Organizing For America

In my free time I volunteer with the Organizing For America grassroots campaign.

Stay Sane And Vote Obama.  :-)

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Election Day November 2 2010

Lemme just say.  DOOM?

As of right now, I don't care for poll numbers. 

All I care about is getting everybody out to vote. 

All I care about is getting people to vote for Charlie Crist.

All I care about is getting people to vote for Amendments 5 and 6 for the state of Florida: we need those Fair Districts and bring an end to the damn gerrymandering.

All I care about is getting people to avoid Rick "MEDICARE FRAUD!  HE COMMITS MEDICARE FRAUD!  THAT'S PRESENT TENSE, IT'S HAPPENING AT HIS SOLANTIC BUSINESS TOO!" Scott at all costs.

All I care about is that the voters do the right thing and DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN.  If the Republicans get control of the US Congress WE ARE SCREWED.

I'll be updating as often as needed.  I'm gonna see if I can bring a laptop to the Crist Celebration party tonight.

Wish us luck.  May GOD have Mercy on us all!

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All I Want This Election Day Nov. 2 2010

I want everyone who's a registered voter to get up and vote.  I despair that the overall voter turnout is always so meager.  We're supposed to be a vibrant democracy but barely half the nation even bothers to register to vote...

I want my fellow Floridians to Vote FOR Charlie Crist for the U.S. Senate.  Of the three major choices, Crist is the one who's had the better, more honorable career.  Yes, he's changed his position on certain votes, but that was because a vast majority of Floridians begged him to do so.  Changing one's mind when it becomes clear that a political stance is wrong-headed DOES NOT make one a flip-flopper.  And getting driven out by the party with all those outside Far Right deep pockets is NOT being a traitor either.  A vote for Crist is a vote FOR Florida.  I seriously believe that.

I want my fellow Floridians to Vote AGAINST Rick Scott.  Scott is a goddamn crook with a history of Medicare Fraud.  There's now more evidence that his more recent health care endeavor, Solantic, has the same problem of Medicare overbilling that they had when Scott was CEO of Columbia/HCA.  The crook hasn't even stopped his bad habits!  What the hell do you think someone like that is gonna do in the Governor's office?  Here's a clue: he's gonna take all the money he can grift and make the rest of us suffer for it!  For the LOVE OF GOD, FLORIDA, DO NOT VOTE FOR HIM!  If you don't want to vote for Sink, fine, there's two other choices on the ballot.  Just... NO SCOTT.

I want my fellow Floridians to Vote FOR Amendments 5 and 6.  The Fair Districts ballots.  Of all the amendments on the ballot, these two are of major import to me: a serious and genuine attempt to stop the political gerrymandering that has favored one party over the rights of the voters, and has allowed incumbents to carve out safe districts to the detriment of honest representation.

I want my fellow Floridians... I want my fellow Americans across this nation to Vote FOR Democrats across the board.  All the Republicans will offer between now and 2012 are questionable impeachment investigations, a refusal to be serious with deficit reduction, and an upfront desire to shut down the federal government first chance and every chance they get.  I mean, the Republicans are the ones who blocked and obstructed and refused to compromise for the last two years... and THEY'RE the ones the voters want back in power?  Don't the voters have kids: any time their kids throw a tantrum and hold their breath and all, do these voters give their unruly kids more toys and candy?  Or do they send them to a corner for well-deserved Time Outs?  The collective GOP has acted like a spoiled 5-year-old brat... AND THEY ARE GETTING REWARDED FOR THEIR BAD BEHAVIOR.  What.  The.  Hell?!

I want to be able to go to bed Tuesday night in a good mood.  I want to be able to post here Wednesday morning that we're going to have responsible, sensible leadership in elected office between now and 2012 that might actually do something about our unemployment and our weak economy.

I want... I want... I want to... Put on my Sunday clothes...
There's lots of world out there
Get out the Brillantine and dime cigars
We're gonna find adventure in the evening air
Girls in white in a perfumed night
Where the lights are bright as the stars!
Put on your Sunday clothes, we're gonna ride through town
In one of those new horsedrawn open cars

We'll see the shows
At Delmonico's
And we'll close the town in a whirl
And we won't come home until we've kissed a girl!

...what?

Oh, right.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD VOTE FOR CRIST.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T VOTE FOR SCOTT.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD VOTE FOR AMENDMENTS 5 AND 6.

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Thing That Made Me Smile

I went out to the West Pasco Government Center to wave a Vote For Crist sign alongside Little Rd. this morning.  There's early voting for the next two weeks so gotta Get Out The Vote.

The whole driveway up to the government building is lined with yard signs.  Hundreds of them.  And more than half of the signs are for two people running for Mosquito Control.  That's right, not for the Senate or the Governorship or County Commissioners... Mosquito Control.  That's the big campaign in Pasco County...?  Hmm, now that I think about it, we do have a bit of a bug problem in Florida, don't we...

But the thing that made me smile this morning was this:

Seeing a sign for Rick Scott (BOO HISS), but with a hand-made sign taped to it reading "He's A Crook!  What the Hell Are You Voting Him For?"

When I head back there next time, ought to take a camera with me... also ought to take a lawn chair, my back is killing me after two hours of sign-waving!

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Supporting Crist

I know I've made earlier posts giving some praise to the man.  Here I'm making it official:

I'm supporting Charlie Crist for the U.S. Senate this November 2010.

There's not much I can do in the way of financial donations (being unemployed and all).  So I am trying to find out if there's volunteer time I can provide.  For the seven people reading this blog, if you've got some funds handy and want to piss off the Wingnut Republicans, here's your chance.  Click the link above.  I'll be adding the Crist website to my links on the right.

P.S. Go Gators!  Go Bucs!  Go Bulls!  Go Rays!  Go Spongers (Tarpon High)!

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Reactions to the Primaries of August 24 2010

I did not wake up well today.

It's taking me a good while to write up this post-script to last Tuesday's postings about the primaries.  Mostly because Wednesday was a busy day for me, heading out to Charlie Crist's campaign HQ to rally for the November election. (you won't see me on the video, as a big fat guy I tried to stay in the corner out of people's way)


I'm not the only one miffed about Rick Scott being chosen by the Republican Party as their choice for the Governorship here in Florida.  At least one other Floridian is trying to use mockery in discussing the horror that is Scott, but still and all outrage should be the underlying emotion here.

To wit: THE REPUBLICANS CHOSE AN EX-CEO OF A CORPORATION THAT COMMITTED MASSIVE MEDICARE FRAUD UNDER HIS LEADERSHIP.  What words do you think the majority of Republicans overlooked on Scott's resume?  I think they missed the words FRAUD, also UNREPENTANT CROOK, and maybe EVASIVE SCUMBAG.

I've spent more than a few posts yelling and screaming about how the Republicans have failed in their leadership: about how they provide us with con artists, snake-oil salesmen, egomaniacal freaks, borderline racists, and outright liars.  But in previous cases the Republicans at least tried for a pretense of choosing 'sensible,' or least publicly clean candidates that don't have billion-dollar-sized damages trailing in their wake.  With Scott?  Dear fucking God, they're not even trying to hide it anymore.  This guy - responsible for the largest fine in Medicare Fraud history - is openly trying to buy himself an office ($40 million of his own money and counting), and for what purpose?  What do you honestly think Scott is trying to do achieve?  All I can think of is that he's hoping to get into office so that he can use the shield of "Public Trust" to avoid any culpability in the private sector he may have generated (being an elected official DOESN'T stop the criminal or civil charges from coming: it DOES delay it for years, and it gives the scumbag the "excuse" that he's being hounded for "political partisan" reasons.  Phooey.)

The simplest solution to all this is of course to vote for the Democratic nominee Alex Sink.  It's due time for another party to sit in the Governorship anyway (last elected Dem was Walkin' Lawton and that was almost 2 decades ago), and another thing Sink would be the state's first woman Governor (a nice milestone).  Still and all, this pisses me off.  The primary system itself FAILED to prevent someone known to have COMMITTED FRAUD on the scale of billions of dollars from even winning a party nomination in the first place.

WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU FLORIDIAN REPUBLICANS THINKING?  McCollum wasn't too radical enough for you?!  A perfectly sensible, long-time political hack who plays by the GOP purity rules, and McCollum STILL LOSES TO A CROOK?!  WHAT.  THE.  HELL?  Anti-incumbency attitudes alone does not explain this outright stupidity by the majority of the state GOP voters.

Any outrage I might have for voting results in Alaska or Arizona can't measure up to this.  All I can say now to everyone is STOP VOTING REPUBLICAN.  It's not helping this nation.  At all!


Breitbart Delendus Est.

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Florida Primary Day August 24 2010

Forgot to mention this, but then again I find the need to purge Rick Scott from my memory every other minute of the day.  Ye Gods, HE'S A VIABLE CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR?

Anyhoo.  Updates on the primaries to be added to this thread.  Voting should be done by evening and updates will follow.  By 10:00 pm tonight we'll have a good idea how bad the GOP's choices will look like...

If you wanna follow the official tallying, linkage to the St. Pete Times politics website provided here.

Oh and I forgot to keep up with this:
Brietbart Delendus Est.

UPDATE: 6:40 pm EST.  It's been a rainy day.  How it will affect turnout across the state this year is unknown, but it does tend to depress turnout.  Usually the less-interested voters who tend to just vote on whim, meaning more dedicated (possibly obsessed) voters have a huge advantage.

UPDATE: 7:52 pm.  There's the Bay News 9 results page available as well (interactive).  The polls are closed and the counts are filtering in.  So far, it doesn't look good in the GOP gubernatorial race with Scott up over McCollum 47 - 42 percent.

UPDATE: 8:11 pm.  Bay News 9 is calling the Primaries for Rubio in the GOP Senate and Sink in the Democrat Governor races.  Pasco County's local elections are still dribbling in, so I can't say who won the Judicial campaigns.

UPDATE: 8:27 pm.  Last early update for some time.  Bay News 9 is calling the Democrat Senate race for Meek.  The Attorney General elections still up for grabs.  The Scott/McCollum race is still too close to call at 46-43, but the polling numbers are staying level so it's looking like Scott could win the GOP nom.  Get those Scotty Don't t-shirts ready.

UPDATE: 10:24 pm.  Greene conceded to Meek.  Results still not changed for Scott/McCollum, they're at 46 to 43 percent at 77 percent precincts in.  Will have to check again later.

UPDATE: 10:43 pm.  Go Rays!  Up 4-0 bottom of the Second Inning!  ...what?  Oh, the primaries...
Interesting tidbit: the Republican turnout was in the 1 million-plus count.  I didn't think there were that many registered Republicans in the state.  Last tally was around 900,000 or so in 2009.  Democratic turnout looks to be around 750,000 voters so far, which is 250,000 less than expected... although it can be said the Republican Gubernatorial primary especially had more at stake...

UPDATE: 10:50 pm.  May be my last update for the night.  Won't stay up long.  Best to say that Scott looks like he'll win the Republican nomination for the Governor's race (Boo Hiss).  Once that race is certain, I'll have more to say on it.  On a personal note, a woman who ran for a Congressional primary back in 1992 - Trish Muscarella - that I volunteered for then (she lost the primary: Bilirakis was an imposing incumbent) has won a race tonight for 6th Circuit Court Seat 18 (Pasco & Pinellas).  So in case I get tabbed for speeding again, I know who to ask for a presiding judge... :)

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Daddy, What Did YOU Do During The Republican War On America?

A wooden shack overlooking a serene lake with children playing on the porch.  The year is 2020.  The War is ten years gone by then.  My daughters Sherry Rose and Sara Dorri have found an oddly shaped leaf and are using it to play with their kitten.  I'm sitting at my workdesk at a window overlooking the porch and the lake, contently looking away from my third non-fiction work, a history of Jamaica in the 20th Century.  I'd been years working on it, so there's no rush to finish.  I hear tinkering from the kitchen: my Zoroastrian wife Jehanara whom I met during the War is stirring up her tea for the afternoon.
I sense movement nearby, and a cough.  I turn to face my oldest child, my son Joshua Abraham Lawrence Spurlock - named for Emperor of the United States Joshua Abraham Norton, General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the 20th Maine, and Michael Spurlock who was the first ever to return a touchdown kickoff for the Tampa Bay Bucs - standing a few feet away, history textbook in hand.  It had to be something about his school homework.  "Got a question, son?"
"Yeah, dad, I do."  He's got his mother's eye color, as close to turquoise as you can get.  Pity he inherited my hair: that double crown on the back of his head is making it burst out in all the wrong directions.  "We're studying up on recent events, things in the news, and comparing them to, you know, stuff that happened years ago."
"Okay, what's the comparison you're working with then?"
"Well, I got an assignment on this guy here."  Josh holds up a printed sheet of a web article: some ex-politician up for a parole hearing and the outrage it's sparking on the Chrome Kos site sponsored by the latest winter blockbuster film Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Spiders From Mars.
I lean in to take a closer look.  "Oh, yeah.  Him.  You had questions about that guy?"
"Well, I started glancing through the school book, and I just noticed that well," Josh shrugged.  "that all this stuff that guy did, all the lying and staged outrage and the violence in the streets he stirred up, and well, this all happened just ten years ago."
"Before you were born, true enough."  I smiled and reached over to tap my son on the shoulder.  "I was like you at your age.  I was pretty much born after all the crazy stuff from the Sixties."
"Well, I was just kinda wondering, you know?"  Josh shrugged again.  "It's just... you were alive then, right?"
"Oh.  Yeah."  I nod with solemn and wistful intent.  "I was there."
"I was just wondering, though.  What did YOU do during the Republican War on America?"

--
Well I'm sitting here right now, in the year 2010, wondering just what I'll have to answer to my boy when the time comes, when he asks me that question: What did I do when the Republicans openly declared War on America?
Because that's pretty much what the Republican Party has done:

• The Republicans want to repeal the 17th Amendment and TAKE AWAY the voters right to directly elect Senators.  The Republicans want to give that power back to state legislatures that had proved less than 100 years ago to be too corrupt and too deadlocked to have such powers.
• The Republicans want to remove the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, specifically the part about birth - being born in the United States or in designated territories such as overseas military bases - as the prime determinant of being an American citizen.  The Republicans want to go after what they call "anchor babies" as part of their War On Illegals, even though there's little evidence that anchor babies work as a loophole in our immigration system (it'd be far easier for illegals to marry an American and get a Green Card, for one): but by going after the Citizenship Clause the Republicans are also going after ANY legal citizen they'd want, and considering the list of peoples and groups that Republicans hate, that's pretty much EVERYONE who's not a Republican.
• The Republicans want to deny Muslims in this country from not only building a community center anywhere near the Ground Zero site of where the World Trade Towers stood, but are now openly going after any Muslim mosque being built ANYWHERE in the United States.  The Republicans want to go after what they fear are "extremist Muslims" but are in fact going after EVERY Muslim, even the political and socially moderate Muslims who AREN'T terrorists.  And this is pretty much part of their decades-long war to make the United States a God-Fearing Bible-Thumping Evangelical State.  The Republicans have honestly declared war on everyone else's right to Worship As They See Fit.
• The Republicans want to go after Blacks, and any organization associated with Blacks.  The Republicans also want to go after Hispanics, especially since you can't tell which Hispanic's an Illegal and which was born in East L.A.  And East L.A.'s not part of Republican America anywho, so why bother eh?  The Republicans also want to go after Homosexuals, because they're gaying up our military and our wedding rituals.  The Republicans also want to go after teachers, professors, anyone with a background in education.  The Republicans also want to go after anyone suggesting that we, you know, allow the Bush tax cuts to expire as scheduled in order to help fight the Republican-created deficit because ZOMG THAT'S SOCIALIST TALK.  The Republicans also want to go after jurors who don't perform to their liking.
• Pretty much, if you're not Caucasian and not making over $250,000 a year with membership to exclusive golf clubs, the Republicans are at war with you.

Welcome to the Republican Reality: where The Wingnuts On FOX News are agitating unrest claiming everyone else is destroying America while their Republican buddies in government are blocking financial aid, financial reforms, jobs bills, and God knows everything else we need to do to fix America that's clearly falling apart.

So... what am I doing during this Republican War On America?
For starters, I'm gonna do everything in my power to keep Republicans out of office.  I'm not voting for a single one at any level.  Period.  Even if there are sensible Republicans on the ballot who would otherwise be reasonable choices, not now.  Not for the next ten generations the way that party is behaving.  The whole party has to lose now just to slap some goddamn sense into them.
I'm also looking to put in volunteer hours with Crist's Senate campaign.  He's Independent now, so I'm not violating the No-Republicans rule I set earlier.  Need to call the campaign HQ about anything I can do in person: right now they're pretty much just asking for money, the one thing an unemployed guy like me can't really afford to do.
I'm also doing what I can to get Democrats to get out and vote this midterms.  THIS IS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM: Midterm elections are smaller in turnout numbers (because most people only care to vote for the Big One: The Presidency) and it all depends on the enthusiasms of the party bases.  Right now, the Republicans are all stirred up thanks to the Teabagger crowds: The Democrats are all sniping among each other to the point that their voters are all "why bother?"  Well, Democrats, here's WHY you should bother: THERE ARE MORE REGISTERED DEMOCRATS RIGHT NOW THAN REGISTERED REPUBLICANS, YOU IDIOTS.  Here in Florida alone there's 4 million plus Democrats and 3 million plus Republicans: you've got a 900,000 ballot head start on the GOP!  If every voter turned out, Democrats ought to win every non-gerrrymandered district at the state and federal level they can!  And for the Republicans to win, they'd need more than half of the 2 million Independent/Third Party voters, which is unlikely... even moreso with the Republicans going so far extreme Right on the charts that they have to be alienating too many moderate and centrist Indys.  Do you get that, Democrats?  All you have to do is hew along Center-Left policies, secure moderate Indy voters alongside your Left wingers, and YOU.  CAN.  STOP.  The DAMN REPUBLICANS.  From retaking Congress this midterms.
And why should you do everything in your powers to stop the Republicans, O foolish Dems?  Because I SWEAR to you on Day One of a GOP-led Congress: You will have the Republicans flat-out impeaching Obama, not even waiting the traditional few months or years of investigating him.  They'll just flat-out impeach using the flimsiest forged evidence of a "Kenyan Birth Certificate" they can find.  And it won't matter if they get the two-thirds vote necessary in the Senate to confirm the impeachment: they'll just refile again and again and again, anything to hamper harass and delay Obama's efforts to do his damn job.
And that's just the most obvious thing they'll do.  Having campaigned on so many other wingnut issues to win elections, the Republicans of 2011 are gonna have to live up to their promises: that means for Starters, a draconian illegal immigration bill designed to alienate every Hispanic demographic across the nation (even the Cubans, who normally align with the party that's most opposed to Castro).
That also means a sudden re-interest in overturning Roe v. Wade on the abortion front, something the Republicans refused to do when they had the chance back in 2001-2006, and never mind the fact that solid majorities of Americans don't even consider abortion a Top Ten priority anymore (gee, you'd think unemployment, a shaky economy, a shattering housing and mortgage industry, failing schools, and personal debt bankruptcies would be higher priorities).
And other thing: the Republican Congress will push for a hard tax cut budget that would actually make our deficits worse, but hell anything for a tax cut right?  Especially since the Republicans have pledged to kill Obama's HCR program.  And especially at a time when so many unemployed people are going to be on so many much-needed social programs threatened by Congress' threat of hatchet cuts to the budget to justify those tax cuts.  And if Obama threatens a veto of their budget?  The Republicans can shut down government altogether, like they did in 1995-1996.  Like THAT was fun for everyone involved back when the economy was actually WORKING...
That also means pursuing a Bomb Iran foreign policy platform that would only succeed in thrilling the neocons and pissing off 99 percent of the rest of the planet.  But hey, anything for our friends in Israel who think they've got a "Get Out Of Jail Free" Card that allows them to do whatever they want against their Middle East neighbors... and against their European Allies' interests...  Gee, a constant moving war in the Middle East!  Thanks, neocons!
Oh.  And about ten other things that ought to scare the CRAP out of Democrats enough to GET YOU IDIOTS TO THE GODDAMN VOTING BOOTHS this November.  WAKE. THE FUCK. UP, DEMS!
Sheesh.  This, future son of mine, is what I'm doing during the Republican War On America.  Trying to get everyone else to wake up to the fact there IS a war going on.  And the sane people are losing.

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