AMHERST COUNTY DEMOCRATIC HEADQUARTERS
GRAND OPENING!
The Obama/Kaine/Schmookler campaign office in Amherst County is officially open as of 6pm, September 26, 2012.
The hard work of electing our candidates to office has been underway for quite some time but now we have an official office where you can drop by and visit with us. Need a yard sign or button or want to donate a few hours of labor, come on down and see us.
This is Magnolia Braxton and she is a super member of the Amherst County Democrats. As you read thru ACVDN and look at the photos from events all over the county you will spot Mrs. Braxton. The amazing thing is she is also extremely active at her church as well as helping us. We salute our high energy, super lady.
The work will be non stop between Now and thirty minutes after the voting ends. You might not be as energetic as Mrs Braxton but any time you can spare will be appreciated.
Organizing for America - Virginia is located at 4133 South Amherst Highway, Madison Heights In the OLD Anderson's Market Location. We're Between Sheetz and WalMart, Right behind the new Ice Cream Stand! Look for the Signs.
Come join your neighbors in Amherst County at open our brand new OFA-Virginia Office! Stop by and meet the staff, meet fellow supporters, and learn about the neighborhood teams in the county as we continue our work for President Barack Obama, Tim Kaine & Andy Schmookler.
To celebrate the opening there was a potluck dinner and a good social time enjoyed by all. ABC TV - 13 covered the opening as well as Amherst County Virginia Democratic News. There are lots of great pictures from the Grand Opening for you to enjoy.
The pot luck dinner was eaten by the huge crowd that came out for the event.
If you missed the opening celebration don't dispair. Our Business Hours are 10am - 9pm, 7 Days a Week and you are welcome any time you have a desire to participate. Here's our phone number, 540-330-5672.
Foreward
ACVDN
NBA versus NFL ?
Guess Which One… (Even if you aren’t a sports fan this is very interesting!)
36 Have been accused of spousal abuse
7 Have been arrested for fraud
19 Have been accused of writing bad checks
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 REPEAT 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 currently are defendants in lawsuits
84 have been arrested for drunk driving IN THE LAST YEAR
Can you guess which organization this is?
NBA or NFL?
Give up yet?
Neither,
it’s the 535 members of the United States Congress, The same group of people who crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.
Don't let anybody tell you that your vote doesn't count.
A Tale of Two Speeches
Obama sounded like a president. Romney sounded confused. Bill Clinton knew up front that Romney would blow it. The only ones who think Romney has his act together are old white men who feel life has shorted the sheets on their beds. Romney's ambition is much greater than his talent.
An odd thing happened Tuesday: Both presidential candidates gave major speeches on foreign policy, a rarity in an election dominated almost entirely by domestic issues.
This much was revealed by the competing addresses: Barack Obama’s, to the U.N. General Assembly, was a speech worthy of a president; Mitt Romney’s, at the Clinton Global Initiative, was the pep talk of a provincial banker who’s perplexed that the rest of the world just doesn’t get with the program.
Romney’s premise was that, for all “our passion for charity,” foreign aid doesn’t work: The money often gets funneled to corrupt governments, and even when it doesn’t, the poor countries stay poor. Better, he said, to focus on boosting private investment and promoting free enterprise.
In one sense, the point is obvious, so much so that I can’t think of a single senior Obama official who would
disagree. Romney implicitly acknowledged this when he noted that “82 percent of the resources that flow to
developing nations come from the private sector, not the government sector,” up from 30 percent several decades ago.
The major flaw in Romney’s speech is that it presents foreign aid and private investment as either/or
propositions, when in fact they serve two distinct functions.
Even Romney acknowledged that foreign aid has two “quite legitimate” objectives: humanitarian assistance and the promotion of U.S. security interests. Though Romney didn’t say so, the former often abets the latter. For instance, in 2004, international polls showed that Muslims’ support for Osama Bin Laden sharply declined after the United States helped victims of the tsunami in Indonesia, whose population is mostly Muslim.
It is true that, over the long haul, foreign aid can go only so far. The major obstacles in many countries, especially in the Middle East, are the lack of jobs for young men and the absence of institutions to lure and sustain private investment.
Romney’s proposal is to link foreign aid and private investment, but it’s not at all clear how this would work.
Here is how he described his plan in the Clinton Global Initiative speech:
To foster work and enterprise in the Middle East and other developing countries, I will initiate something I’ll call Prosperity Pacts. Working with the private sector, the program will identify the barriers to investment and trade and entrepreneurship and entrepreneurialism in developing countries. And in exchange for removing those barriers and opening markets to U.S. investment and trade, developing nations will receive U.S. assistance packages focused on developing the institutions of liberty, the rule of law and property rights.
Here’s the mystery: Why does Romney think the leaders of such countries want our advice on liberty, law, and property rights, much less that they would view this advice as the reward for opening up their markets to U.S. companies? The proposition is especially doubtful, given that other powers, for instance China, are willing to invest without regard to a country’s commitment to political pluralism or the rule of law.
Romney’s underlying point has some validity: that as a country opens itself up to the world, it not only imports goods and services; it also, over time, tends to absorb (though often fitfully and unevenly) the values and ideas from these other parts of the world as well. But he doesn’t seem to recognize that this subtler
transaction cannot be imposed as part of the deal; it takes time to emerge, and does so, if at all, with local twists and flavors that can’t be anticipated and might not be to our advantage.
The unstated premise of Romney’s plan is that the leaders and people in these countries want to be like us, to the point where they’d even drop their trade barriers in exchange for America’s instruction.
George W. Bush based his “freedom agenda,” in early 2004, on a similar assumption: that democracy is the natural state of mankind and that it blossoms spontaneously once a dictatorship is toppled. Bush saw elections as freedom’s vehicle, while Romney sees capitalism as the agent. Either way, the two share the notion that the transference is direct and immediate, like a lightning bolt.
President Obama’s U.N. speech harbors no such illusions. At first glance, Obama may seem to share Bush’s premise, declaring that “freedom and self-determination” are “not simply American values or Western values” but “universal values” and that “government of the people, by the people, and for the people is more likely to bring about the stability, prosperity and individual opportunity that serve as a basis for peace in our world.”
But Obama also realizes that this road is often laced with “turmoil”; that “transitions to a new political order” produce “convulsions”; that “true democracy, real democracy is hard work.” The road doesn’t “end with the casting of a ballot.” Rulers will be tempted, in crises, to crack down on dissidents or to “rally the people around perceived enemies” rather than focus “on the painstaking work of reform.”
Speaking of the anti-Muslim video that sparked violence in Libya, Egypt, and elsewhere, Obama said he recognizes that not all countries share the American concept of freedom of speech. But, he added, in the era of cell phones and the Internet, “the notion that we can control the flow of information is obsolete.”
Besides, he noted to spirited applause, “There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents … no video that justifies an attack on an embassy.”
The real conflict going on in the world, especially in the Middle East, he said, is between those who want to angle onto the road to democracy and those who want to blow it up—“a choice,” Obama put it, “between the promise of the future or the prisons of the past.”
This was no “apology” for American values; it was a realistic assertion of their power and appeal. It was in fact an invitation—a demand—for the world’s leaders, especially those facing militant challenges within their own borders, to step up and choose sides, to set a course.
“No government or company, no school or NGO will be confident working in a country where its people are endangered,” Obama said. “For partnerships to be effective, our citizens must be secure and our efforts must be welcome.”
This is a simple fact, not a threat, and it’s a far more potent incentive than the dangled carrots of Romney’s Prosperity Pacts. Obama added, “America stands ready to work with all who are willing to embrace a better future.” He said nothing about what other countries had to do to earn our largesse. He certainly said nothing about teaching them how to run their economies. There is no such agenda because Obama seems to know that there can’t be, that disparate countries—with disparate societies and political systems—can find common ground in common battles.
Romney’s speech, at its best moments, was a sidebar to a broader statement about the nature, scope, and prospects of today’s global crises. Obama’s speech was that statement.
For some dam fool reason Republicans think that if they can get someone elected then that person magically becomes smart enough to hold that office.
Republicans Are Masters of Voter Suppression
The GOP is supposed to pretend that its 2012 strategy doesn't include the systematic disenfranchisement of lower-income blacks and Latinos. But in June, Mike Turzai, Republican majority leader of the Pennsylvania House, blew his party's cover by blurting out: "Voter ID, which is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state
of Pennsylvania? Done."
The liberal press was jubilant. It was as if Koch Enterprises had acknowledged global warming.
Since at least 2008, when minority voters gave Barack Obama his victory margin -- the president won only 43 percent of the white vote -- Republicans have increasingly relied on voter suppression to counterbalance the steady shrinkage of America's white majority.
Former Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer (currently under indictment for stealing party funds) stated in a deposition released in July that a 2009 party meeting included discussion of "voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting."
In December, Paul Schurick, a top aide to former Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich, was convicted of election fraud for using automated phone calls to suppress the African-American vote during Mr. Ehrlich's unsuccessful 2010 bid.
"The first and most desired outcome is voter suppression," stated one consultant's memo entered into evidence.
It described a "Schurick Doctrine" to "promote confusion, emotionalism and frustration among African-American
Democrats."
Most of the disenfranchisement is less obviously crude and presented to the public as hygienic electoral reform. But the pathogens it seeks to remove are African-Americans, Latinos and other lower-income folks who resist voting Republican. You've probably heard something about it, but Mr. Turzai's gaffe invites us to review, with open eyes, how this racket actually works. It's an obscenity no longer hiding in plain sight.
Voter ID
This is the preeminent tool. Attorney General Eric Holder has correctly likened voter ID laws, which have passed in 33 states, to poll taxes. Their popularity derives from their reasonableness. Why shouldn't we prevent imposters from committing electoral identity theft? Because it solves a nonexistent problem.
New York University Law School's Brennan Center for Justice has calculated that the incidence of individual voter fraud is equivalent to the incidence of individual Americans getting struck by lightning. Even the lawyers defending Pennsylvania's voter ID law stipulated in court that the state knew of no incidents of in-person fraud.
What voter ID laws are useful for is reducing voter participation by you know who. Requiring an unexpired government ID, a bank statement or a utility bill works well. Requiring an unexpired government photo ID, such as a driver's license or a passport, is better, because about 25 percent of African-Americans and 16 percent of Latinos don't have any -- as against 11 percent of the general population.
The nine states with the strictest photo ID requirements are mostly rural, which means the government offices where such ID can be obtained are likelier to be far away and to keep irregular hours. The Woodville, Miss., office is open only on the second Thursday of every month. Wisconsin's Sauk City office is open only on the
fifth Wednesday of every month, and since eight months in 2012 don't even have a fifth Wednesday, the office will open its doors only four days this year.
Voter registration
Before you vote, you have to register. Five states now require proof of citizenship with an unexpired passport (something fewer than one-third of Americans possess) or a birth certificate or a naturalization certificate (to which about 7 percent lack easy access). Since acquiring these documents can easily cost as much as $100, this requirement has the virtue of weeding out both legal immigrants and the native-born poor. The ostensible target is undocumented immigrants, but they have even less incentive to commit voter fraud than American citizens do: In addition to steep fines and imprisonment, they'd risk deportation.
Another tactic, favored in Texas and Florida, is to target nonprofit groups that conduct voter-registration drives (the League of Women Voters, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). This is achieved by imposing onerous new training, registration and/or liability burdens on the groups' volunteers. The proportion of African-American and Latino voters who register through third-party drives is about twice what it is for whites.
Closing the polls
Since lower-income voters more often work early in the morning or late at night, Republicans tend to favor shorter polling hours. They justify this with feigned concern about taxing the stamina of (often elderly) volunteers.
A similarly motivated opposition has mobilized against early voting arrangements that let people vote on weekends. Sunday voting is a particular target. The stated reason is that it's impious. (Glenn Beck: "This is an affront to God.") The actual reason is that Sunday voting allows black churches to provide "souls to polls"
transport after services. Ohio and Florida have eliminated it.
Purging
States have to update their voter lists, right? Federal law requires certain safeguards, such as notifying those found ineligible so they can dispute erroneous removals. But many such formalities go unobserved, especially if you purge close enough to Election Day.
A variation on purging is caging, wherein nonforwardable letters are sent to voters in African-American neighborhoods. Whichever letters get returned unopened occasion instant purges. The Republican National Committee got caught doing this in the 1980s, and now the party is not allowed to under a consent decree. But
considerable evidence suggests the GOP has quietly resumed the practice anyway.
Robocalls
Automated phone calls are used to discourage people from going to the polls. Before the failed June vote to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a robocall said anyone who signed the recall petition to recall him needn't vote (which wasn't true). Maryland's Mr. Schurick put out a robocall in 2010 assuring voters in African-
American neighborhoods that his candidate's Democratic opponent, Gov. Martin O'Malley, was well ahead (and thus unlikely to need more votes).
The GOP has other, similarly repulsive schemes afoot, but these are the most egregious. As for the Republican nominee: Don't hold your breath waiting for Mitt Romney to condemn something his party sees as essential to victory.
The GOP is now Officially a Hate Group.
6th District News
Amherst Virginia Headlines
Lynchburg Headlines
SATIRE
Oh snap.
Poor Paul Ryan of the Serious Budget Ryans knows that he hitched his wagon to a burnt out star. (“Burnt out” is too kind, actually, since Mitt Romney was never a star in the first place.)
Paul Ryan knows he is screwed—so much so that he is calling Mitt Romney “The Stench”, in front of God and everybody:
Paul Ryan has gone rogue. He is unleashed, unchained, off the hook.
“I hate to say this, but if Ryan wants to run for national office again, he’ll probably have to wash the stench of Romney off of him,” Craig Robinson, a former political director of the Republican Party of Iowa, told The New York Times on Sunday.
Coming from a resident of Iowa, a state where people are polite even to soybeans, this was a powerful condemnation of the Republican nominee.
Though Ryan had already decided to distance himself from the floundering Romney campaign, he now feels totally uninhibited. Reportedly, he has been marching around his campaign bus, saying things like, “If Stench calls, take a message” and “Tell Stench I’m having finger sandwiches with Peggy Noonan and will text him later.”
Hilarious though it may be, Paul Ryan is living in a glass house and throwing stones. Just this weekend, Paul Ryan got booed by a bunch of old folks when he promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Stones and broken glass notwithstanding, the wheels have come off the Romney campaign—so much so that Paul Ryan is throwing forests full of shade on Mitt3PO.
It’s a damn Mittastrophe.
This will not be proven to be correct for several more months.
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