A Word from Donna

by Donna

I’ve been listening to Urban Talk radio of late during my drive in to work and on lunch break (Joe Madison in the morning and Rev Al at lunch).

Joe Madison has been blasting the Republicans and the media this week. It has been a thing of beauty to listen to. The callers to his show know the game as well and if these Republicans think that they are going to try and take this President down based on these bogus so-called “scandals” they are in for a rude awakening. The Republicans will feel their wrath like never before so let them keep overreaching…..

I’d like to say a word or two about a topic that he did touch on this morning (just as I arrived at work and couldn’t hear the end) was the WH’s response to these so-called scandals. I’m also seeing a lot of this in my twitter timeline. There seems to be this notion that the WH isn’t getting out in front of these issues as fast as some would like.

A word from Don

So John King is apoplectic that people are questioning if he’s a racist or not, too bad, he signed up for it when he went on national t.v. and said the Boston bombing suspects were black….I mean dark skinned. Let me tell you what I didn’t sign up for, I didn’t sign up to be followed around a department store, I didn’t sign up to have women clutch their purses as they walk in my direction, I didn’t sign up to hear the sound of car doors being locked as I crossed the goddamn street with bags of groceries in both arms, I didn’t sign up to walk in a bank to get some money out of my account and have the teller walk in a back room with my I.D. and have me wait for twenty fucking minutes just to get money out of my account, I didn’t sign up to have some white guy ask me I if was from this country just because I knew who Leon Panetta was, I didn’t sign up to have a realtor question me about my credit score and whether or not I’ve ever been arrested before I could finish saying hello, I didn’t sign up to have a waiter tell me the food in the restaurant I was in was expensive before he gave my wife and I the fucking menu. I’m not telling you these things because I’m looking for sympathy, I’m just telling you about the shit that the average black man has to put up with, so when John King gets upset at getting called out for an error he made, he should get on his goddamn knees and pray to his god that he doesn’t have to go through the same bullshit that the average black guy walking down the street does. Am I angry, hell yes, have I given up hope about the idea that a person should be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, hell no.

A Word from BetseyC

by BetseyC

I would love to share my experience of the last two weeks of the campaign, when I went to Reno, Nevada as a member of the Vote Corps. The VC is another great idea of OFA: a group of people willing to move to a swing state for the last two or three weeks of the campaign, and commit to working on the campaign for at least 40 hours a week through the election. That meant that the young staffers and field organizers, who mostly appeared to be somewhere in their 20’s, essentially had a group of full time staffers who were mostly retired, bringing with them many years of experience in getting things done. Because it was Nevada, a lot of the volunteers were Californians. I’m a New Yorker, but I’ve spent the last year roaming the west in an RV, and Nevada was the closest swing state at the time.

I did what everyone else has been doing: canvassed, did data entry, took photos at a few GOTV events, bought healthy snacks, and, for the last four days, kept moving the army of volunteers at our staging location in and out, collecting the data they brought back from their canvasses, and preparing the lists to be brought around again. My shortest day — 10 hours — was my first. For the rest of the time I probably averaged 12 hours a day, still considerably shorter than our field organizers’ days. Adrenaline is a wonderful thing.

I don’t like knocking on people’s doors. I’m old enough to have been brought up when it was important to be ladylike, and though I’m a very strong woman with strong opinions, I’m still too ladylike as far as I’m concerned. I also don’t like it when people call or knock on my door to try to convince me of something. So interrupting someone’s day, especially day after day, makes me uncomfortable.

But I had some great experiences. The first place I was sent is the largest and oldest mobile home park in the country. The area is divided into a fairly coherent grid, but the homes tended to be stuck haphazardly all over the place. There were lots of fences, behind which were LOTS of dogs, many of them pit bulls. Clearly, that’s the security system in Sun Valley. There were yards full of a wild profusion of things — bags of clothes, couches, boxes of dishes, old cans, hardware, even sea shells at one house. Despite the utter wildness of the place, or perhaps because of it, I liked it and kept asking to go back……

You can read the rest of Betsey’s post here

Rise and Shine

‏@BarackObama

OFA

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Newseum

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Newseum

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This, That (and the Other)

OFA

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Today:

2:0: Michelle Obama speaks to grassroots supporters in Cincinnati

9:25: Michelle Obama delivers remarks at a campaign event in Seattle

CBS have the first speech in their schedule, not sure whether the second one will be shown

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Detroit News: General Motors said its September sales rose 1.5 percent to 210,245 vehicles, marking its best September since 2008.

Chrysler Group LLC beat analyst expectations as its September sales rose 12 percent, while Ford Motor Co. sales remained flat in September compared to the same month a year ago.

GM said passenger car sales jumped 29 percent from the same month a year ago, while sales of mini, small and compacts shot up a combined 97 percent.

….. Chrysler reported its best September sales total in five years. The Auburn Hills automaker sold 142,041 vehicles last month; September also marked the 30th consecutive month that Chrysler has experienced year-over-year sales gains.

More here

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CNNMoney: American Express will refund $85 million for what government officials called deceptive practices involving about 250,000 customers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Monday that American Express (AXP, Fortune 500) subsidiaries illegally charged late fees, deceived customers by promising non-existent money rewards, and discriminated against new applicants over the age of 35.

“Laws were violated at all stages of the game,” said CFPB director Richard Cordray in a statement …. In addition to refunding customers, American Express will pay a $27.5 million penalty…

More here

Thanks amk

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Quinnipiac: An 18 point lead among women puts President Barack Obama ahead of Gov. Mitt Romney 49 – 45 percent among likely voters nationwide, and voters expect 54 – 28 percent that the president will win the debates, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today.

…. “It is very difficult to win an election when you are getting shellacked among women,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of Quinnipiac.

More here

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A Word from Tally: Election 2012 simplified – It’s All About The Supreme Court, Stupid

Link

 by Tally

 For all the Purists, EmoProgs, anyone contemplating sitting this election out, those who are easily swayed by the TEAGOP(Koch)MediaPunditry™, (and friends & family of such who are at their wit’s end at their stubborn insanity), this is for you.

This is a simple election. Just ask yourself: DO YOU HATE CITIZENS UNITED?

The next President will nominate a minimum of three justices to the Supreme Court. (Perhaps five.) 
If that’s Romney, we’re stuck with Citizens United and a Neocon SCOTUS for the next generation. And that would be just the beginning. They want to go back to appointing the Senate. Hell, they really don’t want anyone to vote.

Every American’s responsibility should be to STOP ROMNEY from being elected POTUS. 
He will be more of a puppet than W ever was.

That means voting third party is NOT AN OPTION. Not until we have instant runoff elections.

I don’t care if you hate President Obama. Stop pretending Nader voters didn’t fuck the rest of the country (and the globe) in 2000, you whining toddler.

McSweeney’s explains perfectly: “The results were cataclysmic. In a year where a few thousand votes would have swung the election, George W. Bush was elected. Within two years, he had started two wars. These wars cost 137,000 civilian lives, 6,419 American soldiers’ lives (4,488 in Iraq and 1,931 in Afghanistan), cost upwards of $4 trillion, and put the country $15,904,628,648,096 in debt. He put together the most conservative Supreme Court in American history, and the world was thrown into the worst global recession in 79 years.”

Please read the rest of that brilliant piece here:

If you have a functioning brain stem, you must understand that Romney along with Norquist and the Koch Brother’s help will end our Democracy. It’s happening now with the GOP in Congress, who got there because a bunch of Progressives pouted, and stayed home.

And NO. They’re NOT THE SAME. NOT EVEN CLOSE.

Romney (via Norquist, Rove, Adelson, & Kochs) will:

Start a war with Iran (Sheldon Adelson has already paid for this.)
 …. Reinstate Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
 …. Outlaw gay marriage, and try to outlaw gay adoption
 …. Repeal Roe v Wade …. Attempt to outlaw (female) contraception/allow PHARMA to charge what ever they want for it …. End/close the CFPB …. Repeal Dodd Frank and go back to deregulated finance (that needs MORE regulation.) …. Repeal the ACA and make sure the NON-PROFIT exchanges which are set to destroy the current FOR-PROFIT Health Insurance Industry, never open …. Repeal Lilly Ledbetter Act …. Attempt to require prayer in schools
 ….. Make Creationism a requirement in public school curriculum …. End the EPA
 …. End the Department of Education …. Starve our public schools even more than they already are
 so they can PRIVATIZE the entire education system in the US …. Make ALL our Universities FOR PROFIT
 …. Privatize Medicare
 …. Privatize Social Security
 …. End Medicaid
 …. End Unemployment Insurance …. End Food Stamps …. End Disability Insurance
 …. RE-Privatize Airport Security
(that allowed 19 men with box cutters to board 4 airliners.) …. Outlaw Labor Unions …. End the FDA …. Go back to ALL the Bush policies that destroyed the global economy …. Get rid of the Minimum Wage …. Make all 50 states Right To Work (for next-to-nothing)

It wouldn’t surprise me if they legalize rocket launchers via the NRA lobby. The list is endless.

A vote for ANYONE other than President Obama = a vote for Romney via the hackable e-voting 
machines that can be flipped by remote. Third party votes won’t be watched, and can be siphoned off so simply (link)

GROW THE FUCK UP.

President Obama is more Progressive than half the Dems in Congress. Only SIX have ever voted to fund the closing of GITMO, even though President Obama signed an EO on his 2nd day in office.
http://www.politicususa.com/don’t-blame-obama-only-6-democratic-senators-voted-to-fund-closing-gitmo.html

And the GOP & BlueDogs wrote the NDAA and had enough votes to override a Presidential Veto, which is why President Obama wrote what he wrote in his signing statement (link).

If you’re going to whine about something, you’d better be certain you’ve got ALL the information, not just what some pundit, agency, or politician wants you to know (link).

If the GOP take control, this might be your last Presidential election. DO NOT STAY HOME. DO NOT PISS AWAY YOUR VOTE. The entire WORLD will be effected by it.

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Links to all Tally’s posts here

A Word from 57andfemale

Political ‘speech’ has historically been given more latitude than other ‘free speech’ but only because there were some limitations. There was a mechanism of accountability: all donors had to be disclosed and the amount of their donations would be limited, thereby limiting their influence to some extent. So if you stretched the truth, shaded the truth, manipulated the truth – the people who paid for that ad would be known to the public. It would take a large number of donors to generate said political speech. There were some consequences.

For many, many years, Republicans cried that we didn’t need no stinkin’ campaign finance laws. All we needed was disclosure, which by its very nature would put common sense limits and some accountability on those donors and thereby the campaign that they supported. Where did I hear this? Let me think…….

Oh, yes. Mitch McConnell.

Any many other Republicans.

Those crazy Democrats – well, they always thought that the public would not have its interests represented if there were NO limits on political speech through money. Money would drown out the interests of the people who could in no way compete with corporate and wealthy interests. It would, in fact, be the buying of public office by interests that could afford it more than the $50,000 family of four who would have to choose between school books or ear infection medicine and donating to campaigns. But as I said, those whacky Democrats…..

Fast forward to Citizens United. Money IS speech and well, no one could anticipate that foreign money would finance campaigns (Sheldon Adelson, Barclay’s Bank………) And certainly no one could ever anticipate that corporate money would drown out the interests of the millions of Americans who could not compete with that money. Why, that would be…….crazy.

Here we are. 2012. Mitch McConnell actually said with a straight face (and that may be the straightest face I’ve ever seen on a human being) that IF we demanded disclosure, well, the Koch Bros. might lose business because their customers wouldn’t like what they were advocating.

Someone in polyester elastic waist pants might actually decide to donate $50 to PBO rather than hand it over – I mean, gamble – it away in a Sheldon Adelson casino. Oh, the HORROR. It might hurt their bottom line if the American people saw how every package of Angel Soft was helping to elect Mitt Romney (God forbid). Or every Brawny towel or quarter slot machine might be buying the end of Medicare as we know it, dirty air, no clean energy, no safe food, no safe medications, no health care, no safety net, no investment in infrastructure. But we certainly wouldn’t want to have the Koch Bros. – or Bain Capital — damaged in any way by the TRUTH. Why, that would be anti-capitalism. That would be anti-rich. That would be anti-entitlement. In the truest sense of the word.

To review: unfettered money flowing to political campaigns/PAC’s could be controlled with disclosure. But not one Republican – I’m talking to YOU, John McCain – voted FOR disclosure. Now we have unfettered money — oh, I’m sorry Justice Kennedy, I mean ‘free’ speech – with no controls, no disclosures. Just money – able to lie and cheat and steal and buy our government. Thank you so much, you libertarian piece of crap. Your legacy of ‘freedom’ has now denied millions of Americans the right to an honest, informed election. Are you proud?

Money to LIE.

Which brings me to my point: no longer should political ‘speech’ be exempt from libel or slander laws. Political speech should now be held subject to any and all laws that are on the books to protect the public interest from disinformation. Drug companies aren’t allowed to do it, food manufacturers aren’t allowed to do it. Why should political campaigns and affiliated PAC’s be able to do it?

You manipulate PBO’s statements? You have now broken the law. You cut out what he said to make it sound like he said the opposite? You get your ass sued with an injunction slapped on your ass. And since the airwaves are given to networks as a courtesy, they are REQUIRED to pull such ads.

You want to spend unlimited amounts of money? You don’t want to disclose WHO is spending that money? Then you tell the effing TRUTH or you don’t get access to so much as a used piece of newsprint, much less the networks to spread your lies.

You can’t lie about Angel Soft. You should not be able to lie about PBO.

I await your comments.

A Word from VC

by vcprezofan

Dear TOD supporters (= President Obama supporters = supporters of America, really):

I have this dream that we at TODville can actually impact the November election by sharing to a larger audience, one piece at a time, some of the information we have been exposed to here these past couple of years. I’m thinking ‘impact’ in the sense of each of us reaching at least one voter out there.

I have an idea for a meme, and I really cannot spread it well without your help. We won’t need to swarm anyone and we won’t need to ‘attack’ our opponents. What I do dream of, is to get relevant, positive information out THERE in bite size pieces, since that will be easier for some to chew on, absorb, share, etc. etc. Reaching out to those who don’t care to, or cannot, spend a lot of time watching or reading, I’m leaning towards info that’s brief, yet accurate and factual.

We all know that the country really needs a leader who will SERVE and REPRESENT the American people. As TODobots we are also convinced that President Obama, community organizer, is the ONLY PUBLIC SERVANT at the top of the ticket IN THIS RACE. IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE Romney has never SERVED anyone but himself, his family and his friends! My dream is to get that information out there in manageable bits between now and November.

I’m suggesting a Twitter meme that feeds only PBO’s, and his administration’s, accomplishments, video clips, pieces of laws passed, pictures from trips abroad, ANYTHING THAT SHOWS WHAT THIS PRESIDENT HAS DONE and IS DOING! I know the Obama team has the truth team etc. but that’s ‘official’. This would be ‘grass roots’ advertising – a kind of ‘each one teach/reach one’.  Linda @ What-is-Working started preparing for this kind of thing long ago and her site has quite a few short video clips. Also, from my experience in TODville, I know many of you have the means and expertise to roam all over the WEB and tap effortlessly into pertinent information on this administration.

I don’t intend for us to belittle Romney or anyone on his side (at least, not deliberately). My feeling is that the available information shows that Romney does that job all by himself. I have yet to encounter any incident of Mitt Romney helping anyone where he or his kind didn’t benefit big time! All we will be doing, as per my dream, is shedding light on a man who should not be anywhere near the presidency by showing that the current President has been doing an excellent job, knows what he is doing, has a job plan, and should be returned (in a landslide) for 4 more years to continue executing that plan.

I’ve titled the meme:-

#CanMittMatchThis?

And even though I’m using Mitt’s name in the meme, the INFORMATION I’m dreaming of us sharing is ALL ABOUT PRESIDENT OBAMA and HIS GOVERNANCE. Now, I realize that once I throw it out there others might join in and they won’t know the intent is to have only positive content, but I’ll depend on the TOD participants to help keep the meme content ‘pure’ in their own contributions.

I really think the snark and ridicule etc. is thoroughly covered, and though it’s easy, and fun sometimes, to join in, IT’S TIME FOR US to start seeding the dialogue with upbeat content, particularly for those voters who are going to start tuning in more and more. Also, in truth, for those gentler spirits who have always been tuned in, but who don’t handle rancor, anger, profanity, or abrasive in-your-face approaches well, and therefore chose not to separate the information from the snark and pass it on.

Rambling aside, in short, I would love if the TOD ‘army’ would support a meme in which the only thing we share is positive information about the Obama/Biden administration. What do you say? Can we pull this off? Do we want to try #CanMittMatchThis?

A Word from Tally: ‘Obamacare Is An Epic Win For Everyone’

The main thing you must know: The GOP’s SuperSugarDaddies™ are: The NRA, BIG OIL, BIG PHARMA, and BIG HEALTH. BIG HEALTH does NOT like Obamacare because it makes them spend money on actual CARE or else issue refunds. It forces them to cover sick people. It prevents them from dropping people so they don’t have to pay their claims. That means LESS MONEY FOR BIG HEALTH, and by extension, the GOP. If the ACA was such a giant gift to the BIG HEALTH insurers, why do they all want it repealed so badly? Everything the GOP says about Obamacare is a LIE.

Anyone who walks into a hospital in the United States MUST BE TREATED whether they can pay for it or not. That is the law. The money for that doesn’t come from the GOP’s Magic Infinite Money Tree™.

Healthcare IS A TAX NOW on the entire population, and has been forever  – more so on the middle class who pay a higher tax rate than people like Mitt Romney. Everyone pays for the millions of people who either cannot afford it, or can afford it and refuse to buy insurance. We pay for it in taxes. We pay in overpriced premiums, and overpriced care.

ALL OF THAT STOPS WITH THE ACA BECAUSE EVERYONE IS IN THE POOL.

More people in the pool = less cost for everyone, and eventually everyone will get their coverage from the NON-PROFITS going onto the exchanges in 2014 who will offer BETTER PLANS for LESS MONEY because they don’t have $12mill CEOs to pay or stocks to sell. Only idiots will continue to throw money at for-profit insurers.

Sure, those who can afford a plan but still refuse to buy one will have to pay a tax penalty. So what? THEY SHOULD. The good news is, the rest of us will save money by not picking up their tab anymore.

Healthcare professionals like doctors and nurses will be in demand. Millions of JOBS created. Students going into the healthcare field will be guaranteed work!

OBAMACARE IS EPIC WIN FOR EVERYONE! (Except the GOP who, like a bullying, abusive partner, hates anything good unless they create it.)

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Links to all Tally’s posts here

A Word from Tally: Our broken media – and by extension, all of us.

This is long. Go get a beverage.

I had a conversation with some friends of mine who are so angry at the John Edwards mistrial, they can hardly see. They personally hate him with the passion of a thousand suns, and believe that no matter how much good someone has done, it’s all negated by the bad.

It made me really think about how misled we all are as a country, thanks largely to our broken Media/Press, and how misplaced our anger and outage is.

First let me say that I’m BEYOND angry with John and Elizabeth Edwards. I’ll get to that later, but first:

–        How many people out there have thought this trial has been about misuse of campaign funds?

–        How many people are aware of the six specific charges brought against John Edwards?

–        How many people wondered WHY Edwards is being charged when so many others seem to do the same thing or worse, with not only full impunity, but encouragement?

Now think about the source you got your information from.

For those of you unsure, here are the six charges:

Read the full post here