Who will CD7 Representative Terri Sewell support for Minority House Whip?

Full disclosure- I am not a resident of CD7, however I have friends and family who live and work in CD7, therefore I care about CD7. I was a strong supporter of Sewells' opponent Sheila Smoot in the democratic primary because I believed Smoot to be the most experienced, and I believed the voters in CD7 deserved real liberal (not to be confused with progressive) representation after 8 years of Artur Davis. My opposition to Rep. Sewell was always political, never personal. She is a very nice, accomplished young lady from a good family. I congratulate her on her win and wish her well.

The first test Rep. Terri Sewell will face is deciding who she will support for Democratic House Minority Whip....Rep. Steney Hoyer, who raised campaign cash for her, or, Rep. Jim Clyburn, who didn't raise campaign cash for her, and is an influential member of the Congressional Black Caucus, which I assume Rep. Sewell will become a member.

The elephant in the room is not ideology, but race. No one can deny that the Democrats have a problem with white voters. Making the face of the party more black is a concern for people who are worried about regaining the support of whites for the 2012 elections.

Therein lies Terri Sewells' dilemma. But it's not about Sewell, it's about the voters in CD 7.

I hope you live up to the words and legacy of my Sorority Sister and not the legacy of your predecessor who voted against health care reform, the hate crimes bill, resigned from the house judiciary committee to run for Governor and was an apologist for some racist actions. Shirley Chisholm was a true, proud LIBERAL who spoke truth to power, unbossed and unafraid.

I agree with Booman;

I think we need to confront the issue of race head-on. Race is not a reason to prefer Hoyer over Clyburn. When it comes to ideology, Clyburn isn't the most progressive progressive. He does represent South Carolina, after all. When it comes to issues like Social Security, I don't think there is a whole lot of difference between Clyburn and Hoyer. So, I think the ideological distinction is a bit overblown.

I also agree with rikyrah;

Clyburn is in your face without seeming to be the 'Angry Black Man.' In addition, he has consistently had this President's back.
Hoyer is a weasel, plain and simple, and wouldn't hesitate to stab the President on national tv. Give me Clyburn.

F$#K THE BLUE DOGS, and I mean that.

I know you promised not be a rubber stamp for President Obama but what about what the voters in the heavily Democratic 7th district want? Who will you represent in Congress? Remember the reason you are the first African American female representative from Alabama is because of them there gerrymandered districts. Please don't lose site of this fact like your predecessor and vote against the interest of the people for your personal, political gain.

Representative Sewell, my big REDEYE will be trained on you like a laser beam. Remember it's not about YOU, it's about the voters of the 7th district. I HOPE and PRAY you prove me wrong, not for MY sake, but for the sake of the the 7th district, ...

The voters in the heavily democratic 7th district want you to have President Obama's back, not stab him in the back. Been there. Done that.

I'm just saying...

Redeye's Tuesday Must Reads

There are two sides to every story and we finally get to hear Keith Olbermans side, not from MSM but via buzzflash.com

You should also know that I did not attempt to keep any of these political contributions secret; I knew they would be known to you and the rest of the public. I did not make them through a relative, friend, corporation, PAC, or any other intermediary, and I did not blame them on some kind of convenient 'mistake' by their recipients.

The South Shall Rise Again!

As the Democrats get clobbered time and again, I note how these successes remind me of he the Southern Strategy used to gain control of the Congress before the Civil War and how again they used it to almost win the Civil War.

Yep. Alabama's' own Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions fired the first shot when he made sure the Azalea Trail Maids were Alabama's only representative in the inaugural parade of the first African American President of the United States of America. When Alabama State NAACP VP Edward Vaughn, myself and others tried to sound the alarm, we were called racist and accused of attacking the "girls" and told to STFD and STFU.

Get over it. This is such a non-issue. No one see these girls as a representation of racism except those who get bent out of shape over trivial little matters.
Complete nonissue. It is pretty funny to see how much time and attention you have put into this.

Note, some of these same people complain media attention given to AL State Senator Hank Sanders' mad as hell robo call to DEMOCRATIC voters cost Lt. Governor Jim Folsom the election, and portrayed Alabama in a negative light. There is more than a whiff of hypocrisy.

CNN reaches a lot of people, even in Alabama. Folsom only lost to Kay Ivey by about 45,000 votes. There's no way to know how many people came out to vote for Folsom because they got the call vs. how many were motivated to vote against him because they heard about it, but I'd love to see what kind of movement Folsom and/or Ivey's internal polls showed between October 15th, when the calls hit Alabama answering machines, and Election Day.

The fix is in.

Hmmmm, sooooooo we just experienced a wave election fueled by anger in the electorate over the lack of jobs and feelings about the economy. YET it is now reported that the economy was showing these really positive signs of improvement for the last couple months - BUT news outlets like MSNBC sat on the numbers and only released them AFTER the elections, along with a glowing commentary encouraging people to be optimistic.
Don't sleep... The Hustler's are coming home to roost.

It’s funny but having the first black President has been a dual edged sword. On the one hand we have been given the boost to our pride of finally achieving the highest office in the land and that black folks have all the skills necessary to overcome centuries of racism and on the other hand we have a President who can barely use the word black in public for fear of agitating the racist who will be agitated no matter what he says.

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
--Thomas Jefferson

Peace be with you.

Standing for Truth, Justice and the American Way

I would like to extend a warm welcome to readers from GrannyStandingforTruth and The Legal Schnauzer. I am humbled and honored to be a member of your blog roll. Let us march on until victory is won.

It's time to be Bold.

the reality is that Democrats lost not because they went too far but because they haven't gone far enough. A big part of why Democrats lost Tuesday is that they haven't accomplished enough to energize and motivate all of the new voters that came out in massive numbers for them in 2008 -- groups like African Americans, Latinos and young people. While many of these groups still strongly support Democrats when polled, it's clear that they did not vote or volunteer for Democratic campaigns in the same numbers or with the same enthusiasm seen in 2008.

Here we go. They are already hoping to get rid of them daggum gerrymandered minority (black folks) voting districts.

But I am in favor of redistricting in Alabama. I hope that the redistricting will abolish long held minority majority voting blocks. Most of you are wondering "What the HECK?!?!?!" Here is why:

Propping up minority majority voting blocks or districts are enabling the continued subjugation of one party or another, based soley on RACE, not political preference. While this practice may benefit the scale of minority representation by ensuring a black candidates electability, it also serves to de-value the voting blocks power of prescence. It is no big secret, those "safe Dem districts" do not recieve party wide attention or power, as they are not seen as a potential threat of losing them. In simple terms, "Why give concessions or put emphasis to district 7 funding if it is going to be a safe Dem vote no matter what?"

The continuation of minority majority voting blocks also acts to dumb down the political integrity of the voters contained within. If all they (we) know is to vote how we are told to vote, then the individual candidates qualifications and relation to voter means nothing. In simple terms, voters in minority majority blocks were told, "Vote for Sparks, not Davis". I do not believe voters in the minority majority districts even questioned "why?", but went along with it just because it is the way it has been done forever. And most certainly, the better candidate for Governor might not have seen his chance at becoming elected.

Minority Majority blocks are not only taken for granted, but they are used and abused as a tool for marginalization. If the powers to be say, "we support gambling", then it is certain that the minority majority blocks will support gambling, "just because".

On top of that, I do not think that successful and qualified black candidates will have any problem at all gaining nomination nowadays. The old arguement for minority majority districts was that they were needed to ensure black represenation of interest. For a long time, it was necessarily practiced and gave a positive result. However, with the softening of racial factors in society and the advancement of professional class of African Americans, the practice of developing minority majority voting blocks is no longer needed and only provides to hinder the integrity of the African American vote.

This is an honest opinion, and one I hold to be very true.

Well it may be an honest opinion, but the rhetoric is very untrue. Let's go back to
WHY there are minority voting districts in the first place. It certainly was not tell them black dummy's how to vote.

Prior to the Civil War, African Americans were almost totally disenfranchised throughout the states. Latino voters faced similar barriers to voting in Texas and other parts of the Southwest., as did Native American and Asian American voters in the West. Even after enactment of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, in 1870, which gave all men, regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude the right to vote, many states continued to use various methods to prevent people of color from voting, including literacy tests, poll taxes, the disenfranchisement of former inmates, intimidation, threats, and even violence. Also, until 1965, federal laws did not challenge the authority of states and localities to establish and administer their own voting requirements.

The VRA
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was designed to address these issues. It prohibits discrimination based on race, and requires certain jurisdictions to provide bilingual assistance to language minority voters. Section 2 of the Act, which bars the use of voting practices or procedures that discriminate against minority voters, has been used successfully to attack discrimination in voting including restrictive voter registration requirements, districting plans that dilute minority voting strength, discriminatory annexations, and the location of polling places at sites inaccessible to minority voters.

Section 5 of the Act requires federal "preclearance" before covered jurisdictions (i.e., specified jurisdictions with a history of practices that restrict minority voting rights) may make changes in existing voting practices or procedures. The Act also provides the Department of Justice with the authority to appoint federal observers and examiners to monitor elections to ensure that they are conducted fairly. Initial enforcement efforts targeted, among other things, literacy tests, poll taxes, and discriminatory registration practices.

In 1975, the Voting Rights Act was amended to address the voting rights of language minority groups. Sections 4 and 203 of the Act apply in jurisdictions with significant numbers of voters with limited or no English proficiency and require such jurisdictions to provide voting materials and assistance in relevant languages in addition to English.

You said; On top of that, I do not think that successful and qualified black candidates will have any problem at all gaining nomination nowadays.

Translation; I do not think that a successful and qualifed black candidate will have any problem at all gaining nomination nowadays as long as he's acceptable to the white majority. White privilege and power on display.

It must be remembered that the white group of laborers, while they received a low wage, were compensated in part by a sort of public and psychological wage. They were given public deference and titles of courtesy because they were white. They were admitted freely with all classes of white people to public functions, public parks, and the best schools. The police were drawn from their ranks, and the courts, dependent on their votes, treated them with such leniency as to encourage lawlessness. Their vote selected public officials, and while this had small effect upon the economic situation, it had great effect upon their personal treatment and the deference shown them. White schoolhouses were the best in the community, and conspicuously placed, and they cost anywhere from twice to ten times as much per capita as the colored schools. The newspapers specialized on news that flattered the poor whites and almost utterly ignored the Negro except in crime and ridicule.

You know that gridlock thingy worked well for the gop, so let's pray for gridlock.

Let us pray (figuratively or literally) for gridlock, because all else is disaster. The best outcome that could result from Tuesday’s Democratic debacle is that the Republicans overreach and, in their white nationalist triumphalism, make it impossible for President Obama and congressional Democrats to reach an accommodation with rampaging reaction and racism.

The phony racial narrative of 2008 has been undone with the abrupt termination of the Age of Obama. After two short years, the illusion of a post-racial society has gone the way of all mirages – poof! – and we are forced to behold the United States as it actually exists.

Redeye tiptoeing away from the computer to go pray....

Say, have you seen my Democracy?

"Well, there's a certain mean spiritness that's out there, not only in Alabama but it's in America. And that makes this election extremely important." ~Alabama State Senator Hank Sanders (D)

While the righty's focused on Alabama State Senator Hank Sanders "racially charged language" in his mad as hell robo call to Alabama DEMOCRATIC voters, I can't get the above quote out of my mind.

This is what Sanders is talking about (emphasis mine):

Anderson Cooper didn't talk about it because he said hell. All the Alabama media didn't talk about it because he said hell. They talked about it because of the cotton fields / Jim Crow language. Are you really suggesting that the reporter omitted Folsom's denouncing of that racially charged language? Really?

Folsom didn't denounce it because he wanted to maximize black turn out. Explicitly disagreeing with Sanders would have hurt that goal. He was a coward for not saying the right thing (as was Sparks). I know lots of reporters are marginally aware of issues, but this one is pretty easy. State Senator says voting for certain people will cause blacks to go back to the cotton fields. He also said "hell." Hmmm.... I wonder which is more newsworthy!

Can't have them there black voters turning out, no sirree. They might want some equal rights or something. They might want equal access to quality public schools. They might get jobs they aren't qualified for because of the color of their skin. They might want to live in south Huntsville. They might become the President of the United States of America. They might want to play football at Alabama or Auburn. Oh wait, that's OK.

Here is another example of the mean spiritness and toxic discourse that has permeated modern political discourse;

with this post you have once again confirmed my thought that you are a raving lunatic and the only reason i come back to read your tinfoil hat claptrap is it's a wonderful barometer on the thought processes of the media matters left.

When did it become acceptable for civilized people to resort to name calling, personal attacks and insults when the substance of their arguments fail?

When did it become acceptable to attack the messenger and not the message?

When Adult Bullying become acceptable and, when did complaining about injustice become whining?

When did it become acceptable to ban/prosecute your fellow Americans from forums/blogs because they didn't agree with your political philosophy/candidate?

In Sweet Home Alabama the new republican majority said their first order of business will be to clean up Montgomery. What the hell does that mean? Never mind. We know.

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
--Thomas Jefferson

Why the gop infused, media enabled Tea Party really "won"

The gop infused, media enabled Tea Party didn't win because they got the most votes. They won because they told the most lies.

Now that the GOP has won back the house they are showing their true plans for the American people and our President. They plan to use their victory as a sign that the people are in agreement with them so that they can reward billionaires and millionaires like the Koch Brothers, Rupert Murdoch, Glen Beck, Hannity, and O"Reilly with big fat tax refund checks that will only finish draining our Treasury. The only concern they have for the middle class and poor is to drive them into further poverty and turn America into a serfdom and a rich man's paradise.

The gop infused, media enabled, Tea Party didn't win because according to them, the majority of the American people don't want access to quality health care. They won because President Obama and President Clinton before him want ALL Americans to have access to health care, not just the billionaires. If George W. Bush, Sarah Palin or John McCain wanted health care reform the righty's would be all for it. How do I know this? Well, they let Bush and Dick take our troops to war based on DEAD WRONG intelligence and they didn't say a mumbling word. They let Bush and Dick raid the surplus to give the rich a tax cut and they didn't say a mumbling word. They let Bush and Dick send manufacturing jobs overseas and they didn't say a mumbling word. They let Bush and Dick out an undercover CIA agent and they didn't say a mumbling word. I could go on, but I think you get my point.

The gop infused, media enabled Tea Party didn't win because they have a plan. They won because they plan to make sure Barack Hussein Obama and Michele Obama are the first and last African Americans to occupy the White House, unless it's a gop infused, media enabled African American family.

The gop infused, media enabled Tea Party didn't win because they had a clear message. They won because President Obama's message was drowned out by the right wing Lords and Loud. They won because the Professional Left was suppressed and silenced.

Yes, I want President Obama to put his foot down and say NO to GOP policies. And yes, I want him to stop compromising with those whose only desire is to see him fail. Nevertheless, I refuse to sit back and let another black man be lynched by a modern day lynch mob. He told us in the beginning during his victory speech that he couldn't do it alone and he can't. He cannot fight those who control the media and money alone.

The gop infused, media enabled Tea Party didn't win because President Obama was "too far left". They won because the Obama Administration Seems to be Terrified of White People.

This fear, in our view, has nothing to do with the fact that Obama is our first black president. Rather, we suspect it has to do with the fact that Obama is a centrist Democrat. And it seems "centrist Democrat" is simply a fancy term for a liberal who is afraid of white people.

If the Obama Administration is afraid of white people maybe we should be afraid of white people too.

The election of Barack Obama was guaranteed to have far reaching, and long lasting implications for Alabama politics. The first election of an African-American President could not be anything other than a paradigm-shifting event. On the one hand, Obama’s presence on the ballot seems to have brought out the worst in white Alabama.

The other shoe is about to drop on the gop infused, media enabled Tea Party.

Now that the Republicans have taken back America and Obama is no longer relevant, a funny thing is happening. The chattering classes have started to notice that this country is in bad shape, is not getting better, and the people they've been gushing about might not have a real answer. They are belatedly waking up to the fact that the Tea Party agenda.....has no substance. There's no way to make it work - because it's full of contradictions where it isn't totally incoherent. Sure, they all proclaimed Obama screwed up - but just stopping him won't make the problems go away.

Which proves, it was never about jobs, the economy,health care reform, taxes, it was about "taking our country back" from an African American named Barack Obama.

The "Leave It To Beaver" days that Tea Party voters yearn for are about to be swept into the dustbin of history.

I know, you think you’ve taken “your country back” with this election — and of course you have always thought it was yours for the taking, cuz that’s what we white folks are bred to believe, that it’s ours, and how dare anyone else say otherwise — but you are wrong.

You have won a small battle in a larger war the meaning of which you do not remotely understand.

‘Cuz there is nothing even slightly original about you.

There have always been those who wanted to take the country back.

There were those who, in past years, wanted to take the country back to a time of enslavement and indentured servitude.

The gop infused, media enabled Tea Party didn't win because a majority of the American people want to go back to before. They won because a majority of the American people didn't get off their Donkey's and VOTE like their lives depended on it.