Me and Guleff talk about Consolidation

Of course, I'm right and he's wrong, but...   Heh, it was a great time, it always is!

I'm just about there myself...

This comes from a post at MyDD written by Jerome Armstrong, who co-wrote CRASHING THE GATES with Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos.  It's come to the point that the Democratic Party has left ME, and maybe it's just time to move on.



Part of this comes from realizing that, outside of Shelby County and parts of Davidson County, no one has the faintest clue what the Democratic Party IS, or was SUPPOSED TO BE.  Read that clip from Rep. Henry Fincher:

"I'm not advertising or trumpeting the fact that I'm a Democrat. It's a bad year to be a Democrat. The brand has been damaged by the left wing of the party. They have really screwed up things for guys like me."

Why even bother with the Democratic Party when you have morons like that?  There are people IN the party worth supporting who actually FIGHT for Democratic principles, like Cohen, Kernell, Beverly Marrero, and Jeannie Richardson.  They, however, are a minority in a state party that is determined to just be barely to the left of fools and racists.


Let the monsoon come, let's protect our own and then worry about building a MOVEMENT.  The Democratic Party is no longer it, folks. Obama blew the biggest chance we ever had by not being a strong enough leader to fight for people and not strong-arming Congressmen and Senators IN HIS OWN PARTY to stand up for people.  He hired the Wall Street crowd to run the economy, the very same people who ran the economy into the ground.


And he wonders why his base is not turning out?  When you are fighting Republicans, you have to FIGHT them.  Kick them in the balls and then stomp on their heads when they are down, because that's all they understand.  Instead, he wants to reach out to them.  What happens when you shake hands with a werewolf?


Well, I've voted, and I'll show up at Cohen's event on Tuesday night to congratulate him on his victory.  After that, though, I'm done, i'm not even sure what I'm going to do with this blog yet.  Stay tuned.

Well, we may well BE in John Jay Hooker territory

The Tri-State Defender endorses Bill Haslam for Governor.

I think I need another martini or three, I'll see you tomorrow.  Sigh........

Pro-Consolidation News

First, your humble Cracker is going up against our buddy Tom Guleff on the post-World Series game FOX 13 news tonight speaking in FAVOR of consolidation. UPDATE: our segment will be shown on the Saturday night news, we found out when we got there.

Next, an event will be held this weekend talking about the Charter, from our friend Bonny Kinney of Rebuild Government:

Commissioners Reunite for Final Push to the Polls

Memphis, TN – Commissioners who helped draft the new charter on the ballot November 2^nd will meet together this weekend to talk to the community about the importance of a new, more efficient government structure.  It will be the last time they meet before Election Day on Tuesday.

Date:   Saturday, October 30, 2010

Time:   11 a.m.

Place:  Bloomfield Full Gospel Baptist Church

             123 S. Parkway West

             Memphis, TN  38109

Bloomfield is the home church of Reverend Ralph White, who also served on the Charter Commission.   Other civic leaders, including Dr. Maxine Smith, are also scheduled to attend.

Rebuild Government is made up of concerned citizens who organized in 2009.  The purpose of Rebuild Government is to create public awareness and foster a county-wide conversation about the need for a new government.  You can learn more about Rebuild Government at www.rebuildgovernment.org.

All I Have To Say Is

WHAT STEVE ROSS SAID.

Um, NOW will you go vote?

@watchdogon3mike matthews

On Informed Sources this week, both Norm Brewer and Jackson Baker say Charlotte Bergman could get up to 40% of vote vs Steve Cohen.

35 minutes ago via web

Now, the Watchdog and these folks are saying this NOT because of a groundswell for Bergmann, but because DEMOCRATS AREN'T VOTING.  Get off your butts and get out there! Do you WANT the Republicans in charge?  How'd THAT work out last time?

Want to Help Democratic Turnout? Show Up At One of These Events!

MEDIA ADVISORY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TO ALL MEDIA OUTLETS

Date:  October 22, 2010               Time: 5:30 p.m.

          Please make note of the following dates and activities to date:

1.            October 23, 2010, Get Out The Vote Rally, Orange Mound Satellite Headquarters, 1404 Airways, 10:00-12:00 p.m. and 2:00-4:00 p.m.

2.            October 23, 2010, Get Out the Vote Rally, Herron for Congress Headquarters, 3518 North Watkins, Memphis, Tennessee, 12:00-2:00 p.m.

3.            October 26, 2010, 2:00 p.m., Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, 70 North Bellevue Blvd, Memphis, Tennessee, Get Out The Vote Rally and Press Conference with Elected Officials and local clergymen

4.            October 28, 2010, 6:00-8:00 p.m., Strategy Session for Election Day Voter Protection and Poll coverage, Whitehaven Headquarters, 4118 South Plaza, Memphis, Tennessee

5.            October 30, 2010, 12:00-4:00 Election Day Rally, Whitehaven Headquarters, 4118 South Plaza Drive, Memphis, Tennessee!!!!!

6.            November 2, 2010, ELECTION DAY, Transportation, Poll watching, and Voter protection!!!

Contact:

Van Turner, Chair

Shelby County Democratic Party

4118 South Plaza Drive

Memphis, TN 38116

Phone:  901-283-5017

Ed Stanton and the USA's office are NOT playing around, people!

Thanks to Van Turner for this information!

Department of Justice Press Release

For Immediate Release October 18, 2010	United States Attorney's Office                                                             Western District of Tennessee                                                              Contact: (901) 544-4231
November 2010 Elections MEMPHIS, TN—United States Attorney Edward L. Stanton, III announced today that Assistant United States Attorney Justin L. Bailey will lead the efforts of his office in connection with the Justice Department’s nationwide Election Day Program for the upcoming November 2, 2010 general elections. AUSA Bailey has been appointed to serve as the District Election Officer for the Western District of Tennessee, and in that capacity is responsible for overseeing the District’s handling of complaints of election fraud and voting rights abuses in consultation with Justice Department Headquarters in Washington. “Every citizen must be able to vote without interference or discrimination and to have that vote counted without it being stolen because of fraud. The Department of Justice will act promptly and aggressively to protect the integrity of the election process,” said Mr. Stanton. Eight years ago, former Attorney General Ashcroft established a Department-wide Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative. The goals of this ongoing Initiative are to increase the Department’s ability to deter election fraud and discrimination at the polls, and to prosecute these offenses whenever and wherever they occur. The Department’s long-standing Election Day Program furthers these goals, and also seeks to ensure public confidence in the integrity of the election process by providing local points of contact within the Department for the public to report possible election fraud and voting rights violations while the polls are open on election day. The franchise is the cornerstone of American democracy. We all must ensure that those who are entitled to the franchise exercise it if they choose, and that those who seek to corrupt it are brought to justice. In order to respond to complaints of election fraud or voting rights abuses on November 2, 2010, and to ensure that such complaints are directed to the appropriate authorities, Mr. Stanton stated that the District Election Officer will be on duty in this District while the polls are open. Mr. Bailey can be reached by the public at the following telephone number: (901) 969-2920. In addition, the FBI will have Special Agents available in each Field Office and Resident Agency throughout the country to receive allegations of election fraud and other election abuses on election day. The FBI can be reached by the public at (901) 747-4300. Complaints about ballot access problems or discrimination can be made directly to the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section in Washington at 1-800-253-3931 or 202-307-2767. Mr. Stanton said, “The effectiveness of our Election Day Program depends in large part on the watchfulness and cooperation of the American electorate. It is imperative that those who have specific information about discrimination or election fraud make that information available immediately to my Office, the FBI, or the Civil Rights Division.”

The SCDP Needs YOU!

Just got this from Barbara Williams of the SCDP:

There is local Dem GOTV activity in progress - just wanted you to know we need more volunteers. Please ask people to call the party at 323-3290.

 All right then, give them a call and find out how YOU can help!

All Righty Then! US District Judge Issues Injunction on Consolidation Vote

Hat tip to Steve Ross for this, here's a part of the CA story:

A U.S. District Judge has signed an injunction delaying the certification of the Nov. 2 consolidation vote until he rules on whether the state system for requiring majorities inside the city and outside the city to approve a metro government is legal.

Judge Thomas Anderson signed the injunction, which was agreed to by the plaintiffs and defendants, this morning.

The ruling means that voting will proceed as normal, but the results of the election would not be certified until Anderson rules on the case, which claims the state system is unconstitutional because it violates the one-man, one-vote principle. Early voting for the referendum began last week.

 Holy moly.  If the judge rules in favor of the plaintiffs, this kicks the consolidation vote up a notch.

All right, Democratic voters, NOW are you ready to get out and VOTE?  DO IT TODAY.

McWherter Comments on Haslam's Endorsement of Wild West-Style Gun Laws

Bill Haslam Will Work to Legalize Carrying Guns Anywhere

Pledges Support for Total Firearm Deregulation

NASHVILLE – At a meeting of the Tennessee Firearm Association, Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam told a crowd he would sign a bill legalizing the carrying of firearms in all public areas. After shortly being pressed by members, Bill Haslam committed to signing a bill to allow citizens to carry a concealed firearm without a permit and said, “If the legislature passed it and brought that to me, I said I would sign it.”

Official statement from Mike McWherter
"While I am a strong supporter of second amendment rights, I am shocked at Bill Haslam's lack of common sense and total disregard for public safety. This is irresponsible” said Mike McWherter. “Bill Haslam is willing to put the safety of Tennessee families in jeopardy, this speaks to the core of his character."

If You're Pro-Choice and You Have Thought Of Voting for Haslam, THINK AGAIN

From my friends at Planned Parenthood:

Tennessee gubernatorial candidate Bill Haslam is quoted in today's Commercial Appeal as saying that he is "opposed to spending state dollars on contraception and routing any state funds through Planned Parenthood."

Below is a link to the Commercial Appeal article:
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/oct/19/candidates-differ-on-aid-for-families/
Please forward this message to your friends and contacts and help us get the word out!

 Need I say more?  THIS is yet another reason I am voting for McWherter, he has made no such claim (and better not, either).

Hey! Have you voted yet?

Well, I haven't, either, but that will be rectified soon.  Look, you seriously need to get off your butts and vote, because EVERY right-wing nutjob is A) lining up to vote and B) trying to figure out a way to keep YOU from voting.

No, I'm not excited either. However, if Democrats DON'T vote, DEMOCRATS LOSE.  And yes, ANY of them on the ballot could lose if YOU don't vote.  So, do it NOW, or as early as you can.

NOTE: Thanks to @faintgraylines for the edit; how DOES one get off their votes and butt?  Could one get arrested for that? :-)

Ladies and Gentleman, I am Delighted To Announce That...

Trace Sharp has now returned from sabbatical to Speak To Power, and soon I will do likewise, although she had better reasons than I did.

go check out what she's writing about, a GOP state House Candidate who wantonly ignores campaign finance laws.

WHAT RANDY NEAL SAID

If YOU are a Tennessee Democrat, GO READ THIS NOW.

Amen, brother, preach it!

Won't You Come Clean, Bill Haslam

a little birdie sent me this one...

I Would Run This Ad Every 5 Minutes On Local News!!!

The best ad yet from Mike McWherter, hat tip to Pith In The Wind.

Regina Morrison Newman responds to my earlier post

Without further ado:

I have already done a lot of breathing and a lot of work.  The fact is that our current election commissioners are knowledgeable of nothing regarding the tabulation of votes...all of them.

It was not necessary for Myra (also my long-time and good friend) to file an affidavit with the court in support of the SCEC's motion to dismiss the election contest (not granted but argued before trial).  It was not necessary for her to write a letter to the editor trashing the process.

I don't care who is out-numbered on the EC, the Democratic Party asked our Democratic election commissioners to vote NO to certify and they had time left to allow continued inspection rather than blocking it.  They certified a mess of an election and they did it early, with all 5 votes. 

This is supposed to be a public process and those are our votes, without regard to partisanship, race or anything else.  Even with court orders, we STILL haven't received important info we asked for and it is PUBLIC information.

I have read Dee Nollner's report.  Apparently there is a lot of misinformation going around about what was said and testified to in the lawsuit. The only thing the judge ruled on was that we didn't prove fraud or illegality, but the law says we don't have to. 

What the SCEC did do, was engage in abuse of the discovery process.  The information requested in the inspection was public information yet they covered it up or didn't supply it.  We then formally requested the same information in the lawsuit, yet SCEC didn't supply anything until ordered by the judge on the morning of 10/4 to give us everything by 4:30 that day.  They told the media they had already given us everything, but around 4:30, they supplied 5 boxes and 2.5 terrabytes of information (that is 8.3 million pages) and trial was scheduled to start a day later.  They still did not supply some crucial items and those items are still public information.  Evaluation is continuing on the data received because the process must be improved and specificity will be helpful.  An appeal is likely.

The Dem party asked for Federal monitors in May and did not get them.  They asked for them 30 days before early voting started for August, due to the May problems, and did not get them.  In point of fact, observers are quite worthless for the problems incurred in the August election.  The problems are in the software and vote tabulation process INSIDE the computer system.  Although observers might be able to assist voters at the polls, the SCEC computer system is not properly handling the tabulation of the digitally uploaded votes....and there you have the problem with this whole issue.  It is way too technical for the local media or most voters to want to understand. 

SCEC is supposed to run a Logic & Accuracy Test (L&A) on the whole computerized set-up after the election is built for a coming election day.  In August, they only checked the Republican candidates and only partially.  We also 'accidently' received on 10/4 the test which was run for November's election.  Again, the test was only partially done.  This is the age of computers and unless we have people on the EC who understand how computers function, we will continue to have problems.  Unless the SCEC performs the proper testing, we will continue to have problems.  Unless they properly train the election workers, we will continue to have problems.  Despite Giannini's immediate response to the inspection we initiated and the TBI investigation, where he said everything was fine and no one would turn anything up, the moment we listed all the issues on August 24, he said he had to contact the vendor.  The SCEC had no idea how to respond to the issues raised by us in the lawsuit and actually asked the computer system vendor, ESS, how to respond. Attached is a copy of that email. (LWC here: I am working on trying to attach this so you can see it).  You will note that the correspondence parallels Giannini's rebuttal eventually printed in the Flyer.

We discovered that the SCEC staff does not actually build the election in their computer system even though they think they do.  They testified they don't assign the candidate IDs, the vote export IDs (determine where a candidate's votes get tabulated in the software), the various race IDs or really anything.  They think the software does it.  As far as I can tell, the election must have been 'built' by the vendor and without proper testing, the systems will continue to run inaccurately.  There were August problems with all those parts of the election tabulation system.

On 8/19, when the August election was certified, SCEC knew that the number of votes was 3221 more than the number of voters their records showed.  They knew on August 5th that the 'error' they admitted potentially affected 5390 voters, not the 210 or 300 that Giannini kept harping about.  2024 of the 5390 voted but that left 3265 hard-core voters who didn't vote.  Not likely by choice.  They also knew on August 19th, that they only audited 10% of the precincts for certification purposes (out of 236, that's about 24), but 11 of them didn't reconcile.  That's about half.  Yet they certified this mess of an election.

Bottom line: they have a lot of issues which need to be corrected and couldn't verify those election results from August if they tried.  The same thing will be happening in November.  This is really a non-partisan issue but the media was determined to make it partisan.  A lot of work needs to be done and help from any quarter is appreciated but observers are not the only answer.

There seems to be a lot of panic in the air

I have heard that, in the aftermath of the clusterf*ck that was the August elections, that there have been calls for both Democratic commissioners, Myra Stiles and James Johnson, to be replaced immediately.

Um, no.  First, no matter who our commissioners are, they will be outvoted 3-2, no matter how long and loud they scream, so it would be pointless. Because Democratic leadership in the legislature never conceived that they would ever be out of power, they failed to ensure that Democratic-leaning counties would always have Democratic-leaning commissioners in charge.

Next, Ms. Stiles (full disclosure, a dear friend of many years and I am not at all impartial here) has spent several terms on the Commission, and Mr. Johnson was formerly the Executive Director of the Commission, so where would you find two more knowledgeable people on such short notice?  Step back and breathe, folks.

Now, if you have concerns about the upcoming election (and I am not saying that you SHOULDN'T, given the unsecurable machines that we are forced to use), what those of you NEED to be doing is getting and TRAINING as many potential pollwatchers as possible for EVERY POLL for November.

Be effective, let's get as many folks as possible and SHOW A DEMOCRATIC PRESENCE at the polls.  This will send a message to those who might be discouraged that we are determined to protect their votes and ensure that they will be counted fairly.  This needs to happen TODAY.

If those of you who want to toss Myra Stiles and James Johnson will work on this project instead, I will support this; otherwise, it's just mindless talk and will achieve nothing.

Are you in?

Go Help Mike McWherter Tomorrow

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TO ALL MEDIA OUTLETS

Date:  October 15, 2010               Time: 4:30 p.m.

          On tomorrow, October 16, 2010, Gubernatorial candidate Mike McWherter will be at the SCDP main headquarters located at 4118 South Plaza Drive, Memphis, Tennessee 38116 from 12:00-4:00 phone banking and transporting voters to the polls.  It is well-known that Shelby County is the Democratic base for the state.  If any Democrat expects to win, Shelby County has to show-up and that’s what we are working towards doing.  Let’s roll-up are sleeves and go to work!!!

Contact:

Van Turner, Chair

Shelby County Democratic Party

4118 South Plaza Drive

Memphis, TN 38116

Phone:  901-283-5017