Damansarajaya
Damansarajaya's JournalMidterm Elections May Have Had Record Low Turnout
http://www.npr.org/2014/11/05/361820838/midterm-elections-may-have-had-record-low-turnout". . . as of today, according to numbers from the Associated Press, a bit over 83 million people voted. As a share of the voting-eligible population, that is 36.6 percent. It was a lot higher than that in Colorado and New Hampshire where there were very hard-fought Senate races.
"But if after all the votes are counted, if the national turnout rate doesn't reach 38.1 percent, it would be the lowest turnout since the midterm elections of 1942. And as Michael McDonald points out, that was in the middle of the Second World War."
*****
This after the voters' rights act was eviscerated and "stopping (non-existent) voter fraud" became a huge RepubliCon political goal.
Yup, nothing to see here . . .
In response to MineralMan's challenge, "what are you doing to elect Democrats?"
Yesterday was my first day canvassing the neighborhood for "apathetic" voters. These are registered D voters who usually skip the mid-term election.
We volunteers were tasked by the local county party to ask these voters to vote by mail.
Voting by mail does a number of great things for electing Dems:
1. It about DOUBLES the participation for people who vote by advanced ballot. No lines or car problems to worry about.
2. It allows the local party to see who has voted and who has not so that efforts to get out the vote (GOTV) are not wasted on people who have already voted.
3. It blunts the effect of last minute attack ads--too late for the opposition to refute--that the hateful Cons always run on the eve of elections, because advance voters have already sent in their ballots.
4. It is a paper ballot that can be easily recounted if necessary.
5. Those who vote in advance are then freed up to work in other capacities on election day--poll watching, driving voters to polls, phone banking, etc.
So far, every single person I've spoken to wants an advance ballot.
Okay, that my story. Now let's hear yours.
Lewis Black lectures the National Press Club, April 2014
"I am a socialist, and that's about as powerless a position as you can be in in the United States . . . to call Obama a socialist, you have to be out of your God-damned mind. There are seven socialists left in the country, and if you REALLY wanna see the leadership of the socialist party, you can go to a cemetery and find them."
Gets a bit of a tepid response describing what REALLY wrong with this country--"nobody wants to pay for anything in this country any more . . . I had that (good) education that nobody wants to pay for anymore."
"If you want to go to war, you should at least have to raise a tax. That might actually cause people to think twice about going to war. . . . Apparently, no interest here." (ouch!)
A funny, funny political satirist you probably haven't heard of "Ask a Republican"
"Why do you Republicans care more fetuses than babies born afterwards?"
"Well, when a life-form is a fetus, we don't know if it's gay yet. . . . That's what great about America, there's so many opportunities, especially if you're white and living in a gated community."
Remember when the Florida RepubliCons told democracy to drop dead?
I had almost forgotten about this little tidbit until I stumbled across it today.
It's particularly rich given all the CONcern about Pres. Obama's "executive actions."
*****
RE: the legal battle to have Florida votes recounted as mandated by its own state law in the 2000 election of Bush v Gore, December 2000
"House Speaker Tom Feeney and Senate President John McKay announced Florida's 160 lawmakers will go into session at noon on Friday, ready to approve their own slate of Bush-friendly electors in case a state or federal court determines that Gore won the state.
"'We're protecting Florida's 25 electoral votes and its six million voters,' said McKay. 'Our sole responsibility will be to put forth a slate of electors that is untainted.'
. . . .
"Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has already signed off on a slate of electors for his older brother, based on George W. Bush's 537-vote margin of victory in the election results certified by Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris. But Gore has contested the election results, saying thousands of votes that would have given him a Florida victory have never been counted."
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2000/dec/07/gore_urges_court/
*****
In other words, we don't give a s*** how the legally mandated recount turns out, we're gonna make sure GW wins.
Oh, and btw, the Cons made sure that the recount never happened . . .
New(er) video: NOT consistent with "broken eye socket"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2728166/Video-shows-cop-shot-Michael-Brown-pacing-lifeless-body-immediately-firing-six-shots-teen.html
Although the shots are grainy, it's hard to imagine that Patrolman Wilson (identified as standing to the right in photo) is suffering from "a fractured eye-socket" at this point as this right-wing source claims: "Sources in St. Louis including those in the district attorney’s office confirmed to the Gateway Pundit that Wilson suffered an 'orbital blowout fracture to the eye socket.'" (I provide no link to Gateway Pundit because it sucks.)
He's walking around calmly. No ice pack to the face, no EMT rushing to his aid.
(Video is at the very bottom of the page at link.)
Five hours. Five full hours.
That's how long Michael Brown's body lay in the street in the predominately African-American neighborhood of Ferguson.
In England, even through the Renaissance, criminals executed for high crimes such as treason were routinely chopped up and their body parts displayed in different parts of the kingdom for the "edification" of others. The Tower Bridge in London was well-known for its display of decapitated heads piked above the wayfarers below.
I can't help but think this was the Ferguson Police Department's message to black folk in Ferguson--"non compliance equals death, homies, don't forget it." Why in the hell else would it take more than a half-an-hour to get a body out of the street?
They were letting that lesson sink in good and deep.
Appreciation thread to all the DUers who don't start appreciation threads
and then "like" them up to the Greatest page.
Thank you.
Re: Gender issues Great article that we can all agree on.
As a possible antidote to some of the hard words exchanged on DU these days surrounding "misogyny" and "white male privilege," here's an article that I hope will show us that we're really all (well, almost all, heh) on the same side here.
http://lettersfromthevineyard.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/yes-all-men/
All of which is to say that for men shocked and appalled by the deluge of women’s stories of their abuse by men, there is an opportunity here to take a hard look at ourselves and the ways we might contribute to this structure that we have been thrown into. No matter how well we were raised to be good boys and men (and many of us were simply not), and no matter that we are not one of those men luring a young girl over to a shadowy corner to expose ourselves, or threatening a woman’s life because she didn’t sexually capitulate, or any one of the other horror stories women have lived, the fact is that none of us escaped this structure of man-making, even if we did not become a monster because of it. We unconsciously do or say things to make women and girls uncomfortable. And more often than we’d like to admit we very likely consciously do or think things that are misogynistic in some way–from unequal participation in domestic life, to supporting sons over daughters, to unequal or inappropriate relations with female co-workers or friends, to pornographic preferences for womens’ appearance and sexual behavior, and much more.
The stories and structures that have often informed us how to be men with women are, of course, all-encompassing and powerful, and have been with us for a long, long time. But we are lying to ourselves if we believe that we have wholly escaped them and live a narrative outside of other men. Feminism at its core is not a gradual, civilized response of dialogue and discourse, inviting men and women to take women seriously as fully human, so much as it is an organized, last ditch all-out revolution to stop the crushing tide of a genuine human catastrophe where nearly every woman ever born is a casualty in some fashion. As men, it’s simply not possible to not be complicit in some way in this tragedy, if merely for the reason that these damning structures have given us our identities and told us how to live, move, and have our being.
And while we cannot choose how we were thrown into this world, a determined stance of self-awareness of this throwness and personal repentance can begin to turn the tide. We cannot be condemned for enacting roles that were given to us and that we played before we knew otherwise; and we certainly should not feel shame for being something (men) we cannot be otherwise. But we are condemned for any refusal to respond to the call of thousands upon thousands of these voices–that men did this, not aliens or genetic human mutations, but men, and thus to look inwardly and examine ourselves in the light of this suffering, not simply point fingers at others as a minority of exceptional warped sociopaths. They were spun out of the same system we were and are therefore extreme symptoms of a disease that touches all of us.
(More at link)
Pope’s Upcoming Visit to Holy Land Marred By Attacks on Churches
Source: Time Magazine
Israeli officials blame Jewish extremists for the surge in anti-Christian vandalism
As the Israeli government prepares to welcome Pope Francis on his first visit as Pope later this month, vandals have scrawled hate-filled graffiti at some Christian sites. “Jesus is garbage,” “Death to Christians” and “We will crucify you” are among the messages that have been spray-painted on the walls of Christian churches and monasteries in Israel in recent weeks.
Although no arrests have been made, Israeli officials say they suspect Jewish extremists of being behind the vandalism. Israeli officials link the surge to the Pope’s visit, which appears to have ignited resentment toward Christianity by some Israeli Jews. A small minority of Israeli Jews blames Christians for past violence by Christians against Jews and for what they perceive as ongoing attempts to convert Jews to Christianity.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said most of the perpetrators act individually: “It’s not like dealing with a terror organization.”
Pope Francis’ three-day visit starts in Jordan on May 24. He then travels to Bethlehem in the West Bank, and Jerusalem, where he will visit Yad Vashem, the museum commemorating victims of the Holocaust. The trip was scheduled to commemorate the 50th anniversary of rapprochement between Pope Paul VI and the leader of the Orthodox Christian church. Publicity over the church attacks – not seen before previous papal visits – has some Israelis asking why it’s happening now. “The question to ask is what kind of Israeli state do we want here? Our educational challenge is to promote respect to the other,” says Amnon Ramon, a specialist on Christianity at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, an independent think tank.
Read more: http://time.com/101785/popes-upcoming-visit-to-holy-land-marred-by-attacks-on-churches/
It's good that this kind of blatant Zionist discrimination against Christians is finally getting the press it deserves. Although the Islamic Palestinians bore the brunt of the Zionist terror against them--stealing their land, walling off their villages, killing at will, bulldozing their houses--the 10 to 15 percent of Palestinians still adhering to the Christian faith often had to endure the same fate.
Cf., Elias Chacour's book, _Blood Brothers_.
The ultimate irony is that fundamentalist churches here in the US have been an unstinting ally for the Zionist state, oblivious to how people of their own faith are treated there.
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