I am hard at work preparing the next HVDU event, and there will be an announcement shortly.

The event will be on a hot topic–in several senses of “hot”–a new venue, new partners, and the most (potential) audience participation ever for the HVDU. So keep your eyes open and your calendars free.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Patrick McGrath 845-915-3159 (land) 845-558-4281 (cell)

HYDE PARK, NY (20 May 2011) – The Hudson Valley Debate Union, which brings interactive, face-to-face “Oxford-style” debating to the Hudson Valley and beyond, announces its first-ever debate event to be held at the historic estate of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the banks of the Hudson. The subject will be one of today’s public policy flashpoints—the recently enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PL 111-152) of 2010.

The debate will take place on Wednesday 1 June 2011, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the Henry A. Wallace Center at the FDR Presidential Library and Home. The Center is located on Route 9 in Hyde Park, New York, north of Poughkeepsie.

The motion for the debate will be:

This House opposes the order of the U.S. District Court for Northern Florida granting summary judgment in Florida et al. v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Scheduled to speak in favor of the motion will be:

• Mr. Richard Kirsch, Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and former National Campaign Manager for Health Care for America Now.
• Mr. Mark Scherzer, Legislative Counsel, New Yorkers for Accessible Health Coverage
• A potential third speaker to be named later.

Scheduled to speak against the motion will be:

• Mr. Steve Lonegan, Americans for Prosperity of New Jersey.
• Mr. Robert Fois, blogger from NewsCopy.org
• A potential third speaker to be named later.

Hudson Valley Debate Union founder and executive director Patrick McGrath comments:

“First, I would like to thank the officials of the National Archives and Records Administration at the Henry A. Wallace Center of the FDR Library for opening their Center to the HVDU. Our debates are always about the cutting edge of public policy, and, in his day, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was at the edge of public policy, both foreign and domestic.

“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—called ‘Obamacare’ by its opponents—was one of the most controversial bills ever debated and enacted by the Congress. The debate is not over: twenty-six states, joined by several other parties, sued in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, seeking a judgment that the legislation was unconstitutional. On January 31st, the judge hearing the case, Richard Vinson, granted summary judgment to the states and their allies and ruled that the Obamacare law was unconstitutional. The Government appealed that decision. Exactly two months later, on March 31st, the U.S. Court of Appeals sitting in Atlanta announced that oral arguments in the case will be heard in their court on June 8th. So our HVDU debate takes place mere days before that crucial oral argument.

“Supporters of the law believe that it will bring affordable health care to millions of previously uninsured Americans. Opponents of the law believe that the Federal Government has no constitutional authority to enact such a law in the first place, and object to the law’s ‘individual mandate’ that will compel every American to buy a federally-approved health insurance policy, whether they want such a policy or not.

“This debate will ultimately be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court, but before it arrives there, our HVDU Principal Speakers will thrash out the issues involved.

WHAT HAPPENS AT AN ‘OXFORD STYLE’ HUDSON VALLEY DEBATE UNION EVENT?

“Voting Guests in the HVDU audience participate along with the Principal Speakers,” McGrath explained. “The Principal Speakers at the debates each get a set number of minutes for their speeches. The first two minutes and the last two minutes are ‘protected’ — but the time in between is subject to Points of Information. That’s where anyone in the the audience can stand up, raise his or her hand, and shout out, ‘Point of Information!’ Nothing between you and the Principal Speaker—you just stand up, right from your chair — and rip it. The Principal Speaker on the floor at the time has the right to refuse any and all Points of Information, but they are strongly urged to take at least one or two.

“When all of the Principal Speakers are finished, the question will be called, and the audience will vote on the motion. We’re doing this low-tech: we’ll pass around the ballot box, the Voting Guests will drop in the green and red poker chips we use as ballots, then we’ll count the chips, announce the vote total and find out if the motion has passed. Now that’s what I call participatory democracy,” McGrath said.

Further information about the Hudson Valley Debate Union can be found at the HVDU’s Web sites: www.hvdebateunion.org and www.hudsonvalleydebate.com. The HVDU’s YouTube channel is located at http://www.youtube.com/user/hvdebateunion

It’s been a trying few months here at HVDU.

I tried very hard to set up two debates during the runup to the elections that took place today. One was to be a state legislature candidates event, the other a Congressional candidates event. To make a long story very short, both events fell through — lots of conflicting schedules. It was rather like dealing with a disreputable fruit seller in the Middle East — I picked bad dates.

At any rate, there is an important HVDU announcement.

You may know that the HVDU’s beloved official mascot, Anteyka, is no longer with us. We miss him a lot.

The late Anteyka, mascot of the HVDU

Today I am delighted to announce that there is a new HVDU mascot. Please welcome Ziggy, successor to Anteyka.

Ziggy and Teyka became best buds during his last months. Ziggy missed him a lot too, when he didn’t come home. Sigh.

Anyway, the Z-Cat has revived the cuteness factor of the HVDU mascot’s post. Yay Zig!

I had wanted to visit Colonial Williamsburg for ages. Thanks to my new marital alliance with The NLB, I got the chance to go. Just the idea of the House of Burgesses at “CW” inspired the Look and Feel that I’ve established at HVDU events. The video above — I’ve just started a Vimeo channel for longer videos — was taken by yours truly on our recently acquired FlipVideo Ultra recorder-player. Please let me know what you think of it.

Ahoy there, HVDU fans!

Your HVDU founder is preparing for the Fall 2010 HVDU debate season, and part of that preparation was a desire to reach back to the roots of debate in this country. So I decided to go (along with my New Lovely Bride) to Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. I’ve been wanting to go down there for ages, long before I started the HVDU. Since The NLB and I needed a honeymoon, and had a gap open on our calendars, we loaded up The Silver Fawn and motored down to the Virginia Tidewater and hit the place over the weekend of the Glorious Fourth.

Advice to all: Have you ever thought about going to Colonial Williamsburg? Do it. If you’re an American, or if you’re a lover of freedom, you need to go there. Because it all started there. Plus Jamestown and Yorktown are right next door, easily accessible over the Colonial Parkway. We hit all three places, and it was great. We expect to go back sometime.

First: It’s the perfect place to channel your inner patriot:

Also: Are you into stocks? You can do that there, too:

And do you want things that go boom? Does the smell of black powder in the afternoon make you feel like victory? Then “CW” is your kind of place:

Plus, you never know who’s going to show up. You’ve got famous Frenchies like the Marquis de Lafayette:

Even traitors like the one and only Benedict Arnold come riding into town:

As you stroll along Duke of Gloucester Street in the morning, you can meet the big meat:

And check out the big Scottish flowers in the garden:

And CW has all the hottest bands come into town. The hottest 18th Century bands, that is. They lay down a nice beat and you can march to it. All the kids are into it:

If you motor over to Jamestown — a quick trip along the cars-only Colonial Parkway — you can do some sailing:

Yorktown, at the opposite end of the Colonial Parkway, is also a boom town:

And, when you get back up to W’Burg, you can hang out at the Royal Palace:

All photos courtesy of The NLB

Anyway, more on the trip later. Hope you like this so far!

Hope you like it! More HVDU news soon!

Here they are, in the order they occurred:

Opening:

Steve Pappas:

Jim Coleman:

Brian Cocolicchio:

Matt Neuringer:

Cliff Weathers:

Diane Holland:

Conclusion:

I spent the bulk of today hunkering down from the snowstorm, assembling the videos of the event. (My old VHS-C camera was the only video camera there).

However, YouTube has been a beast uploading today, so I can’t tell you when I’ll have them up. In the meantime, I do have a few still photos from our first visit to Haverstraw Town Hall (thank you, Supervisor Phillips).

Your host, getting ready for the expected hordes at Haverstraw Town Hall.

The Proponent team: Cliff Weathers, Steve Pappas, and Brian Cocolicchio

The new 'tough' HVDU sign is holding up well

Two of the three for the Opponent team: Diane Holland and Jim Coleman

Discussion after the debate

Late update:

The first YouTube video:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Patrick McGrath 845-429-3206

STONY POINT, NY (31 January 2010) – The Hudson Valley Debate Union, which brings face-to-face “Oxford-style” debating to Rockland County, the Hudson Valley, and beyond, announces the Confidence in the Obama Adminstration Debate, between the prominent supporters and opponents of current Presidential Administration.

The debate will take place on Tuesday 9 February 2010, from 7 to 9 pm, in the Council Chambers of Haverstraw Town Hall, 1 Rosman Road, Garnerville, New York 10923. Haverstraw Town Hall is just off U.S. Route 202 in Garnerville in Rockland County, just to the west of the Garnerville Shop-Rite.

The motion for the debate will be, “This House has confidence in the current executive Administration in the White House.”

Scheduled to participate as Principal Speakers are:

In favor of the motion:

• Mr. Brian Cocolicchio, Clarkstown Democratic Committeeman and returning HVDU Principal Speaker
• Mr. Steve Pappas, representing the office of Ellen Jaffee, New York State Assembly (95th District)
• Mr. Cliff Weathers, progressive blogger at “Left of the Hudson” and “Rock-Prog.org”

Against the motion:

• Mr. Jim Coleman, returning HVDU Principal Speaker
• Mr. Matthew E. Neuringer, legislative director and campaign manager, Greg Ball for Assembly; candidate for Town Council, Town of Southeast (Putnam County)
• Ms. Doreen Alli Linder, writer and columnist at Examiner.com

HVDU Founder and Executive Director Patrick McGrath commented:

“For the first time, the HVDU presents one of the classics of the Oxford debate genre: the no-confidence debate. Every year, the ancient debate societies of the Oxford and Cambridge Unions in England argue the motion, “This House has no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government.” These events are modeled after the real “No Confidence” debates in Britain’s House of Commons that can, and have, brought down British Governments..

“I thought it was high time to bring that classic motion to the Hudson Valley Debate Union.

“To make things somewhat easier on everybody, I’ve ‘reversed the polarity’ of the motion—it just makes things easier to understand if you’re voting ‘Yes’ to a positive statement. However, that will not make this debate all sweetness and light. To the contrary, the contention brought about by the policies of the Obama Administration have been almost unprecedented in American history. From historic high poll ratings at the Inauguration in January 2009, to historic low poll ratings a mere twelve months later, is there still confidence that the current Administration can govern America? That’s what our six Principal Speakers will try to thrash out.

“They will only have an hour to do that, so they’re going to have to concentrate and get to the point. And they’ll need to think on their feet, because our Oxford-style format allows both Principal Speakers and Voting Guests from the public to confront their opponents directly. Both sides will have to respond coherently to opponents’ questions. I think that this will be the HVDU’s most exciting event to date.”

WHAT HAPPENS AT AN ‘OXFORD STYLE’ HUDSON VALLEY DEBATE UNION EVENT?

“Voting Guests in the HVDU audience participate along with the Principal Speakers,” McGrath explained. “The six Principal Speakers at the debates will each get ten minutes for their speeches. The first two minutes and the last two minutes are ‘protected’ — but the middle six minutes are subject to Points of Information. That’s where anyone in the the audience can stand up, raise his or her hand, and shout out, ‘Point of Information!’ Nothing between you and the Principal Speaker—you just stand up, right from your chair — and rip it. The Principal Speaker on the floor at the time has the right to refuse any and all Points of Information, but they are strongly urged to take at least one or two.

“When all of the Principal Speakers are finished, the question will be called, and the audience will vote on the motion. We’re doing this low-tech: we’ll pass around the ballot box, the Voting Guests will drop in the green and red poker chips we use as ballots, then we’ll count the chips, announce the vote total and find out if the motion has passed. Now that’s what I call participatory democracy,” McGrath said.

Further information about the Hudson Valley Debate Union can be found at the HVDU’s Web sites: www.hvdebateunion.org and www.hudsonvalleydebate.com. Both sites have links to YouTube videos of the HVDU’s recent Stony Point Debate. The HVDU’s YouTube channel is located at http://www.youtube.com/user/hvdebateunion