I was very glad to be invited to join a round table of women from the United States and the Middle East to talk about the role of women in political life in our perspective cultures.  The event was held on Thursday, June 26 and was sponsored by the Project on Middle East Democracy, many thanks to their executive director Andrew Albertson for the invitation.  It was even more special that the event was held at the Sewell Belmont House near the capitol.  This is the original headquarters for the National Women's Party (the group that won women the vote) and the previous home of Alice Paul, a big personal hero of mine.  If you want to learn more about the project and the event visit our friends at POMED, at www.pomed.org

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) had its people call our people to set up a meeting for June 18th.  They asked to learn about our campaign on election reform.  More specifically they asked, "What are the most pressing issues facing the American electoral process in 2008 This past Wednesday, we got the full biography on who their people are, exactly.

The OSCE is  "is a very  large regional security organization which includes 56 member countries, hailing from a range of six geographical regions: Eastern Europe, South-Eastern Europe, Western Europe, South Caucus, Central Asia, and North America.  The OSCE's operation, which has headquarters in Vienna, projects three primary pillars of objectives: the politico-military, the economic and environmental, and the human dimension.  Institutional structure parallels can easily be drawn from the OSCE to the European Union.

Common Cause has been working with House and Senate staffers to put a bill in place that would strengthen Congress's role under the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution as it pertains to military engagement.  We have a long tradition of supporting Congress' role in these matters since the initial enactment of the Resolution in 1973.   We believe the decision to take our country to war should be deliberated over in a transparent and participatory manner, and that the Executive Branch should not exceed its authority in these matters.  For obvious reason I have been watching the situation with Iran closely these last several months and when the NIE came out last week I put this briefing together for myself and my colleagues here at Common Cause so we could cut through the hype and get a better idea of what exactly was going on.  Hope this is helpful the Common Cause Community as it watches the back and forth over these issues.