Wednesday, October 29, 2008

ACORN ad targets GOP voter suppression



The voter-rights group ACORN has a new advertisement accusing John McCain and Republicans of pursuing voter intimidation tactics aimed at keeping African American voters away from the polls.

Republicans have made attacking ACORN a focus of their talking points in recent days, accusing the group of perpetrating voter fraud and highlight examples of incorrect voter registration forms the group had gathered. In a new ad the group says will air on cable, it says the tactics will not work.

“Senator McCain needs to instruct his operatives and supporters to cease and desist. Nothing is more important to the fabric of our democracy than protecting the rights of American voters," said Steve Kest, Executive Director of ACORN. "Senator McCain should instead join us in trying to make it easier for voters to exercise their rights, by calling for measures such as extending early voting hours, to facilitate the greatest possible participation in this historic election."

The ad features a photo of a young black man morphing into an older face.

"It happened to him in 1960, in 1965 and again in 2000. He was intimidated so he wouldn’t vote," a narrator says. "This year, they’re at it again."

The group also has filed two lawsuits in New Mexico, charging local Republicans with attempting to intimidate legitimate voters, the group said in a press release, which highlighted allegations from across the country.

The Republican Party and its operatives have employed an astonishing variety of voter suppression and intimidation strategies in recent weeks:

· In Philadelphia, fliers were distributed in a predominantly African American neighborhood which suggested that people with legal troubles or unpaid traffic violations will be arrested by undercover cops when they show up to vote.

· In Hamilton County, Ohio, Prosecutor Joe Deters – who is also the local chair of the McCain-Palin campaign – requested via subpoena personal information for 40% of voters who participated in same-day registration.

· In California, a joint committee of the McCain-Palin campaign, the RNC and the California Republican Party, hired Lincoln Strategy in June for the purpose of ‘registering voters.’ The managing partner of Lincoln Strategy, Nathan Sproul, is a renowned GOP operative who has been investigated on multiple occasions for trying to suppress Democratic voter turnout.

· In Montgomery County, Virginia, a registrar issued a memo giving incorrect and intimidating information to students at Virginia Tech University about the consequences of registering to vote, including possible loss of financial aid and tax dependence status.

· In Ontario, California, the owner of a firm that the California Republican Party hired to register tens of thousands of voters was arrested on suspicion of voter registration fraud after dozens of voters reported that the firm tricked them into registering with the GOP by asking them to sign a petition they believed to be aimed at toughening penalties against child molesters.

The Republican National Committee dismissed the accusations, accusing ACORN of being a "quasi-criminal organization," according to the New York Times.

“Acorn’s most recent charges of voter suppression seem to be yet another attempt by this questionable organization to waste valuable taxpayer money and cloud their own record of voter registration fraud,” Mr. Cairncross said. “Just as a losing Kerry campaign election manual in 2004 urged activists to lodge a ‘pre-emptive strike’ claiming voter intimidation regardless of validity, Acorn is taking a page straight from the Democrats’ playbook.”

The group's 30-second ad was posted on YouTube in advance of its national television buy.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Amazon lists Obama Halloween mask as a ‘terrorist costume


Over the weekend, the LA Times caught Amazon.com listing a Halloween mask of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) as a “terrorist costume.” Though the listing has since been deleted from the “terrorist” page, Top of The Ticket caught the image:

The Obama terrorist page listed related searches as “arab costume, terrorist.”

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Trouble right here in River City ??

No, I don't understand how any "hockey mom" could spend $150,000 of campaign money on clothes in a couple months. Yes, I understand candidates have to look good. I'm all for the professional wardrobes, and grooming, and all that. But... Come on !!. A hundred and fifty grand ...PLEASE !!!. And from campaign donations of people like "Joe the Plumber", no less. And after you've just spent two months painting yourself as a salt of the earth small-town hero, a "real" American who doesn't go in for all that stuff?

You know, Palin really is beginning to come off as a con artist -- a Con (wo)man. Pure Harold Hill stuff. ( my theatre background is showing thats a Music Man reference) She says some pretty words, bluffs her way through all the situations that require active knowledge, the crowd cheers, and all the while fleeces everyone around her for travel, and fame, and clothes, etc., etc.

Her ridiculous levels of professed self-confidence, during all of this, just adds to the overall vibe that she's playing everyone for rubes, and is enjoying every minute of it. It's not a job or even an election to her, it's a game show, and she won the Big Prize.

What an exceptionally dislikable person she seems to be. From the first moment she stepped onto the national stage, there hasn't been a single retold aspect of her personal history that would inspire confidence, or respect, or anything but revulsion. She seems the perfect example of a shallow, petty, self-centered person rising in power simply because being shallow, petty and self-centered are the only tools necessary to do so. I half expect her to make off with McCain's wallet at some point, and be found two weeks later in Atlantic City.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Al Qaida Prefers McCain-That's Right!

Al Qaida wants to continue bankrupting the US with continued expenditures associated with our involvement in two wars and believes that McWar-Monger's impetuous streak well, will keep this streak going.

Al-Qaida-linked Web site backs McCain as president

Al-Qaida-linked Web site encourages pre-election attack as way to usher in McCain presidency

The message, posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, said if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, "impetuous" Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is the better choice because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This requires presence of an impetuous American leader such as McCain, who pledged to continue the war till the last American soldier," the message said. "Then, al-Qaida will have to support McCain in the coming elections so that he continues the failing march of his predecessor, Bush."

"If al-Qaida carries out a big operation against American interests," the message said, "this act will be support of McCain because it will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaida. Al-Qaida then will succeed in exhausting America till its last year in it."

This is exactly what Bin Laden said he wanted to do to us; exhaust our financial resources to the point of bankruptcy and Al-Qaida believes that McCain will be the right person for the job.

Bin Laden's words have been popping up in my brain for some time now, actually for years since George took the bait hook, line & sinker. If this doesn't give Americans a wake up call I don't know what the heck will. Hell, Al-Qaida is even saying that they would consider an attack before the election just to guarantee the results they're looking for.

Monday, October 20, 2008

More on Acorn,lies,hate,racism

This weekend, Sarah Palin was out whipping up a fine froth among the McCainiacs about ACORN's activities:

Palin demanded answers to “unanswered questions about Obama's connections with ACORN.”

The fans screamed “Booo!” at least 10 times when Palin mentioned Obama’s name.

“ACORN is under investigation for rampant voter fraud in 13 states. ACORN received over $800,000 from the Obama campaign,” Palin said. All 13 are swing states like Indiana.

“Booo!” Palin’s supporters shouted. Obama has said the $800,000 was for voter canvassing during the primary election, not for voter registration during the general election.

Palin, of course, is just following her the lead of her boss, who claimed in Wednesday's debate that ACORN "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." And we're already seeing the violent results on the ground emanating from this kind of demagoguery.

And it's demagoguery on a massive scale. After all, everywhere that ACORN has been seriously examined -- from Indiana to Seattle, whenever issues have arisen they have been the result of individual canvassers trying to cheat ACORN, not with the organization itself.

And let's be clear: there is no evidence whatsoever that an actual voting fraud problem exists. Just in regards to ACORN, the bogus registrations have largely been flagged and caught. Moreover, there simply is no evidence that people actually register to vote illegally on anything more than an infinitesimal scale.

And for nearly two weeks, ACORN offices across the nation have been subjected to an onslaught of racist and threatening voicemails and emails. We have secured copies of some of the most disturbing and offensive messages and have reproduced them below in order to show the very real consequences of the Right Wing’s overheated and misplaced “voter fraud” rhetoric.

“Hi, I was just calling to let you all know that Barack Obama needs to get hung. He's a fucking nigger, and he's a piece of shit. You guys are fraudulent, and you need to go to hell. All the niggers on oak trees. They're gonna get all hung honeys, they're gonna get assassinated, they're gonna get killed.”

And then we have this one:

"You liberal idiots. Dumb shits. Welfare bums. You guys just fucking come to our country, consume every natural resource there is, and make a lot of babies. That's all you guys do. And then suck up the welfare and expect everyone else to pay for your hospital bills for your kids. I just say let your kids die. That's the best move. Just let your children die. Forget about paying for hospital bills for them. I'm not gonna do it. You guys are lowlifes. And I hope you all die."

Actual violent actions are coming so be prepared. RWW's title says it all: Hate You Can Believe In.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

CA GOP Alienates Own Black Members With Racist Image











The latest newsletter by an Inland Republican women's group depicts Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama surrounded by a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken, prompting outrage in political circles.

The October newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps -- instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The statement is followed by an illustration of "Obama Bucks" -- a phony $10 bill featuring Obama's face on a donkey's body, labeled "United States Food Stamps."

This offensive image even alienated the African-American members of the Inland Republican Women's Group, and prompted outcries from other politicians, elected leaders, and other officials.

Sheila Raines, an African-American member of the club, was the first person to complain to Fedele about the newsletter. Raines, of San Bernardino, said she has worked hard to try to convince other minorities to join the Republican Party and now she feels betrayed.

"This is what keeps African-Americans from joining the Republican Party," she said. "I'm really hurt. I cried for 45 minutes."

And here's Diane Fedele's lame-ass excuse. Btw, she's the President of this organization:

"It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of his statement. I really don't want to go into it any further," Fedele said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended. That clearly wasn't my attempt."

She said she doesn't think in racist terms, pointing out she once supported Republican Alan Keyes, an African-American who previously ran for president.

"I didn't see it the way that it's being taken. I never connected," she said. "It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else."

She said she also wasn't trying to make a statement linking Obama and food stamps, although her introductory text to the illustration connects the two: "Obama talks about all those presidents that got their names on bills. If elected, what bill would he be on????? Food Stamps, what else!"

Tim Wise on Facism

Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and activists in the U.S., and has been called, "One of the most brilliant, articulate and courageous critics of white privilege .And by the way he is white ,this is his latest essay ,it's long but well worth reading .Some of his other essays can found on his site www.timwise.org


This is How Fascism Comes: Reflections on the Cost of Silence

For those who have seen the ugliness and heard the vitriol emanating from the mouths of persons attending McCain/Palin rallies this past week--what with their demands to kill Barack Obama, slurs that he is a terrorist and a traitor, and paranoid delusions about his crypto-Muslim designs on America--please know this: This is how fascism comes to an ostensible democracy.

If it comes--and if those whose poisonous, unhinged verbiage has been so ubiquitous this week have any say over it, it surely will--this is how it will happen: not with tanks and jackbooted storm troopers, but carried in the hearts of men and women dressed in comfortable shoes, with baseball caps, and What Would Jesus Do? wristbands. It will be heralded by up-dos, designer glasses, you-betcha folksiness and a disdain for big words or hard consonants.

If fascism comes, it will spring from the soil of middle America, from people known as values voters but whose values are toxic, from simple folk whose simplicity, far from being admirable, is better labeled ignorance, from "all-American" types whose patriotism is a dagger pointed at the very heart of the national interest, for it so forsakes all the best principles upon which the republic was founded, choosing instead to elevate and ratify the narrow-mindedness, the bigotry, and the intolerance that also marked our country's origins.

If fascism comes, it will be ushered in by tailgaters at the big football game, by Joe Six Pack, who, upon finishing his sixth beer and belching forth the stench of a mediocre life lived, will gladly announce its arrival, so long as it comes with a steady supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon and hot dogs on the grill, and giant foam hands with a "We're Number 1" finger, some Mardi Gras beads and a good titty bar.

If fascism comes it will dress like a hockey mom, or a NASCAR dad. It will believe Toby Keith to be an artist, Larry the Cable Guy to be a comic, and that the world was made in six literal days less than 6000 years ago.

If fascism comes it will come from the small towns; the ones Sarah Palin, quoting a famous racist and Jew-hater, said "grow good people," and which occasionally do, but which, just as often grow provincial, isolated, fearful and superstitious ones.

If fascism comes it will come from faux populism, from anti-immigrant hysteria, from persons who have more guns in their homes than books, or whose books, when they have them, are principally volumes of the Left Behind series, several different copies of the Bible, and a plethora of romance novels.

If fascism comes it will be welcomed, lock stock and barrel by persons who pray at every meal to a God they visualize as white, whose son they also think was white, and who they believe is going to rapture them all into the sky upon the blowing of some heavenly trumpet, after which point all those who don't think as they think will be burned in an eternal lake of fire. Their vision and version of God is itself fascistic--to love a God who would do such a thing is to love an abusive, sadistic and evil deity after all--so it should come as little surprise that their conception of the state would be equally authoritarian or worse.

If fascism comes it will be at the behest of those who hold a contempt for what they call "book learnin," who prefer Presidents who mispronounce basic words because they make them feel smarter, and who are looking for nothing so much as a commander-in-chief with whom they would enjoy having a beer, or two, or twelve at some backyard barbecue.

If fascism comes it will be interviewed, lovingly, on talk radio, by hosts whose cerebral inadequacies are more than made up for by their bellicosity, their bombast, their willingness to shout down those with whom they cannot argue, for argument requires knowledge, and this is a commodity with which they have not even a passing familiarity.

If fascism comes it will come wrapped in red,white and blue, carrying a crucifix and a shotgun, projecting its own sexual confusion and insecurity onto others, substituting volume for veracity and rage for reason, and landing on the New York Times best-seller list as a result.

If fascism comes it will have a pajama party at Ann Coulter's house, pop pills with Rush Limbaugh, and go gay-bashing with Michael Savage, all in the same weekend. And it will refuse to learn another language or get a passport, because doing either of those would make one cosmopolitan--which is just another word for "faggot."

If fascism comes it will come because a lot of people who aren't like the folks I'm talking about here, won't stand up to the ones who are. Because we're too busy, don't want to make waves, don't want to lose friends, or alienate family. It will come, in other words, because those who know better are cowards, more concerned with getting along, making nice, and being liked than with telling the truth, calling out evil and saving their country.

If fascism comes it will come because of the silence, and thus, collaboration of those who think themselves good, and certainly superior to the knuckle-draggers they can see on YouTube at the McCain rallies, but who in the end are no better and in some ways worse than they: after all, at least fascists stand up for what they believe in. They are telling us, in no uncertain terms what kind of United States they want and are willing to fight for, and maybe even to kill for. But many "progressives," many liberals, many of the so-called enlightened are doing nothing at all.

If fascism comes it will come because those liberals thought voting for Barack Obama was all they needed to do; it will come because they allowed themselves to believe that politics is what a person does every four years, but not at work, and not in the neighborhood, and not at the dinner table. Meanwhile, know-nothings filled with hate, nurtured on racial and religious bigotry and who have overdosed on the kind of hypernationalism that has always proved fatal to those places foolish or craven enough to allow it a foothold, talk of their visions for America at every opportunity. They raise their kids on that sickness, they build churches whose very foundation is rooted in that cancerous rot, and they will think nothing of steamrolling those who get in their way.

So when, exactly, do we fight back? When do we say enough? When do we stand up to our relative or friend who sends us the e-mail about Obama being a Manchurian Candidate or al-Qaeda sympathizer, or the one about the decency of Midwestern flood victims as opposed to those stranded after Katrina, or about how God was punishing New Orleans because of its tolerance of homosexuality, and tell them what we think: namely, that they are a bunch of racist, heterosexist loons, whose friendship or familial connection we neither want nor intend to pursue unless they get help. When do we decide that we love our country and humanity too much to allow these people one more day of decent sleep, one more day of self-assured confidence in their craziness and the willingness of the rest of us to just take it? When do we decide that every irrational, Jeezoid, racist thing that comes from their mouths will be attacked, will be rebutted, until they can no longer take for granted the ability to say any of it in mixed company without being called out?

Why, in the face of the fascism they would surely introduce if given the chance, are we intent on being so nice? Why are we not more offended? Offended not merely at what such persons say about others--like Obama, or Latino immigrants, or whatever--but even about we who look like them? After all, their open exhortations of racism presuppose that they are speaking for us, and that this kind of brain-dead ventilation is something to which all white folks should aspire as though it were virtually the essence of enlightenment.

If fascism comes it will come because we did not see in their actions a sufficient threat, or because we allowed ourselves to believe that it couldn't come, that our institutions were too strong, our people too good, for that to happen. If it comes it will come because we allowed ourselves to believe the rosy and optimistic version of America spun by Obama, without tempering that optimism with a clear-headed appraisal of the way that (sadly) a still huge number of Americans actually think: because we allowed the vehicle of our hopes to outrun the headlights of truth; because we convinced ourselves that we actually lived in the country of our aspirations, rather than the nation we have at present.

And if fascism doesn't come--if, rather, democracy does--it will come because good people said no. It will come because we saw in this moment the opportunity to demand the full measure of our humanity and to pour it forth upon the national soil. It will be because we understood that democracy isn't what you have, it's what you do. But if we are to issue that demand, if we are to stand straight and fulfill the potential we possess to do justice, we had best exercise the option quickly, for the opponents of justice are on the move. They are preparing to enter on the winds of our silence and indifference, and complacency. Let them find no quarter here.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The REAL truth about ACORN

It's worth taking a moment to step back from the slew of charges leveled over the last week at ACORN, the community-organizing group that Republicans and the McCain campaign have been trying to turn into a bogeyman for fears about vote fraud (and, of course, tie to Barack Obama).

The GOP has accused ACORN of submitting fraudulent voter registration forms numbering in the hundreds or thousands, in battleground states including Ohio, Indiana, Nevada, and Missouri.

But the most important point that's getting lost in the Fox-generated hysteria is that, according to voting experts, even when fraudulent voter registration forms are submitted, they virtually never lead to fraudulent votes being cast. Richard Hasen, a law professor at Loyola and an authority on voting law, wrote in a 2007 op-ed published last year in the Dallas Morning News and noted recently by TPM, that "the idea of massive polling-place fraud (through the use of inflated voter rolls) is inherently incredible," because of the sheer logistical challenges it would require to carry out on a large scale.

In many states, ACORN is required by law to turn in all the forms it collects, though the law differs from state to law, according to experts.

It's also worth noting that similar allegations were made against ACORN in the last few election cycles, and several investigations were conducted, none of which found evidence of widespread voter fraud. Many of these were conducted by US attorneys, who were pressured by GOP political figures to investigate the issue, then fired after they failed to come up with sufficient evidence.

So as the GOP campaign to make an issue out of ACORN continues -- and we'll be keeping you posted as it does -- remember that the number of fraudulent votes that will be cast in November as a result of the group's voter-registration activities is close to zero. But the number of valid voters who could potentially have obstacles placed in their way of voting, as a result of the Republican campaign, is far larger.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Is the McCain Campaign Hiring Vocal Audience Plants?

The man McCain hugged for "begging" him to attack Obama is a talk radio jock for AM radio

Did Senator John McCain hire the man he hugged in a town-hall campaign event in Waukesha, Wisconsin? It is certainly no more a stretch than the McCain tactic of bringing up William Ayers, Chicago Citizen of the Year recipient in 1997, who while working with the Chicago School Reform Collaborative between 1995 and 2000 made education funding recommendations to the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge that Senator Barack Obama chaired at the time.

Yes, that Annenberg. The late Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg, staunch Republican supporter, his wife is endorsing John McCain. McCain's latest fear and smear tactic of using Ayers as an excuse to paint Obama as some kind of domestic terrorist sympathizer will have to include all the rest of the nice people who were also involved, and the MSM has been compliant by not fully calling McCain out on it. Does everyone associated with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge realize that now, by association, John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the Republican "base" see them all as toxic?

The Awkward Hug

In Waukesha James T. Harris, an AM conservative radio host admonished McCain: "It is absolutely vital that you take it to Obama, that you hit him where it hurts, there's a soft spot."

After bringing up Reverend Wright, ACORN and some unspecified "shady characters", Harris got really dramatic and said "I am begging you, sir, I am begging you. Take it to him."

So who is James T. Harris? He's an AM radio talk show host on Saturday and Sunday afternoons for WTMG AM 620 in Milwaukee. But there is more to James T. Harris. He's outsource ready.

Harris runs a business called "IllumiNation". The Web page that describes how to engage Harris's services are indeed quite illuminating:

"Choose Your IllumiNation™ Program Now in Three Easy Steps!

1. Know the Desired Outcomes you want your audience to experience.
2. Define an ample time slot to allow us to introduce and unpack the program for those outcomes.
3. Pick a single program or combine multiple programs that fit the allotted time and desired outcomes."

I'm sure it is just a coincidence, and we have no evidence that John McCain's campaign would actually hire PR type people such as Harris to help move along the campaign, but if McCain ever needs someone from Wisconsin to stand up and ask a question the campaign would like to have asked, maybe as a precursor to the last debate of the general election season, James T. Harris looks like he can deliver. What was Armstrong Williams busy ?

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Angry voter threatens Registrar, says he needs to 'keep the nigger out of office'





A Monroe, Louisiana man is facing a felony terrorizing charge after a racially charged, profane exchange with his Registrar of Voters and police officers who would later arrest him.

75-year-old Wade Williams, arrested Wednesday morning, was angry that he hadn't yet received his voter registration card. According to the Ouachita Parish Sheriff's Office, Williams threatened a state official over the phone that he would "empty his shotgun," stating an urgent need to vote to "keep the nigger out of office." On the way to be booked at the Ouachita Correctional Center, Williams reportedly "continued his 'tirade' about niggers and also stated that he had a shotgun, but had hidden it at his residence."

The affidavit also states that Williams was informed over the phone that he would be able to vote simply by showing a form of identification at the polling place.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Republican Clears Obama On Ayers!

Uh-oh...Ayers won't work anymore (There goes the kitchen sink, I guess here comes the table)...Some republicans from Chicago are saying what most of us knew all along. Bill Ayers was a commonly acceptable figure in Chicago by everyone--Democrats, Independents, and even Republicans. Are they all America hating, terrorist loving traitors to America?!

In fact, this NPR piece speaks to the Republican funded cause that Obama and Ayers worked on together. And that:

"It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier," said former Illinois state Republican Rep. Diana Nelson, who worked with both Obama and Ayers over the years. "It's ridiculous. There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It's nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It's so silly."

Yesterday, in a rehash of the MSM acknowledged issues of the day, NPR did a short piece on Obama and Ayers. Fortunately for many, they made news.

First, Obama began working with Ayers and others (Republicans, Independents, and Democrats) at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Well, what is the Anneberg Challenge? Who is Annenberg? Well according to NPR,

The Obama campaign says he first met Ayers in 1995, when Obama became chair of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a $50 million fund that awarded grants to groups trying to implement new programs to improve inner city education in Chicago.

Walter Annenberg, a lifelong Republican and former ambassador who was appointed by Presidents Nixon and Reagan, funded an ambitious program to reform urban education in many cities in the mid 1990s. Ayers was an important member of the group that developed and wrote the grant proposal to the Annenberg Foundation.

Second, there were people of all political persuasions working on this effort with this "terrorist" Ayers and who saw him as acceptable and Obama was no closer than any of the others.

...no one on the board or on the Annenberg Challenge staff remembers Obama being any closer to Ayers than to any other member of the board. The Annenberg board also included several civic, business and education leaders, many of them Republicans...

In fact one person close to the issue states:

"I don't remember ever hearing anyone raise concerns or questions or concerns about [Ayers'] background," says Anne Hallett, who has worked closely with Ayers on the Annenberg Challenge grant and with Obama on education and other community and legislative matters. "And that included everybody I was engaged with," including prominent Republicans, and corporate and civic leaders in Chicago, Hallett adds.

Oh, really?!

So not only was Obama working on a Republican funded initiative, but prominent Republicans were involved on the board with Ayers. Do they all hate America so much that they are "palling" around with terrorist? He had been in their midst for years, why did not the republican's run him out of town.

Obama was new to Chicago. He hadn't been elected to anything. He really did even know where the bodies where truly buried in Chicago (evidenced by the thumping he received when he ran for the state senate). He just wanted to serve the community and do good work. However, Ayers had been there for years, building a reputation that was so mainstream that a life long Republican, who was a former Ambassador appointed by Nixon and Regan, allowed the release of $50 Million to let him, prominent Republicans, corporate, civic leaders, and a Harvard trained community organizer form a board to oversee the disbursement of these funds related to school reform.

And finally, the author notes:

Hallett calls this attack on Obama's association with Ayers and the Annenberg Challenge by further association, "a smear campaign. It's a political diatribe that has no basis in fact. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was an extremely positive initiative. It was well-vetted, thorough, and the fact that it is now is being used for political purposes is, in my opinion, outrageous."

And as noted earlier a former Illinois Republican state representative states:

"It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier," said former Illinois state Republican Rep. Diana Nelson, who worked with both Obama and Ayers over the years. "It's ridiculous. There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It's nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It's so silly."

Now, not only, can we fight this with an emotional and logical appeal of the unfairness of guilt by association, but also with factual appeal that no one including Obama (Democrats, Republicans, or Independents) who all love this country like Obama does, saw Ayers for his acts 20 plus years earlier, but as another person trying to do God's work to better the future of children from some of the toughest meanest areas of Chicago.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Florida teacher uses 'N' word against Obama

A Florida middle school teacher faced disciplinary action after using the word "nigger" to describe Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, WJHG's Kristy Wolski reported.

The 7th grade teacher, Greg Howard, asked his students what "change" stood for in relation to the Obama campaign and proceeded to write out the acronym "come help a nigger get elected."

The school suspended Howard without pay for 10 days and removed him from his position at the school.

"That shouldn't happen," said Billy Delahunt, an Obama supporter. "Because they're there to learn, they're not there to discriminate."

Jackson County's Deputy School Superintendent confirmed that the teacher used the racial slur in class and that such actions would not be tolerated.

But school officials said Howard has been transferred to Jackson County Adult Education Program, where he will continue to teach.

Howard has also been removed from his position as football coach and may face further action from the Florida Department of Education.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Does Palin think this is a Fucking Joke?

OK, let me amend that headline: Do Republicans and pundits think this is a Fucking Joke? We have well over 4000 US troops dead in a war that was waged on false pretenses...an economy in shambles...people losing their homes...unemployment rates out the roof....people dying because they cannot afford Healthcare...a current administration that has violated the US Constitution, exceeded their powers over and over again...and people are turning a blind eye to a "pitbull with lipstick"!! Come on!!

Giving shout outs to Third Graders... Not answering questions...Eye winking...Acting like a giggling 15 year old. I was absolutely FLOORED!!

No, I wasn't a fan of Sarah Palin before the VP Debate, but as a citizen of this country, I am absolutely pissed at her performance! This completely unprofessional, unpresidential performance was not only an embarrassment, but also a disgrace to every president and vice president who ever held that position! A disgrace to every woman who has fought for the right to be validated on an equal platform as men based on their skills, ideals, principles, and logic...NOT for how cute they can be!!

Today, the pundits are calling this a "Knockout" Performance (well considering how low the bar was set, that's not too hard). Joe Scarborough said: "People can now stop calling her an idiot". Really Joe? Is that with a "wink wink" and a great big "you betcha!" ?

These Republicans claim to "love" this country so much--but it's really their own party that they really love. Which clearly explains why they don't seem to care that Sarah Palin being Vice-President of the United States is as about as ridiculous as Pat Buchanan wining "dancing with the stars".

So when the 3am phone call rings, and there's been another Hurricane that's devastated an American city, what is she going to do, wink and smile pretty at the storm? click her heels three times and say "Go away bad storm!! I've only been at this for like 5 weeks!"

Just fucking ridiculous!