic is this: Giuliani is running for the nomination of the 2007 Republican party, of which a large component is the religious right. He is already being faced with threats of a third party challenger if he wins the nomination, and he's probably going to have to make some big promises to the evangelicals to get their leaders to fall in line. In fact, he already has been making these promises. Every chance he gets, Rudy says he'll nominate "strict constructionists" judges, "in the mold of Scalia and Thomas."

Making promises to the religious right is hardly new territory for Republican presidential candidates, but often they turn out to be more or less empty. Bush has appointed some awful judges, but he has left the religious right unhappy quite a bit. He was able to, however, because the evangelical rank and file really believed he was one of them. Bush didn't really need the leaders of the religious right as much as Giuliani does. The rank and file are deeply skeptical of Rudy, so he need their leaders to get them to fall in line. That takes promises though.

What's more, if Giuliani is elected, he needs to make good on some of those promises if he wants to be reelected. That's why I believe that a Giuliani administration would be horrible for supporters of gay rights, womens rights, and the seperation of church and state. Giuliani isn't really one of them, so he needs to prove to them that he's worth voting for.

As far as I can tell, Giuliani isn't pro-choice or anti-choice, pro-gay or anti-gay. He's just pro-Giuliani. When being pro-choice helped him in NYC, he was all for it. Now, not so much. That's certainly not unique amongst the Republican hopefuls (see: Romney, Mitt), or politicians in general. But juxtapose the videos on youtube with what Rudy says in these Republican debates.

Giuliani is every bit as dangerous to women's rights, gay rights, and American's rights as every other Republican candidate. He's also more or less the frontrunner, and so it's about time liberals and progressives understood where his loyalties lie.

It started monday night, when I was checking the list of universities that were participating in "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week." Naturally, I was suprised when I saw Drexel on that list of 97 schools (or as Horowitz calls it, 200 schools. Go count for yourself.) I immediately pieced together what must have happened.

Step 1: A certain former chairman of the Drexel College Republicans (now defunct) sees an ad for I-FAW on a right wing blog (probably freerepublic or worldnetdaily?)

Step 2: Said former chairman contacts Horowitz's group and indicates that Drexel would like to participate.

Step 3: Horowitz puts Drexel on the list of participating schools.

Step 4:

Step 5: Profit.

Actually, it ended at step 3. Some time must have elapsed, the Drexel College Republicans never formed this year, and everyone forgot about it. Until Monday night, when I saw Drexel on that hideous list. So I contacted said former CR chairman, asked around and did some digging. My suspicions were confirmed. There are no events going down at Drexel to celebrate(?) I-FAW. No movies, no speakers, nothing.

I contacted Talking Points Memo, which was covering the shenanigans, and pointed out that 1) There are no Drexel College Republicans (or other conservative group on campus) 2) There are no events scheduled for I-FAW at Drexel and 3) I haven't heard anything about it here, not even an announcement.

So they posted this, and it was off to the races. Here is a short list of the big blogs that picked up the "Horowitz inflates his numbers with schools that aren't doing anything list" story.

Talking Points Memo
Balloon Juice
ThinkProgress
Memorandum

If you see any other blogs that covered it, let me know in the comments!

It's always worth it to knock David Horowitz and the College Republicans down a peg, and this was two for the price of one!

This saturday we are having a meeting for volunteers, with the first jobs being haded out. These are jobs that NBC and MSNBC need us to do, and they are pretty behind-the-scenes kinds of things. If you are interested, sign up to volunteer on the form above and we will send you the information. Drexel students only please.

Drexel's administration has not yet released details regarding how tickets and questions will be handled for the debate. We are working as your advocate by lobbying for the maximum number of student tickets possible, and for significant student involvment.

Once details are made public, we will let you know on this website and by email if you are a member of the Drexel Democrats (join on the sidebar to the right).

Regarding volunteering that we need for our organization, seperate from the debate: As I mentioned, we need to train volunteers to register voters and man tables. There are also positions in the organization that are available, such as social events coordinator. If you are interested in becoming an active member of the Drexel Democrats, come to the meeting. To those of you who came last week and can't make it this week, your absence won't be held against you.

Hope to see you all there!

PS: Barack Obama has released his global warming and energy plan. Check it out, it's pretty exciting. I'll probably write a full post on that soon.

• While America fights for "freedom and democracy" in Iraq, tens if not hundreds of thousands of citizens, led by monks, rallied against the military rulers in Burma. The protests were met with a violent reaction by the military government. This is an issue that I'm embarrassingly ignorant of, and if anyone would like to enlighten me, please do in the comments.




• President Bush vetoed a bill passed by congress that would have expanded coverage of SCHIP (State Childrens Health Insurance Program). SCHIP provides federal money to states to provide health insurance to children whose families earn too much to be eligible for medicaid, but too little to be able to afford private insurance.
  
  This was a pretty unconscionable move by Bush, because he so transparently choose to support private health insurance companies rather than poor children without health insurance. From Wikipedia:
  
  

  In 2007, researchers from Brigham Young University and Arizona State found that children who drop out of SCHIP cost states more money because they shift away from routine care to more frequent emergency care situations.[5] The conclusion of the study is that an attempt to cut the costs of a state program could create a false savings because other government organizations pick up the tab for the children who leave SCHIP and later need care. In a 2007 analysis by the Congessional Budget Office, researchers determined that "for every 100 children who gain coverage as a result of SCHIP, there is a corresponding reduction in private coverage of between 25 and 50 children." The CBO speculates this is because the state programs offer better benefits and lower cost than the private alternatives.[6] A Cato Institute briefing paper estimated the "crowding out" of private insurers by the public program could be as much as 60%.[7] The program cost $40 billion federal dollars over 10 years.

  $40 billion dollars over ten years? Thats 5 months of the Iraq war. To summarize, Bush doesnt want to insure poor kids, because 25-50 percent of those poor kids would drop their private insurance that their families could barely afford, and that would cost insurance companies money. Compassionate conservatism? What an asshole.




• Sen. Clinton came out strongly against the politicization of science, something that has been a tremendous problem during the Bush presidency. As a student of science myself, this is good to see, although it's certainly not the first time she has said this, and she is also not alone amongst democratic contenders in doing so. Still, its always good to see, and she should be applauded for it.
  
  She also came out in defense of evolution, earning her gruding praise from a certain net-famous sci-blogger.




• Americans learned this week that back in 2005, after the Bush administration was all like "dudez, we totally promise 2 not torture people n e more!" Gonzalez and the DOJ issued secret legal opinions intended to provide legal cover for, well, torture.
  
  Try to watch this video without having your head explode.




• Finally, Rudy Giuliani got shafted by the religious right big-wigs. Despite promising them that he'd do whatever they want, they went public saying that they would back a third party challenger if Rudy gets the republican nomination.
  
  The interesting thing is that for once this kind of split might actually happen. People have been hypothesizing a rift between the GOP and the religious right for a long time, but it was never in the interest of either of them, so it didn't happen. This time, however, is different. Republicans are widely expected to lose big in 2008 anyway, and if the religious right withdraws their support, they can point to the 2008 loss and use it to leverage more power within the GOP after 2008.
  
  If the religious right sticks with Rudy, however, he will probably still lose, and they lose both the support of their base (for backing a somewhat-pro-choicer) and they lose clout within the party because they couldn't deliver. Their choice seems pretty clear. Chris Bowers has an interesting view of institutional politics that I think explains precisely the dynamics involved here. It's worth a read.

Don't forget to volunteer for the debate at Drexel!