Why and How Republicans Win and We the People Lose

Republicans are not afraid to fight or stomp the heads of their opposition.

Republicans always put their A team in the media.

Republicans control the media, but call any outlet that dares report the facts liberal like that's a bad thing.

Republicans are unified in their opposition.

Republicans don't compromise or capitulate.

Republicans know appeasement doesn't work.
The message and communication is the Democrats fault.

The GOP could possibly win on NOTHING. Doing NOTHING. We have Democrats running from their own damn record and that is atrocious ENOUGH!! Running from Fin Reg, HIR, Lilly Ledbetter, running away like dogs with their tails between their legs.

What message does that create!!

The Obama White House better get its act together for part two if they plan on winning in 2012 and it better start with COMMUNICATING with the public

Republicans are loyal. They stand behind their guy/gal 100% right or wrong.

Republicans pander to their base, but get them to vote against their self interest.

Republicans control the message, therefore they control the outcome.

Still, flashback two years ago and I bet a scene like this was far removed from the mind of his O ness. He could not have seen this coming. It seems like only yesterday that we were all crying and "kumbayaing" each other while we chanted "yes we can". No more. Politics is all about passion, and the majority of A-merry-cans aren't passionate about their politics. They are too busy trying to keep up with each other to worry about something as insignificant as a political philosophy or ideology. Their vote depends on their pocket books and what they see on commercials. And the guy with the most money controls the message. Hell, the guy with the most money can start a phony grass roots movement and watch it grow.

Republicans use fear, bigotry and misinformation to keep their base in line.

In the next few weeks you will be hearing a lot about this election. You will hear about A-merry-ca being a center to right country. You will hear that this was a referendum on Obama's policies, and that A-merry-cans got tired of the spending in Washington, blah blah blah. Don't believe a word of it. This was about a party out of power passionately trying to get it back, and succeeding by tricking ordinary A-merry-cans into thinking that they all had the same goals. It was about a few (not all) people in the majority population who suddenly became passionate about politics because of the complexion of the occupants in the people's house. It was about an orchestrated campaign from day one by certain media outlets to drive up ratings with phony and slanted stories, and creating a rabid foam at the mouth opposition to an administration that was led by the perfect boogey man.

Republicans don't cross party lines.

President Obama campaigned on the promise of HOPE for Change we can believe in.

The republicans under the direction of Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin were determined to rob us that HOPE for Change we can believe in, and the media gleefully drove the get away car.

We'll all talk about this more tomorrow, but I blame the geniuses in the Democratic Party -- both in the White House and elsewhere -- who failed to establish firmly the narrative after the election that needed to be hammered home daily and relentlessly and fearlessly: that Americans had repudiated conservative rule because it had manifestly proven itself a failure. Instead, Democrats thought "bipartisanship" was more important. Sure it was.

So. what are the republicans going to do first? It's time to put up or shut up.

Demand President Obama show his birth certificate and impeach him if he refuses?

Repeal health care reform so that if you get sick you don't have access to quality affordable health care?

Repeal Roe v. Wade and the Lilly Ledbetter equal pay for women act?

Repeal Hate Crimes legislation

Create Jobs in America?

Extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich?

Privitize Social Security?

Send our sons and daughters to war based on dead wrong intelligence?

Repeal the stimulus bill?

Cut social spending (social security/medicare/medicaid/food stamps/unemployment insurance?

Outlaw all trade unions?

Sell off government held land/reserves, and anything else they can privatize?Revoke anyone's citizenship and deport them under the flimsiest of charges of any crime even misdemeanors they deem as crimes against the state?

Repeal the 14th amendment and the Civil Rights Act?

Investigate and convict democrats for corruption?

What is President Obama going to do?

Go along to get along?

Dust off his veto pen?

Give a speech?

Go on vacation?

Have a beer summit?

Invite Rick Warren to pray at the White House?

Renounce, reject and repudiate Reverend Jeremiah Wright?

Rehire Rham Emmanuel?

Give Robert Gibbs, Valerie Jarret and David Axelrod a promotion and a raise?

Psst President Obama! Waterloo.

Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Lynne Woolsey, congresswoman from California, told Pacifica News Radio that the Democrats lost the House because "we weren't bold enough." If they had started off with a jobs bill, Woolsey said, their position would be different tonight. And, Woolsey said, "We could have done a much better job of letting people know what we had accomplished."

At an election-night event broadcast by Free Speech TV at a progressive gathering-place in Washington, D.C., longtime labor activist Bill Fletcher complained that progressives left the right a wide opening when, after the election, the leaders who had put together the coalition that elected President Barack Obama sent those activists "back to the barracks."

So, now that the Republicans have the House, what will they do? Beholden to the special corporate interests who poured millions into races across the country, they are pledging to shrink the size of government and cut spending. But more than that, their mandate is to stop Obama from doing anything.

I hope the media is happy. Overall, though, we're going to be in pitched combat over the next two years, fighting off a pit bull of hate.

The progressive movement suffered worse than the Democrats did. The defeat of Russ Feingold, the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act and the last major stalwart for campaign finance reform, is a crushing blow. Alan Grayson, even though he was loud and oftentimes decisive, did not waver in his principles. The loss of these two men in congress is a major setback for what passes as the far-left in this country.

The nightmare of a repub takeover many of us have predicted is about to become reality, kids.

How QUICK Americans forget...Republicans had total control for the last eight years and this country is in the mess it is in because of THEM...The Republicans walked all over the Democrats when they were in control under Bush and the Republicans bullied the Democrats when the Americans put them in Control in 2008. I was frustrated then and now, but I did VOTE because I wanted to give them a chance to grow a pair against the Republicans in Washington.

The PEOPLE lost tonight and the PEOPLE that allowed the FEAR MACHINES...FOX NEWS, PALIN, LIMBAUGH, AND BECK scare them into voting Tea Party/Republican again will be crying a river soon. It will not take long for them to realize they were USED and the Tea Bag/Republican party has NOTHING for them...

What color is the Terra Lert?

I would be careful what you and your followers say from now on.

The greatest fear of some Negroes have come true. The Tea Party and Republicans have taken their country back. How does it feel to be a so-called FN now?

Not only is Obama toast, but so are you liberal progressive black Dembos who have been shooting off your mouths like you were the center of the universe with some intelligence and power. The truth is you had very little of it, and you even have less now.

The American people have spoken. Pack your s^&t and get out! lol

Are your Ducks taped?

Are we in trouble yet?

Hell Yes. The gop infused, media enabled Tea Party controls the United States House of Representatives. God help America.

Redeye tiptoeing away from the computer to go pray for my city, my county, my state and my country.

If you can't beat em suppress em

According to the cable media voters are turning out like it's 2008 all over again. Not being reported in the media are cases of attempted voter suppression/intimidation. I wonder why? Snark I guess that doesn't fit into their "the gop is poised to regain power" spin. Any hoo here is some FYI;
Voting problems reports and election protection 2010

In Minnesota, tea party related groups are expected to continue to wear buttons or stickers saying "Please ID me" (despite a judge's ruling that they couldn't). This is meant to cause confusion in pollworkers and voters who do not have to show ID in MN. There have also been reports in one precinct in MN of a disruptive poll watcher who was aggressively challenging people attempting to do same day registration.
In Illinois in two predominately African American precincts, there are reports of every voter being challenged.
In a Michigan precinct, a poll worker was making racist statements directed at African American and Latino voters.
In Louisiana (particularly New Orleans), Maryland, New Hampshire and Maine, robocalls have told voters they can vote online or by telephone.
In Kansas, voters report robocalls telling they have to have proof of home ownership in order to vote, and that they vote on Nov. 3.

South Carolina

I just got a phone call early my time (7:40am PST) that there are Tea Partiers that are trying to prevent black people from voting. This is how racism works and why it’s so important that we fight back. If our right to vote wasn’t so powerful, there wouldn’t be folks working so hard to thwart it. I don’t have any more information than what I’ve been told below.

More gop dirty tricks in North Carolina

It turns out that actor Morgan Freeman didn't make a campaign ad for a Republican congressional challenger in North Carolina after all. But the controversy over the spot, which was made by a major Republican and Tea Party power broker, shows the kind of misleading tactics voters have been subject to this campaign season.

Voter intimidation from sea to shining sea

In Hennepin County, Minnesota -- one of the counties where conservatives groups have implemented an anti-voter fraud campaign called Election Integrity Watch -- election judges have had firm exchanges with overly aggressive poll watchers who did not seem to know their the role.

What's that you say? Republicans are depressing turnout in democratic areas? I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you! Not.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said in a last-minute fundraising e-mail for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that Democrats have "already had disturbing reports about the Republicans trying to depress voter turnout in Democratic areas."

Will every vote count? The Shadow knows.

HUNTSVILLE, AL (WAFF) - An issue with ballots in Madison County has some voters worried. This is a county issue, not a state-wide issue.

The machines are not reading some of the ballots.

Madison County Probate Judge Tommy Ragland says they've had reports of bad ballots in eight of 74 precincts today. Ragland says there are several reasons some of the ballots are not being read. One is printing.

Here is a Virginia voter protection video.

Malfunctioning voting machines in Iowa too.

the Cedar Rapids Gazette reports that some voting machines have malfunctioned. Linn County Auditor Joel Miller says the problems were anticipated, however, and new machines are available as replacements.

So much voter suppression, so little time.

Consider this an ongoing thread...

Redeye's Midterm Election Blogstroll

I don't know why we bother to have elections. The media has already determined the outcome. Yes that was a snark.

A friend just called to ask me for advice/information on the ballot amendments. Specifically they wanted to know if there was an amendment about gambling on the ballot. I told them if they were against gambling don't gamble but don't try and legislate what grown a$$ men/women do with their own darn money. I told them if gambling is legal it doesn't mean the government is going to force you to gamble if you don't want to.

I refuse to believe a majority of the American people are going to punish President Obama and the democratic party for giving them access to quality, affordable health care, saving the country from a depression with the bank bailouts, giving the middle class a tax cut and stimulating the economy. If the majority of the American people are stuck on stoopid and to give the keys to the car back to the gop we deserve to stay in the ditch they drove us into in the first place. It's like the battered wife who stays with her abusive spouse because he bought her some new teeth after knocking the old ones out.

Uh, remember the last gop majority?

Opening statements are scheduled to begin Monday in the trial of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who is charged with illegally funneling corporate money to help elect GOP candidates to the Texas Legislature.

The Republican was indicted in 2005 on charges he illegally sent $190,000 in corporate money through the Republican National Committee to help elect GOP Texas legislative candidates in 2002.

Those who forget the past.....

A new isolationism is metastasizing in the American body politic. At its heart lies not an urge to avoid war, but an urge to avoid contemplating the costs and realities of war. It sees war as having analgesic qualities - as lessening a collective feeling of impotence, a collective sense of fear and terror. Making war in the name of reducing terror serves this state of mind and helps to preserve it. Marked by a calculated estrangement from war's horrific realities and mercenary purposes, the new isolationism magically turns an historic term on its head, for it keeps us in wars, rather than out of them.

Speaking of ballot iniatives, take a look at 7 right wing ballot inititives that could ruin our democracy for decades to come

Anti-tax initiatives are dangerous -- it’s easy to get people who are hurting economically to vote for lower taxes, but hard to get them to think about long-term effects.

There are 11 races where black voters can make a difference , now do you understand the demise of ACORN and the rise of the Tea Party?

People who believe their vote does not make a difference may be encouraged to know that in many close contests across the U.S., they have the power to sway the direction of the race.

There is a general consensus emerging that many voters of color are lacking enthusiasm this election season, with minority voters not expected to go to the polls with nearly the same level of participation as they did in 2008 -- when President Obama was on the ballot. Nevertheless, African-Americans are well positioned to affect the outcome of as many as 20 House races, and 14 contests for Senate and Governor, according to David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Watch Civil Right Icon and Representative John Lewis tell us Why We Vote then got off your Donkey's and VOTE.

If someone in your life ain’t ready to vote after this vid, well, then you may just have to hogtie em and drag em down bodily to cast that ballot! (just kidding, don’t hurt nobody, y’all)

The only thing standing between the gop infused, media enabled Tea Party taking control of our government is Y-O-U!

Pigskin and Politics at Legion Field 2nd Edition

Per tradition I spent last weekend tailgating at historic Legion Field in Birmingham, AL attending the Magic City Classic Football game, aka The Coal Bowl. The Magic City Classic is one of those vestiges of segregation that continues today, continues tomorrow, and hopefully will continue forever.

The Magic City Classic is an annual football game between Alabama's two largest, historically black universities: Alabama A&M University (Normal) and Alabama State University (Montgomery). The first game between the two schools was played in 1924. It has been an uninterrupted, annual tradition since 1945 and played at Legion Field in Birmingham since 1946. After winning the 2009 match up, Alabama A&M enjoys a 35-30-3 all-time advantage.

In addition to the actual game, the event is known for a glamorous parade and a raucous "Battle of the Bands" between the respective schools' marching bands. Other events include a kickoff luncheon, pre-game entertainment, and abundant weekend tailgating outside the stadium.

This is the second edition of Pigskin and Politics which I believe was the beginning of the end of my front page privileges at right leaning Left in Alabama but I digress.:) You can't have a football game/tailgate in Birmingham, Alabama without the talk turning to politics. It's what we do in Sweet Home Alabama. Last year we were hopefully optimistic Barack Obama would be elected President. This year we are fired up and ready to VOTE like our lives depend on it so the Tea Baggers won't put that uppity Barack Obama in his place. I don't know who the polling pollsters are polling but to para quote Rev. Jesse Jackson,Sr. there is more coffee in the pot that tea in the kettle. Meaning there are more black voters in Louisiana, Florida, California and South Carolina alone than there are tea baggers. For some reason the polling pollsters don't believe black folks will get out and vote in the mid terms because President Obama is not on the ballot.

Has anyone but me noticed the TeeVee Talking Pundit Heads are calling the election before a single vote has been cast not to mention counted? What's up with that? What do they know that we don't know? We might as well stop having elections and let the Talking TeeVee Pundit Heads select the winners, you know like the Supreme Court did in 2000. As a matter of fact, what have the Talking TeeVee Pundit Heads been right (no pun) about lately if ever? These are the same people who let Bush and Dick send our troops to war based on DEAD WRONG Intelligence.

Few cannot rule the many, which is exactly what's happening in America because the majority of the American people won't get off their Donkeys and VOTE. One thing I'll say about the minority they play to win and they always bring their A game. The majority of the American people need to WTFU and smell the coffee before it's too late. For example Karl Rove's American Crossroads groups is running ads against Sanford Bishop of Georgia saying he voted to give millions of stimulus dollars to prisoners blah blah blab blab. The democrats come back with an ad that says Bishop is for the second amendment and against gay marriage, instead of saying Karl Rove is a big fat liar. Trust democrats to carry a butter knife to a gunfight. Sigh.

If I hear another republiklan say they want to "cut government spending" after borrowing and spending us into a multi trillion dollar deficit I'm going to scream. If I hear another republican ask where are the jobs after sending jobs over seas and voting against the jobs bill I'm going to scream. If I hear another republican say they want to keep the Bush tax cuts for the rich which is really a tax shift from the rich to the middle class I'm going to scream. If the American people give these Jokers the keys to the car again we will deserve the ditch we will be driven into.

The United states claims to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. My daddys says after November 2, the world will see us for who we really are instead of who we claim to be.

The economy affected the Magic City Classic this year. The crowds were down, the Tailgate lot was not as full, the parade was smaller, and there were less vendors. I didn't hear one person blame President Obama for the economy, but I heard plenty of people blaming the republicans for not letting him fix it.

Speaking of the parade, democratic gubernatorial candidate Ron Sparks did it up right (pun intended). He had a Ron Sparks billboard RV and several cars in the parade. Campaign workers passed out Ron Sparks Golden Flake Chips along with Ron Sparks bottled H20. he was also introduced during half time and made an appearance in the AAMU and ASU Sky box.

The economy must not be affecting Alabama Power because they presented each school with checks for $10,000 for their scholarship funds. I wonder how much they give The University of Alabama and Auburn University?

Even republican candidates see the Coal Bowl as the opportunity to pander, I mean woo African American voters. Dr. Death, I mean Robert Bentley showed up. I heard fans were upset they had to clear the way for his entourage to the sky box elevator. Overheard: Well at least he came at the right time of year.
Huh?
It's Halloween and he looks like a scarecrow.
Also overheard regarding Bentley: He's a really nice guy he just got hooked up with the wrong party.

Big Luther Strange and republican AG nominee was also in the sky box. Luther is big but not strange at all. He will proudly tell you he is 6'9 and appeared to also be a really nice guy but member of the wrong party. I wonder when the really nice guys/gals are going to take their party back from the really mean guys/gals?

Democrats in Birmingham sure know how to fight fire with the fire. The radio ad war in Birmingham is brutal. *Snicker* I heard one that said para quoting Robert Bentley and Bob Riley are liars. Riley pushed for and Bentley voted for one of the largest tax increases in Alabama history, and Robert Bentley lied in your face about taking money from AEA. Now that's what I'm talking about!

Last year I said:

Most of my friends and family are getting impatient with President Obama. They are still waiting for things to change. My daddy says if things don't start picking up, people are going to start picking up things. The banks still aren't loaning money. Credit card companies are still raising interest rates, mortgage foreclosures are still on the rise. Jobs are still being outsourced over seas. The public option is in jeopardy. Our troops are still dying and being maimed and wounded for life in Iraq and Afghanistan. The unemployment rate for African Americans is 15% and getting higher. The justice department is still the Injustice department. Might as well still have Bush and Dick

This year I say;
Most of my friends and family realize the republicans blocked President Obama's agenda because they want him to fail. We realize things won't change until we send the republicans packing so  we are going to vote for CHANGE we can believe in again. We are going going to vote like our lives depend on it.

Redeye