Flashback: It’s Your Duty to Vote
This rant from Craig Ferguson is as relevant now as it was in 2008 (unfortunately).
Tag: Campaign 2010
Union Plans to Turn Out Latin Vote
Despite being urged not to vote by a group with ties to the Bush White House and financing from GOP and pro-life leaders, Latinos will vote this year. So says Hector Figueroa, an officer with the Service Employees International Union-32BJ (SEIU), who claims most American Latinos are eager to cast their ballots.
Figueroa…says that almost 60 percent of Latino voters now say they are “very enthusiastic” about voting, up from 41 percent on September 6, according to the latest Latino Decisions tracking poll.
“There is a strong sentiment that those behind the Arizona law have been able to place candidates in strategic elections, and their election would be quite detrimental to our community. So in some ways it has galvanized attention. And Latinos want to be there at the polls and be counted.”
They want to be counted in spite of shameful ads like this one, run by the shadowy Latinos 4 Reform:
And if watching the ad itself doesn’t inspire Latino outrage at those who would cynically keep them out of the democratic process, SEIU volunteers will be working the phones on election day to turn out the Latino vote.
KY Sen: Rand Paul Thug Charged with Assault
AP:
The central Kentucky man who was videotaped stepping on a woman outside a U.S. Senate debate has been charged with misdemeanor assault.
Tim Profitt and other supporters of Republican Rand Paul were filmed restraining a woman attempting to give the candidate a mock award. The Lexington Herald-Leader reports Profitt will go before a district judge in Lexington on Nov. 18 on a fourth-degree assault charge.
A criminal summons says Profitt “intentionally placed his foot on the shoulder/head region on the victim.”
The Paul campaign dropped the 53-year-old Profitt as a coordinator in Bourbon County after the incident.
Paul’s opponent, Democrat Jack Conway, has used the incident to criticize Paul and state Democrats used the footage in a TV ad.
Despite this criminal association, polls indicate Paul is likely to win the race against Attorney General Conway.
Verbatim
The Republican Party would like nothing better than to see the discontent in the Democratic base help them install truly the most extreme lot of candidates we have seen in many years. We’ve exposed the tea party as nothing more than a reconfiguration of all the religious zealots, moral crusaders, racists and bigots who’ve been around for years. Do not attempt to punish the president or the Democrats by punishing yourself. This country has been in a very precarious state for a long time, in which the political winds can usher in something radical and extreme very quickly. Bad economic times are always an opportunity for those who seek to do that. We have and will demand full accountability by the Democrats and president — who is not on the ballot until 2012 — but don’t do it by giving power to your enemies.
– SiriusXM radio host Michelangelo Signorile.
Verbatim
If she had spent her millions trying to help the poor, we’d be a lot better off today.
– Loretta Benavides, an independent voter from Martinez, Calif., saying she was so offended by Republican Meg Whitman’s spending $141 million of her own money to run for governor of California that she had decided to vote for the Democrat, Jerry Brown, instead.
NC07: GOP-T Candidate Who Shot Two Unarmed Iraqis Likely to Be Elected to Congress
The atmosphere around the 2010 midterm elections has been as charged with the potential for violence as any since the Vietnam era, at least. The poisoning of the political environment began last summer when cable news ran video of tea baggers throwing tantrums over the president’s birth certificate and similar issues at congressional town hall meetings. A little later, gun nuts made a show of loitering around presidential event venues carrying loaded rifles and handguns.
During the primaries, Nevada tea bagger U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle treasonously threatened “Second Amendment remedies” — in other words, armed insurrection against the United States — if the elections don’t go her way. Just last week, Rev. Stephen Broden, a tea bagger candidate for Congress in Texas’ 30th District proclaimed that armed revolution against the U.S. government was “not off the table,” if tea baggers fail to win control of Congress next Tuesday.
In just the past two weeks, there have been two incidents of tea bagger thugs threatening and even assaulting liberals at rallies and one instance of hired private security goons “arresting” a reporter for demanding answers from a Senate candidate about his record.
Now it appears that voters in two House districts are prepared to elect tea bagger candidates who are war criminals — literally.
KY Sen: Rand Paul Thug Blames Victim, Camera Angle, Back Pain and Police for Curb Stomping
“I don’t think it’s that big of a deal,” Profitt said. And when asked if he would apologize to Valle. “I would like for her to apologize to me to be honest with you.”
Republicans like Profitt like to talk about personal responsibility and accountability — but, to their way of thinking, accountability only applies to Democrats. When they do something that is demonstrably wrong, they invariably blame someone, anyone, else.
For example, in Profitt’s first media statement yesterday, he offered a cleverly worded non-apology that shifted blame to his victim and cast himself as merely a concerned bystander trying to protect a candidate from a potential assailant:
“I’m sorry that it came to that, and I apologize if it appeared overly forceful, but I was concerned about Rand’s safety,” Profitt said.
KY Sen: Rand Paul Tea Bagger Goons Identified, Campaign Supporters Tim Profitt, Mike Pezzano
The Lexington Division of Police has identified a suspect in connection to the October 25, 2010 assault of a woman at 600 Cooper Drive…
Officers responded to the scene of the assault and made contact with the victim. She identified herself as a member of MoveOn.org and stated she was assaulted while attempting to take a picture with candidate Rand Paul. Division of Police patrol officers took an assault report and forwarded the case to the Division of Police Bureau of Investigation.
Today, October 26, 2010, detectives identified the suspect, involved in the assault, as Tim Profitt. Mr. Profitt is currently being served with a criminal summons ordering him to appear before a Fayette County District Court Judge.
Profitt is an unpaid official for the Paul campaign:
CA Sen: Fiorina Hospitalized
Just a week before the election, Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO hoping to grab Sen. Barbara Boxer’s (D-Calif.) seat for the Republicans, has been hospitalized for an infection related to post-mastectomy breast reconstruction surgery.
Fiorina’s chief of staff issued a statement saying the candidate “came down with an infection associated with the reconstructive surgery and, as a result, she was admitted to the hospital to receive antibiotics to treat this infection.”
The statement gave no other details about her condition except to say that she remained “cancer-free.”
“Her doctors expect her to make a quick and full recovery and be back out on the campaign trail soon,” according to the statement.
Fiorina, 56, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009 and underwent a mastectomy. She had reconstructive surgery this summer.
Angle Ad: If You’re White, Aliens are Coming to Get You
The newest ad from U.S. Senate candidate from Nevada, Sharron Angle, is the Willie Horton story of our day. Anyone who could watch this piece of work and not get the fear-mongering it employs should watch it again. But just in case you still don’t get it, Mi Blog es tu Blog‘s Laura Martinez breaks it down. Ads like Angle’s, she says:
…remind us that Latino immigrants are a scary bunch — crossing the border armed with knifes and torches, ready to strip you of your benefits and jobs and scare the hell out of your white family.
Angle’s spots go way beyond blatantly stereotyping Latino immigrants as a bandana-wearing crowd ready to corner you in some dark alley. More gravely, they send a message of “us” against “them.” It’s Brown vs. White. Watch closely: While the ad mentions immigrants going to college and collecting social security, every shot of the “illegal aliens” shows particularly swarthy Latino youth all dressed up for gang initiation. The family that is shown living in fear of them is white.
…I can only hope these “dangerous fellows” will take some time off their criminal activities to go to the polls this November.
