As "AstroGirl," I would like to particularly note the following quote in this Hollywood Reporter article about the most famous historic theatre in the nation, Grauman's Chinese in Hollywood, being up for sale:
"You can't make a profit on a single-screen theater," a top industryite mused. "It's just not possible."
But the BDC and various Baltimore City officials have consistently blamed The Senator's debts on Tom Kiefaber. People more familiar with the movie industry are simply astounded that he's made it work to such a high degree for so long with debts that are so comparatively LOW.
It simply goes to show you that Baltimore City and the BDC know NOTHING about the movie industry and should NOT be trying to decide the fate of an iconic historic theatre like The Senator without expert advice from people in the industry...such as Tom Kiefaber.
Really...the mind boggles at why Baltimore City is trying to make such an important decision about such a wonderful Baltimore landmark while figuratively driving the bus with a blindfold on and earplugs in.
Over at Progressive Blue, my colleagues have been running a fundraising week for our slate of endorsed Democratic candidates. We've also taken a position of NO on California prop. 8, because we believe in equality for all.
We received 59 donations on our ActBlue page so far, and that totals nearly $3,000.
Will you be our 60th donor?
Will you help us get to $3,000 raised for our candidates?
After weeks of intense lobbying by the top three Democratic presidential candidates, Edwards has come away with the endorsement of the New Hampshire SEIU.
The endorsement will help Edwards considerably, providing him with financial resources and volunteers in the Granite state. It will also prevent other state chapters from sending volunteers to New Hampshire to campaign for either Obama or Clinton.
This is the 12th state SEIU endorsement Edwards has won; the others include Iowa and California.
Wow! So that's several key endorsements in some very key states. He now has SEIU worker power locked up in both Iowa and New Hampshire, as well California and 9 other states. This should be very helpful going into the early caucuses and primaries.
Here's a video from October 15th, when he won the endorsement of the SEIU in 10 of those states.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) state councils from Iowa, California, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota, Michigan, West Virginia, Ohio and Oregon announced they have endorsed Senator John Edwards for president, totaling close to one million SEIU members. Representatives from several of the ten state councils joined Edwards for a press conference at the Eckstein Medical Research Building in Iowa City. The endorsements will allow these SEIU state councils, which collectively represent over 930,000 members, to organize efforts to turn out caucus goers on Edwards' behalf within Iowa, and in any other state where the SEIU state councils have also endorsed Edwards. SEIU state councils across the country will be determining their endorsement decisions in the coming weeks.
UPDATE: I was reminded, thanks to the comments at Daily Kos, that this means 90,000 SEIU members from neighboring Massachusetts, where SEIU has also endorsed Edwards, can come to New Hampshire to help out.
The news from Oct. 18th:
The Massachusetts council of the Service Employees International Union on Thursday joined 10 other state chapters endorsing Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.
The council, which represents 90,000 workers in Massachusetts, cited Edwards' record on health care.
Also, I really should have included this video of John Edwards' closing remarks at the SEIU convention in Washington, DC in the original post.
SEIU New Hampshire is obviously important (and is getting wooed to death), but also important will be SEIU Massachusetts, with 75,000 members a couple of hours (at most) from New Hampshire. If a candidate can get both the Mass and New Hampshire locals, he or she should get a real boost.
"California SEIU members know that John Edwards will be the best labor president in the history of the United States," said Sal Rosselli, president of SEIU United Healthcare Workers West. "His proposals are far and away the best among the candidates on the issues that matter most to working Americans. Edwards has taken principled stands on workers' behalf, when others took more cautious positions on issues that demand bold action."
This brings his labor union support up to nearly 3 million union members nationwide.
This is great! A guy named Brian Eldredge in California has written a song about John Edwards. It's pretty good, too! You can download the MP3 and read the lyrics here:
