A 1998 voting guide published by a leading neoconfederate group and obtained by Salon not only endorses Perry for lieutenant governor, it also describes him as “a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.”
. . .
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the group experienced years of internal conflict between moderate and radical factions, essentially between those who wanted to focus on maintaining historical sites and supporting research and those who were committed to glorifying the Confederacy — in some cases, out-and-out white supremacists.
The latter faction seems to be in the ascendancy these days.
Now, it isn’t fair in a short online article to expect a doctoral thesis on what went on within the group.
On the other hand, Elliott seems to be of the modern ilk who thoroughly enjoy setting themselves up in judgement of precisely how much pure historical interest a Rick Perry or anyone else is permitted to express over 19th century American history. It is almost as though the Elliotts of the world want slavish control over Southerners of European descent.
After Bush was elected president and Perry became governor, he maintained his warm relations with Confederate-affiliated groups. Perry was featured in the United Daughters of the Confederacy magazine for a July 2001 visit to the 25th anniversary celebration of a library that had been given an archival collection of Confederate materials.
Breath deeply the scent of the non-falsifiable proposition: “Rick Perry did not do enough to distance himself from Confederate-affiliated groups.”
So how does the Perry of 2011 — the likely presidential hopeful who will have to appeal to plenty of Northerners — view the Civil War and these neoconfederate groups? We may find out soon. The Sons of Confederate Veterans is pushing for a Confederate flag license plate in Texas, but when the state motor vehicle board voted on the matter back in April, it was a 4-4 tie, with one absence. Since then, one member died and the board is waiting for Perry to appoint a replacement. Stay tuned …
OMG! Not the license plate!
Quick, Governor Perry! You better veto that plate, or this Lefty clown at Salon shall have successfully proven that you. . .allowed people freedom of speech or something.
Whew.
Slavery was morally reprehensible. However, Elliott’s attempt at saying
Check out His Badness, Jim Hanson, of BlackFive fame:
Hanson’s a frequent visitor on RT, rapping with Alyona on various topics. I’m only endorsing Hanson himself, while not actually saying whether or not Hanson’s remarks reflect any ground truth. Dunno.
One side effect of the Surge Recover in Afghanistan is that there will be a flood of additional voters for 2012. Hopefully, despite problems that von Spkovsky notes over at NRO, this will have a positive effect on voting:
MVPP surveyed 24 states. Of the 2 million military voters covered by the report, 15.8 percent requested absentee ballots, but only 4.6 percent cast absentee ballots that were counted. This is at least partly due to the difficulty and uncertainty of the process. Both numbers were below the 2006 midterm election figures, when 5.5 percent of military and overseas voters cast absentee ballots that were counted.
MVPP also found that local election officials in 14 states and the District of Columbia failed to comply with the federal requirement that all absentee ballots must be mailed at least 45 days prior to the election. That requirement, imposed by the 2009 Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE Act), was intended to ensure that voters had enough time to receive and mail back a ballot, given the long transit times for overseas mail, particularly in war zones. These failures affected more than 65,000 voters.
Most of the states did a good job counting the ballots they actually got back — the overall acceptance rate was more than 94 percent. However, there was one glaring and shameful exception: The state of New York rejected nearly one-third of all absentee ballots from military voters. Based on a combined estimate of military members who voted in person in the U.S. as well as overseas voters, MVPP concluded that the overall turnout rate of military voters was 11.6 percent. Since the turnout rate of all voters was 41.6 percent in the 2010 election, this means that military voters were 3.5 times less likely to vote than other voting-age citizens.
This is a significant voting issue that the Left never seems to notice. Can’t figure out why.
Workin’ hard, tryin’ to be surprised that Kenneth Gladney received a legal thrashing to match the physical one. No mention at Big Journalism, but if there is a fund to appeal this case, I should like to hear about it.
What is going on in St. Louis? The comments mention Casey Anthony. Has our legal system substantially turned away from the notion of justice?
More at Ace of Spades HQ.
Once you sign up for any liberal e-mail list, you’re going to get e-mails from all of them, and this one came from the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee:
Friend —
My first campaign made me an organizer.
Every day, through a hot Florida summer, I knocked on doors and asked my neighbors for their support. I had five opponents in that primary, but on Election Day, I beat every single one of them — with 53 percent of the vote.
Since that race, I’ve known exactly how important organizing can be. It taught me the principles I hope to bring to the Democratic Party as its Chair.
On my first day in this job, I recorded a short video to talk about my plans for our party. Watch it, then pledge to join us for some organizing on July 16th — when we’ll register voters and ask supporters to commit to help elect President Obama and Democrats up and down the ticket in 2012. . . .
We have big fights ahead, and I want to win them. In order to re-elect the President and win new majorities in Congress, we have to lay the groundwork for those victories now. That means getting started with good, old-fashioned organizing. That’s the message I’ve taken with me to supporters in the 15 states I’ve already visited as Chair.
But it also means embracing new ideas.
When I started, Patrick Gaspard brought me some suggestions that supporters like you submitted to help us make our party better.
I read feedback from people like Bill in Michigan who asked us to expand our organizing programs and Dick in Pennsylvania who said, “The message of all the good the President has done and accomplished must be communicated at the personal level by people in each community.”
I saw ideas from supporters like Kolman in Ohio and Alan in New York — who suggested that we deploy the power of charts, graphics, and striking multimedia to help win arguments and strengthen the facts of our case.
I heard from those like Vanessa in Colorado, who asked us to focus on research and messaging to push back against smears from our opponents, and Angela in North Carolina, who said, “Arm me with facts so I can counter the misinformation my friends seem to have on the tip of their tongues.”
This is exactly the kind of thinking — smart and supporter-driven — that I want to guide our work. That’s part of why I’m so excited about this job.
Are you ready to get to work with me? Join Democrats for our Day of Action on July 16th:
http://my.democrats.org/July-16-Day-Of-Action
Thanks,
Debbie
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Chair
Democratic National Committee
AL's Jose Bautista thrown out at home in the top of the fourth
NL played to win; AL not so much, result is 5-1 victory for Senior Circuit and another year of home-field advantage in the World Series Nationals’ Clippard vultures the win
UPDATE 12:09 a.m. Pacific (3:09 a.m. Eastern): Hahn’s margin of victory was less than 10% in a district that Obama carried by 30% in 2008, perhaps indicating the “Obama fatigue” noted in a recent poll of the district.
Democrat Janice Hahn defeated Republican Craig Huey in a bitterly contested Southern California special election marked by stinging attacks from both sides. . . .
Huey, who stunned political observers by upending Democratic Secretary of State Debra Bowen in the May primary, attempted to run mostly on a message of austerity. Hahn consistently framed Huey as a “right-wing extremist” whose views were out of place in the district, likening him to Sarah Palin.
Having defeated California Secretary of State Debra Bowen in a multi-candidate “jungle primary” in May, Hahn underperformed in Tuesday’s special election in a district where Harman had won re-election with 59% of the vote in November. And Hahn may be vulnerable when she comes up for re-election next year. “The district will be redrawn, along with others in California, before then, and most expect it to be at least somewhat less Democratic,” the Los Angeles Times noted.
Ok, I know it’s customary to downplay results from “our side”, but I can honestly say I knew this was going to happen. I would have been absolutely shocked if we won here. Seriously folks, this is f–ing California. And with all apologies due to our native California morons, f– California. Seriously, pardon my french, but f– California. We don’t need that POS state. As the country went crimson red in 2010, California kept going further and further left, the only state to do so. Let the lib-f–s who live there enjoy thinking they are our betters, as jobs continue to leave the state in droves and it continues going down the tubes.
If you’re a moron who happens to live in California, LEAVE THE STATE ALREADY. Seriously, what are you waiting for? Your vote is just being wasted. And if you happen to own a business, make the move even sooner. Your profits will be up overnight and you’ll be providing less and less welfare to feed the liberal sh–hole that California has become.
Look, I get it — you love California. You’ve probably got some fond memories even. But be honest with yourself — you love what California USED to be, and hate what it’s become. And it’s only going to become more of what you hate going forward. It’s way too late to save it. Stop trying. Stop being in denial.
Tell your once great (and now sh–y state) to go pound sand and move out. Take my advice and thank me later.
“Phil” was utterly discredited when it was revealed he lived in the right-wing bastion of — wait for it — Illinois.
Say what you will about the political, demographic and economic trends in California, it’s got a lot more sunshine and palm trees than Illinois.
UPDATE 11:25 p.m. Pacific (2:25 a.m. Eastern): It appears that Democrat Janice Hahn is cruising to a solid win. With 127 of 261 precincts reporting:
PREVIOUSLY: Polls close at 8 p.m. Pacific time (that’s 11 p.m. Eastern) in California’s 36th Congressional District and we’ll have all the results here. This special election is to replace retiring Democrat Rep. Jane Harman, and Guy Benson at Townhall summarizes:
President Obama won this district by thirty points in 2008, and Harman sailed to a comfortable win in 2010. This should be a slam dunk, blow-out hold for Democrats — and yet, they’re reportedly worried.
As voters headed to the polls Tuesday to decide a hard-fought special congressional election in the South Bay area, attorneys for Democrat Janice Hahn filed complaints alleging that supporters of her opponent, Republican Craig Huey, were trying to suppress turnout of her voters.
In a letter sent Tuesday to the Los Angeles County district attorney, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles and the California attorney general, Hahn lawyers Stephen J. Kaufman and Steven J. Reyes asked for immediate investigations into “voter suppression actitivies” in the 36th Congressional District race.
The attorneys said several voters reported receiving telephone calls Monday night telling them the election had been postponed to Wednesday at Hahn’s request ,and others were given wrong polling place addresses.
Within the last 36 hours [Janice Hahn] and her staff . . .
• Falsely claimed a political endorsement from a local hero;
• Then lied about it when confronted with the truth that he didn’t endorse her;
• And then posted a stalker video of one of her “trackers” (Democratic agents who follow opponents around night and day, video cameras in hand) tailing Craig Huey in a parking lot as a process server tries to hand him some documents about a bogus back payment he supposedly owed.
UPDATE III: Polls have now closed, but While still awaiting the first results, I was reading Mickey Kaus about how the Daily Kos was trying to spin their final poll in CA-36. Look, if Hahn wins by less than 10 points, that’s a huge GOP victory in this heavily Democrat-leaning district. If the margin is less than 5 points . . . Well, that’s hard to imagine. If Huey should somehow win, it will be nothing short of a miracle.
National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chairman U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) today announced that businesswoman and civic leader Carly Fiorina will join the organization as a Vice Chair for the 2012 election cycle.
Serving alongside Cornyn and NRSC Vice Chairman U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Fiorina will amplify Senate Republicans’ focus on healing America’s troubled economy, and assist with the NRSC’s crucial fundraising efforts in support of a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate. “I’m pleased to welcome my friend Carly Fiorina to the NRSC team, where her many business and civic achievements will make her an invaluable leader and fundraiser during this critical election cycle,” Senator Cornyn said today. “I look forward to working with Carly to elect strong Republican Senators who will finally put a stop to President Obama’s failed tax-and-spend agenda, and instead promote the economic growth and job creation Americans so badly need.”
Former Chairman and CEO of HP and one of the most recognized business leaders in the world, Carly Fiorina has consistently championed competitiveness, innovation, job creation and economic growth. She has been politically active, serving as Republican Victory Chair supporting John McCain’s presidential run, and most recently challenging four-term California Senator Barbara Boxer in her own first-time political candidacy.
“The Senate sets the legislative agenda for the nation. I am proud to work alongside Chairman Cornyn, Vice Chairman Hatch and all Republican Senators to restore a Republican majority in 2012,” said Fiorina. “Republicans in the Senate will provide job creators the opportunities and environment they need to grow our economy, decentralize power out of Washington, and restore fiscal accountability.”
In 2010, a year when Republicans were winning a nationwide landslide, Carly Fiorina pissed away $21.5 million — including more than $5 million of her own money — and lost to Barbara Boxer by a 10% margin. And this is the loser whom John Cornyn has asked to help lead the committee to elect Republicans to the Senate in 2012. Four words:
Forget all those scientific studies about the health effects of coffee. What about the economic impact?
As a registered investment advisor, Steve Orr is used to juggling millions, but he knows those millions started out as pennies.
“It’s the little things,” said Orr, president and owner of the Orr Financial Group. “It’s the dollar here, two dollars there things that we pick up every day that start to add up. The insidious thing is that it still doesn’t add up to so much that we think it could make a difference in our futures, because we only see those expenses in terms of the dollars we spend, but not the dollars – plus the interest – we could be earning on them.” . . .
To illustrate that, Orr can demonstrate how simple, everyday expenses – when eliminated – can turn into big bucks down the road.
For instance, the daily specialty coffee from the local coffee stand costs about $3.95, depending on where you live in the U.S. If you got one every day of the week for about 40 weeks out of the year for the typical 35 year employment span between ages 25 and 60, it would cost you about $27,650 over that 35 years.
The formula looks like this:
Coffee or Latte — $3.95 X 5 = $19.75 X 40 = $790 X 35 = $27,650
Energy shot — $3.99 X 5 = $19.95 X 40 = $798 X 35 = $27,930
Muffin — $3 X 5 = $15 X 40 = $600 X 35 = $21,000
Lunch — $8 X 5 = $40 X 40 = $1,600 X 35 = $56,000
“If you were to put the total of all these items into your 401(k) or Roth IRA or any other type of retirement investment vehicle every year for 35 years and you earned a minimum of 3 percent interest every year on that money, you’d have an extra $246,560 in your retirement account at the end of that 35 years,” Orr said.
