The Disenfranchised States of America
It's happening in Wisconsin. It's happening in Michigan. And to no one's surprise, it is happening in the state of Florida where the election of 2000 was stolen from Al Gore by an ideologically perverted Supreme Court, and handed over to a disgusting, half-witted little frat boy from Crawford, Texas. In fact it is happening in states all over the country where the Grotesque Old Party controls the legislatures. Across America, Republican politicians are working overtime, at this very moment, to ensure that the ballots of a huge segment of the American people are not only ignored - they're not even cast. The United States: Was that a great country or what?
In an article from the Daily Kos that was republished this morning on the deliciously subversive website AlterNet, Chris Bowers wrote the following:
"I'd write that I'm shocked [Shocked!] a party facing recall elections is about to pass a law making it more difficult to vote in those recall elections, but sadly it isn't shocking at all. Limiting voting from Democratic-leaning demographic groups—in this case students, the poor, and those without cars—is a long-standing Republican tactic. Combined with Republican attempts to remove all limits on corporate spending in politics, it's part of a strategy to structurally alter the electorate in their favor."
Here is what is happening: The "party of Abraham Lincoln" (Those words are getting more difficult to write by the day, Thank goodness for quotation marks!) is in the process of a long-expected, long overdue self-destruction. Earlier this month when the majority of them signed onto Rep. Paul Ryan's scheme to destroy Medicare, the electorate - nationwide - hit the roof. They know damned well that if the present voting regulations remain in place they will be utterly destroyed at the polls on Election Day 2012. What to do? Make goddamned sure that the very people who are most inclined to vote for the Democrats next year don't vote at all. How utterly convenient.
They are
trying to make us believe that this has nothing to do with suppressing the Democratic vote and everything to do with voter fraud. Clever. The problem is that there is no wide-spread epidemic of fraudulent voting - and that which does exist usually favors the Republicans. I would offer as evidence Ohio 2004, and, again, Florida 2000. Last week, state Representative Tamara Grigsby (D-Milwaukee) took to the floor of the statehouse in Madison and exposed the scam for all time. Documented evidence of fraudulent voting within the entire state of Wisconsin amounted to .0006 of total votes cast. The voter ID bill is "a solution looking for a problem", said said Ms. Grigsby. She's my newest hero.
There are certain types of people who are not bloody likely to vote for the agenda of the disgusting, criminal enterprise that tries to pass itself off as a "political party". These would be comprised of African Americans, the elderly, city dwellers, the young, people who lack a license to drive, and the poor. And of course the trickiest problem facing them are the poor. As was noted in Matthew, 26:11:
"The poor you will always have with you."
The Republicans are desperate, and as the old adage tells us, desperate times require desperate measures. Their solution is that in order to vote, every person who casts a ballot will be required to purchase a government-issued ID and produce it at their respective polling places. A lot of the elderly - the very same people who stand to gain the most from a Democratic victory in 2012 - tend to vote via the process of the absentee ballot. That is why the plutocracy's handmaidens are trying to make it more difficult for senior citizens to cast their vote in absentia. They are trying to steal the election of 2012. They will succeed only if we allow them to.
I'm going to do something I've never done before (and will never do again - I promise!) I'm going to say something in favor of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis: When they took power in March of 1933, they at least didn't fuck with the electoral process. Hitler's ascendance to power was achieved legally and in conformity to the German constitution as it stood at the time. That's right; I'm comparing the Nazis favorably to the Republican party. Things have gotten that weird.
QUESTION:
How on earth can it possibly be constitutional that convicted felons, who have served their terms and paid their debts to society, are not - for the rest of their lives - allowed by law to participate in the electoral process?
ANSWER:
Because unless they are sporting a squeaky-clean, white collar, convicted felons tend to be poor or working class. Traditionally those people are not very sympathetic to the goals of the power elite. That is the reason - and the only reason - they are not allowed to vote. Let's stop kidding ourselves.
The uber right wing can no longer win on the basis of their ideas. The people are finally waking up to the fact that those ideas are beyond atrocious (What took them so long? I hope they had a nice nap). If the Republican party is to survive, they have no other choice but to disenfranchise a huge segment of the public who bother to participate in democracy.
Well, um, gee whiz, I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, kids, but this is the sort of thing they do in totalitarian societies. Just thought you'd like to know.
New York
state is a fairly moderate place in which to live. Even in staunchly Republican Orange County where I reside, those who identify themselves as "registered Republicans" tend to be reasonable and friendly people. Just the night-before-last, one of my closest and oldest friends, Tom Frederick (photo left), won a seat on the local school board. Tom is a Republican and fairly (although not extremely) conservative. Politically speaking we don't agree on a whole heck-of-a-lot. Regardless of our differing worldviews, I voted for him and had no pangs of conscience in doing so. He's a good man and one of the most intelligent and decent people I have ever known. As I said, most people who are registered with the GOP in this part of the country don't have little birdies flying out of their ears. That's why the northeast is such a nice place to live and why I will never leave it. Thus I don't suspect that the moronic and grossly unconstitutional "voter ID" proposal will become law anytime soon here in the Empire State.
But if it does....
I am going to make a pledge here and now: I plan on arriving at my local polling place on Election Day 2012, with no other ID in my procession than my word that I am who I am, and my signature to compare with my previous voting record. Heaven help the person or persons who would dare to prevent me from casting my precious ballot. I promise you this: There will be violence, Buster! I will send to the emergency room anyone who even attempts to disenfranchise me.
On second thought....
The people who run the polling place in the village of Goshen are the loveliest, sweetest elderly ladies who always greet me with warm smiles, cookies and tea. I may need to rethink this.
Back to the old drawing board.
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net
SUGGESTED VIEWING:
Gasland
A film by Josh Fox
Are you undecided about the "clean" mode of gas drilling called "fracking"? After you watch this troubling, very important documentary, you won't be undecided any longer. If it's not available from your friendly, independently owned video store (There must be at least one left) here is a link to order it from Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Gasland-Josh-Fox/dp/B0042EJD8A/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1305817687&sr=1-1
You can pick it up for as little as $12.99. Buy it, watch it - and have a public screening. The people of America need to see this film. It's that important.
AFTERTHOUGHT:
This is totally off-topic but....
The stars are aglow
and tonight how their light sets me dreaming
My love, do you know
that your eyes are like starts brightly beaming?
I bring you, and sing you a moonlight serenade....
We're all
familiar with the music that Glenn Miller composed for Moonlight Serenade, but very few of us are aware of the beautiful lyrics Mitchell Parish wrote for this piece. With all of the improvements in audio technology in the seventy-two years since this song was recorded on April 4, 1939, it still doesn't get much better than this.
Wait until the moon is full. Reach out to your loved one, dance softly and let the moon's gentle light set you dreaming. Listen and rejoice in this masterpiece of nocturnal romance:
Moonlight Serenade
Yeah, I know. I'm just a hopeless romantic. So sue me!
In an article from the Daily Kos that was republished this morning on the deliciously subversive website AlterNet, Chris Bowers wrote the following:
"I'd write that I'm shocked [Shocked!] a party facing recall elections is about to pass a law making it more difficult to vote in those recall elections, but sadly it isn't shocking at all. Limiting voting from Democratic-leaning demographic groups—in this case students, the poor, and those without cars—is a long-standing Republican tactic. Combined with Republican attempts to remove all limits on corporate spending in politics, it's part of a strategy to structurally alter the electorate in their favor."
Here is what is happening: The "party of Abraham Lincoln" (Those words are getting more difficult to write by the day, Thank goodness for quotation marks!) is in the process of a long-expected, long overdue self-destruction. Earlier this month when the majority of them signed onto Rep. Paul Ryan's scheme to destroy Medicare, the electorate - nationwide - hit the roof. They know damned well that if the present voting regulations remain in place they will be utterly destroyed at the polls on Election Day 2012. What to do? Make goddamned sure that the very people who are most inclined to vote for the Democrats next year don't vote at all. How utterly convenient.
They are
trying to make us believe that this has nothing to do with suppressing the Democratic vote and everything to do with voter fraud. Clever. The problem is that there is no wide-spread epidemic of fraudulent voting - and that which does exist usually favors the Republicans. I would offer as evidence Ohio 2004, and, again, Florida 2000. Last week, state Representative Tamara Grigsby (D-Milwaukee) took to the floor of the statehouse in Madison and exposed the scam for all time. Documented evidence of fraudulent voting within the entire state of Wisconsin amounted to .0006 of total votes cast. The voter ID bill is "a solution looking for a problem", said said Ms. Grigsby. She's my newest hero.There are certain types of people who are not bloody likely to vote for the agenda of the disgusting, criminal enterprise that tries to pass itself off as a "political party". These would be comprised of African Americans, the elderly, city dwellers, the young, people who lack a license to drive, and the poor. And of course the trickiest problem facing them are the poor. As was noted in Matthew, 26:11:
"The poor you will always have with you."
The Republicans are desperate, and as the old adage tells us, desperate times require desperate measures. Their solution is that in order to vote, every person who casts a ballot will be required to purchase a government-issued ID and produce it at their respective polling places. A lot of the elderly - the very same people who stand to gain the most from a Democratic victory in 2012 - tend to vote via the process of the absentee ballot. That is why the plutocracy's handmaidens are trying to make it more difficult for senior citizens to cast their vote in absentia. They are trying to steal the election of 2012. They will succeed only if we allow them to.
I'm going to do something I've never done before (and will never do again - I promise!) I'm going to say something in favor of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis: When they took power in March of 1933, they at least didn't fuck with the electoral process. Hitler's ascendance to power was achieved legally and in conformity to the German constitution as it stood at the time. That's right; I'm comparing the Nazis favorably to the Republican party. Things have gotten that weird.
QUESTION:
How on earth can it possibly be constitutional that convicted felons, who have served their terms and paid their debts to society, are not - for the rest of their lives - allowed by law to participate in the electoral process?
ANSWER:
Because unless they are sporting a squeaky-clean, white collar, convicted felons tend to be poor or working class. Traditionally those people are not very sympathetic to the goals of the power elite. That is the reason - and the only reason - they are not allowed to vote. Let's stop kidding ourselves.
The uber right wing can no longer win on the basis of their ideas. The people are finally waking up to the fact that those ideas are beyond atrocious (What took them so long? I hope they had a nice nap). If the Republican party is to survive, they have no other choice but to disenfranchise a huge segment of the public who bother to participate in democracy.
Well, um, gee whiz, I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, kids, but this is the sort of thing they do in totalitarian societies. Just thought you'd like to know.
New York
state is a fairly moderate place in which to live. Even in staunchly Republican Orange County where I reside, those who identify themselves as "registered Republicans" tend to be reasonable and friendly people. Just the night-before-last, one of my closest and oldest friends, Tom Frederick (photo left), won a seat on the local school board. Tom is a Republican and fairly (although not extremely) conservative. Politically speaking we don't agree on a whole heck-of-a-lot. Regardless of our differing worldviews, I voted for him and had no pangs of conscience in doing so. He's a good man and one of the most intelligent and decent people I have ever known. As I said, most people who are registered with the GOP in this part of the country don't have little birdies flying out of their ears. That's why the northeast is such a nice place to live and why I will never leave it. Thus I don't suspect that the moronic and grossly unconstitutional "voter ID" proposal will become law anytime soon here in the Empire State.But if it does....
I am going to make a pledge here and now: I plan on arriving at my local polling place on Election Day 2012, with no other ID in my procession than my word that I am who I am, and my signature to compare with my previous voting record. Heaven help the person or persons who would dare to prevent me from casting my precious ballot. I promise you this: There will be violence, Buster! I will send to the emergency room anyone who even attempts to disenfranchise me.
On second thought....
The people who run the polling place in the village of Goshen are the loveliest, sweetest elderly ladies who always greet me with warm smiles, cookies and tea. I may need to rethink this.
Back to the old drawing board.
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net
SUGGESTED VIEWING:
Gasland
A film by Josh Fox
Are you undecided about the "clean" mode of gas drilling called "fracking"? After you watch this troubling, very important documentary, you won't be undecided any longer. If it's not available from your friendly, independently owned video store (There must be at least one left) here is a link to order it from Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Gasland-Josh-Fox/dp/B0042EJD8A/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1305817687&sr=1-1
You can pick it up for as little as $12.99. Buy it, watch it - and have a public screening. The people of America need to see this film. It's that important.
AFTERTHOUGHT:
This is totally off-topic but....
The stars are aglow
and tonight how their light sets me dreaming
My love, do you know
that your eyes are like starts brightly beaming?
I bring you, and sing you a moonlight serenade....
We're all
familiar with the music that Glenn Miller composed for Moonlight Serenade, but very few of us are aware of the beautiful lyrics Mitchell Parish wrote for this piece. With all of the improvements in audio technology in the seventy-two years since this song was recorded on April 4, 1939, it still doesn't get much better than this.Wait until the moon is full. Reach out to your loved one, dance softly and let the moon's gentle light set you dreaming. Listen and rejoice in this masterpiece of nocturnal romance:
Moonlight Serenade
Yeah, I know. I'm just a hopeless romantic. So sue me!
posted by Tom Degan @ 9:09 AM
48 comments
48 Comments:
You know, Tom, Lincoln would not even recognize the GOP of today. And for anyone who doubts it, just read a good biography of Lincoln.
Ah yes...the old fallacy of " voting ". Until the ballot allows citizens to vote to reject the whole system our elections will always be a farce. How about a choice that reads as follows: " Our system is irreparably broken. I can no longer in good conscience support it. Therefore count this vote as a protest vote not to count for any candidate but a vote to change our system. " Then when the majority of voters make that choice consider that a peaceful revolution and relinquish power to the people. Now THAT would be worth registering voters for !!! I bet if people knew they had that choice voter registration would triple !! BTW...we could leave the U. S. Constitution basically in place. How it is interpreted and applied would have to change to no longer favor corporations, the super wealthy and law enforcement. Who we allow in government would also have to change. I think passing an ethics test should be one requirement !!!!
I was born in 1950. As a kid my friends and I took the bus to the subway to the Worlds Fair in Flushing Meadows, no adult supervision. I went to College and was an activist during the anti war movement of the 60’s.
I married my high school sweetheart, had two wonderful children and bought a home on Long Island in 1980 for $47,000.
Divorced in 1990, lost my job in the 1990’s Recession and subsequently reinvented myself.
Today I own a home with no mortgage in the Catskills, am married for the 3rd time, developed Parkinson’s and collect disability.
To quote The Grateful Dead “What a long strange trip its been.” The world in which I live bears no resemblance to the one of my youth, not in a good way.
We changed the world. It’s as if we planted a seed and instead of a flower blooming a hideous monster dressed as Uncle Sam clawed its way out of the fertile Earth. Perhaps this was the new incarnation of the establishment that was caught off guard by the Hippies and Peace Movement saying NEVER AGAIN! The Age of Aquarius has given birth to the spawn of Satan.
Marihuana is vilified while pharmaceutical abuse because of its profitability goes virtually unchecked. Alternative energy use is sabotaged at every turn because of the unfathomable profits generated by continuing and expanding the use of fossil based fuel.
No one appreciates the beauty of the changing seasons or sunrises and sunsets. We are told what to do by our precious hand held devices and TV’s all while they gather information on our viewing habits that is used form our concepts of what we like and dislike. No time to interact or even think on our own.
All I ask is let me grow old and die with dignity…not gonna happen. Take away or modify Social Security, Medicare and Pensions; the Capitalistic Superrich Bastards wont rest until they have glommed every last cent I worked do hard to compile.
PLAYING BY THE RULES GETS YOU FUCKED!
Ellis
Define what is rich.
Share with us what would make you happy
It is called democracy. Republican legislative bodies were put there by voters. There will be additional Republican control after next election. A ton of dems are up this time in the Senate. Census redistricting will favor more conservative states. Obama continues to be a first order fuck up, pardon the french.
Bush won the recounts. MSM confirmed this. Get over it.
Obama lies people die. Was tied up yesterday but Obama ignores all constraint like the War Powers Act. He had 60 days to go to congress and he hasnt. He is now a war criminal.
Good luck BHO on your NYC jewish fund raising trips.
T-536 days till a Republican takes back the White House.
Gypsy Bob
I appreciate the beauty of the Catskills. They are spectacular (by east coast standards) for those looking for a place to explore the outdoors.
go smoke some good pot gypsy bob!
IS IT NO WONDER THAT WE ARE THE DISENFRANCHISED STATES OF AMERICA WHEN OUR PRESIDENT FINDS THIS AS A WAY TO RAISE MONEY.
Wednesday, May 18, at a DNC event in Boston President Obama took to the podium to tout his accomplishments to the local political scene. Along with illegal immigration and the economy, the President also took time to joke about piracy. . .
“Along the way, we dealt with H1N1 and an oil spill and pirates. (Laughter.) Do you remember pirates? (Laughter.) Golly. (Laughter.) Thomas Jefferson had to deal with pirates. I thought we were past that.” (Laughter.)
Apparently the President “dealt” with pirates in a very unique way. In February four Americans were captured and killed by fifteen Somali pirates, and on Monday, May 16th eight of them were offered plea deals.
boltok said "Bush won the recounts. MSM confirmed this. Get over it."
Two men have 5 coins each. They both are allowed to flip the coins 5 times. However unlikely the results of the flipping are 5 heads and 5 tails respectively. The heads holder questions the results and leaves the room to request a recount. In his absence the tails holder flips over one of the heads making it 4 heads and one tail. The results are confirmed and reconfirmed.
The moral: confirmation of corrupt data proves nothing.
Gypsy Bob
Imagine that, a liberal calling some one else corrupt.
@ Anonymous - Imagine that. A conservative calling a liberal out for seeing corruption in conservatives. It could on and on.
Realpolitik.
Good luck in New York 26th. I know it is only one seat but it does make a difference
Anonymous said: "Gypsy Bob
Imagine that, a liberal calling some one else corrupt."
Your response is the quintessential example of spin.
My post referred to DATA in a hypothetical example. It was, by design, Politically Neutral and offered as a universal truth.
You are, by the way, a master baiter.
Gypsy Bob and you love to watch
Over 30 states have passed bills or have bills pending that are designed to suppress certain groups of voters - disabled, seniors, college students, poor people and minorities. Many of these bills also impact on rural residents and military personnel. The one and only intent is to keep people who tradiaionally vote Democratic away from the polls. This goes way beyond politics as usual and is totally unconstitutional. But since when have the Republicans honored the Constitution?
Their claims that this cuts down on voter fraud is a sham because there is very little of it. Interestingly, what voter fraud that's been found has been done by the Republicans.
If we the people can't even vote, we can't vote the bastards out.
In California, the newest trick is to change polling places and to mis-register your political party. Though I distinctly checked "Democrat" before the last primary, my party registration was "Non-declared". Fortunately, the California Democratic primary is open, and I was permitted to vote for the Democratic nominee. This last time, my registered polling place had no record of me, and I was required to travel to three more polling places before I showed up on the list at some podunk, out-of-my-neighborhood polling place that wasn't even close to my home address. Of course, they kept suggesting that I cast a "provisional ballot" at any of the polling places ("provisional" is politico-speak for "provided you want your vote tossed in the trashcan as soon as you leave."). I guess they figured I'd give up and leave them alone to run the country their way.
They don't know me too well, it seems.
~A~
You can also get Gasland from Netflix.
And if you haven't seen it yet, please watch Inside Job.
Florida instituted picture voter ID a number of years ago. My mother, age 90, had lived with me for some years. She had no picture ID so I obtained her 1906 birth certificate from Boston. Then to the DMV for alternative picture ID (she could not drive at her age). We had to get her 1928 marriage certificate from Quincy (also in Massachusetts). By herself she would have been unable to do all that but what the heck, she was going to die in six years anyway. And besides, she was a Democrat.
Recently I had to get an official 1934 birth certificate from Quincy. It came and had the wrong first name. When they converted to computerized records they gave me a new first name. After quite some delay they located the original handwritten records and corrected their mistake.
These glitches are what you go through with picture ID for voting.
That's incredible, Ron. Thank you for posting that.
I moved to Florida in 1986 and very few people know how the 2000 election was really stolen. It was not the Supreme Court or the hanging chads.
About a year before the election the Secretary of State, Katherine Harris (who was also the George W. Bush Co-Campaign Chair for Florida) decided to really enforce the no-felons voting rule. She quietly hired consultants to match lists of felons with lists of voters. No apparent problem there.
Think about who are felons. Most are minorities. Think about how minorities typically vote. Usually Democratic. What a great way to get those pesky minorities off the voting rolls.
By match I do not mean exact match. She used an 80% rule (way low but what the heck). Example; Smyth is the same as Smith. Four letters out of five = 80%. Bingo. Off the voter rolls.
The real art was the way they removed the "matched" names from the voter rolls. They just did it. No letters or warning. When John Smyth showed up at the polls to vote in 2000 he was told he was not on the voter rolls. There was no "provisional" voting in 2000. He was just out of luck.
Estimates are that tens of thousands of minorities were improperly removed from the voting rolls. Eventually those improperly removed were reinstated, but not for the 2000 election. Was that slick or what? And no statistics were compiled of exactly who were disenfranchised and why and how that affected the 2000 election.
So the 537 "official" victory for Bush, the hanging chads farce, and the Supreme Court "selection" were all sidelights to the real theft of the 2000 election.
But wait, it gets better. Clearly they could not pull that same trick in Florida for 2004. I understand that is exactly what was done in Ohio for 2004.
Don't ya love it when a plan comes together?
Yes, Ron. There were 57,000 African Americans disenfranchised in the state of Florida in 2000.
If you were the black pastor of a little Baptist Church in St. Pete's and shared the name of a convicted drug dealer in Buffalo, NY - you were shit outta luck, fella.
Keep 'em coming, Ron.
B-b-but ACORN! New Black Panthers! ACORN!
Sounds like left wing version of
"bitter clingers".
"Yes, Ron. There were 57,000 African Americans disenfranchised in the state of Florida in 2000.
If you were the black pastor of a little Baptist Church in St. Pete's and shared the name of a convicted drug dealer in Buffalo, NY - you were shit outta luck, fella.
Keep 'em coming, Ron."
Links to support this tripe.
Hey Anon, are you playing dumb or what? There are 100s of articles about Republican election fraud on the net. How about the 10 US Attorney Generals that were fired because they refused to pursue made up charges of Democratic voting fraud. And they were all appointed by Bush! Of course I know you will not do a minute of research because you are too lazy to even type in a name like Bill, you take the easy way out and just click Anonymous.
@ Anonymouse - You have the burden of proof here, not a fellow progressive. This is not a regressive rant blog. If you feel the need to question something, then it is your duty to do so yourself, and then post your own contrary evidence to engage in intellectual and functional debate.
My cousin volunteered in AK at the headquarters during the 2000 AND 2004 elections, and she said there was MUCH MUCH minority disenfranchisement, and tons of ballots were just thrown away... I think she said they were military, absentee, and ballots with minor discrepancies (hanging chads or whatever) and such...And, like in WI, they just kept on mysteriously "finding" ballots in odd places at the end of the night.
She said all of the disenfranchisement was more than enough to turn the vote blue. She said there was no way, especially in 2000, that AK could have possibly gone red....I know its only 6 electoral votes, but that's still bullshit.
I know when I used to vote absentee in the Military, they make it so confusing, and you only get one ballot, so if you screw it up (your screwed, and no old lady is there to tell you what to do), and the mail is so slow, so you just feel like your vote is not counting at all, especially on deployment. I voted in the 2004 election while in the gulf on a ship, and I didn't get my ballot until election day, so tell me how it counted? It takes at least two weeks to send a letter back to the states. Most sailors didn't even bother. I think you even had to pay the postage to send them back.
Oh and the post office is only open for like an hour everyday on the ship while underway and managed by the bitchiest most incompetent person in the world, and most sailors work 6 on 6 off watches underway, plus a 6 hour work day which equates to 4 hours a sleep every night, so you tell me if they are going to actually wake up for that magic hour to deal with a postal-postal clerk send a freaking ballot back to the states? Nope. Probably the same for the deployed ground troops or worse.
Some of the most critical voices of politics are heard while deployed and should be heard.
Links please to support these left wing "urban myths".
If there are "hundreds of articles" to support these myths, surly there has to be a 100 links?
It's called supporting your claim with evidence or proof that can be measured, investigated and studied for accuracy.
(Reply disappeared. Reposting)
Anonymous "Links to support this tripe."
Tripe supported.
A blog posted on a English newspaper in 2008 by this writer is the best you could come up with out f the hundreds of examples?
James Ridgeway Profile
Ridgeway began his career as a contributor to The New Republic, Ramparts, and the Wall Street Journal. Later, he was co-founder and editor of the political newsletters Mayday, Hard Times and The Elements.
Ridgeway became nationally known when he revealed in The New Republic that General Motors had hired private detectives to tail consumer advocate Ralph Nader in an attempt to dig up information that might discredit him (Nader was behind litigation which challenged the safety of the Corvair). Ridgeway's revelations of the company's snooping and dirty tricks prompted a Senate subcommittee led by Senator Ribicoff to summon James Roche, president of GM, to explain his company's harassment — and apologize. The incident catapulted auto safety into the public spotlight and helped send Nader's book, Unsafe at Any Speed (1965), to the top of the bestseller lists.
He served as Washington correspondent for The Village Voice where he worked from the mid-1970s until April 2006. Following his departure from the Voice, Ridgeway was hired by Mother Jones magazine to run its Washington DC bureau. On April 13, 2006's Democracy Now broadcast, Ridgeway told host Amy Goodman that Michael Lacey, the executive editor of the Voice, "killed my column, and he asked me to submit ideas for articles to him one by one, which I did, and which he either ignored or turned down, except in one case...they won't say that I'm fired. I'm supposedly laid off."
Bring out the tinfoil hats.
@ Annoyingmous - There are no "links" for our own life experiences...Does this mean they don't exist and they aren't important?
Besides, as the King of Plagiarize and Paste, you should be able to find these things for yourself.
Hey Anon, here is a great site that will clear up a lot of questions about Republicans. http://www.republicanoffenders.com/
Anonymous "A blog posted on a English newspaper in 2008 by this writer is the best you could come up with out f the hundreds of examples?"
Yes. A blog post. One that cites the US Commission on Civil Rights and the Washington Post.
But you'd have to have gotten past the byline to know that.
Got to love the lefties, when they lose an election it's because:
1. the other side cheated
2. the voters were fooled
3. the voters are stupid
It could never be due to voter rejection of their policies. No never that.
Anonymous "Got to love the lefties, when they lose an election it's because:
1. the other side cheated
2. the voters were fooled
3. the voters are stupid
It could never be due to voter rejection of their policies. No never that."
Right back at you.
"The problem is that there is no wide-spread epidemic of fraudulent voting - and that which does exist usually favors the Republicans."
Tom
If that's the truth them why isn't Attorney General Holder all over these frauds? Where is the poof to support this claim?
How come during the time the Dems controlled the House they didn't hold "special" investigations?
Does anyone remember MSNBC's host Ed Schultz saying oh his radio show that if he could he would vote twice to win, that he would cheat?
Support your claims with proof, not more liberal legends.
Much business regulation is driven by fears that free markets lead to monopolies that will gouge consumers. Yet it is very difficult to find actual historical examples of big successful free-market companies that have behaved that way.
The usual test of the seriousness of those who voice the fear of monopolies is to raise the USPS example — an actual monopoly that has wasted tens of billions of dollars over the decades. Does the afraid-of-monopoly person favor the immediate ending of the USPS?
Surprisingly often, the afraid-of-monopoly people are willing to give the USPS a pass. That response signals to me that they are not really anti-monopoly as much as anti-market. Their fear of possible market monopolies is greater than their fear of actual government monopolies. They worry very much that Intel or Microsoft or the National Football League will start gouging consumers, so they support vigilant antitrust monitoring and prosecution of those companies. But they feel little concern about the USPS and various monopoly public utilities and are content to let them be.
(Bloomberg) — Seven publicly traded U.S. corporations represented on President Barack Obama’s advisory council for jobs and competitiveness — including General Electric Co. (GE) and Intel Corp. (INTC) — have devoted a growing pool of their non-U.S. earnings to investments in other countries.
As a group, multinational companies with current or former chief executive officers on Obama’s jobs council have, over the past four years, almost doubled the cumulative amounts they’ve reinvested overseas, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Gee, I thought only Republicans did this!
Anonymous "Gee, I thought only Republicans did this!"
Now you're just being ridiculous. Everybody knows that Obama's an extreme Leftist Marxist Socialist!
I mean, if what you're saying is true, then the Left (including some people here) would be disappointed in him.
And we know that that can't happen. If it could, they would, in general, position Obama as "good" only in relation to how apeshit crazy the Right has gone since 2009.
And we know that that can't be true, as we know that it's the Democrats who've moved to the extreme Left, while the Right is the same as it's always been.
And we know that must be true because if it wasn't the Dems would be putting forward essentially Mod Republican positions from the 1990s, while the GOP would be loudly rallying against what used to be their own positions.
And we know that can't be true because the Democrat-cobbled mush of Obamacare is nothing like something a Mod like Romney would come up with, and the GOP wouldn't be against the Individual Mandate if they used to be for it.
And we know…oh, screw it. You're helping to make our arguments for us ("But look at how much of a Corporatist Obama is!" "We know!"). Kudos.
Bad News for Liberals, and especially the loons at Media Matters and The Rant obsessed with attacking Fox.
A new Suffolk University poll revealed that Fox News is the most trusted political news source among those surveyed.
FOX News - 28%
CNN - 18%
Undecided - 12%
And to add insult to injury, the rest, including the radical-left’s favorite - MSNBC, ranked even lower than “undecided”:
Anonymous "A new Suffolk University poll revealed that Fox News is the most trusted political news source among those surveyed."
And Fox News viewers are much more likely than others to believe false information about American politics, a new study concludes. Combine the poll and the study and what do you get?
And kudos on the copying and pasting.
More republican cheating?
Tax cheats among recipients of stimulus money
(AP) – 7 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands of companies that cashed in on President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package owed the government millions in unpaid taxes, congressional investigators have found.
The Government Accountability Office, in a report being released Tuesday, said at least 3,700 government contractors and nonprofit organizations that received more than $24 billion from the stimulus effort owed $757 million in back taxes as of Sept. 30, 2009, the end of the budget year.
The report said the tax delinquents accounted for nearly 6 percent of the 63,000 contractors and grantees examined, and it cautioned that the real number might be higher because the known tax debt does not measure such factors as income underreporting.
Among the examples was an engineering firm that received a $100,000 stimulus act contract but owed $6 million in taxes. The IRS called it "an extreme case of noncompliance." A social services nonprofit that received more than $1 million in stimulus funds owed taxes of $2 million.
The GAO referred those two cases and 13 others to the Internal Revenue Service, the country's tax collectors, for further investigation.
Got to love the lefties, when they lose an election it's because:
1. the other side cheated
2. the voters were fooled
3. the voters are stupid
It could never be due to voter rejection of their policies. No never that.
Anonymous "Got to love the lefties, when they lose an election it's because:
1. the other side cheated
2. the voters were fooled
3. the voters are stupid"
1. ACORN! New Black Panthers!
2. "Death Panels!"
3. See 1, 2.
"It could never be due to voter rejection of their policies. No never that."
Cool. So, the GOP controls the House. Their first three bills were:
H.R. 1: Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011
H.R. 2: Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act
H.R. 3: No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act
In 2010 they ran on jobs (and, amusingly, "saving Medicare"). None of those bills have anything to do with jobs (the first, at best, ensures DOD pork until September).
So, Anonymous, where are the jobs? I see debt panic. I see deficit hawkery (from both parties, sadly). I see attempting to pawn off grandma's Medicare on the insurance industry. Where are the jobs?
Thousands of companies that cashed in on President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package owed the government millions in unpaid taxes, congressional investigators have found.
The Government Accountability Office, in a report being released Tuesday, said at least 3,700 government contractors and nonprofit organizations that received more than $24 billion from the stimulus effort owed $757 million in back taxes as of Sept. 30, 2009, the end of the budget year.
The report said the tax delinquents accounted for nearly 6 percent of the 63,000 contractors and grantees examined, and it cautioned that the real number might be higher because the known tax debt does not measure such factors as income underreporting.
Among the examples was an engineering firm that received a $100,000 stimulus act contract but owed $6 million in taxes. The IRS called it "an extreme case of noncompliance." A social services nonprofit that received more than $1 million in stimulus funds owed taxes of $2 million.
The GAO referred those two cases and 13 others to the Internal Revenue Service, the country's tax collectors, for further investigation.
Hi Tom,
I'm the hp poster who called you a blog pimp, sorry about that.
I like your blog, and I've now decided that it is pimp worthy. I'm going to send a few friends your way.
KT
Thanks so much, KT! No offense taken, friend.
All the best,
Tom Degan
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