Post From Barbra Streisand's Blog About Republican Attempts to Steal Votes in California

09.18.07
G.O.P.’s Dirty Tricks Begin
The folks who gave us the Willie Horton ads, the Swift boat campaign, the purges of black voters in Florida and endless other dirty electoral tricks are at it again.

Like crack addicts confronting the irresistible vial, the evil geniuses of the G.O.P. can’t seem to help themselves. This time — with an eye toward seizing the White House again next year, even if they lose the popular vote — they’re trying to rewrite the rules for the distribution of electoral votes in California.

Under current law, all of California’s 55 electoral votes go to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote statewide. This “winner take all” system is the norm in the U.S. It’s in place in all but two states, Maine and Nebraska, which have just four and five electoral votes, respectively.

Now comes a move, from lawyers with close ties to the Republican Party, to scrap the current system in California and replace it with one that would divide up the electoral votes in a way that would likely give 20 or more of them to the candidate who loses the popular vote in the state.

Democrats fear, correctly, that this maneuver could checkmate even their best efforts to win back the White House next year.

California is widely expected to go Democratic in the presidential election. Its 55 electoral votes are a hefty chunk of the 270 needed to win, and thus crucial to Democratic hopes.

Under this new proposal, the 20 or more electoral votes that would be denied the winner of the statewide vote in California, could well be enough to hand the White House to a Republican candidate who loses the popular vote nationally.

“Their idea is to have California be the only big state to do this,” said Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist who is supporting Senator Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. “If the Republicans can poach 20 electoral votes from the Democrats in California, that’s the same as winning all the electoral votes in Ohio. You’re basically giving them the election.”

The effort to change the way Californians vote for president has been cloaked in the typically deceptive garb that the G.O.P. pulls out for its underhanded maneuvering. The proposal has been dubbed the “Presidential Election Reform Act.” It is being led by Thomas Hiltachk of Bell, McAndrews and Hiltachk, a law firm that has represented both the state Republican Party and G.O.P. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

According to The Associated Press, the firm was also linked to a political committee, largely funded by Bob Perry, that targeted Democratic candidates in 2006. Mr. Perry, a longtime supporter of George W. Bush, contributed millions of dollars to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose intense and deceptive campaign in 2004 was so damaging to the candidacy of John Kerry.

This crowd is no more interested in genuine electoral reform than Britney Spears is.

Mr. Hiltachk and his operatives are trying to gather enough signatures to get their proposal before the voters as a California ballot initiative next June. If they succeed, and the voters approve the initiative, the rules for apportioning the state’s electoral votes would be changed for the 2008 presidential election.

Instead of “winner take all,” 53 of the state’s 55 electoral votes would be apportioned according to the winner of the presidential popular vote in each of the state’s 53 Congressional districts. A single vote would be awarded to the winner in each district. (The other two votes would still go to the statewide winner.)

John Kerry defeated George W. Bush in California in 2004 and collected all of the state’s electoral votes. But Mr. Bush won the popular vote in 22 of the state’s Congressional districts. If this proposed system had been in effect, 22 electoral votes would have been withheld from Mr. Kerry and given to Mr. Bush.

“This clearly is a power grab by the Republican Party,” said John Travis, a longtime political science professor at Humboldt State University in California. Mr. Travis believes that while there may be problems with the Electoral College system, this is not the way to fix it.

“This is simply a way for the Republicans to manipulate California’s electoral votes to their advantage,” he said.

Democrats do not have perfectly clean hands when it comes to this sort of thing. A similar effort by Democrats in North Carolina was scrapped at the insistence of national party leaders, and not a moment too soon.

What the Democrats need to do now is make sure that California voters understand that they are the latest targeted pawns in the G.O.P.’s longstanding efforts to undermine not just the Democrats but democracy itself.

Friday's Oprah Show on Intersexed peoples.

Oprah is so fabulous! Such a powerful, progressive voice in the world.

The judge that just ruled against bail for Mychael Bell should be castrated.

All of these shootings absolutely trouble me. My prayers go out to the people of Delaware State University.

I am glad that Columbia University Ahmadinejad to speak and not bowing to pressures from the Bush administration and other white male bullshit,

I think the concept of nonviolence should be called anti-aggression. I will not ve an aggressor against you.

A Real, Serious Question

Why can't an american court pass a judgement that condemns U.S. foreign policy towards Israel? I think someone needs to pick that up and run with it. Run until they can't make any more excuses such as this.

Response to a Question As to Why Reed Walters, D.A. in Jena, Louisiana Should Resign or Be Fired

Reed Walters should resign because he is abusing his power, power afforded him by the people, against the people--and against children at that. Furthermore, he is operating within HIS racism(I will elaborate more on this concept in another post--calling on some things that Audre Lorde said about whites operating inside of their racist paradigms)in order to persecute Black youth. This will not be tolerated. There should NEVER have been a white tree-and whoever allowed it should have their penis cut off-and the protests of the Black students against this practice should have recieved the utmost attention and respect of the School Board-and as the former Black school administrator from Jena said--the DA should have had nothing to do with it. On top of all of that, with nooses hung in the tree-nearly everybody in the town who wanted to defend such bullshit should have been castrated--and the officials who failed to do anything about the nooses and to apprehend and reprimand the people responsible for the nooses and the white tree should have had their penises chopped off. On top of all of that, now that Mr. Man-Walters decides to put his shit into it his penis needs to go to. The END

One should note the similarities in the way the U.S. treats Ahmadenijad and its treatment of Castro in the 50s and 60s.

One thing I have noticed about the Purdue website. I haven't seen the new president's picture up on the website once. Retired President Jischke's face was on the website all of the time. Most of the faces they parade on the website are white and male.

Repost- Demand that Reed Walters, D.A. in Jena, Louisiana Be Fired or Resign

I think everyone across the country should call in to the office of the Governor of Louisiana and demand the job of Jena District attorney Reed Walters. You can contact the governor's office at


Office of the Governor
Attn: Constituent Services
P.O. Box 94004
Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9004 Facsimile: 225-342-7099 E-mail the Governor

Call
866-366-1121
225-342-0991
225-342-7015

To reach the courthouse in Jena, Louisiana call
1050 Courthouse St, Jena - (318) 992-2158

Demand that District Attorney Reed Walters loose his job over the case of the Jena 6. "With just a stroke of my pen, I can make your lives end."-D.A. Reed Walters to 6 Black Students in Jena, Louisiana.

I think it is absolutely necessary to look into the history of Jena, Louisiana. Why are Blacks only 8% of the population(with one Black on the school board)? What were the politics of the town that either kept blacks out or pushed blacks away?

I think that police precinct is going to have to pay for tasing Andrew Meyer. They absolutely shouldnt have done it. They overstepped any bounds and totally violated him.

Why has no one castrated the DA in Jena, Louisiana?

Wow how things fall into place.

The new lineup on The View is great. Except for that Elizabeth girl.

I think they need to get rid of Alabama's Attorney General,Troy King. He is an idiot.

I suppose it's time to castrate the foreign minister of France for calling for war with Iran. If this is what Sarkozy brings, get him too.

My great-grandmother's brother Jule was a school teacher and a preacher for a long time. When he got old, he could die whenever he wanted to. He would get into fits and go lie down in his bed and go into a comatose state in which people thought he was dead. They would then call for the undertaker to come and get his body. On one of these occassions they called for my great-grantmother,Sadie, or Big Mama as they called her. She, my mother, who was a little girl, and my aunt earnestine got in the car and made their way to his home. They had to park at the foot of the hill and climb up because he never thought to build a road. So, that particular time, Big Mama packed a sack full of teacakes and they made their way on to Uncle Jule's house, my mother in tow. My mother said they got to his house and the undertaker was already there. My great-grandmother stood over his bed and said, "Jule, you gone Brother Jule? I got some teacakes here if you want some." My mother said he sat right up and ate every one of those teacakes. The undertaker got mad and told them not to ever call him unless he was really dead. He died quite a few times after that,.

Blackwater Out of Iraq

Today, the Iraqi government revoked the liscence of contractor Blackwater Inc, who over the weekened were responsible for the death of 8 civilians. Hooray for humanity that they are ot of Iraq(if they dont leave, try them and the US before the World Court-or better yet castrate them). What I find more surprising, I heard on NPR about their connection to James Dobson and his Focus on the Family. Interesting ties between rightwingers. I think there should be a massive boycott of Focus on the Family. Shame on James Dobson. Also, just looking at the advertising on the front page of Blackwater's website, their slogan "Self-Defense, Survival, and training for citizens and law enforcement" sounds more like a militia to me....

Kudos to Sally Field for Speaking Out Against the War!

Ordinary Miracles

Barbra

Change can come on tiptoe
Love is where it starts
It resides, often hides
Deep within our hearts
And just as
Pebbles make a mountain,
Raindrops make a sea,
One day at a time
Change begins with you and me,
Ordinary miracles
Happen all around,
Just by giving and receiving
Comes belonging and believing,
Every sun that rises
Never rose before,
Each new day leads the way
Through a different door,
And we can all be quiet heroes
Living quiet days,
Walking through the world
Changing it in quiet ways,
Ordinary miracles
Like candles in the dark,
Each and every one of us
Lights a spark,

And the walls can tumble
And the mountains can move,
The winds and the tide can turn,

Yes, ordinary miracles
One for every star,
No lightning bolt or clap or thunder
Only joy and quiet wonder,
Endless possibilities
Right before our eyes,
Oh, see the way a miracle multiplies,

Now hope can spring eternally
Plant it and it grows,
Love is all that’s necessary
Lovin’, it’s extraordinary
Why,
Makes ordinary miracles every blessed day.

If Alan Greenspan Says It's About Oil, It's About Oil

I saw Matt Lauer's interview with Alan Greenspan this morning on the Today Show. Here is a link to the Common Dream article concerning Greenspan's new memoir and his comments which should cause the Bush adminstration to shudder. Greenspan has admitted in his new book that the war in Iraq is about nothing but oil, confirming, with the greatest authority the west has, what many of us have been saying forever. does Greenspan have a heart? Interesting to see him speaking out.

Obituary of James E. Jackson, Jr. from the Atlanta Journal and Constitution

James E. Jackson Jr., 92, civil rights activist


Published on: 09/11/07

NEW YORK — James E. Jackson Jr., a civil rights activist, former official of the American Communist Party and defendant in a case that led the Supreme Court to rule that the Smith Act of 1940 did not prohibit the advocacy of violent revolution, died Sept. 1 in Manhattan. He was 92 and lived in Brooklyn.

The death was announced by his daughter Harriet Jackson.

Jackson was one of 21 Communist Party members who were indicted in 1951, at the height of the McCarthy era, for, among other things, teaching classes on violent revolution. The case was front-page news around the country.

He was one of six of those defendants whose conspiracy convictions under the Smith Act were unanimously reversed by a federal appeals court in 1958. The reversal was based on Yates v. United States, a 1957 Supreme Court ruling in the overall case that the mere teaching or advocacy of an overthrow of the government did not constitute a "call to action."

Most of the 21 defendants had been convicted and imprisoned. But Jackson and five others went into hiding — "roaming the country like during the underground railroad," his wife, Esther Cooper Jackson, said on Wednesday. Jackson did not see his family until 1956, when he surrendered and, with his colleagues, was convicted of conspiracy.

The next year, with the Red Scare subsiding somewhat, the Supreme Court issued its Yates v. United States decision, stating that the Smith Act "requires more than the teaching and advocacy of an abstract doctrine that the government should be overthrown by force and violence." The appeals court overturned the convictions, ruling that the government had failed to prove that the defendants had urged people to "do something" rather than "believe in something."

The Yates decision signaled a shift toward a legal principle that the advocacy of illegal conduct is usually constitutionally protected, said Eugene Volokh, a law professor and First Amendment scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles. "You can say, 'We think abortionists should be murdered,' and that is usually protected," Volokh said.

Jackson held important positions in the Communist Party. In the early 1960s, he was editor of The Worker, the successor to the party's newspaper, The Daily Worker. Later, he was international affairs secretary and national educational director. He joined the party in 1947, and in 1952 became its Southern secretary and a staunch advocate of civil rights.

"For 300 years as bondsmen and some 93 years as freemen, under slaver's whip and Jim Crow law," Jackson wrote in The Daily Worker in 1958, "Negro Americans have yielded up their labor and expended their lives for the upbuilding of this country in yet unfathomed measure."

James Edward Jackson Jr. was born in Richmond, Va., on Nov. 29, 1914, the son of James and Clara Kersey Jackson. His father was a pharmacist. The family lived in a part of Richmond called Jackson Ward, a section set aside for blacks. In 1931, when he was 16, Jackson entered Virginia Union University. He graduated three years later with a degree in chemistry. In 1937, he received a degree in pharmacy from Howard University. But in his last year at Howard, he helped start the Southern Negro Youth Congress, which organized strikes by tobacco workers, mostly black women, who were paid $5 a week. A union representing 5,000 tobacco workers soon gained recognition.

"Historians view the Southern Negro Youth Congress as the predecessor of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee," a major civil rights force in the 1960s, said Michael Nash, director of the Tamiment Library at New York University, where Jackson's papers are stored.

In the late 1930s, Jackson was part of a team contributing research to "An American Dilemma," the groundbreaking 1944 study by Gunnar Myrdal, which raised consciousness about race relations. Jackson's work took him to Fisk University in Nashville, where he met another researcher, Esther Cooper. They married in 1941.

Besides his wife and his daughter Harriet, Jackson is survived by another daughter, Kathryn Jackson; a grandson; and two great-grandsons.

In World War II, Jackson served in an engineer battalion, building the Burma Road. It was an all-black unit led by white officers.

Hillary Clinton's Universal HealthCare Plan

God Bless Hillary Clinton. Above is a link to her Universal Healthcare Plan. I am so wishing for an Obama/Clinton ticket.

US Attempts to Build a Base in Nigerian Territory

Nigeria Moves to Halt US Military

By Juliana Taiwo in Abuja

Gulf of Guinea

The Federal Government has begun moves to frustrate the
plan by the United States to establish a military base
in the Gulf of Guinea.

The oil-rich gulf is bordered by Nigeria, Angola, Chad,
Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Sao Tome and Principe

US has been desperately wooing some countries in the
West Africa sub-region to allow her establish a
military base to protect the strategic gulf for
sometime now.

The move, according to US, is to protect the area from
alleged external aggressions but with America now
looking in the direction of Africa for her energy needs
given the instability in the Middle-east, many analysts
say the move is to protect her oil interests. .

Defence sources, however, told THISDAY last night in
Abuja that the Federal Government was already
discussing with heads of government of the African
Union and leaders of the sub-regional body, the
Economic Community of West African State, on how to
block any move by US to establish a base in the gulf.

"Nigeria is not taking the issue lightly at all and the
government is not going to allow the US establish any
military base anywhere in the ECOWAS region. The
interest of the US government in the Gulf of Guinea has
reinforced the commitment of the government to
intensify its efforts at providing the needed security
in the sub-region," the source said.

It was learnt that the Federal Government was worried
by the terror alert raised by the US authorities last
week and saw it as a ploy to label Nigeria and
countries in the sub region as unsafe in order to get
the opportunity to create a military base in the
region.

As a first step to checkmate that plan, the FG has
vowed to frustrate the campaign by the US to establish
a base in the gulf.

"The government of this country is not ready for any
blackmail. What they cannot get through the back doors
they want to get through blackmail. We are not going to
succumb to that game," the source said.

THISDAY also learnt that the Defence Headquarters has
concluded plans to visit Pentagon, in Washington, to
further discuss the issue with the US government.

"In a few weeks from now, some top military personnel
will be in the US to present papers on the plans by the
African Union to establish an African Command, which
will be charged with the responsibility of providing
the needed security in the continent.

"We really want to let the US and other countries of
the world know that we are capable of protecting the
resources within our continent. Nigeria is one country
that will continue to move against any plans by the US
government to establish a military base in our sub-
region. We cannot afford to allow them do that,
otherwise we will be finished as military," he said.

Last month, a delegation of the Government of
Equatorial Guinea had visited Nigeria and signed a
memorandum of understanding with the Nigerian Navy in
the area of security, training and equipment.
Currently, US has some presence in the Gulf of Guinea
and its forces have been engaging in frequent patrol of
the gulf.

However, US interest in the gulf has been increasing
amid rising oil exploration in the region.

It was being alleged that West African Navy fleet lacks
the capacity to protect oil platforms in the gulf.

As far back as June last year, US explained that its
presence in the Gulf of Guinea was aimed at protecting
an area regarded as one of the richest sources of
hydrocarbons in the world from international criminals.

"We hear a series of stories for our presence in the
Gulf of Guinea, but I want to say that we are concerned
for Nigeria and we want to help her protect the region
from the hands of maritime criminals," said the
Commander of US Naval Forces in Europe and Commander of
the Allied Joint Force Command in Naples, Italy,
Admiral Henry Ulrich.

"In all parts of the world, the US and any good nation
want a safe coast for those countries who are supplying
energy, and that is why we are often there. So there is
nothing to fear for Nigeria," Ulrich said during a
Seapower Africa Symposium in Abuja in June last year.

Ulrich had also disclosed that the US planned to
increase its naval presence in the Gulf of Guinea in
order to ensure maritime safety in the region.

US Naval official said it was necessary to secure the
area from international criminals, including
terrorists, sea pirates and smugglers.

The gulf's oil and gas deposit is put in the region
of 10 billion barrels. Statistics show that as of 2004,
Africa as a whole produced nearly nine million barrels
of oil per day, with approximately 4.7 million barrels
per day coming from West Africa.

Also, African oil production accounted for
approximately 11 percent of the world's oil supply,
while the continent supplied approximately 18 per cent
of the US net oil imports.

Both Nigeria and Angola were among the top 10 suppliers
of oil to the US.

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