Category Archives: Campaigning

September 21, 2012 · 0:00

It’s Spreading!

Just the other day, I told you about the epidemic of folks waking up dead in Texas.  But it’s spreading.  Yes, last night I learned that it is also happening in North Carolina.  A swing state where President Obama won by 14,177 votes.

Rachel Maddow told me just last night that a group of folks had sent the NC Elections Board a list of 30,000 voters in NC (of 6 million voters) who the group claims are dead.

Yes, a group called “The Voter Integrity Project,” a group that is following in the footsteps of the folks in Texas who started this epidemic, “True the Vote”  found its way to North Carolina.  You will, of course, find it shocking that these groups are affiliated with the Tea Party.

And according to Rachel Maddow, this is also happening in Ohio. where the group claims that over 700,000 should be stripped off the voting lists because those folks are dead.  The group is also playing this game in California, Illinois and Arizona.

Here is the link (sorry I cannot figure out how to embed an MSNBC video) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#49112935

Now back to North Carolina.  This list forced the Election Board, using due diligence, to use up manpower to check into this claim.  Before the election.  They have revealed 0 dead people on the list of 30,000 provided by The Voter Integrity Project.

They are doing it in part to strike it lucky, and in part to use up valuable Election Board resources that might be better used.

But I have a theory.  And this combines two of my faux talents — lawyer and medical person.

You see, in 2004 I volunteered to help with voter fraud allegations at the polls here in Virginia.  To help folks who call up and say they were prevented from voting, or they were intimidated or told that the election is next Tuesday for Democrats not today.  Things like that.  And boy oh boy did I get an earful.

But by far, the most impressive maneuver of the Virginia GOP was to outlaw the color yellow.  Yes, it’s true.  I actually saw the legislative language.  No fliers printed on yellow paper may be given out at polling stations in the state of Virginia.

Now you say, “Elyse, Why does this matter?”  And I’ll tell you.

In Spanish-speaking communities, it has been traditional for the Democrats to print illustrations of the straight Democratic Ticket on yellow paper.  Spanish speakers came to depend on them.  They also came to vote overwhelmingly for those Democratic tickets.  So the Republicans outlawed yellow fliers at polling stations.   [Fortunately, the Dems were smarter.  They got a law passed specifically permitting fliers printed on Goldenrod-colored paper.

And in 2006 when I was at my polling station handing out fliers, well, we’d all forgotten.  But about 15 minutes after the polls opened, all of our fliers were taken away because they were printed on plain old yellow.

My theory?  These folks on these Tea Party lists all suffer from Yellow Fever.

*     *     *

The GOP can’t win because of its ideas or its candidates.  But they can — AND WILL — cheat.

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September 18, 2012 · 0:00

So There!

The memory is still sharp.  Clear.  Painful.

I don’t think my brother Fred ever hurt my feelings as much as he did when he laughed at me that day.  When, as a 4- or 5-year old I shouted at him:

“You’ll be sorry when I wake up DEAD.”

Instead of being cowed, well, Fred laughed at me.  I was devastated.  Confused.  I didn’t understand what was so funny.  Later he explained it to me:

“Lease,” he said patiently, “You can’t ‘wake up dead’!”

“Why not?”

“Because if you’re dead, Lease, you don’t wake up.  You can’t.  Cause you’re DEAD.”

“Oh.”

It was the first time I understood that I had done something incredibly stupid.  I learned my lesson, though.  Never again did I threaten anyone with the possibility that I’d wake up dead.

So imagine my surprise when I read about high school nurse Terry Collins in this article.  I learned that I wasn’t so dumb back then after all.

You see, Ms. Collins woke up dead one day.  Yeah, it’s true!  She got a letter saying that she was taken off the voter registration list because she is dead.  She was quite surprised because, well, she felt just fine!  Coincidentally, her 80-year old father was equally surprised when he got a similar letter.  He had woken up dead, too!  Even more coincidentally, they are both African-Americans registered to vote in Texas!  Or they were until they woke up dead in a state where the Governor is a Republican and the legislature is run by the GOP.

Apparently, there is an epidemic in Texas. An epidemic of waking up dead!  And the number of folks who are caught up in this, umm, problem?  According to NPR, there are about 80,000 Texas voters who woke up one day and found out via the US mail that they were dead.  Most are African American or Hispanic.  Imagine that, they were members of minorities who tend to favor Democrats, and they woke up dead.

I’m calling Fred.  He’ll be so sorry he made fun of me.

*     *     *

The creativity of the folks who try to keep others from voting is quite impressive.  If only they used it to govern, the U.S. might be in much better shape today.

Here is a link for online voter registration

 

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September 17, 2012 · 0:00

Sins of the Father

My head is exploding and there is no visible evidence.  Nope.  Not a bit of gray matter on the walls.  Shouldn’t there be serious cleanup involved here?

What could cause this explosion?  This combustion?  This sharing of gray matter with my surroundings?

You might think that it is this video of Mitt Romney insulting about half of the country (47 bloomin’ percent!), by saying that

  • they are “dependent” upon the government — it doesn’t matter that they have been paying into Social Security and Medicare for DECADES!
  • they are essentially lazy folks, unwilling to work for a living, and
  • if you’re not wealthy, well, who the hell cares about you ’cause you’re not gonna vote for Mitt anyway.

Well, certainly Mitt Romney doesn’t care about them.

Now normally, this video would get me pretty damn riled up.

But, of course, there’s more.  Yes, it gets better.

You know how Mitt is always preaching about how he made it on his own?  How he and Ann struggled, eating tuna and pasta.  I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago.  Yeah, it is so very difficult to just live off the interest and dividends from your stock portfolio, Mitt.

But did you know about George Romney?  Mitt’s Daddy?  The guy who gave Mitt and Ann the stock that eased Mitt and Ann’s struggle?  He wasn’t always the successful businessman he became later.  He wasn’t born the CEO of American Motors.  Nope.  He wasn’t always rich and well connected.  Really!  Who would have thunk it!

Still, George Romney was by all accounts 10,000 times the man his son is.  He was an important member of the Moderate/Liberal Republicans that made up that impressive generation of politicians.

And do you want to know a secret?  One that you won’t hear Mitt talkin’ about?

George Romney was on Welfare!

Yup!  It’s true.  When he was young he was a refugee from Mexico (where he was born and automatically became an American Citizen because his parents were American Citizens — but I digress.) And when he was a child, a refugee who fled back to the U.S. with his family, well, the United States Government helped him survive.

Here’s a clip of his wife saying what a good governor her husband George would be.  And you know what?  She was right by all accounts.  He was a good man, a good governor, and would likely have made a good president.

One of the reasons he was such a good governor is that he had compassion all people.  For the poor and downtrodden.  Why?  Well, partly because he was once poor.  George Romney was once on welfare.  And he understood that being poor doesn’t mean that you are lazy.  That being poor doesn’t mean that you want a hand OUT but might just need a hand UP.  And that’s what George Romney got from the United States Government.

So some questions for U.S. voters:

  • Do you really want to elect a man President of the United States who courts the elite by denigrating the rest of us?
  • Do you really want to elect a man President of the United States who pretends his father’s past didn’t happen?
  • Do you really want to elect a man President of the United States who would have let his own father fail?
  • Do you think these folks whom Mitt Romney has just identified and insulted will continue to cling to their guns and their religion?
  • Do you really want to elect such an asshole President of the United States?

I can hear you shouting “NO!” from here.

 

*     *     *

Many thanks to my friend Lisa of Big Sheep Blog for telling me about this video.  I was actually working …

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September 16, 2012 · 0:00

Something to Brag About?

If you’re sick, do you try to choose the smartest doctor or the dumbest?

When you want an accountant, do you want to feel confidence in the ability of that man/woman to add, subtract, multiply and divide?  Use excel formulas?

When you need legal assistance, do you want a wise man/woman or a dope?

These are not trick questions.

I’ve always asked myself similar questions about the people who want to run my country.  I want the smartest people in office, from Town Selectman to President.  Naturally, that means I’m a Democrat.

But you know, I always sort of figured that Republicans at least thought (mistakenly) that theirs were the smart candidates.

Ummm, not so much.  At least, not according to one of the GOP’s shining stars, Rick Santorum.  You know, Rick “Don’t Google Me” Santorum, the former Senator from Pennsylvania (who lost by 18 percent!) who was also a former GOP candidate for President just this year.

Listen up to Ricky speaking just the other day to the Values Voter Summit here in DC:

We will never have the media on our side, ever, in this country. We will never have the elite, smart people on our side.

Well, Duh!!!!!  You got that right, Ricky.  But is it something to be proud of?

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September 11, 2012 · 0:00

The View

Today at lunch, I am sitting in my office having my salad, looking out the window and reading the newspaper.  It is September 11, 2012.  Eleven years after.

My office overlooks the Capitol, the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials.  The Washington Monument.  The Pentagon.

From here, I can just barely see the flag that was unfurled this morning on the side of the Pentagon that was struck that morning.  Another Tuesday.  Another beautiful, blue sky day.  Folks who still work in my office were here that day, I was not.  Of course they still remember.  (We all do.) They heard and felt the impact; nobody saw it hit, as everybody except me keeps their blinds down because the office gets the hot morning sun.

I have long felt that George W. Bush let us down.  That the attack shouldn’t have happened.  That it should have been foiled.

Remember this?:

On Aug. 6, 2001, President George W. Bush received a classified review of the threats posed by Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, Al Qaeda. That morning’s “presidential daily brief” — the top-secret document prepared by America’s intelligence agencies — featured the now-infamous heading: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” A few weeks later, on 9/11, Al Qaeda accomplished that goal.

Might they have prevented the attack?  We will never know.

Well, in today’s NY Times, there is more evidence that the Bush Administration had more than the one presidential daily brief.  There were numerous reports, meetings and presidential daily briefings:  ON May 1, on June 22, on June 29, on July 9, on July 24.  These are the ones the reporter, Kurt Eichenwald, saw excerpts from.

But, and there’s always a but, isn’t there.

But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat.  Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day.  [Emphasis is mine.]

The link to the full article is here.

These neocons who got everything so disastrously wrong are the same folks that are working with Romney/Ryan on Foreign Policy.  This time they want us to go after Iran and Syria.

Elections matter.

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