From the folks at FactCheck.org:
Q: Does First Lady Michelle Obama have an “unprecedented” number of staffers?
A: No.Q: Would a Canadian woman have died had she waited in Canada instead of traveling to the Mayo Clinci to be treated for “a life-threatening condition,” as she says in a health care ad?
A: No.Q: The Family Research Council says abortions will trump care for the elderly in public plan. Are they lying?
A: Yes.
“The Republican Old Guard are in the fix an atheist would be in if Jesus showed up and raised his mother from the dead: Their world view has just been shattered.”
That’s how Frank Schaeffer, Monday’s guest and author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back begins his latest piece posted at AlterNet. In it he explains why Dick Armey et. al. have sunk to the politics of the gutter and describes the recent healthcare town hall meeting disruptions as the result of a “Fascist formula:”
Here’s the emerging American version of the fascist’s formula: combine millions of dollars of lobbyists’ money with embittered troublemakers who have a small army of not terribly bright white angry people (collected over decades through pro-life mass mailing networks) at their beck and call, ever ready to believe any myth or lie circulated by the semi literate and completely and routinely misinformed right wing — Evangelical religious underground. Then put his little mob together with the insurance companies’ big bucks. That’s how it works — American Brown Shirts at the ready.
It’s “insurance industry funded fascism,” he says, and goes on to suggest what can be done:
“It’s time that this whole shabby (and insane) business be exposed, vilified in run out of town on a rail by whatever responsible Republicans — if any — that are still in the party and who want to see the fortunes of their party revived.”
While we wait until some (any?) Republicans are brave enough to break The Eleventh Commandment, you can watch Rachel Maddow do the exposin’, read more from the piece, and hear Schaeffer live on Liberadio(!) with Mary Mancini & Freddie O’Connell this Monday, August 10, from 7 to 9 am on WRVU 91.1 FM.
Over at a Kleinheider Joint I’m being compared to a “birther” (see: Lou Dobbs) because I don’t like the way in which no one from Secretary of State Tre Hargett to State Election Coordinator Mark Goins to any poll worker or machine manufacturer can offer evidence that any vote ever cast during any election using the 100% unverifiable electronic voting machines we use now in 93 out of 95 counties in Tennessee, has ever been recorded accurately, as per the voters’ intent.
In other words, our votes are being cast in secret, as they should be. But they are also, because of the secret software being used by the machines, being counted in secret – which so violates the most basic rule of a free and fair election.
The people who can’t admit we have a problem with elections in Tennessee are the same ones who invoke the author Jim Squires and his book, “Secrets of the Hopewell Box: Stolen Elections, Southern Politics, and a City’s Coming of Age,” to demonize the use of paper ballots.
“Elections using paper ballots can be stolen!” they say.
When we interviewed Squires on Monday, we asked him if he intended his book to be a cautionary tale against the use of paper ballots:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
[02:35]
“My feeling about that is, no matter what system you have there will be people trying to shortcut it and manipulate it and corrupt it. And…one seems to me about as vulnerable to corruption and manipulation as the other. Certainly in the electronic world can be impacted by shrewd computer wizards even more easily than my grandfather could stuff a box full of ballots and drive them around in the back of his car. So I would…as an old print guy who spent most of his life with newspapers and reading, I kind of like paper ballots better than I like electronic voting. But at the same time I want to be for a system that makes the ability to vote and to get your vote counted the most efficient and so you have pros and cons on both sides. Certainly the mobile voter registration and the more easily you can register to vote and vote is in the best interest in democracy and the system. So I don’t know if one system is better than the other…I think I’d like a system that has backup. Where you might do both things…”
Hrm…a system that has a backup…where you might do both things…where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, it’s the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act that was passed almost unanimously in 2008 by both the state House and Senate and would allow us to vote on paper ballots that would then get counted by a machine but that maintains the paper ballot as the ballot of record in case of necessary recounts and is now the law that Secretary of State Hargett refuses to implement.
I knew it sounded familiar.
Also relevant to the “paper ballot” v. “100% unverifiable electronic voting machine” discussion is what Squires writes happened at the Hopewell voting precinct during the election after the infamous ballot box “went missing” during the Democratic primary of 1945. During the general, “independent poll monitors” at the Hopewell precinct, “nearly outnumbered voters.”
The lesson we should take away from Squires’ book is not to refrain from using paper ballots. Instead, it’s to realize that when we do finally get paper ballots we still need to be vigilant about the independent monitoring of each and every election.
But if Secretary of State continues to refuse to follow the law and implement the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act and we still don’t have paper ballots during the next election, then you’ll have nothing to do as citizens except sit at home and hope that the margin of victory for your candidate is so large that it overcompensates for any errors made by the secret counting software installed on each machine.
Not the Tennessean Editor.
Please do not take this personally, Tennessean Letter to the Editor writer John Henderson, because no one is impugning your integrity as a poll worker or the decrying the unsung hard work you do every election day. But to say that the 100% unverifiable electronic voting machine system we use to vote on in 93 out of 95 counties could only be compromised by a “well-organized effort by the entire group of poll workers” is to give yourself as a designated poll worker too much power.
Think about it this way. You wrote in your letter that though the machines “are computer based, each machine produces a paper tape record for each election. This tape must be certified by the precinct officer and two other workers at the start of the voting day, and again at the end of the day.”
“Additionally,” you say, “the total votes cast must be reconciled against the total number of ‘Application to Vote’ forms received, one signed by each voter and verified by the registrar.”
All of that is true. But you neglected to mention how the votes are tallied inside the machine. And you probably did so because you, like the rest of us who do not have access to the secret software used to count the votes, have no idea how they are counted.
We don’t know if votes are being flipped. We don’t know if one candidate is automatically getting every third vote despite who it is actually being cast for.
Although we may know, because of the systems in place that you describe, that the number of votes cast match the number of people who came in to vote, we don’t know how each of those votes is being counted.
In other words, our votes are being cast in secret, as they should be, but they are also being counted in secret, which violates the most basic rule of a free and fair election.
I invite you, John Henderson, any other election worker or official, and State Election Coordinator Mark Goins, to offer evidence that any vote ever cast on any of the electronic voting machines we use now, during any election, has ever been recorded accurately, as per the voters’ intent.
The Rachel Maddow Show investigates RecessRally.com and the people behind the people disrupting the town hall meetings. What Maddow and her staff find is that they’re professional, Republican-staffed organizations and companies who are doing the bidding of their corporate healthcare overlords and who are very adept at using the American people.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
“These guys are the pros. This is an industry. Americans are showing up at these events to shout down the discussion and chase their Congressman and they are enraged. And they’re enraged at least in part because they’re being riled up by over-the-top fabricated conspiracy theories about healthcare. And they’re being directed and orchestrated by corporate interests that do this for a living and do it very well.
Recessrally.com is not some organic outgrowth of American anger. This is how corporate America creates the illusion of a grassroots movement to support their own interests. This is what they do. They are professionals. This is an industry. To talk about these town hall events as some organic outpouring of average American folks who have concerns about healthcare is to be willfully blind to what is really going on which is, professional PR operatives generating exploitative manufactured strategically deployed outrage in order to line their own pockets.
These PR spinmeisters get paid a lot of money for doing it. The corporations they work for get to kill legislation that would hurt their profits. And the real people who they launch into these town hall settings after they’ve been told that healthcare reform is a secret Commie plot to kill old people and to mandate sex changes? Those real people get more and more and more and more angry and more and more and more alienated. And ultimately they get left like the rest of us with a healthcare system that is broken and doesn’t work in the interest of the American people and that does work in the interestes of the corporations who profit from the way the system is now.
This is professional, corporate-funded, Republican-staffed PR…and it should be reported as such.”
Would you like fries with that manipulation?
I just heard a story on NPR about a spontaneous protest twenty years ago by some older Americans trying to get their Congressman to listen to them. He wouldn’t give them any time so they waited outside his office and, trying to be heard, they yelled at him and followed him out to his car.
Now, Americans have an opportunity to be heard about about healthcare – you know, the real concerns most of us have about meaningful reform with a public option – and instead of allowing these concerns to be heard, they are being thwarted by other Americans who have been armed with lies and misinformation and who, because of their bad behavior, won’t allow a real healthcare discussion to take place.
What about the other Americans who are attending these town halls hoping to learn something or get a question answered? Is it a coincidence that along with their elected official, they aren’t being heard either? Uh, no. When recent polls show that over 70% of the American people want healthcare reform, not allowing them to be heard is part of the plan.
A FOL* and a Spring Hill resident sent us this story about his Mayor:
A state law enabling citizens, which are authorized to carry handguns, to bring guns to city or county parks will take effect September 1 unless municipalities vote to opt out and ban guns from their city parks.
Thompson’s Station’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen [BOMA] will discuss the law passed by the state of Tennessee’s General Assembly during the August 11 meeting.
Spring Hill City Mayor Michael Dinwiddie said this item will be on the agenda this month for discussion.
“I’m a supporter of gun rights,†Dinwiddie said. “I believe we have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms. If it comes to a vote, I’m going to vote not to opt out.â€
However, Spring Hill’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board voted in July to make a recommendation to the BOMA to opt out.
So on August 11 when BOMA convenes to discuss the new law, Mayor Dinwiddie will stand up to the people who might know a thing or two about what’s best for the parks and recreation areas of Spring Hill and Thompson’s Station. C’mon people, all we’re asking for is a little common sense. Guns and alcohol and guns and little league games do not mix. So give us our bars and our parks. You can carry everywhere else, we promise!
*Friend of Liberadio(!)
UPDATED & CORRECTED: The official calendar on the City of Spring Hill website shows the work session on August the 10th, and the regular meeting the following week on the 17th.
Summary: Our guests include filmmaker, writer and activist Molly Secours, author and Thoroughbred Horse breeder Jim Squires, and Media Matters for America research fellow, Elbert Ventura.
Part 1 – High-Assin’ Values Conservatives News tidbits, to do list, the manipulation of the healthcare debate, and a Republican sex scandal right here in Tennessee! Plus, a note to our newspaper peeps like Andy Scher of the Chattanooga Times Free Press: you can stop referring to Republican legislators as “family-values conservatives” now. We all believe in family values until, you know, we don’t. [40.94MB download mp3]
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Part 2- Interview with Molly Secours Molly Secours is a writer, speaker, and filmmaker based in Nashville. In 2007, her world changed when she was diagnosed with cancer. She had healthcare but she still found herself in quite a pickle. She joins us to talk about her experience, which recently led to her story being shared in a press conference with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. [48.34MB download mp3]
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Part 3 – Interview with Jim Squires Jim is a Nashville native who graduated from Peabody College in 1966, started his journalism career at the Tennessean and went on the become editor of the Chicago Tribune, the media advisor to 1992 presidential candidate, Ross Perot, an author, and a Thoroughbred Horse breeder. His 1996 book “Secrets of the Hopewell Box: Stolen Elections, Southern Politics, and a City’s Coming of Age” is a must-read for anyone learning about Tennessee politics. Also for anyone who wants to weigh in on the paper ballot debate. You won’t believe which side he’s on! His latest book, “Headless Horsemen: A Tale of Chemical Colts, Subprime Sales Agents, and the Last Kentucky Derby on Steroids,” is now on sale.[45MB download mp3]
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Part 4- The Media Matters for America Smackdown and The Remo Report.Media Matters research fellow Elbert Ventura discusses Lou Dobbs’s crusade to legitimize the birthers and surprises us all with news about Ann Coulter: “”You know it’s bad when Ann Coulter backs away from the birthers.” And Mary’s dad, Remo, calls in from his home in Nevada to give us an update on Senator John Ensign. He’s still in office and telling the press what they can and can’t write! [23.76MB download mp3]
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Election Integrity activist Bernie Ellis, on his way to a meeting with Senator Beverly Marrero, was detained today by the Tennessee State Troopers, who act as security for the Capitol complex.
After a brief discussion in which they told him that he could only go straight to and from Senator Marrero’s office, they finally let him in.
According to Cory Bradfield in Marrero’s office who followed up with the on-duty Sargent, it was all a misunderstanding. They apparently were working off an “old email” they had received from Mr. Hargett and Bernie is actually free to roam about the Capitol.
Secretary of State Hargett had previously sent the State Troopers to Bernie’s farm to investigate what he believed to be a “terrorist threat” against government officials. After some iced tea and blueberries, the Troopers determined that Bernie was not a threat and left his farm without incident.
What’s missing from this statement from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid following this afternoon’s Senate Democratic Caucus meeting with President Obama to discuss health insurance reform?
For Immediate Release
Date: Tuesday, August 4, 2009CONTACT: Jim Manley, (202) 224-2939
_EID STATEMENT FOLLOWING WHITE HOUSE MEETING TO DISC_SS HEALTH INS_ _ANCE _EFO_M Washington, DC – Senate Majo_ity Leade_ Ha_ _y _eid _eleased the following statement this afte_noon following the Senate Democ_atic Ca_c_s meeting with P_esident Obama to disc_ss health ins_ _ance _efo_m:
“We had a p_od_ctive meeting this afte_noon and g_eatly app_eciate the P_esident’s time and g_acio_sness. Both the P_esident and the Senate have said f_om the sta_t that we a_e committed to getting health ins_ _ance _efo_m done this yea_ and we will.
“We sha_e the same goals as the P_esident in achieving _efo_m in a bipa_tisan manne_ and we hope o_ _ _ep_blican colleag_es want to wo_k togethe_. This debate ove_ health ins_ _ance _efo_m is too impo_tant to be ove_taken by those who want to mislead, mis_ep_esent the t_ _th and sp_ead misinfo_mation all fo_ the sake of standing in the way of _efo_m.
“We a_e close_ to _eal health ins_ _ance _efo_m than eve_ befo_e and while it’s easy to foc_s on the a_eas whe_e we still need to find ag_eement, it’s impo_tant to be mindf_l of the common g_o_nd al_eady sha_ed by all pa_ties involved.
“Democ_ats stand _nited with hospitals, doctors, nurses and businesses – we all _ecognize the g_avity of this moment and the significance of this effo_t. We _emain committed to achieving _efo_m.
What’s missing? U R.
“Democrats stand united with hospitals, doctors, nurses and businesses…?” Come on, Senator Reid. Couldn’t you even give one mention of the people – your constituents – who are clamoring for healthcare reform and who need it the most? Really?
We had the discussion on how to redefine the debate for success…for what’s best for the people…yesterday.
Don’t ignore the ethical and moral argument for healthcare reform, Senator, and please, for God’s sake, bring the people into the discussion.
Are you ready for some failure?
The Huffington Post’s Thomas B. Edsall writes today that the modern GOP is returning to a “Southern” or “white-voter” strategy because “none of their positions is likely to produce gains among non-white minorities, especially Hispanics.”
And to some extent, he says, it’s working:
The party’s opposition to President Obama’s agenda — particularly his cap-and-trade energy proposal and health care reform plan — is resonating strongly with disaffected white Democratic voters. Republican grievances about Obama, combined with race-baiting commentary from the far-right ideologues who have become some of the most dominant voices of the modern GOP, have led to a precipitous drop in the president’s approval ratings among whites.
Although I disagree that the GOP’s opposition to President Obama’s cap-and-trade energy proposal and health care reform plan is “resonating” with “disaffected white Democratic voters,” I do agree that their latest “white-only” voters strategy did backfire in 2006 and 2008 and will fail again in 2010 because of, as Edsall puts it, “the ever-growing importance of the minority electorate.”
But won’t a new Southern Strategy also – and more importantly – fail in 2010 because we live in a very different United States than we did 40 years ago?
40 years ago, painting African-Americans as inferior, dangerous, and to be feared caused violent reactions to the work they were doing to advance civil rights. Now, however, most of us realize that this kind of blanket and blind fear is unnecessary. And although deep strains of racism and institutional discrimination still exist in the United States, any attempt to whip up mindless fear against African-Americans on a mass scale will fail. And even now when Latinos are being used in their stead, haven’t the majority of us learned enough through the civil-rights experiences of the last 5 decades that we no longer have the kind of knee-jerk, fearful reaction?
That said, it does seem as if exploiting the fear of an “immigrant-horde invasion” has been put temporarily on hold to make room for portraying our first African-American president as “The Other.” And it’s evident by the terms used now to describe him – “Muslim,” “non-citizen,” – that using terms normally associated with the demonization and dehumanization of African-Americans will no longer work (which is probably how he got elected in the first place).
So yeah, the new Southern Strategy might now be temporarily successful with 10 or 15% of the white populace who either still hate black people and/or are afraid of Muslims. But 40+ years of learning from history history, a generation coming of age in a country in which “bi-racial” is the fastest growing racial category, a fast-approaching economic recovery, and an Obama first term in which we will all be better off in 2012 than we were in 2008, should deal the final blow to any “white voter” strategy the GOP hopes to exploit.
In the meantime, we’ll all have to suffer through them trying to make it work.
Recent Comments