Check out the new Wyoming Democratic Party web site and blog

The new Wyoming Democratic Party web site is a lively change from the old static site. It was launched yesterday during the grand opening of the new WDP headquarters at 1909 Warren Ave. in Cheyenne. Read Ken McCauley's "push back" against against Republican Sen. John Barrasso's recent radio address blasting the Supreme Court's ACA decision. In the "Featured Democrat" section, read about retired airline pilot Patrick Vann and his bid to re-energize his fellow Goshen County Dems. There's a comprehensive list of county parties with contact info. Find Democratic Party candidates running in this year's elections. There's a blog by Communications Director Brodie Farquhar that will need constant feeding -- you know how those blogs are! Links to political articles and op-eds in WY media outlets. Make sure you check it out and add your comments. Find the WY Dems on Facebook and Twitter, too.

Wyoming Democratic Party hires Brodie Farquhar as new communications director

This is good news:

The Wyoming Democratic Party has hired Brodie Farquhar as its new communications director.

Farquhar came to Wyoming in 2000 and has written extensively for state and regional media.

Farquhar has written for the Casper Star Tribune as a staff writer and as a freelancer, covering natural resources, politics, education, the state legislature and more. He served two years as managing editor for the Wyoming Business Report, building a cadre of freelance writers around the state. He has also written extensively for New West, High Country News, Yellowstone Journal, Billings Gazette and Wyofile.com, which he co-founded.  

Farquhar has also served public relation stints for the Colorado School of Mines, Crested Butte Mountain Resort and Michigan chapter of The Nature Conservancy. “I know how to work with reporters, from small-town weeklies to major dailies and networks,” he said. Guiding reporters around the West’s energy development sites was a particularly valuable experience when Farquhar worked with the Energy & Minerals Field Institute at Mines.

He has a bachelor's degree in journalism and a master's in natural resource policy from the University of Michigan, where he was a Scripps Fellow for Environmental Journalism.

Farquhar said he's always striven to maintain journalistic objectivity, but is looking forward to an opportunity to be an advocate for the Democratic Party and progressive values. "I believe most people have beliefs and values firmly rooted in fairness, common sense and the progressive tradition, contrary to the drumbeat of right-wing talk radio. I want to help Wyoming citizens look beyond the surface, to the real core and context of today's issues," said Farquhar.

Farquhar has covered every conceivable beat in his journalism career, but has developed expertise in covering such natural resource issues as energy development, western water rights, agriculture, wildlife, the Endangered Species Act, snowmobile use in Yellowstone, wolf and grizzly bear recovery plans. In his coverage of the 2006 Wyoming legislative session, Farquhar first wrote about the American Legislative Exchange Council, which writes corporation-friendly legislation, and more recently, voter ID and “shoot to kill” bills.

Farquhar and wife Sharon have three children and one grand-daughter, as well as a mellow golden retriever and calico cat.

Clint Eastwood Chrysler ad as American as Detroit (and apple pie)

In your face, Karl Rove!

Speak your piece in peace at Occupy Cheyenne General Assembly Nov. 1

Occupy Cheyenne, Depot Plaza, 10/15/11

General Assembly for Occupy Cheyenne

Tuesday, Nov. 1, 6:30 p.m.

Highlands Presbyterian Church

2390 Pattison, Cheyenne

Get directions here

Discussion item: Occupy Cheyenne Black Friday – who, what, when, where, why and how

All are welcome

All will be heard

Keep checking Occupy Wyoming and Occupy Cheyenne 

We are the 99%

Occupy Wall Street occupies your TV

From Salon: Occupy Wall Street: Poster smackdown

Newark Star-Ledger art critic Dan Bischoff rates some of the best-known of the Occupy Wall Street posters on Salon. Bischoff is the former national political editor for the Village Voice and a blogger for The Nation. See a slide show with commentary at Occupy Wall Street: Poster smackdown. The one pictured above is his favorite for these reasons:

Bischoff says that this poster -- his favorite -- is successful in conveying the fact that "this is a uniquely male crisis, with a female response." The influence and involvement of female protesters in the OWS movement, he says, is "inconceivable in Vietnam or any other protest period"; "it's not that there are more women, but that they're equals of the men," he adds. "[And that] complicates the control problem for the police."

REMINDER: Dems meet Sept. 27 to talk social media

A joint meeting of the Laramie County Democratic Grassroots Coaliton and the Laramie County Democrats will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 7 p.m. at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Union hall. The speaker will be Juliette Rule and she will be discussing social media. Please plan to attend. The meeting is open to everyone.

Don't be a Know Nothing -- Read!

From Shelf Awareness:

For Banned Books Week, which will be held September 24-October 1 this year, readers, booksellers and librarians around the world can participate by posting videos of themselves reading from their favorite banned books on a special YouTube channel. Excerpts may be up to two minutes long, and people who talk about battles defending banned or challenged books make speak for up to three minutes. 

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression is encouraging booksellers to film their customers as part of this effort and will provide instruction on how to create the videos. Booksellers can send the videos to ABBFE, which will edit them, add store names and logos and post them. The videos will be tagged so that stores can put them on their websites, blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. 

ABFFE is also helping booksellers participate in more traditional ways: its Banned Books Week handbook offers tips on promotions, including making displays, as well as listing posters that can be downloaded and reproduced at copy shops. The American Library Association has promotional information, too.

Home blogging -- Off and on and off again...

Blogging has been sporadic during the past few weeks. First, the home PC is on the blink. Can't get the PC and the Broadband to talk to one another. IP address seems to be missing. Replaced the Bresnan modem and I got connected a few times, but then it was the same old miscommunicating. Any of you IT geniuses out there know what's going on?

Meanwhile, I hit the library's bank of computers sporadically. I love libraries. I used to just love them for the books but now I love them for all kinds of reasons.

More later...

Democrats in Casper: Pres. Obama's health care reform will benefit all Wyomingites

Here's a press release about Friday's Casper news conference on health care reform hosted by the Wyoming Democratic Party. I was at a board meeting in Star Valley and missed the proceedings:

President Obama’s goals for health insurance reform will provide several benefits to the people of Wyoming, even those who already have health insurance, according to several speakers at a Wyoming Democratic Party press conference on Friday.

Leslie Petersen, Wyoming State Democratic Party Chairwoman; John Hastert, Wyoming State Senator; Lorraine Saulino-Klein, RN and Laramie resident; and Jeri Calabrese, retired teacher and Wilson resident, stressed the urgency and real need for reform in Wyoming.

“The status quo is unsustainable. Since 2000 alone average family premiums have increased by 100 percent in Wyoming,” said Chairwoman Petersen. “Health insurance reform will build on our current system to bring security and stability to the people who already have insurance and give access to quality affordable care to those who don’t,” Petersen stated.

Lorraine Saulino-Klein drew on her experience as a registered nurse in Laramie to advocate for health insurance reform. “88,000 people are uninsured in our state and that doesn’t include the people who are underinsured, which means that they carry some coverage that they can afford. Often those people neglect health issues because they don’t want to find anything wrong, because they will lose the little bit of security that the limited coverage affords them. In my 40 years of varied work I have seen many wonderful, hard working people fall through the cracks and come to ruin,” Saulino-Klein said.

Jeri Calabrese shared her story about the struggle to afford healthcare during retirement, “We paid our house off before we retired so we would be in good shape for retirement and yet health care costs have risen to the point that they are almost what our house payment was – and for less care.”

Senator Hastert reminded, “Reform isn’t only about the people who don’t have insurance though– it’s about anyone who’s ever been afraid of losing their coverage if they become sick, lose their job, or change their job. Health insurance reform will hold the insurance companies accountable.”

Hastert also encouraged everyone to remember President Obama’s health insurance guarantees. Under the President’s Health Insurance Guarantees, everyone will benefit, even people who currently have insurance, because any legislation he signs will include will reverse years of unfair insurance company practices. President Obama has laid out these eight guarantees for reform...

See my Aug. 18 post for the list of "eight guarantees."

AM 760 hosts "real town hall meetings" in Colorado Aug. 20 & 27

My evening drive time in Cheyenne isn't very long, maybe 15 minutes at most. But during that time, I listen to Mario Solis Marich on AM 760 Progressive Radio out of Denver-Boulder. My favorite segment is "Video Clips (pronounced "cleeps") of the Day." Usually it's made up of the latest "audio clips (cleeps!) of the day" from various wingnuts: Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, etc.

This afternoon, Mario was promoting his "real town hall meetings" of Colorado Democratic Congressional reps Ed Perlmutter and Jared Polis. He invited listeners to register for the Aug. 20 meet-up with Perlmutter and the Aug. 27 meet-up with Polis. However, you must sign up in advance and you must be a registered voter in the district your delegate represents. Mario plans to sign up an equal number of Repubs, Dems and Indies. Only those registered will be allowed in the door. You'll be called upon by a moderator to ask your question, which you don't have to submit in advance.

Mario hopes to filter out all those carpetbaggers paid by insurance congomerates, those loudmouths who are shouting down the speakers. It's possible that yelling and screaming still may erupt, but less likely under this format.

Good luck, Mario. I'll be listening.

FMI: http://www.am760.net/pages/mario_solis-marich.html

Wyoming Democrats looking for communications director

This comes from Dave Lerner, communications guy for the Laramie County Democratic Party:

The mission of the Wyoming Democratic Party is to support and elect Democratic candidates to offices from city hall to Washington, D.C.

The Communications Director contributes to this mission by working directly with the executive director to devise an overall press plan, including long-range planning and event media, speechwriting, scheduling, and advance. This person must have solid communication skills and a working knowledge of Wyoming's issues, people and political landscape. Experience desired includes at least four years in communications, marketing, journalism or a related profession. Field organizing skills, experience using databases, or other background in political work is a plus.

The duties of the Communications Director include:

• Working with the DNC on communicating national messages
• Preparing a communications-and-marketing plan
• Assisting candidates, county parties, and the state Central Committee with message development
• Responding to media inquiries
• Drafting press releases, op/eds and talking points
• Coordinating letter-writing efforts, radio talk show call-in efforts, and other surrogate message work
• Recruiting surrogates for communicating message and for attending county party events
• Planning and executing earned media events
• Assisting members of the Democratic Legislative Caucus with media and constituent outreach
• Maintaining the state party Web site
• Maintaining a clips file

This is a full-time, salaried position. Pay will be commensurate with experience and will include a benefits stipend. The Communications Director can be based in any part of Wyoming and will travel within the state fairly frequently.

Interested applicants should submit a cover letter, resume and at least three references to luckett@wyomingdemocrats.com. The subject line should include "Communications Director Application (Your Name)." Applications may also be mailed to Bill Luckett, Wyoming Democratic Party, PO Box 1963, Casper, WY, 82602. Applications must be received by the close of business on May 18, 2009.