Posted on 02/02/2006 4:51:50 PM PST by angelsonmyside
Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey Fundraiser Saturday February 04
Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, the first Member of Congress to call on the President to bring our troops home, will be in Los Angeles on Saturday February 4th for a very exciting but critical fundraiser against the most well-known, well-financed challenger she's ever faced. She is facing a primary challenge from a termed-out Assemblyman Joe Nation, a moderate Democrat who has been critical of her stand on the war and on bringing home our troops. He is raising money from people who have given money to Tom DeLay and Bush-Cheney and his legislative district covers 60+% of Congresswoman Woolsey's district. Congresswoman Woolsey is a champion of equal rights, civil liberties, protecting the environment and fighting for single payer healthcare. Congresswoman Woolsey must be re-elected by the same victory margin she has had in the past to send a message to progressives everywhere that's it IS OK to be courageous, and to not back down on issues that matter.
The Host Committee for this fundraiser includes:
Ben Affleck; Ed Asner; Warren Beatty; Jodie Evans; James Cromwell; Matt Damon; Tom Hayden; Wendy Herzog; Mimi Kennedy; Norman Lear; Stephen Rohde; Susie Shannon; Stanley & Betty Sheinbaum; Lorraine Sheinberg; Kathy Spillar; Gloria A. Totten; Peg Yorkin; Senator Barbara Boxer; Congressman Joe Baca; Congressman Xavier Becerra; Congresswoman Lois Capps; Congresswoman Jane Harman; Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald; Congresswoman Grace Napolitano; Congresswoman; Lucille Roybal -Allard; Congresswoman Linda Sanchez; Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez; Congressman Adam Schiff; Congresswoman Hilda Solis; Congresswoman Maxine Waters; Congresswoman Diane Watson; Senator Sheila Kuehl and Assemblywoman Karen Bass.
Fundraiser will be at the Stanley & Betty Sheinbaum residence in Brentwood. Valet parking will be available. Gourmet fare for the event will be provided by Back on Broadway, Santa Monica. Ticket prices are: Friend $100; Supporter $250; Sponsor $500; Host $1,000; Premier Host $2,000. For more information call 323-939-5475. To make a donation Congresswoman Lynn Woolseys campaign, log onto http://www.woolseyforcongress.com/
Admin and everyone please forgive me if I did this incorrectly.
Allways the worst politician they can buy...
WOW...what a guest list! Think I have to puke.
I wish I could be there with a "Cindy does not speak for me" sign.
Stanley & Betty Sheinbaum
http://www.robertscheer.com/2_localla/00_columns/061500.htm
Stanley and Betty Sheinbaum celebrated their joint 80th birthday with a low-key lawn party barbecue at their Brentwood home, and if you didn't look carefully, you wouldn't have noticed that Gregory Peck, Warren Beatty, Annette Bening and Norman Lear were in attendance. There was something egalitarian about the sight of all those guests in long lines waiting for a helping of Fred Deni's food.
The last time I saw Fred slopping it out for such eager customers was at the free senior Thanksgiving day lunch he held at his Back on Broadway restaurant. Deni was celebrated a few years back by the Red Cross for bringing stuffed animals to orphans in Bosnia, and it is good to know that the caterer matches the Sheinbaums in his social commitments. As a plug, let me point out that his Back on the Beach restaurant is easy to get into during the week and is by far the best place in California to sip an iced tea and take in the ocean.
Betty Sheinbaum deserves to be celebrated not only as a first-rate artist, but as a socially concerned citizen who shunned the easy life made available by her Warner Bros. wealth. She has devoted much of her means and time to worthy causes. She also makes great paintings and sculptures. One of her causes was to back her economist husband in his endless forays to make peace here and around the world.
Stan was the head of the Police Commission that fired Daryl Gates, and had we followed Stanley's recommendations back then for reforming the department, we would not be in the midst of the Rampart scandal. Stan was a UC regent who made a major impact in the fight to save the system from budget cuts, and he has been active in the ACLU and too many other community causes to mention.
But mention of Stanley's key role in advancing the Mideast peace process is much in order. He was one of the original group of U.S. Jews who met with Arafat in Norway and broke the ice, permitting the negotiations between Arabs and Jews to commence. He has been a consistent courier without portfolio for Clinton, shuttling back and forth to the Mideast, including two breakthrough visits with the late Hafez Assad that are credited with jump-starting the talks between Syria and Israel.
On one of his trips to the Mideast, Stanley suffered what seemed to be a heart attack, and the commercial jet he was flying had to land. A few days later, he showed up at St. John's Hospital to have a pacemaker inserted so that he could, in his words, "keep going--I need to get back to the Mideast so that talks are not stalled."
Fortunately his heart wasn't stalled, but after he left, the intensive-care unit with his new pacemaker in place, I found a groggy Stan and his worried wife in a crowded hall at the hospital, unable to get transferred to a room. The staff was being incredibly grumpy and insensitive to Stanley's plight until Fred Deni showed up, took one look around, and asked the head nurse if she was hungry. "Yes," she said. "We've been so busy today, no one has had time to eat."
Deni ran off to his nearby restaurant, returned with huge platters of food for all, and suddenly the hospital was functioning in an orderly fashion and Sheinbaum got his room. A few days later he was on a plane back to the Mideast. A great couple, obviously in the possession of the secret of eternal youth: Give a damn about the world around you and do something to make it better.
Put that in a bottle and sell it and you'll make a fortune. But knowing the Sheinbaums, they will demand that you give the profits to a good cause.
What a gaggle of hippies!
Lud, we'll be tilted so fat left that night CA may finally fall into the Pacific!
i think the only bigger list of losers i've seen has come from the academy award nominations...
"He has been a consistent courier without portfolio for Clinton, shuttling back and forth to the Mideast,"
Shouldn't this guy be on some watch list?
LOL!
Oh please let McKinney go off on the Jews at this function! Maybe Woolsey can invite Sheehan and let her lecture them on the Jewish occupation of Palestinian lands!
http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=12826
2004-09-10
Father of the Leftist Guard
Stanley Sheinbaum is in his element. As 40 members of Americans for Peace Now and their allies sip white wine, nibble brie and heatedly discuss the economic and moral injustices of Israels occupation, the éminence grise of liberalism watches and listens with the rapt attention of the Stanford University graduate student he once was. When guest speaker Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) says that the "ethical aspiration of Judaism is to stand up for the downtrodden," including African Americans, homosexuals and Palestinians, Sheinbaum nods his head in agreement.
During the two-hour gathering held at his Brentwood estate in late August, Sheinbaum says little. But dont mistake Sheinbaums diffidence for indifference. At 84, he might have slowed down some, but his concern for the fate of humanity burns as brightly as ever. His legendary "salons" are still vibrant, intellectual gatherings. Sheinbaum continues to support an array of liberal groups, ranging from Peace Now to Human Rights Watch to the American Civil Liberties Union, whose local affiliate will present an award named in his honor at a Sept. 12 fundraiser.
"He is truly one of the leaders of the progressive Jewish movement," said Luis Lainer, Americans for Peace Nows board chair.
A wealthy money man for liberal Democrats seeking office, private counselor to kings, presidents and diplomats, and the glue that helped build the Westsides powerful, mostly Jewish bloc of left-wing liberals, Sheinbaum has led several lives in eight decades on the planet.
Like a modern-day Forrest Gump albeit one with a Phi Beta Kappa key Sheinbaum has witnessed history up close and personal, leaving his thumbprints all over some of the defining moments of the past half-century. Whether acting as the police commissioner who led the successful fight to oust former LAPD Chief Daryl Gates in the early 1990s; heading a controversial delegation of American Jews to the Middle East in the late 1980s to convince Yasser Arafat to publicly renounce terrorism and recognize Israels right to exist; fighting for divestment from South Africa as a University of California regent; or raising nearly $1 million for the successful defense of Pentagon Papers principal Daniel Ellsberg, Sheinbaum has made a difference.
Sheinbaum said the upcoming election is the most important in recent memory and that helping John F. Kerry become the next president is his major priority.
"Sheinbaum keeps the New Deal torch alive in an age when its not fashionable to do so," said former senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart, a longtime friend. "Hes a voice of conscience."
That voice is a little less robust these days. Sheinbaum must take 10 medications daily and a nap or two to recharge his tired body. Doctors have grounded the former globetrotter for the past three years because of health concerns. Sheinbaum walks with a slight limp and jokes about visiting a "cardiologist, a neurologist, a sexologist and a pissologist."
But his mind remains razor sharp. Surrounded by colorful paintings and sculptures in his comfortable home, he proudly points to framed photos with Fidel Castro, King Hussein, Barbra Streisand and other world leaders and A-list celebrities. Dressed in a red-and-white striped jacket, blue vest and khakis, Sheinbaums firm handshake, direct gaze and measured words reveal a man at ease with himself and confident about the future.
And why not? For more than 30 years, luminaries such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, Jesse Jackson, Queen Noor of Jordan and former Sen. Hart, among others, have made the pilgrimage to his Westside salons in search of intellectual stimulation and money for their pet causes sometimes their own political campaigns.
"I am addicted to famous people," Sheinbaum quipped.
The salons, Sheinbaum added, are more than just a forum for rich liberals to pat each other on the back and pass around the collection plate. Sometimes, the gatherings spawn new groups that try to shape public opinion, fight for human rights or help the needy. To cite but one recent example, activists including U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter and 1960s counter-culture icon Tom Hayden met at his home in October 2002 and conducted a teach-in that helped lead to the formation of Artists United Against the War.
Even Nice to Republicans
Despite Sheinbaums progressive politics, he has occasionally opened his meetings up to critics and conservatives even Republicans.
One detractor, Larry Greenfield, director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Southern California, said Sheinbaum belongs to the "old leftist guard" that has failed politically. Greenfield also blasted the octogenarian for befriending the "terrorist" Arafat, an unworthy peace partner.
But a couple months ago, Sheinbaum pleasantly surprised the local Republican leader by inviting him to an event at his house featuring the pro-Israel Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI, which translates the sometimes anti-Semitic Arab press into English and other languages.
Similarly, Sheinbaum has won over Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center and formerly one of his fiercest critics. Just two years ago, Cooper wrote in Ft. Lauderdales Sun-Sentinel newspaper that "peace activist" Sheinbaum blamed the Israeli government rather the Palestinians for suicide bombings. Today, Cooper calls his ex-nemesis a "mensch."
Thats because Sheinbaum, at Coopers request, recently contacted Arab leaders, including Arafat, to ascertain the fate of Israeli soldiers missing in action. Sheinbaums willingness to risk alienating his contacts for the benefit of concerned Israelis impressed Cooper, who later received an invitation from Sheinbaum to a luncheon that featured high-ranking Syrian government officials.
Sheinbaums "somebody operating with his eyes open, with an open mind, and, in the case with the Israeli MIAs, an open heart," Cooper said.
Still, Sheinbaums activism, especially his embrace of Arafat, has stirred strong passions on both sides of the political divide.
To his supporters, the man whom the Los Angeles Times once dubbed "the Kingmaker" has fought the good fight on behalf of the dispossessed, downtrodden and disenfranchised. Where other rich men might have contented themselves playing golf at country clubs and summering at Malibu beach homes, Sheinbaum has put his reputation and fortune on the line to help make the world a better place.
"I think hes addicted to fairness and justice," said television producer Norman Lear of "All in the Family" fame. "All of us start off as the proverbial grain of sand on the beach of life. In that context, Stanley Sheinbaum has moved mountains."
To his critics, Sheinbaum is a relic of a bygone radical era. His politics, in sync with the Southlands Jews in the 1960s, have become anachronistic as area Jews have drifted to the center, said Joel Kotkin, senior fellow with the Davenport Institute at Pepperdine University. Sheinbaum, he said, is the quintessential limousine liberal railing against the worlds injustices from the comfort of his gated, multimillion-dollar home.
"I dont want to be lectured about social justice by people who have an income ten or hundred times mine," Kotkin said. "Money buys access. Money buys power. Money buys influence. If you took away his money, I dont think hed be a major force."
Not true, said Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer, a friend of Sheinbaums since the pair collaborated on a series of anti-war articles for Ramparts magazine in the mid-1960s and unsuccessfully ran for Congress together on an anti-Vietnam ticket.
Handsome, charming and bright, Sheinbaum made a name for himself well before his 1964 marriage to Betty Warner, daughter of movie mogul and Warner Bros. co-founder Harry Warner, Scheer said.
After graduating from Stanford with highest honors and enrolling in a doctoral program there, Sheinbaum moved to Paris as a Fulbright scholar. Although he never completed his dissertation, Michigan State University (MSU) hired him as an economics professor.
At MSU, the young academic found himself unwittingly caught up in Americas growing involvement in Vietnam, a conflict he would come to despise. In the late 1950s, Sheinbaum directed MSUs Vietnam Project, which helped train South Vietnams police force, among other responsibilities.
After souring on the war and learning that several men he hired for the MSU program were really CIA operatives, in 1960 Sheinbaum joined an elite Santa Barbara think tank named the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. Headed by former University of Chicago President Robert Maynard Hutchins, it attracted intellectual heavyweights such as Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, economist Paul Samuelson and Harvard professor John Kenneth Galbraith. In this rarefied environment, Sheinbaum stood out for his formidable debating skills and supple mind, Scheer said.
"Stanley was one of the best and brightest," said Scheer, who helped finance a new documentary about Sheinbaum called "Citizen Stanley." Time magazine co-founder "Henry Luce liked Stanley. Everybody liked him. He could have easily gone off and worked for Time or at the White House."
But he didnt. After marrying into money, Sheinbaum embraced full-time political activism as his career, becoming one of the most influential liberal powerbroker in the country. Some years, he and his wife contributed up to $750,000 to causes and candidates in which they believed, cutting back only after they began dipping into their principal.
All that money which Sheinbaum nearly doubled in the early 1970s by betting the U.S. dollar would go off the gold standard undoubtedly bought access and influence. But Sheinbaum has done more in the past 40 years than simply sign fat checks, observers say. Like an entrepreneur, he has made investments in people and organizations that fire his imagination. And he has taken a hands-on approach to ensure their success.
Sheinbaum and his wife "have a fearless activism, are genuinely honest and humble students of what is going on and are smart as hell," said actor Warren Beatty, a friend for 35 years.
Making Things Happen
As head of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California from 1973 to 1982, Sheinbaum headed up the outfits fundraising and helped increase contributions by tenfold. More important, Sheinbaum who continues to serve on the ACLU National Advisory Council urged the local ACLU affiliate to increase its visibility, membership and relevance by educating the public on major civil rights issues. Partly because of his prodding, the ACLU of Southern California now has a public policy specialist to galvanize support for such initiatives as making the three-strikes law less punitive, local Executive Director Ramona Ripston said.
Sheinbaums brand of outreach has helped fuel a 65 percent jump in membership over the past decade to 38,000, she said.
"Hes made the organization stronger by being actively involved," said Ripston, who first met Sheinbaum more than 30 years ago during the Ellsberg trial.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) said Sheinbaum has served several important roles in her life: stalwart friend, mentor and an important connection who first introduced her to such politicians as former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
Sheinbaum, a strong proponent of divestment from apartheid-era South Africa during his 12 years as a UC regent, advised her on the subject while she served as a state assemblywoman. Through Sheinbaum, Waters said she learned much about the workings of the investment community and how public pension funds could remain profitable without holdings in South Africa. Armed with that knowledge, she successfully sponsored legislation that called for the divestment of state pension funds.
"Ive used him as a sounding board for years," the congresswoman said. "He has been influencing progressive politics in this country, really the world, for a long time."
Sheinbaums early years in New York City hardly foreshadowed his later renown. He was a mediocre student who grew up poor. The Depression wiped out his family financially, plunging his father in and out of bankruptcy for years. After graduating from high school, Sheinbaum bounced from job to job, eventually moving to Houston to work in a printing plant. His hardscrabble youth, he said, gave him empathy for the poor and less fortunate that marks him to this day.
After spending most of World War II in the service making maps, he returned home with the expectation of going to college on the GI Bill unfortunately the 33 schools to which he applied failed to share his enthusiasm. Devastated but not defeated, he re-enrolled at his high school to take college prep courses and get his grades up. "I was sitting here at this place where I had gone 10 years earlier," he said. "My legs were too big for the desk."
That tenacity paid off. Accepted at Oklahoma A&M, he did well enough to transfer to Stanford the following year. He went on to do graduate work in economics but never completed his thesis, which burned in a freak fire years later.
Sheinbaums move to the far left occurred in the 1960s as his disgust with the Vietnam War mounted. He led teach-ins, participated in demonstrations and served as a California delegate for peacenik Eugene McCarthy and twice unsuccessfully ran for Congress on an anti-war platform. That anti-war activism led Sheinbaum to help assemble a team of attorneys for Ellsberg, which successfully fought charges against the former Pentagon official who leaked classified material to the press.
Controversial Moves
Not all of Sheinbaums activism had such unambiguous outcomes. Some of his highest profile adventures produced decidedly mixed results.
As president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, Sheinbaum led the fight to force Gates from office after the videotaped beating of African American motorist and paroled armed robber Rodney King by a group white police officers. With the LAPDs reputation in tatters, Gates, under growing pressure from Sheinbaum and fellow commissioners, reluctantly resigned.
But Sheinbaums reputation took a hit when the ACLU, an organization closely associated with him, published a newspaper ad in the early 1990s comparing the Police Department to a street gang. And his unstinting support for Willie L. Williams whom Sheinbaum called "the best" at the time of his appointment as Gates successor could be seen, in retrospect, as misguided. The LAPDs first black police chief proved so ineffective that he lasted slightly more than five years, although Sheinbaum blamed departmental racism and hostility from the rank-and-file officers for Williams difficulties.
If Sheinbaum overestimated Williams ability to reform and lead the LAPD, then he vastly underestimated Arafats willingness to transform himself from a terrorist into an agent of peace, critics say.
In their view, Sheinbaum naively rehabilitated the president of the Palestinian Authority by leading in 1988 a delegation of American Jews that "persuaded" Arafat to recognize Israels right to exist and renounce terror. Arafats promises, which many now think were insincere in light of the failed Oslo peace accords and the proliferation of suicide bombers affiliated with his Fatah group, helped earn him the Nobel Peace Prize.
Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia, said Sheinbaums delegation exhibited poor judgment by thinking Arafat wanted anything less than Israels destruction.
"How desperate these fools were to have the wool pulled over their eyes," Pipes said. "They begged Arafat to trump them and take advantage of them, and he did."
Even television producer Lear, Sheinbaums close friend, said he thought Arafat had failed Sheinbaum.
But Sheinbaum hasnt given up on Arafat, whom he still calls a friend. He said he doesnt think Arafat is a terrorist, although a few Palestinians are. Sheinbaum said Arafat was a man of peace when they first met 16 years ago, but ran into opposition from all sides the Americans, Israelis and the Palestinians. He said Israeli and Palestinian intransigence derailed the process, and that the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin buried it.
The failure of real peace to break out in the region has devastated Sheinbaum. With Arafat and his nemesis Ariel Sharon locked in a never-ending battle of words and wills, the outlook remains dim, he said.
Sheinbaum makes no apologies for trying to broker a peace, even if his efforts have largely come to naught. He said he paid a high price for his activism, including being shunned for years by some in the local community and having a skinned pig tossed onto his driveway. Still, he said he would continue to hope, pray and fight for peace in the Middle East. As a Jew, its his duty.
"These are my people," he said. "Im not going to walk away."
Old, rich, guilt-ridden, liberal Jews. Shame on them.
Well, if anyone can sympathize with the jews or palestinians and offer a considered opinion on how to solve the problem between the two peoples, its a white suburban house-frau with no discernable facial expressions and a bug up her backside the size of a camel.
Shame on them is correct, but what are they guilt ridden about? I don;t understand?
Old Bolsheviks or what?
Well, that seemed to work out well, huh Stanley? There's nothing sadder, in my opinion than a rich, old, liberal Jew holding on to the same sorry ideas for the past 50 years. Believe me, I've known quite a few.
An embarrassment.
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