Damn.: ACORN Finally Cracks For Good

I can hardly even enjoy the signing ceremony for the health care reform bill and the little boy wearing the tie that matches Obamas's tie. Now, Stephanie Menciner thinks once people actually experience the bill's provisions and Grandma doesn't die, the tea parties just might. (Well . . . Grandma probably will die, but it won't be by the hand of some government bureaucrats.) But not even that makes me feel better. The tea pots just rallied around hate and fear and failed conservative policies. ACORN actually helped people.

ACORN Finally Cracks For Good
A right wing target falls for good; "community organizing" is forever marked as un-American.
By Adam Weinstein | Mon Mar. 22, 2010 3:35 PM PDT

Congratulations, Andrew Breitbart and James O'Keefe. You killed ACORN. Who's next? The Salvation Army?

All Natural: ACORN and Woods

Kinda tired so I'll make this quick.

I want to remind you of just two things: ACORN isn't under investigation from anyone, hasn't been convicted or indicted of anything; the Congress was a bit premature and hypocritical to look to end all federal funding to ACORN after well more than just "billions" has been defrauded by several war contractors with which the DoD is still doing business.

So the internal audit was completely voluntary, however necessary for PR. The Washington Post uses an article by the AP to inform readers of the findings of ACORN's internal review: none of ACORN's employees committed any crimes. What they leave out is that several of the videos that started the scandal were edited and left out exculpatory evidence. In San Diego, one employee called his cousin, a police officer, and warned him about possible human trafficking. Employees in Philly also alerted the police.

The people who produced the video, of course, are decry the finding. They say that it's only reasonable that the group paid by ACORN to do the internal review would have a good finding. Though, how else is an internal review done, right? Either from in-group or out-group, but always pay for by the group.

That said, what makes this worse is that the media did none of the basic journalistic investigations that would've uncovered a great deal of what the report found. But instead, they acted make a gossip chain, just repeating what they heard from someone else. And while Rachel Maddow at least highlighted the hypocrisy of the whole thing, at the end of the day, not even MSNBC did much more than discuss the news reporting as though it were news reporting.

And I'm so, so tired of the brouhaha over Tiger Woods. I find it awfully suspect that with adulterers in Congress, even Bill Clinton, and the anti-ED commercial shown during golf - all of a sudden the nation is appalled by the man-hoe. And for a racial angle thanks to Karith Foster (Booooo!! apparently), here's one very good article and here's another.

Obama at the CBC Dinner

Courtesy of Prometheus6.org.

I really like this speech. It's rare that I agree with every word that proceeds from Barack Obama's mouth. Even during his speech to the NAACP. Didn't like everything I heard. But this is one time where I have to cheer and concur every word he says.

Now, let me say to any white person who happens across my blog. All African Americans want is equality. All we want is justice. That helps everybody. That helps all of us. And it's time that you stop letting those like the ones who've plunged us into this financial crisis take advantage of your racial "resentment" to keep you down, too.

Must Read: Mississippi's Ballot Trick

Be sure to read this. This is about voters' and democracy. And no one's questioning the intelligence of Mississippi's voter, we're questioning the legality of Mississippi's governmor and secretary of state.

I 'clare, if it weren't for the date of the editorial, I think it's 1968. ~ No1KState
September 11, 2008

Editorial

Mississippi’s Ballot Trick

Mississippi’s governor, Haley Barbour, and its secretary of state have come up with a particularly cynical dirty trick for the November election. Let’s call it: “Where’s the Senate race?”

Defying state law, they have decided to hide a hard-fought race for the United States Senate at the bottom of the ballot, where they clearly are hoping some voters will overlook it. Their proposed design is not only illegal. It shows a deep contempt for Mississippi’s voters.

Republicans have long had a lock on the state’s two Senate seats. But this year, former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, a Democrat, has been running close to Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican, in the polls. Mr. Wicker was appointed to the seat by Governor Barbour in late December after Trent Lott stepped down.

Mississippi election law clearly states that federal elections must go at the top of ballots. And the secretary of state, Delbert Hosemann, plans to list the state’s other Senate race — incumbent Thad Cochran is running far ahead of his Democratic challenger, Erik Fleming — where it belongs, right below the presidential contest.

But Mr. Hosemann argues that because the Wicker-Musgrove race is a special election to fill the remainder of Mr. Lott’s term, he is free to place it at the bottom, below state and county races.

Mr. Hosemann is insisting on that placement even after the state attorney general’s office notified him that his ballot design violates state law.

Mr. Hosemann’s ballot also violates the Voting Rights Act, which requires that changes in election procedures that could make it harder for people to vote — and this certainly fits that bill — be cleared in advance with the Justice Department.

This is not a dispute over aesthetics. Mr. Hosemann’s decision could easily change the outcome of the Wicker-Musgrove election.

Some voters, including the elderly, the least educated and first-time voters, have more trouble than others navigating complicated ballots. Many of these voters are more likely to vote for Democrats than Republicans. And, yes, Governor Barbour and Mr. Hosemann are both Republicans.

A local election official is suing to put the Wicker-Musgrove race back where it belongs. The state court judge who is hearing the case on Thursday should order that the Senate race be placed at the top of the ballot. Even if she does the right thing, we fear, that will not end the matter.

The case is likely to wind up, on appeal, in Mississippi’s Supreme Court. Voting rights advocates are worried that the Republican-leaning court will decide the case on partisan lines, rather than on the law.

If the state courts do not provide relief, supporters of fair elections should take the case to federal court. They will need to move quickly since time to prepare ballots is fast running out. Mississippi’s voters have a right to a ballot that conforms with the law — and that is not designed to win a Senate seat by trickery.

Remember How the Republicans Used the Term "Community Organizer" . . .

. . . with such comtempt? According to Prometheus6, here's why:

Neo-Confederate Vocabulary

The Party of the Neo-Confederates has been tossing about the term "community organizer" with disdain. Some of y'all, especially those community organizers among you, have noted the absurdity of hating on people whose job it is to help people.

Ah, but that because you've been fooled again by the fact that Neo-Confederate English uses the same sounds as Standard English while assigning them wholly different meanings. It's like the phonic version of written Chinese.

In this case, what you think means "someone whose job it is to help people" means, to them, "outside agitator."

I'm Tired

No, really. I'm tired. With the CFS, that's not unusual.

But I'm tired of politics right now. The Republicans are only lying and deceiving the American people. They're making false claims of sexism and elitism and "raising taxes on everybody." And I can't take it anymore!

The Democrats are hit back a little harder than normal, but between the early morning news and the primetime news, nothing's changed.

And I'm tired. I'm tired of all these problems we're deal with in America that people don't realize has to do with the way the vote. I mean seriously, blaming the problems of the last 8 years on a Congress that's only had 2 years of Democratic control? And the Democrats seem not to have the balls, neither inside or out, to call out Republicans for the obstructionism the way the Republicans called them out every chance they got.

We're dealing with a military-industrial complex (MIC) and a prison-industrial complex (PIC). We spend more money on incarcerating people than educating people. Is it any wonder we're in the shape we're in now? And with the military-industrial complex, is it any surprise everytime you blink, another neo-conservative wants to go to war.

Some tell me honestly, how are our neo-cons any different from the "Islamofascists" they claim pose such a great threat. Hmmm. Someone explain something to me. Seeing as how there are close to if not more than 1billion Muslim in the world, why are we spending so much more trying to fight the relatively few who would do us harm. And they don't hate us for our freedom. They hate us because we're the bully of the world. That's all we do: bully countries, not into being democratic, but into opening their markets to us. Then we our GDP grows, their GDP slumps, and of course there'll be some evil mad man who's will to sell or give away guns to help the angry dispossessed do what they feel is necessary to be heard over the sounds of "ching, ching!"

Check it out. We really don't care about spreading democracy around the world. We've allowed ruthless and bloodthirsty dictators to maintain power so long as they otherwise gave us access to their oil or whatever else they have that we want.

And I'm tired of it. I'm tired of a media consolidated and owned by the very corporations who need the MIC to protect them, not us. Regular Americans aren't in danger. It's the multi-nationals and the governments that protect them that the "terrorists" are upset about.

And the American electorate is too dumb to realize what's going on. BushCo wants every child left behind some when that child grows up, s/he'll be so worried about the mortgage and/or health bills that s/he'll have no choice but to accept what the plutocracy - cause let's be honest, that's really the government we have - tell them. And even if they had time to question, these people who see everything in black and white and think the question of when life begins is clear cut either don't have or aren't using the intellectual capacity to question the world around them. Instead, they snub the ones who speak out as being "anti-American" or "blame America first." People like the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright.

And this whole argument that Sarah Palin is better qualified to be president than Barack Obama because she's had "executive experience" and all he's done is "community organizing," is crap. If my health were any better, I'd be community organizing right now. Community organizing is precisely what Republicans claim to be about: initiative, self-help, personal responsibility. In fact, just as soon as I figure out here, I'm going to head up some community organizing by way of conference phone calling. Watch me do it! And besides, I was the leader of my student Christian organization in college, president of the young adults of my church's Baptist association for 4 years. Does that qualify me to be president? And I had to get things done with no budget! What d'ya think about that Republicans?

And so help me Lord, if those lily white Republicans are using community organizing as some kind of code for "he's really, really black" because community organizing is something you usually associate with social activist groups; or if they're using community organizing for code "organizing=black community=he did do crack, so maybe he used to be and still is a crack dealer," I . . . I don't know what I'll do. I have to be careful about my health. But you can best believe it won't be good.

So to finish this off, don't be surprised if I don't blog for a while, or blog about things in my personal life. I would blog about something now, but just in case the person involved reads this, I don't want this person to know I'm still thinking about our previous conversation. But I swear, this person is so unvain, I could write their name and they still wouldn't know it was about them. It's one of the qualities I love best about this person.

But anyway, but for now and perhaps, for a while. I'm tired.

And I'm tired. So unless something especially egregious happens, or I do extraordinarily well in my fantasy football leagues, I'm taking a break.