U street celebrates!

from DC magda who celebrated the night away on U street!

The Hangover

a guest article from SG friend and reader, margaret FK:

This morning I was listening to pundits expound on this historic moment in our history. And in the way that pundits tend to get carried away, they speculated that we are living in a “post racial” society, using the fact that Obama did not run on a ticket of “redemption” for our collective sins against African-Americans but rather a message of hope and a new course for our country as evidence of his “post racial” appeal.

I hate to be a cynic on the day of the triumph of hope, but COME ON! Don’t get me wrong, I do have the audacity to hope that it will indeed be a historic moment when the election results come in tonight, but I think that Obama’s campaign was so effective precisely because he recognized that this is not a post racial society and kept a careful distance from “black” issues (the fact that he is half white, light skinned and talks with a Midwestern twang did not hurt either). And I’m not saying that I think his vision for unity and change is insincere (or even that his twang is rehearsed), or that just because he is half-black means he should be a single issue candidate. I am saying that Barack Obama being elected president does not mean the U.S. has “moved beyond” race as an issue.

Consider the reality of black men in America. The statistics show that fewer than half of black boys graduate from high school four years after entering the ninth grade. More black men earn their high school equivalency diplomas in prison each year than graduate from college. More than half of the nation's 5.6 million black boys live in fatherless households, 40 percent of which are impoverished. 840,000 black men are incarcerated, and black males have a one in three chance of serving time at some point in their lives.

After the parties are over tonight, and everyone has basked in the historic glow of Obama’s legitimately impressive and unprecedented accomplishment, we will all wake up tomorrow to an America still marked by widening inequality, where the ladder of opportunity remains out of reach for certain populations, and where it is increasingly clear that it is propped up against an unsustainable and crumbling economic system.

Despite this overwhelming reality, I am hopeful about an Obama presidency. If he could persuade the majority of the electorate to vote for him, perhaps he can use his great communication skills to call Americans to higher ideals. Maybe he can move us to reconsider the idea that our individual futures are tied to the collective and that we fare better as a society when we care for our neighbors – even when they don’t look like us. This means loosening the grip on our national obsession with amassing personal fortunes and our tendency to create policies that ensure individuals and corporations are unfettered in their pursuit of cash. Maybe this sounds a little too pie in the sky (or even, gasp! commie, to our more conservative friends), but I think we are a country in need of a paradigm shift and that starts with thinking differently - with inspiration. We are undoubtedly going to have an economic wake-up call in the next couple of years – to my mind the important question is, will it bring us together or tear us apart? If Obama wins, I think coming together has a shooting chance (but first he has to win!)

get ready, get set, roll & vote!

buyolympia gets out the VOTE!

buyolympia does it again ... by popular demand ... more free VOTE posters are available as well as bumper stickers, limited edition silk-screened wood print VOTE signs and t-shirts for sale. request 'em and pass 'em out for FREE!

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when can you get something for free??? buyolympia, a collection of independent artists and designers selling their wares online, is offering free VOTE posters to spread the word and their cause...

from today's promotional email: "... an exciting project we've worked on with Nikki McClure. It's a poster featuring her VOTE paper-cut with space on the side for you to include your own message. The best part? We're giving them away free to anyone who asks.We've printed 10,000 posters and we're giving (and mailing) them to anyone who asks. So tell your friends and let your voice be heard."

i've already put in my order... and while you are there, shop online. i've bought nikki mcclure calendars, cards and baby books, as well as jill bliss cards, journals, and pouches. also, my current favorite, sarah utter's stuff -- reading is sexy -- including mugs made of corn!

Homer Simpson Attempts to Vote in America

A poignant message a month away.

Fresh Evidence of Election Fraud

As reported on Raw Story yesterday.

To continue the theme of corporate take-overs of everything from our energy policy to our democracy there is fresh evidence that the 2002 Georgia Senate and Governors election was stolen. To give a brief background, everyone knows the troubles and travails of the Florida election in 2000, sophisticated ways of blocking the vote and not counting the vote, but in 2002 Georgia became the test case that I believe set the stage for Ohio and 13 other states in 2004 that cost Kerry the election and gave us Roberts and Alito as well as four more years of the dreadful, illegal Bush policies.

But, this election (outside of the Nebraska Senate election which also drew ire) was the first election people woke up and said this is serious business, our elections can be stolen by a computer trip, never mind through voter purging. Set-up a machine, provide no paper trail for who one voted for and voila - election fraud - simple as 1-2.

In a press conference yesterday, barely paid attention to by the media (Why would they? They are part of the problem) a leading cyber-security expert and former adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he has fresh evidence regarding election fraud on Diebold electronic voting machines during the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senatorial elections. Stephen Spoonamore is the founder and until recently the CEO of Cybrinth LLC, an information technology policy and security firm that serves Fortune 100 companies.

Spoonamore is one of the most prominent cyber-security experts in the country. He has appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs and ABC's World News Tonight, and has security clearances from his work with the intelligence community and other government agencies, as well as the Department of Defense, and is one of the world’s leading authorities on hacking and cyber-espionage.

In 1995, Spoonamore received a civilian citation for his work with the Department of Defense. He was again recognized for his contributions in 2004 by the Department of Homeland Security. Spoonamore is also a registered Republican and until recently was advising the McCain campaign.

A whistleblower that wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation spoke to Raw Story regarding the election in 2002 and gave Spoonamore the patch that was applied to the Diebold machines in two democratic strongholds in Fulton and DeKalb counties. The whistleblower, who is close to the office of the Secretary of State in Georgia, Cathy Cox said that he became suspicious of Diebold's actions in Georgia for two reasons. The first red flag went up when the computer patch was installed in person by Diebold CEO Bob Urosevich, who flew in from Texas and applied it in just two counties, DeKalb and Fulton, both Democratic strongholds. The source states that Cox was not privy to these changes until after the election and that she became particularly concerned over the patch being installed in just those two counties.

The whistleblower said another flag went up when it became apparent that the patch installed by Urosevich had failed to fix a problem with the computer clock, which employees from Diebold and the Georgia Secretary of State’s office had been told the patch was designed specifically to address.

Individuals close to Arnebeck's office said Spoonamore confirmed that the patch included nothing to repair a clock problem. Instead, he identified two parallel programs, both having the full software code and even the same audio instructions for the deaf. Spoonamore said he could not understand the need for a second copy of the exact same program -- and without access to the machine for which the patch was designed, he could not learn more. Instead, he said he took the evidence to the Cyber-Security Division of the Department of Justice and reported the series of events to authorities. The Justice Department has not yet acted on his report.

Some critics of electronic voting raised questions about the 2002 Georgia race even at the time. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, who was five percentage points ahead of Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss in polls taken a week before the vote, lost 53% to 46%. Incumbent Democratic Governor Roy Barnes, who led challenger Sonny Perdue in the polls by eleven points, lost 51% to 46%. However, because the Diebold machines used throughout the state provided no paper trail, it was impossible to ask for a recount in either case.

This was the first large scale instance in which the corporatocracy tried to steal an election with no paper trail (the warm-up), the next was the 2004 election in which exit poll after exit poll had Kerry way up in 13 states and in nine that are nearly impossible to refute the evidence. Now, it is exit polls that are in dispute instead of our election system and our democracy taken over by corporations with a twist of militarism, the textbook definition of fascism.

A Question of Fairness: Restore the Vote

"I done things I'm not proud of, and I'm different now; I'm a man," he said outside the hall. "But I can't go back and change what I did." Mr. McGowan said he doubts his rights will be restored in time. If he can, he will vote for Sen. Barack Obama. "I like Hillary; Hillary is all right, but Barack, Barack is something different," he said.

An issue that seems to be getting more and more traction in the news is felony reenfranchisement. Yesterday, another editorial in the Wall Street Journal of all papers argues felons case. Florida recently restored voting rights to felons. Charlie Crist went against the Republican machine in Florida, but the process has been slow and of course the 2008 election looms.

Florida's clemency board has restored voting rights to nearly 75,000 residents. But nearly 96,000 requests are pending, according to information through March 20. Activists say there might be an additional 400,000 people who have been rejected without explanation, making it impossible for them to be reinstated.

The issue will only gain more traction as the fall comes into focus. But, rest assured no state house will do anything this year to move felons vote in their respective states, but this does not underscore the fact that "5.3 million U.S. citizens unable to vote because of felony convictions -- including four million people who are no longer in prison, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law."

Maine and Vermont are the only states that allow felons to vote while incarcerated. Thirteen others and the District of Columbia allow inmates to regain the right to vote after their release, according to the Sentencing Project, a Washington advocacy group. Other states limit voting based on factors including the severity of a crime, the completion of probation and the payment of fines.

This reenfranchisement is a question of fairness, of a society that expects people to pay their debt to society and then improve, do not move back into crime. But, what of a society that says, sorry - yes, you have paid your debt to society, but you still cannot vote, you are not a citizen, you are not a man. What of a society when most of those men (of course some women) are people of color, mostly black, is there something being said? What of these laws, these disenfranchisement laws come from the post slavery south that instead of denying blacks the right to vote outright, they sought laws on the books that those with a criminal record can't vote, then they arrested former slaves.

We need to end felony disenfranchisement, once and for all.

20 Million Reasons to Register to Vote

20 Million reasons to vote - Women's Voices, Women vote. It used to be soccer moms, Nascar Dads and value voters, but this 2008 election is focused on the unmarried women's vote.