Thread… ;) 4 November 2008
Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.trackback
Blossoming trees in Tunuli Park, South Korea. Mid-July of 2004
From Madman from the end of the last thread:
Off topic, but some possibly good news:
Over the objections of television broadcasters and other groups, federal regulators set aside a disputed slice of radio spectrum for public use on Tuesday, hoping it would lead to low-cost, high-speed Internet access and new wireless devices.
The Federal Communications Commission voted 5 to 0 to approve the new use for the unlicensed frequencies, known as white spaces.
A coalition of powerful groups, including broadcasters, Broadway theater producers and sports franchises, hoped to derail or delay the decision. They have argued that their own transmissions — whether from television signals or from wireless microphones used in live music performances — could face interference from new devices that use the white spaces.
But F.C.C. commissioners said in a public meeting on Tuesday that they were confident that enough testing had been done to assure them that interference was not a major risk.
“It’s fair to say few other engineering analyses at the F.C.C. have been as lengthy and open,” said Michael J. Copps, a commissioner.
Echoing the views of other commissioners, he added that the measure could lead to development of a new generation of devices that use the spectrum to provide Internet access.
Commissioners said such access could be more reliable than Wi-Fi, which also uses unlicensed frequencies but does not reach as far.
That view has been heralded by technology companies, like Google, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, which will benefit from the spread of Internet access.
“Some have called this Wi-Fi on steroids,” Mr. Copps said. “I hope they’re correct.”
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fuck: Prop. 8 to ban same-sex marriage leading
Proposition 8-Same Sex Marriage Ban
All Precincts Totals
Choice Votes %
Yes 1,872,420 54.5%
No 1,562,770 45.5%
14% in
Is America fixed yet?
I have been trying to figure out what it means for Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. DM died a few days after they were married.
Just so mean.
Nobody seems to have an answer, some say the marriages will stand others not. If it loses (meaing Yes on 8 wins) it will be taken to court.
Maddow was “delighted” to hear him say “we will defeat you”?
Sheesh.
3
A sobbing woman at Grant Park said in three months.
6. three months.
K. I’ll mark my calendar. Thx.
5 – I cringed at that, too.
They say notification, Prop 4, ismoving back and forth all evening…
Proposition 4-Minor Abortion
All Precincts Totals
Choice Votes %
Yes 1,667,691 49.0%
No 1,733,197 51.0%
*****************
Also, 8 is The Most expensive social ballot measure in teh hsitory of the country. Last I heard 80 million.
So, four Senate seats undecided yet: GA, MN, OR, and AK. No returns on AK, Chambliss looks pretty comfortably ahead, but the Atlanta Journal Constitution isn’t calling it yet, so I’m guessing donk-leaning precincts aren’t reporting their yet. Franken is very slightly behind, and Merkley is just barely ahead of Smith. If they actually do pull out two of those four they’ll actually have 60 (w/ Sanders and Liebermann).
Of course, that means they have to keep Liebermann in his committee chairs. That fucker is like Michael Myers …
Journal Constitution:
Georgia – U.S. SenateCandidate Votes
Saxby Chambliss – R Incumbent 1,531,962 52%
Jim Martin – D 1,295,278 44%
Allen Buckley – L 104,571 4%
Updated Nov-05-2008 12:35 AM
94% reporting (3128 of 3303 precincts)
Over and over the past few days I heard or read that the great culture wars are over. Oh yeah?
From the schnauzers at The Corner
Florida Affirms Marriage [Maggie Gallagher]
With 84 percent of the vote in, Florida is voting for marriage 62 percent to 38 percent.
10
they never had the strength to send Lieberman to the woodshed or the men’s room or even the cloakroom.
I expected that in FL (should be “Florida affirms bigotry”) , but I am holding out hope for CA.
Just noticed this at NYT… apparently Dems are poised to take the NY congress (senate, assembly?)
I don’t understand why some pundits don’t get the irony. MSNBC had John what’s his name going on and on about how touched he was…Lewis…that a black man had won and now they’re all agreeing that Obama won over a lot of voters because he didn’t base his campaign on race. The head explodes.
RCP again, more House seats flip:
· House ·
Democrats 237 (+16) Republicans 148 (-16)
DemocratsHolds
GA-8 NH-1 AL-5
KY-3 PA-10 IN-2
Pickups
VA-11 AZ-1 CO-4
CT-4 FL-24 FL-8
IL-11 NM-1 NM-2
NY-13 NY-25 NC-8
Text of his speech “as prepared”… tomorrow I will get the actual transcript from CNN or one of them…
****
Yes on 8 people are gloating, big time.
Well the Castro is partying… retribution for canceling Hallowe’en in the Castro. Party even if your heart is breaking..
77% in
about 4 million apart.. 51/47
media is looking for the numbers to grow in the last 23% because it is under 100 million. They advertised all day it would be 140 million.
How the hell do you vote to take away a right based in your state’s constitution and then look at your face in the mirror, let alone gloat?
Martin has closed the gap a little in GA:
Georgia – U.S. SenateCandidate Votes
Saxby Chambliss – R Incumbent 1,623,160 51%
Jim Martin – D 1,449,944 46%
Allen Buckley – L 111,165 3%
Updated Nov-05-2008 01:04 AM
96% reporting (3191 of 3303 precincts)
21. You’re a Republican?
(Do I get a prize for my brilliant answer?)
BTW, that Bachman woman was returned to congress.
24. Good. Time to get those anti-Americans out of congress. Can’t wait til she starts her investigation.
OK I am going to breathe a little easier on Prop 4 (notification) I am getting these from the Propositions apage at SFGATE… I cannot seem to get the SoS page for CA going…
California Election Returns
Proposition 4-Minor Abortion
All Precincts Totals
Choice Votes %
Yes 2,052,350 47.9%
No 2,228,649 52.1%
34% of precincts reporting
Updated 11/04 10:55PM
OK! I got the Sec of State site to come thru (what a unforgiving site):
Nancy
(cuz last I looked SF Gate shows all zeros, with a green check mark that La Nan won)
Districtwide Results
Candidate Votes Percent
* Nancy Pelosi (Dem)…. 93,101 …………. 71.6%
Dana Walsh (Rep) …… 11,707 …………… 9.0%
Philip Z. Berg (Lib)….. 2,929 …………….. 2.2%
Cindy Sheehan (Ind)….. 22,361…………… 17.2%
Let me say, Cindy getting 17 plus percent is very good. Match it with the 9 for DWalsh (we do have about 10% R here) The three took almost 30 pts. I am nto certain but I think that P Z Berg is the nutter that is a propagandist against Obama, on the issue of the birth cert.
Where are the votes? Imean all the ones they promised us that big big big bucket of money was going to beat forth from the bushes to the voting booths.
Cuz Obama has 52%…. 59,865,108
McCain has 47% …… 53,741,313
That leaves one percent still hanging out there in the counting rooms. And the vote total is just south of 114 million. Which iirc is very close to the vote total for 2004 (iirc)
******************
Charlie’s Rountable is saying, or Halperin is, that he hears from the camp that they will offer Sec of Ed to COLIN POWELL.
No word if he would consider it. If we are lucky that is just a float.
prop 4 appears to be safely dead (yet again), and 8 is inching ever so slightly downwards, but i am not sure if the late balots can or will make up the difference.
it seems crueler somehow to vote 51-49 to strip people of their dignity than as a blowout. our hope may lie in the courts throwing it out, as they did similar sorts of anti-chinese initiatives in the late 19th/early 20th century (several forbade asians from owning property or starting businesses, and were tossed out on constitutional grounds).
still, if it does pass, another blot on the long-besmirched reality of california. we dfream great dreams here sometimes, but evil always seems to out-hustle us.
i blame CA dems’ fixation on saving other states instead of doing much to fix our own messes. had the money and volunteer hours stayed in-state, things might lookm different.
ah well, at any rate, we’ll have another shot at doing the right thing, and time is on our side on treating gays and lesbians as human beings. the kids, on this issue, are all right. my sibs are sending me incensed stuff on facebook because of 8, they thought this was so obviously right that it couldn’t pass.
still, who knows. maybe no on 8 will pull through in the wee hours, in the piles of provisional ballots.
Where are the votes?
Funny thing, that electoral college.
oops
Where are the votes?
Do we know how many Bush voters stayed home and sat on their thumbs?
I see Arkansas banned gay adoption. That sounds kinda ripe for legal challenge, too.
Re NY legislature… if Paterson is smart, he will stay the course on his budgetary Bible-thumping. It will do him no good to appear too happy over Dem control of Albany. Now read the comments in this thread and tell me we’re not living in bizarro world.
I am looking forward to a domino effect with a new Obama administration, particularly in the education world. Because there are a couple of annoying local education administrators I wish would just go away, and as people go up to Washington, that will make more slots open at other institutions. There’s going to be a big shuffling going on that should take a couple years to complete. Yay.
Oh, and Obama’s girls are sweeties. Little black girls growing up in the White House? Now that’s magical.
wu ming
well 6 went down as well. The other two crime, cops, prisons, prison guard, etc won but at least the gang one went down…
I have not checked the am numbers for 4 and 8 yet… News is just saying a 4 pt spread on 8 in favor of Yes….
Gays need some courageous leadership… they really do.
ugh just 55 in the senate if you include VT Socialist and Lieberman…
I see Novack is saying Obama does nto have a Mandate. well he certainly does, even if they fell short in the senate …
Re Grant Park… heard that tickets to the rally (free tickets, but given out to supporters) were being sold for hundreds of dollars, or “for sex.” Hopefully the last bit was a joke.
From The Page
Fewer than 800 votes separate the two candidates.
MSNBC: Franken is demanding a recount.
So what was the popular vote in the presidential race?
I see High Speed Rail turned around overnight in Ca… now winning with 4 pts. Unlikely to get built (in this economy tho it shuyld be) but i am glad it passed. Dem party mouthpieces were calling for a NO vote. Geesh let’s at least send a message.
I thought Novak was gonna shut up and retire?
Well, on the bright side, Connecticut can pick up the SS marriage banner for awhile. Their once-every-20-year constitutional convention went down.
Fuck off, cavalry!
28 has numbers within 1% of final. I hven’t looked yet this am…
41
I thought he promised to retire and .. you know.. DIE.
His column just ooozes meanesss… Think iirc (read it quick lest I catch something) he compared the Obama win to the SECOND Roosevelt win.
LOL what a nut.
What a hoot! Swamp of the North
Alaska: Stevens (R) 48 %, Begich (D) 47% (99% of precincts reporting).
I gather no one is calling it.. hangs int eh balance
Ha ha ha – my first draft of that comment involved Novak’s date with the dirt nap, too.
I see Dkos beloved Kleeb (Melrath called him “Senator McDreamy”) lost big in Nebraska to Johanns. 18 pt spread.
Saw film of this this morning… it was pretty cheerful…
At the gate
CBS News reports that a group of young people gathered outside the White House tonight, chanting Obama’s name.
By Ben Smith 11:49 PM
Oh noes! Hunk smashed! Guess you just can’t count on actual Nebraskans to roll to the polls on round heels!
In other (burnt) orange news, pinche tejano has diary at FSZ telling kos to stay the fuck out of Texas.
Whoopsie. FSZ link.
pinche whooo whoo sould call Ohio. They have stories to tell… from across the years. I bet Sherrod’s wife would let go of some of them if asked nicely. They rolled into Ohio in a few elections, determined to “take over”. Aside from all their Hackett games (on, off, on again, off again, call Reid, call Sherrod, bulldoze anyway, etc)
That grifter stock tout astrologer from MyDD went in himself.
Very simply put…
These huge crowds of people are impressive, but they beg the question: Where the hell have they been for the last 8 years or more?
If the only thing that can get Americans out on the streets in an expressive crowd, on this order of magnitude, is a single person… that is not a good thing and shows that our polity is not healthy.
This really isn’t about Obama, it’s about us, and I’m kind of stunned that – even amid the good feelings – no one is raising an eyebrow at it. The country is in a great state of disorder. I’m not interested in personality-cult democracy. I don’t even think Obama is that interested in it… wish I could say the same for the electorate.
I call this a good decision. IMO he too often drowned in game show display and Reagan drama:
CNN is promising a clip of Colin Powell brought to tears . . . after this commercial message . . .
51 – Well, there’s been precious little to celebrate in last 8 years, and riot police have been in charge of less happy gatherings. . . .
Agree about the fireworks . . . heard that last night.
I don’t even think Obama is that interested in it… wish I could say the same for the electorate
I go back and forth on that one. Think it is open to argument. He really dislikes criticism. The story goes that he is even tempered (and he is) but when he bristles it is at very honest and direct, mild to date, criticism of himself. He was ”offended” that people might agree with Wright, that he acted as a pol. Not the only time he used the implicit “back off, I am now OFFENDED” defense.
He revels in all that quasi religio slop. Which is worrisome. Quite aside from the control issues it raises. (If people want to throw themselves into some floaty hologram of a baptismal font, and virtually drwon, I won’t be stopping them… LOL)
Well the media and all sorts of avenues beat the bushes for 2 years and more to produce some “effect” of the election. And so we see what we see.
I had to search in caches and only found one report still “findable” (1976 after all) but news reports gave Carter 300,000 the night before election at some huge midnight turn out in LA. I only searched as I remembered the media breaking in on network TV to carry a live report.
But, you know, god forbid that it ever be anyone other than BamaBaby.
The adulation the media hype gets so old. It is mostly done I think for the cash commerce that elections have become.
Uh oh – Dubya’s gonna say a few words first!
Chuck Todd says Chief of Staff will be decided today.
Kos in a snip[pet on the Today Show.. with the Boesendorfer in teh back ground, says Obama would nto exist wihtout the internet.
gah……………………………………..
Heard something about this last night: Green Party says ballots’ write-in space too small
Coleman and Franken race is going to undergo automatic recount, according to AP. Process may stretch into December.
The Iroquois have their own term for the U.S. president: “Honedagyus” (a very serious sounding word, pronounced “honna-da-GUY-us”) It means “Town Destroyer.” It was first applied to George Washington (whose Sullivan Expedition burned their heartland in 1779) and since then they have addressed every U.S. president by that name in official correspondence. This despite them entering into a peace treaty with Washington which they still honor fiercely.
So on January 20, Obama will become Honedagyus.
The idea being that a president becomes the office… and every bad thing or act of war or act of shame that went with it, and has remained unaddressed, sticks to the current occupant. This is not a concept shared by a lot of Americans, I think. They think the evil is concentrated within George Bush and that when he goes, it goes.
I guess I’d like an honest assessment of how evil the presidency has become, especially over the last few years, and that Obama inherits every shred of it… or else that wouldn’t be good either, as evil tends to stick to one, and it’s usually the “intelligent” who most vulnerable to evil, particularly when they’re so intelligent and educated that they no longer believe it exists.
Also from AP:
There is no breakdown for this number, nor link to any text or graf… not sure why the breakdown up thread for Ob/McC numbers don’t add up to more… if this is accurate (via Ambinder):
61
in synch!
U.S. strike kills wedding party goers: Afghan officials
Sure. Good luck with that.
I think Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan may end up to be one of the huge blunders of his upcoming presidency.
LOL.
Looks like Politico has called Indiana for O, but NC (49.8 Ob to 49.6 McC) and MO (49.5 McC and 49.3 Ob) are still on the tightrope.
Chris Floyd: “What If Bush Did It?” – A Prism for the New Paradigm
He starts off:
I guess I have a new moniker now – “killjoy cynic” (I can live with that) – since this is what I wrote last nite:
Stevens still holding one percent lead in Alaska.
Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan may end up to be one of the huge blunders of his upcoming presidency
Supposedly he starts getting sensitive intelligence briefings tomorrow.
As Floyd writes:
Which is exactly what I meant when I wrote that Obamalama will be forgiven early and often by those who claim to be in luv with him.
oops…html cleanup on aisle 4. The last sentence is mine.
The Greeks call whoever is US president: Planetarchis… Ruler of the Planet.
Town Destroyer works well too.
Well we cannot have happy transtiion of power unless all darkness and debris belongs in the past, to someone else, and does not attach to the office, no matter who inhabits it….
I guess I have a new moniker now – “killjoy cynic”
Just remember I am the lesbian homophobe racist. Among so many other monikers gifted from the nut roots and various operatives.
Silber, when he heard the LHR line wrote and said to marry him, I was such a rare item I should b scooped up.
All you can do is laugh.
Somebody gave me an Obama air freshener a month or two ago, so I guess I can unwrap it now!
I fed my dog her Bush Biskit yesterday. A few weeks early I admit. I believe she found it delicious.
72. Just remember I am the lesbian homophobe racist.
I obviously have some work to do before I reach that level. lol
No one’s called me a lesbian yet, that I know of.
Silber, when he heard the LHR line wrote and said to marry him, I was such a rare item I should b scooped up.
w00t! Intertubes nuptials. I’ll bring the cheesecake.
Good read at Ioz, Augustus.
“At least we’ll have someone new to jeer. Don’t get me wrong. It’s impossible to work up a good head of disconsolation in the face of a general reversion to the mean. Although I expect the coming régime to provide less fodder for high-kick comedy than the current, I expect it to be a much more interesting study in the operation of the modern executive-imperial American state. The ham-handed execution of executive expansion and foreign imperialism under George Dubya will now yield to subtler application of the same policies and prerogatives. Liberals and Progressives are already primed to accept this. More so. They’re actively revising their opposition into support.”
74. A pre-emptive strike?
I expect it to be a much more interesting study in the operation of the modern executive-imperial American state. — IOZ via aemd
I am with IOZ on that one…
i think HSR might actually get funding, given how it’s an actual physical thing. after decades of vaporware, the bond markets might be rather pleased with an actual train.
watching the “law and order” gangs bill go down in flames was a small comfort. it seems like some parts of the bad old california are slowly losing their deathgrip on the state, but not enough to break loose and try something really new for a change. 8 is just killing me, WTF is wrong with LA county? i understand the reactionary votes of valley and the foothills (although i’m stunned by the gold country and plumas county voting down the abortion trojan horse), but LA just doesn’t make any sense to me. aren’t they a goddamn city, with urban liberals and shit?
blows my mind, i thought we’d pull it out. next time, maybe.
From First read on over all numbers:
79
LA County is its own world. Will check the numbers I had not looked at county breakdowns.
sad to say black votes helped on 8… they went 70% for YES, or so I read over at the Schnauzers at The Corner (Byron York)…nothing to compare to white Catholic money and votes… nor LDS money, money money and interference and partnering with big white Catholic money…. etc… but a bad number.
Other than that…
LINK
Ambinder has the covers of today’s newspapers in historic civil rights cities…
I’ve never heard this word before: AP Uncalls Minnesota Senate Race
I wonder if Palin has a book deal yet.
DK diarist rwood5628 predicts that if Prop 8 passes, the California Supremes will strike it down.
It has to be litigated, 8.
Becasue otherwise it changes our Constitution. One fo the foundations of the finding from the SC was that our Constitution, rightly, did not in its wording limit marriage as to gender, nor did it define marriage by gender.
BTW – Never fear . . . Nader hate is refreshed anew.
Hopefully, kos doesn’t have any Fox interviews lined up for today.
83
well “liberal”, meaning tied to the Dem machine, radio here is denigrating any ideas Palin might have. As in “VP canddiate who lost”. Who does the bimbo think she is (pretty close). Under the breath, fuck her.
Edwards? All the fucking fluffing that the Dems did for their Southern White Boy. WHO LOST. On a screwed up, fractious and riddled with disputes ticket. So long ago, in 04.
86
LOL Nader can say what he wants imo. We are so riddled with righteous PC silence.
Democrats need to get over that Fox foolishness. It is just a stance. As Ob in his purity did nto go on Fox, all his consultants did… quite cosily too. Nicely prep spots, greased and buttered.
Dennis Herrera, our city atty is prepping the pushback to 8 winning. Take it back to the SC.
SHFPH
Took me a while. Shut his fucking pie hole.
But of course!
Speaking of pie holes, here’s a handy little roundup of “world leader” congratulations (by diarist dagnabbit), which includes this:
Sniff, sniff! Get Ratzy some air freshener, quick!
Michael Crichton died. …
From Catholic News Service
Independent UK
ABC News: They will add the Arizona Governor, former Clinton Transportation and Energy Secretary and former Clinton Commerce Secretary to the team’s advisory board.
Announcement expected to be made Wednesday.
oops that is Daley, Pena and Napolitano…
Pore pitiful Palin . . . Montrealers will enjoy this especially.
Speaking of Sarah, Andrea Mitchell just told Kathleen Parker some anecdote about Palin greeting McCain staffers at a hotel room briefing wearing only a couple of towels (Parker was pretty shocked, but managed a joke about her apparently really needing that wardrobe), and when I googled to find out the source, oh my goodness, the top result for the search was a Delaware Dem(ento) diary at Delaware Liberal, titled “Palin Was Just a Republican Sex Kitten.” Good old Luscious links to an item at HuffPo, but the original source of the story is Newsweek: Secrets of the 2008 Campaign.
More backstory on the “outrageous profligacy” of Palin’s shopping spree – bigger and badder than was previously reported – and
apparently Steve Schmidt nixed Palin’s request to say something onstage last night.
Gosh, that didn’t take long, did it? There may be tiretracks on the moosehunter, but she ain’t done shooting yet!
DK diarist rwood5628 predicts that if Prop 8 passes, the California Supremes will strike it down.
And if not, it will be bumped up to the Supremes Court.
Lest We Forget Who Got Us Here
Fannie Lou Hamer (October 6, 1917 – March 14, 1977)
Fannie Lou Hamer was born in Ruleville, Mississippi, the last of 20 children in a sharecropping family. She was workng the fields at 6 and left school after the 6th grade. When she was 12, her parents had saved enough money to rent a farm and buy some mules. A white neighbor poisoned their mules and her family was forced into deeper debt. (http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/pgs/portraits/Fannie_Lou_Hamer.html)
In 1942 she married. Though Fannie Lou wanted children, unbeknownst to her she had be sterilized without her consent in an effort by the State of Mississippi as part of a program to reduce the population of poor black people in the state. Fannie went on to adopt two chldren.
from wiki:
Hamer attended several annual conferences of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL) in the all-black town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi. The RCNL was led by businessman, Dr. T.R.M. Howard, and was a combination civil rights and self-help organization. The annual RCNL conferences featured entertainers, such as Mahalia Jackson, speakers, such as Thurgood Marshall and Rep. Charles Diggs of Michigan, and panels on voting rights and other civil rights issues. Without her knowledge or consent, she was sterilized in 1961 by a white doctor as a part of the state of Mississippi’s plan to reduce the number of poor blacks in the state.[1]
On August 23, 1962, Rev. James Bevel, an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and an associate of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave a sermon in Ruleville, Mississippi and followed it with an appeal to those assembled to register to vote. Black people who registered to vote in the South faced serious hardships at that time due to institutionalized racism, including harassment, the loss of their jobs, physical beatings, and lynchings; nonetheless, Hamer was the first volunteer. She later said, “I guess if I’d had any sense, I’d have been scared – but what was the point of being scared? The only thing they [white people] could do was kill me, and it seemed they’d been trying to do that a little at a time since I could remember.”
On August 31, she traveled on a rented bus with other attendees of Rev. Bevel’s sermon to Indianola, Mississippi to register. In what would become a signature trait of Hamer’s activist career, she began singing Christian hymns, such as “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and “This Little Light of Mine,” to the group in order to bolster their resolve. The hymns also reflected Hamer’s belief that the civil rights struggle was a deeply spiritual one. By the next day, she had been harassed by police, fired from her job, lost her dog, and received a death threat from the Ku Klux Klan.
Hamer’s courage and leadership in Indianola came to the attention of SNCC organizer Bob Moses, who dispatched Charles McLaurin from the organization with instructions to find “the lady who sings the hymns”. McLaurin found and recruited Hamer, and though she remained based in Mississippi, she began traveling around the South doing activist work for the organization.
from http://www.beejae.com/hamer.htm
On August 31, 1962, Mrs. Hamer decided she had had enough of sharecropping. Leaving her house in Ruleville, MS she and 17 others took a bus to the courthouse in Indianola, the county seat, to register to vote. On their return home, police stopped their bus. They were told that their bus was the wrong color. Fannie Lou and the others were arrested and jailed.
After being released from jail, the plantation owner paid the Hamers a visit and told Fannie Lou that if she insisted on voting, she would have to get off his land – even though she had been there for eighteen years. She left the plantation that same day. Ten days later, night riders fired 16 bullets into the home of the family with whom she had gone to stay.
from http://www.beejae.com/hamer.htm
On June 3, 1963, Fannie Lou Hamer and other civil rights workers arrived in Winona, MS by bus. They were ordered off the bus and taken to Montgomery County Jail. The story continues “…Then three white men came into my room. One was a state highway policeman (he had the marking on his sleeve)… They said they were going to make me wish I was dead. They made me lay down on my face and they ordered two Negro prisoners to beat me with a blackjack. That was unbearable. The first prisoner beat me until he was exhausted, then the second Negro began to beat me. I had polio when I was about six years old. I was limp. I was holding my hands behind me to protect my weak side. I began to work my feet. My dress pulled up and I tried to smooth it down. One of the policemen walked over and raised my dress as high as he could. They beat me until my body was hard, ’til I couldn’t bend my fingers or get up when they told me to. That’s how I got this blood clot in my eye – the sight’s nearly gone now. My kidney was injured from the blows they gave me on the back.”
Mrs Hamer was left in the cell, bleeding and battered, listening to the screams of Ann Powder, a fellow civil rights worker, who was also undergoing a severe beating in another cell. She overheard white policemen talking about throwing their bodies into the Big Black River where they would never be found.
from wiki
Released on June 12, she needed more than a month to recover. Though the incident had profound physical and psychological effects, Hamer returned to Mississippi to organize voter registration drives, including the “Freedom Ballot Campaign”, a mock election, in 1963, and the “Freedom Summer” initiative in 1964. She was known to the volunteers of Freedom Summer – most of whom were young, white, and from northern states – as a motherly figure who believed that the civil rights effort should be multi-racial in nature.
from wiki
1964 Democratic Convention
n the summer of 1964, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, or “Freedom Democrats” for short, was organized with the purpose of challenging Mississippi’s all-white and anti-civil rights delegation to the Democratic National Convention of that year as not representative of all Mississippians. Hamer was elected Vice-Chair.
The Freedom Democrats’ efforts drew national attention to the plight of African-Americans in Mississippi, and represented a challenge to President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for reelection; their success would mean that other Southern delegations, who were already leaning toward Republican challenger Barry Goldwater, would publicly break from the convention’s decision to nominate Johnson — meaning in turn that he would almost certainly lose those states’ electoral votes in the election. Hamer, singing her signature hymns, drew a great deal of attention from the media, enraging Johnson, who referred to her in speaking to his advisors as “that illiterate woman”.
Hamer was invited, along with the rest of the MFDP officers, to address the Convention’s Credentials Committee. She recounted the problems she had encountered in registration, and the ordeal of the jail in Winona, and, near tears, concluded:
“All of this is on account we want to register [sic], to become first-class citizens, and if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings – in America?” In Washington, D.C., President Johnson called an emergency press conference in an effort to divert press coverage away from Hamer’s testimony; but many television networks ran the speech unedited on their late news programs. The Credentials Committee received thousands of calls and letters in support of the Freedom Democrats.
Johnson then dispatched several trusted Democratic Party operatives to attempt to negotiate with the Freedom Democrats, including Senator Hubert Humphrey (who was campaigning for the Vice-Presidential nomination), Walter Mondale, Walter Reuther, and J. Edgar Hoover. They suggested a compromise which would give the MFDP two seats in exchange for other concessions, and secured the endorsement of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for the plan. But when Humphrey outlined the compromise, saying that his position on the ticket was at stake, Hamer, invoking her Christian beliefs, sharply rebuked him:
“Do you mean to tell me that your position is more important than four hundred thousand black people’s lives? Senator Humphrey, I know lots of people in Mississippi who have lost their jobs trying to register to vote. I had to leave the plantation where I worked in Sunflower County, Mississippi. Now if you lose this job of Vice-President because you do what is right, because you help the MFDP, everything will be all right. God will take care of you. But if you take [the nomination] this way, why, you will never be able to do any good for civil rights, for poor people, for peace, or any of those things you talk about. Senator Humphrey, I’m going to pray to Jesus for you.”
Future negotiations were conducted without Hamer, and the compromise was modified such that the Convention would select the two delegates to be seated, for fear the MFDP would appoint Hamer. In the end, the MFDP rejected the compromise,but had changed the debate.
In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.
from : http://womenshistory.about.com/od/civilrights/a/fannielou_hamer.htm
From 1968 to 1971, Fannie Lou Hamer was a member of the Democratic National Committee for Mississippi.
from http://www.awomanaweek.com/hamer.htm
In 1968, The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party took on a new name – The Mississippi Loyalist Democratic Party, to reflect its broadened membership which now included sympathetic white members. When Fannie took her seat in Chicago at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, she took it to a standing ovation
from : http://womenshistory.about.com/od/civilrights/a/fannielou_hamer.htm
Her 1970 lawsuit, Hamer v. Sunflower County, demanded school desegregation. She ran unsuccessfully for the Mississippi state Senate in 1971, and successfully for delegate to the Democratic National Convention of 1972.
She also lectured extensively, and was known for a signature line she often used, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” She was known as a powerful speaker, and her singing voice lent another power to civil rights meetings.
Fannie Lou Hamer brought a Head Start program to her local community, to form a local Pig Bank cooperative (1968) with the help of the National Council of Negro Women, and later to found the Freedom Farm Cooperative (1969). She helped found the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971, speaking for inclusion of racial issues in the feminist agenda.
In 1972 the Mississippi House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring her national and state activism, passing 116 to 0.
Suffering from breast cancer, diabetes, and heart problems, Fannie Lou Hamer died in Mississippi in 1977.
Her epitaph was her signature quote, :I;m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
Writings about her life inclued her autobiography To Praise Our Bridges: An Autobiograpy in 1967. June Jordan published a biography of Fannie Lou Hamer in 1972, and Kay Mills published This Little Light of Mine: the Life of Fannie Lou Hamer in 1993.
San Francisco City Hall has sstopped SSM til they get a legal opinion.
BTW I meant to mention that the Unitarians here did round the clock 24 hour free weddings in the run up to election. Really wonderful…
From the Newsweek juicy tidbits piece…
The Obama campaign’s New Media experts created a computer program that would allow a “flusher”—the term for a volunteer who rounds up nonvoters on Election Day—to know exactly who had, and had not, voted in real time. They dubbed it Project Houdini, because of the way names disappear off the list instantly once people are identified as they wait in line at their local polling station.
Um, color me a tad creeped out.
Poor Del Dem. Bet he still has pink and purple boas hidden in his closet. And sparkle eye shadow.
Such a wanna be.
And a wannabe top Dem gun. Wonder if it shoots as many blanks as his other gun.
Reuters brrrreaking:
Lehman says Richard Fuld to step down from CEO post at year-end, will not claim severance or other bonus payment at the end of his employment
101
well data mining is the big issue. But now they put everybody’s best older or younger brother in using it.
Election washing, good name I think.
I have maintained for years, not in real time obviously, but after bit they know who voted how and for how long, from a specific location.. They know/or knew what votes have been coming from what precinct. What block imo. They can juggle the numbers. But now they know right away. And if you happened to read the articles over the past year on data mining for the Dems, it seemed, reading between the lines it, fast vote feedback, was one thing they wanted. As much as micro targetting.
ugh re reading:
They dubbed it Project Houdini, because of the way names disappear off the list instantly once people are identified as they wait in line at their local polling station
taht si a lot faster than I ever expected.
Well the speedy feedback certainly makes sense if you’re gonna harass the shit out of voters until they cast their ballot. Frees up your whips to bother someone else, and cuts down on bad citizen aftertaste.
Tapper: Obama Offers Rahm Emanuel Job of White House Chief of Staff
He’s another one who creeps me out. So, how do so-called progressives square this DLC choice with what they supposedly believe? And just how quickly will they rush in to justify this choice? Oh look! Obama’s compromising already. Isn’t he great?
oh Rahm is reprehensible. No other word. And a Lieberman about Israel. The Dems soft coat his time in the IDF… but … let’s get real. The family for decades went back adn forth between US and Israel. Those alliances and confidences get old…
And the Dems deep down are happy to keep Liebchen. IMO.
99 – Good one! Justice Ross would surely join the majority to toss out Prop 8.
ugh 106
I just ignore the phone on election day.. it rings all day long with exhortations, robo-ing and whatever.
last year I alsmot missed Safeway calling to see if they could make an early delivery, as all day long the Democrats called me.
It’s OK, I am reconciled that is Free Speech.. but tracking that tight is nerve racking (knowing you are in line)
Didn’t Brokaw ask Kerry about Lieberman the other day? And Kerry said Harumph, harumph, I want him to be a Democrat!
knowing you are in line
Yeah, that does get start to get into ankle-bracelet territory, don’t it.
I’m confused about the Houdini thing. How does the campaign get your name when you are standing in line to vote, unless you give it to a campaign worker?
113 – you know those ‘google’ pictures where you can click on an address and see the street view?
114. Still not following I’m afraid. How would they have my name and know when I voted in real-time?
Well I assuemd they meant you have either signed in and waiting for a slot to open, shown your ID or like I do (when I still went to the polling station) show my voter booklet and sign in… .
I can’t think other than surveillance camera with some advanced face recognition and extensive data files on all of us (not yet in place quite, to that point) they would know before you sign in.
116. Maybe, but how would that information get released in real-time to campaign workers?
I think this could only work if they have campaign workers out in the street polling people’s names as they’re standing in long lines, or something. In which case, the voters are giving away Too Much Information.
As for signing in, I don’t know about your polling place, but here nobody signs in until they’re the next person to go. You wait in line, sign, brief wait for the person ahead of you to finish, but there’s never anyone ahead of you waiting. The tables are right next to the voting machines.
baypraire said that i might be stuck in spam?
well here, last I voted at the polling booth, in 2004 but that is about 10 voting events ago (really)…. it was the same as ever. check in, they locate you in two books (don’t ask me why) doing it manually, give you the voting form and then you wait for the next open slot.
I would assume these days they can chekc off as you vote, electronically, more or less… but that is not what the tid bit in Newsweek said. Will go find the whole article and give it a read. Maybe it ws tongue in cheek from teh get go.
Unfortunately we always have tons of state and local ballot measures otherwise, to be frank, I feel burned on voting. For me it is meaningless here in CA. And if they have tracking that close, I am happy to give it up or continue absentee by mail. If the damned thing reaches them fine.
Dow down 500
but don’t worry! The TV told me (when ti was down 300+) that a O win was “already priced in”.
Whew. I feel better!
Artemisia… very sorry it fell to spam and I did nto notice the little counter saying “1″
It is up thread at 100
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