Wordless Wednesday: Yes, We Did!

 

 

 

 

Rest in Peace, Toot!

Senator Barack Obama lost his beloved Grandmother, "Toot", today...just one day before the election.

We are saddened, but even more emboldened to vote her 1st grandson into the Presidency.

Now we are not only voting for *Barry*, but also voting for *Toot*...

The Republicans, meanwhile, are suing because Barack took the campaign plane to visit his grandmother; like he could jump on a commercial plane with his Secret Service and Press Corps...besides, as I said before, that is OUR plane...we paid for it, and we wanted him to go home.  Wonder how the Repubs feel now?

Let NOTHING keep you from the polls on Tuesday..."Toot" is watching...

Detroit's Unique Neighborhoods: VOTE Today and Tomorrow!

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Monday "Detroit's Unique Neighborhoods" post to remind everyone about the importance to Detroit of voting tomorrow, November 4 2008. This election concludes the longest and most costly Presidential campaign season in American history. More people have registered to vote (especially since January of this year), and more people are expected to vote than ever.

Hopefully, voters in Detroit will greatly surpass the usually pitiful 20% voting rate. The voting rate should be 100%: people have fought and died to ensure the right to vote for all. If you do not vote, you have no right to complain if things aren't going the way you would like them to go.

Voting Queue in South Africa, 1990

For tomorrow's election, we already know that the lines will be long, as in l-o-o-o-o-o-o-ong! The weather, however, is expected to be unseasonably warm and sunny. It would be great to bring with you, along with your picture ID, lawn chairs, bottled water, an umbrella (for the sun!), something to read or a crossword puzzle, some snacks (especially if you're diabetic), your iPod, etc.; and most of all, bring patience and as many people as you can fit in your car! If you don't have to work, or can go in late, that is great. If not, just make sure you're in line by 8 p.m. Do not wear any political attire and do not take pictures or videos near the polling place. Put your "O" stuff back on further down the street after you vote, and then take your pictures for posterity!

There is early voting TODAY at the City Clerk's office on West Grand Boulevard until 6 p.m. You can check here to find out your voting location, if necessary.

The ballot will also be long; President, Vice-President, U.S. Senate, U.S. Congress (District 13 or 14 in Detroit), Michigan Legislature, Judges for various courts, State Board of Education, Regents for Michigan State and the University of Michigan, Board of Governors for Wayne State University, Wayne County Sheriff, Prosecutor, and Treasurer, and two Statewide Proposals! Whew!

No matter what the "polls" say, the only poll that counts is the one with your vote in it! If a little voice tries to tell you that you're too tired, too stressed, or too busy to vote, remember that you're not just voting for yourself. You are also vicariously voting for all of the civil rights workers, all of the nameless people who fought and died, all of the people who were beaten, burned, and lynched, all of the unnamed ancestors who died in the Middle Passage, everyone whose homes and/or churches were burned down, the four little girls who died in Birmingham, all of your ancestors who picked cotton and cleaned other people's homes and worked three jobs so that you could have a better life.

It's time for a change, and your vote will give us 

the change we need.

Wordless Wednesday: Your Vote is the ONLY Poll that Counts!

 

  

  

  

 

A Change is Coming!

It's almost November 4th!  Yes, we know what the polls say, but what do YOU say?

If you can vote early...vote NOW!

If you can vote absentee...vote NOW!

Check your voting location and check your registration!

Make sure when you do vote, that your vote is recorded and recorded correctly, 

especially if you are using a touch screen voting machine!

If you have to work or go to class, make arrangements NOW to make time to vote! The lines will be long and there may be registration questions or voter suppression attempts!  Be careful, be ready, be sure! Bring along photo I.D. just in case...especially if you are a new voter or haven't voted for a while.

 

Voting queue in  South Africa, 1990

Don't wait until the last minute.

The ONLY poll that counts is YOUR VOTE!!

For a hilarious way to "destroy" a fraudulent touch-screen voting machine, watch this video from David Alan Grier's Chocolate News cable show on "Brad's Blog"...


Shameless Plug: please read my husband's blog The "D" Spot...

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Wordless Wednesday: Brush It Off and Get Out to Vote!

 

(Photo Credit: Lisa Bocook and The Field)

Secretary Colin Powell wants That One!

Four-star General Colin Powell, former Secretary of State under George W. Bush, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under George H.W. Bush, former National Security Adviser under Ronald Reagan, and 25-year friend of Senator John McCain, has endorsed Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States.

Especially important to the City of Detroit is that both General Powell and Senator Obama have stated that education is extremely important to them and to America. Detroit's education system needs all of the "up high" help it can get.

Secretary Powell, on Meet the Press this morning, and at a news conference immediately following, stated the reasons for his decision (and emphasized it was not because of "race"):
1) the Republicans' narrow focus on irrelevant personal attacks, especially "Muslim" and "Bill Ayers" and "ACORN" instead of a serious approach to today's challenges;
2) the selection of Governor Sarah Palin as the vice-presidential pick;
3) questions about John McCain's judgment';
4) the style and substance and temperment of Barack Obama;
5) Barack Obama will restore America's standing in the world and diplomatic choices in dealing with the world.

Muslim-American Mom and her deceased soldier son born in New Jersey
referenced by General Powell on MTP.

Watch the Meet the Press interview; it is very enlightening and informative.

Make sure to check your voter registration with your local clerk's office...this election will not be stolen!

Check Your Voter Registration in Michigan!

Michigan is one of the states that has a "motor/voter" law, meaning that people can register to vote at the Secretary of State where they can also receive their driver's license or state identification card. Voter registrations are also available at the voter's county or city clerk's office. Tens of thousands of registrations, especially new registrations, may be in jeopardy.

[This article is cross-posted at my progressive political blog: BlackLiberalBoomer...]

Voter registration alert! It has been reported that tens of thousands of people legally eligible to vote have been removed from the rolls in six states: Michigan, Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, and Nevada. Some of these states are improperly and illegally using Social Security data for verification purposes; some states are breaking the law by purging voters within 90 days of a federal election. Because voter registration efforts of the Democratic party have resulted in millions of new voters this year, likely Democratic Party voters are disproportionately affected. In some states, for every two new registrations, two voters have been removed from the rolls.

The 2008 Election is only 26 days away. It is incumbent upon all registered voters in the affected states to call their local county or city clerk's office and check their registrations. It is especially important for voters if they have moved recently, have not voted in one or any of the last few elections in their jurisdiction, or are newly registered. It is also important to remember that if you are challenged at the voting booth, that you have the RIGHT to ask for an alternative ballot and sign an affidavit that you are who you say you are and vote anyway.

We know that voter suppression was successfully carried out in previous years, and is being tried again this year. It is going to be even more intense because the party now in power is desperate.  That party is looking not only at the Presidential race, but also the "down-ticket" races of Senators, Congresspeople, judges, etc. If you are a United States Citizen and were duly registered before your state's deadline, you have the RIGHT to vote. Take a couple of hours and make sure that your name is on the rolls, and bring picture I.D. with you on election day. We know that picture I.D. shouldn't have to be required, but it is better to be prepared than to be turned away.

Shameless Plug: please read my husband's blog The "D" Spot...

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Wordless Wednesday: "That One"

That One Website

Wordless Wednesday: Denver Democratic Convention 2008

How Does YOUR Presidential Nominee Make You Feel About the Future of America?

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Photos Credit: Al Rogers

Shameless Plug: please read my husband's blog The "D" Spot...

If you enjoyed this post, please share it and subscribe to updates!

Got That?

From an email going viral:

From time to time, I'm going to share interesting viral emails I get about the election:

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."

* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

* If you teach children about sexual predators, you are irresponsible and eroding the fiber of society.

* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate laywer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America 's.

* If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that hates America and advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.

Enough!

A real issue: Michigan Republicans are trying to challenge voters whose homes have been foreclosed...

I got MY 3 AM Text Message! Obama-Biden!

Let the General Election Campaign start! Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) announced EARLY this morning that he had chosen Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) as his Vice-Presidential running mate! I received my text message at 3:02 AM (even though I was asleep)--I think the correlation to "ready at 3 AM" was priceless!

As most of you know, "The 'D' Spot Redeux" is not a political blog per se, but I sometimes have to step in with my opinions--and I will!

Today, in this space I'm going to treat you to a guest post from one of my absolute favorite progressive political bloggers (besides my hubby, of  course!), Al Giordano. If you are a true progressive, you will love his blog (named "The Field"--long story); if you're not, well, that's OK, I forgive you!  Plus, you know by now that I love history and historical contexts; and you may find plenty of information in this guest post that I betcha didn't know!  (In coming weeks, I'll find and post a connection between Joe Biden and Detroit--you know I will!)

You also know that every post here is or will be connected to Detroit and Michigan, and this election is VERY important to our city and state. Therefore, whoever you decide to vote for, I just ask that you be as informed about your choice as possible.

On Monday, we will return to our regularly scheduled daily posts.

Biden: Second Chance for The Everyman

Posted by Al Giordano - August 23, 2008 at 9:05 am

By Al Giordano



Twenty years ago, Joe Biden was 46, almost the same age Barack Obama is today, and was running for the Democratic nomination for president after eight years of Ronald Reagan's White House. He coulda been a contendah, until John Sasso - campaign manager for rival Mike Dukakis - leaked a videotape to the networks of a British politician's speech that had used the very same words Biden was using on the stump:

"Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go a
university? Why is it that my wife . . . is the first in her family to
ever go to college? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not
bright? . . . Is it because they didn't work hard? My ancestors who
worked in the coal mines of northeast Pennsylvania and would come after
12 hours and play football for four hours? It's because they didn't
have a platform on which to stand."

Biden had, on previous occasions, credited the Brit, Neil Kinnock, with the words, but on subsequent moments did not. "Plagiarism" was the charge - hardly the kind of thing that would have sunk a candidate today, but in 1988 - when a less politically savvy public didn't understand that most politicians don't write their own speeches - it was devastating. Biden dropped out of the presidential contest and didn't enter it again until last year. But by then it seemed more a Last Hurrah; a kind of revival tour for a one-hit wonder pop group from the 1980s.

Yet the words in that 1988 speech were essentially true, if not original. He was the first Biden to go to college. He did descend from coal miner country. This was a man with the class resentment that comes naturally to being born from below. And as the national media vetting process will disclose in the coming days, after 36 years in the US Senate, he's still one of the poorest US Senators: he never availed himself of the back-door personal enrichment techniques that most of his colleagues - Democrat and Republican - have utilized. Beyond class resentment, he retains a sense of class solidarity. His wife since 1977 never went into Washington lobbying: she remained a public schoolteacher.
Biden has also lived personal tragedies that would have splat most people like watermelons tossed from the sixth floor of a Wilmington tenement: between his first US Senate election in 1972 and being sworn in, his first wife and three small children were in a gruesome car accident. 
Mrs. Biden died, his kids were wounded, and he became a single father.
Biden never quite entered the Washington DC culture so seductive to his peers: commuting from Delaware to DC, always coming home at night.


Had he not been driven from the 1988 presidential contest, perhaps George H.W. Bush, Sr., would have never been elected president. Perhaps we never would have settled on Bill Clinton as a lukewarm response to that crisis. Woulda, coulda, shoulda, sure, but here's my point: Whatever we think of Biden's ideology - his hawkishness on wars, foreign and domestic, his foot-in-mouth disease, his addiction to TV news liveshots (oh, lordy, Patty Solis Doyle won't be able to sleep for the next ten weeks, monitoring her invisible electronic shock collar that has now been fastened around Biden's neck) - his personal story is compelling and honorable.
It's that personal story that is going to be featured heavily in the coming days as he migrates through Springfield, Eau Claire, Quad Cities, Kansas City, Billings and Denver. His native Pennsylvania is now a lock for Obama, and he puts Pennsyltucky (West Virginia, Southeast Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, Western Virginia, in particular) back in play.

And in Biden, we have a textbook example of the difference between holding racist ideations (his "clean and articulate" comments about Obama, his stereotypical remarks about Indian-Americans and convenience stores, etc.) and "race baiting" (the Clintonian and Republican penchant for willfully using the wedge of race to divide Americans in order to win elections). Biden is surely guilty of the former but, let's be honest, who isn't? You? Go to the mirror and think again! Watching Biden over the decades, I've not seen him willfully use race to divide others (which is what has placed so many of us in an unforgiving stance toward Bill Clinton, especially this past year). Even when they were still primary rivals for the nomination, Obama came to Biden's defense during a debate, defending that "in his soul," Biden's not a hater.

I think the two of them are going to get along splendidly, and have a lot of infectious fun using John McCain as a punching bag. Apollo Creed has now signed on as coach and sparring partner with Rocky Balboa.
Multi-racial class warfare - there's a place for us, somewhere a place for us - now becomes the wedge against the millionaire McCain.
Yes, I would have preferred the "three point shot" - that Obama pick a running mate from outside of Washington - but as DC insiders go, it's interesting that Biden chose all these years to refuse to live inside it, or meet with its lobbyists.

The 2008 election now has its very own "Comeback Kid," and his name ain't Clinton. Oh, yes, I can live with that.

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