A Price Above Rubies

I have said this until I am blue (pardon the pun) in the face. Elizabeth Warren is one of the greatest senatorial candidates that Massachusetts ever has had the opportunity for whom to vote. We are so lucky. Not only is she committed to the middle class but she is a brilliant academic scholar of economics at a time when we need such expertise. Scott Brown with his tomahawk chops, insulting and racist staff rants cannot hold a candle to this woman of character and integrity. I am hoping fervently that the voters of Massachusetts will see what I see having met Elizabeth Warren on three separate occasions. Since listening to her interview with Bill Moyers on PBS during the near total economic collapse of 2008 I was convinced of her phenomenal ability.

Unless you are part of the 1% wealthiest then YOU should vote for Elizabeth Warren. If you are a Massachusetts resident and part of the 99% YOU should vote for Elizabeth Warren. If you want a more equitable, fair and just nation then YOU should vote for Elizabeth Warren. She will not let us down. In addition to her academic excellence she is a humane and wonderful human being whom I will be proud to call my senator from the great State of Massachusetts!

Elizabeth Warren is a GEM, a price above rubies, and Massachusetts should NOT let this gem slip through our fingers.

The Company Brown Keeps -- Brown Has Some Splainin to Do!

While it is true, gotcha politics stinks, sometimes it is necessary to fight fire with so called proverbial fire. Scott Brown has recently taken some necessary return fire from the great Elizabeth Warren. Scott Brown is full of himself, thinks his Senate seat is permanent and that he is immune from scandal. Certainly a woman like Elizabeth Warren could never ruin his ever-so-masculine image and career by trouncing him in this Senatorial election. Well, it's ALL image as the vicious Cherokee tomahawk chop racist rant of Brown's campaign cronies proves. That IS backfiring and it SHOULD.

However, on another and very important front, I suggest Brown yet again take that nasty log out of his eye. The article below says legions about Brown's involvement as attorney for one of the most flagrant real estate scam companies writing so called "liars loans" leading up to the 2008 crash. What did Mr. Brown know and when did he know it? This is a question NO candidate wants to be asked.

I will let you read all about it here and below for details. Scott Brown has some BIG splainin to do and the press has some Fourth Estate investigation to do into this possible fatal black eye-punch which WILL, HOPEFULLY, land on Brown soon.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/09/28/scott-brown-worked-as-real-estate-attorney-with-notorious-document-fraudster-lps/
Scott Brown Worked as a Real Estate Attorney For Notorious Document Fraudster LPS


Why it is VITAL to elect the great Elizabeth Warren to the US Senate!

A must watch from today's news -- FIND OUT ABOUT ALEC and its SUBVERSION of YOU!

This was forwarded to me and is SPOT ON!:

Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! today dedicated a segment to Bill Moyers upcoming PBS special on the American Legislative Exchange Commission (aka ALEC). It is important for everyone to know about this organization which works for a very silent, corporate/1% elite that is subverting our democracy and has been for decades since Ronald Reagan.

I’m amazed in my work with local political leaders for the upcoming 2012 election here in MetroWest how NO ONE knew what ALEC was when I mentioned it.

Amy’s been featuring news on ALEC for years – finally, I’m glad to see more coming to light.

This is the organization that is spreading voter suppression laws, thousands of bills throughout the country limiting woman’s reproductive rights, gun control laws – pushed through which are not popular with citizens (i.e. Stand Your Ground).

We all need to know about this organization financed by corporations and private, monied interests from around the globe – which is financing the campaigns of many state and local politicians, including SCOTT BROWN.

Remember that in November when you step into the booth.

Link: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/27/the_united_states_of_alec_bill

Cherokee Nation Full Statement

Here is the full statement by the Cherokee Nation:

The Cherokee Nation is  disappointed in and denounces the disrespectful actions of staffers and  supporters of Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown. The conduct of these individuals  goes far beyond what is appropriate and proper in political discourse. The use  of stereotypical “war whoop chants” and “tomahawk chops” are offensive and  downright racist. It is those types of actions that perpetuate negative  stereotypes and continue to minimize and degrade all native peoples.

The individuals involved  in this unfortunate incident are high ranking staffers in both the senate office  and the Brown campaign. A campaign that would allow and condone such offensive  and racist behavior must be called to task for their actions.

The Cherokee Nation is a  modern, productive society, and I am blessed to be their chief. I will not be  silent when individuals mock and insult our people and our great nation.

We need individuals in the  United States Senate who respect Native Americans and have an understanding of  tribal issues. For that reason, I call upon Sen. Brown to apologize for the  offensive actions of his staff and their uneducated, unenlightened and racist  portrayal of native peoples.

Truth or Consequences -- A Statement from the Cherokee Nation

A letter and statement from The Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation standing in FIRM opposition and denouncement of Senator Brown's staff and what racist behavior Scott Brown allowed them, with out consequences, to commit in his name is here or below -- Please pass this along:

http://samuel-warde.com/2012/09/cherokee-nation-actions-of-senator-brown-staff-racist-and-offensive/


Why we MUST elect the qualified, dignified, mature and brilliant Elizabeth Warren to the US Senate because she belongs there and Scott Brown does NOT!

A Letter to Barbara

I enclose a wonderfully written opinion by the great Barbara Streisand here and below entitled: Obama vs. Romney: A Clear Choice. I urge you to read it. It is exquisitely written. I commented:

I love you, Barbara Streisand, and I always will. Your article is beautifully written and everything you say is exactly correct. It is gorgeously choreographed like the many talented things you have done during your life.

Ms. Streisand, you are a superstar and you are my superstar. There will never be another like you. Moreover, not only can you do superbly all the artistic things you have done you also have honed a political philosophy that is, at its core, humane to work for the betterment of our nation and our world.

Thank you for all you have given us, our country and for all that you have given to the progression of men and women through the arts. You are our national treasure!


http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/13550-focus-obama-vs-romney-a-clear-choice

What Ryan is Calling Romney and Scott Brown's Classless Racism

According to Larry O'Donnell quoting Politico, Paul Ryan is calling Romney "The Stench!" i.e. if "The Stench calls tell him I'm having finger cookies with Peggie Noonan."

If this gives you pause to laugh, do so BUT NEVER take anything for granted. Keep working hard AND keep telling everyone you know to REGISTER TO VOTE especially if you have friends in states like Florida, Ohio and other swing states who are voting Democratic but who Republicans want to suppress their vote.

Moreover, the ballot in Florida is long and that is an understatement. NO MATTER, tell your friends in Florida to become familiar with it and do NOT let that impede their voting for the president!

These things are of the UTMOST importance. COMPLACENCY IS NOT A STRATEGY. Complacency is a strategy for losing -- and a Romney presidency would be Bush on steroids and is unacceptable. Take NOTHING for granted.

I might add another shameful action by Scott Brown's own STAFF. The Native American racism they exhibited at a get together of staff reminded me of a lynching in the south during the era of Jim Crow. It was an EMBARRASSMENT to not only to the bully candidate Brown but an INSULT to Massachusetts citizens in general everywhere. See Rachel Maddow if you want the disgusting details of the latest Scott Brown racist malfeasance. He is an ABOMINATION. It should remind you that the Republicans have NOTHING and is the reason we CANNOT be complacent and MUST re-elect the president and the GREAT BRILLIANT Elizabeth Warren to the US Senate!

Scott Brown's Log

Now Brown is criticizing Elizabeth again for whom she represented, LTV Steel in the 1990s, allegedly, as the Boston Globe said, "assisting the former industrial conglomerate in its fight against a congressional requirement that it pay millions of dollars into a fund for its retired coal miners’ health care." Elizabeth answered the charge. Naturally I will not leave our great candidate Elizabeth Warren without coming to HER defense.

Look, this is simply RIDICULOUS. Get a check on reality. People had LIVES BEFORE running for office now and, as an attorney it included working sometimes with different corporations or on behalf of them. Sometimes especially in the legal field, as I personally have experienced in a NON-attorney role, one must represent many different interests. Guess what? We LIVE in a capitalist society in case you haven't noticed. In our system even corporations deserve representation as well. You may not love the company you represent but in our system EVERYONE deserves their day in court. THIS is a good thing AND the attorney in a firm does NOT often get to pick and choose whom they represent. Without corporation attorney advocacy the entire economic system would collapse as companies ad infinitum would be sued with NO representation. Even plaintiffs would suffer by that.

1993 is a long time ago and ONCE AGAIN I think Elizabeth has answered this sufficiently. I was ALWAYS a left of center cause advocate but that did not mean I did not have to make a living. Companies, corporations and those involved in bankruptcy need representation too and sometimes as in life things are not neatly wrapped packages.

GET A GRIP Senator Brown, my image is of you and your staff wading through all kinds of material just to get a GOTCHA MOMENT on this gem of a candidate. You were a BULLY in the first debate and you continue to be so. I look at Elizabeth Warren now who formed the Consumer Protection Bureau for what she IS and WILL be a STRONG ADVOCATE FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS. Massachusetts should consider itself LUCKY to get this brilliant woman.

Mr. Brown, Jesus said, do not look at the speck the other man's eye when YOU have a LOG in your own and I say YOU HAVE A BIG ONE!

Why we need to send the great Elizabeth Warren to the US Senate from Massachusetts now more than ever.

Send Mitt to the ER!!!

Sorry just have to let'r rip.  Romneybot says the poor can get treatment in the ER here or below.  HE IS AN IDIOT?!!!Can this jerk say ANYTHING without putting his foot and this time his whole one in his mouth. WHAT AN AWFUL disgusting candidate. That is EXACTLY what hospitals DO NOT WANT TO DO and why the health care bill was so important. Using ER's for medical care hurts EVERYONE including those that really do need the ER! 

Mitt you are beyond belief -- worse than Sarah Palin if that is possible! It was HE that got ER treatment down in Mass.  MITT YOU TWITT, oh maybe you forget that. Great a presidential candidate who cannot remember his own policy!  

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/23/mitt-romney-60-minutes-health-care_n_1908129.html#comments

Why we need to re-elect the president more than ever and send the GREAT Elizabeth Warren to the Senate!

Through My Eyes -- Voting Smart -- Warren v. Brown

A relative and I always state that we are a suckers for smart and we surely are. One thing is certain Elizabeth is very very smart and it showed during the debate. The appellation of professor which Brown stated so often to me is a plus. He must think it not. One wonders how anyone could think that being a professor is not an advantage. The problems our country faces are daunting and economic difficulties are, indeed, understatedly complex. She formed, through the president's appointment, the Consumer Protection Bureau. That speaks for itself.

I thought Brown came out of the starting gate a bully. He was snarky, sometimes rude and to me generally unlikable. He attacked her for the inane Cherokee native issue. I tell the story that in my youth my father said we might have some Scottish ancestry. I was incredulous. How could a seemingly 100% Jewish family think some were Scottish? They thought so because of family Ellis Island lore. In fact, I became very good friends with a woman in my dorm who had heard the story too. We found out later we were related. That's how genealogical issues get transmitted. They are often verbally handed down from generation to generation. Truly though with all the difficult issues the nation faces this native American story means nothing.

I thought Brown seemed nervous especially in the beginning. He sweated profusely.Moreover, he came across as particularly abrasive especially when he said she obviously did not "look like" a native American and we, he said, could see that. Well, I do not look Scottish either, Senator. So, what the heck does THAT mean? Nothing. Maybe he should do a DNA analysis!

Yes, she is softer and has a softer classier voice. I personally like that. He reminded me of a piece of sandpaper and a battering ram -- rough and harsh.

Further, and more importantly, I NEVER would vote for Brown not because of how he appears but because of who he politically is. He is bought, signed, sealed and delivered by the banks, the big corporatists and voted as such. He would and does represent the top 1%. He tried DESPERATELY to stay away from the name Romney, did not mention it once and I can understand why but he still is who he is.

If the Republicans take over the Senate it changes everything from who chairs important committees like the climate change denier Sen. Inhofe whom Warren mentioned could control the committee that votes on environmental protection issues to what votes are taken up and when. Brown thought that not important but it is it's VERY important. If Republicans take control of the Senate right wing extremists will have control of it too. Mitch McConnell would be its leader and that is a bad thing for all of us.

In sum, Elizabeth Warren is INFINITELY smarter than Brown, set up the Consumer Protection Agency through presidential appointment, her economic credentials are sky high and to me those are her most important qualities. She is better because she understands the complexities of our economic system better and SHE would TRULY be on the side of the 99% which includes most of us.

Just because Scott Brown looks good in a truck does NOT mean he looks good in the Senate. He should NOT be there and Elizabeth Warren should. The electorate should vote SMART and in November put her there!

Why we need to elect Elizabeth Warren to the US Senate! Work for hard for her and do so.

The paragraph in red at the bottom is mine. Read and Heed! THEN LISTEN ON YOUTUBE GEORGE CARLIN'S AMERICAN DREAM!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

Four Reasons Romney Might Still Win

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog

20 September 12

 an Romney possibly recover? A survey conducted between Sept. 12 and Sept. 16 by the Pew Research Center - before the "47 percent victim" video came to light - showed Obama ahead of Romney 51% to 43% among likely voters.

That's the biggest margin in the September survey prior to a presidential election since Bill Clinton led Bob Dole, 50% to 38% in 1996.

And, remember, this recent poll was done before America watched Romney belittle almost half the nation.

For the last several days I've been deluged with calls from my inside-the-beltway friends telling me "Romney's dead."

Hold it. Rumors of Romney's demise are premature for at least four reasons:

1.                              Between now and Election Day come two jobs reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics - October 5 and November 2. If they're as bad as the last report, showing only 96,000 jobs added in August (125,000 are needed just to keep up with population growth) and the lowest percentage of employed adults since 1981, Romney's claim the economy is off track becomes more credible, and Obama's that it's on the mend harder to defend.

With gas prices rising, corporate profits shrinking, most of Europe in recession, Japan still a basket case, and the Chinese economy slowing, the upcoming job reports are unlikely to be stellar.

 

2.                              Also between now and Election Day are three presidential debates, starting October 3. It's commonly thought Obama will win them handily but that expectation may be very wrong - and could work against him. Yes, Romney is an automaton - but when the dials are set properly he can give a good imitation of a human engaged in sharp debate. He did well in the Republican primary debates.

Obama, by contrast, can come off slow and ponderous. Recall how he stuttered and stumbled during the 2008 Democratic primary debates. And he hasn't been in a real-live debate for four years; Romney recently emerged from almost a year of them.

 

3.                              During the next 7 final weeks of the campaign, the anti-Obama forces will be spending a gigantic amount of money. Not just the Romney campaign and Romney's super PACs, but other super PACS aligned with Romney, billionaires spending their own fortunes, and non-profit "social welfare" organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove's "Crossroads," and various Koch-brothers political fronts - all will dump hundreds of millions on TV and radio spots, much of it spreading lies and distortions. Some of this money will be devoted to get-out-the-vote drives - to phone banks and door-to-door canvassing to identify favorable voters, and vans to bring them to the polling stations.

It's an easy bet they'll far outspend Obama and his allies. I've heard two-to-one. The race is still close enough that a comparative handful of voters in swing states can make the difference - which means gobs of money used to motivate voters to polling stations can be critical.

 

4.                              As they've displayed before, the Republican Party will do whatever it can to win - even if it means disenfranchising certain voters. To date, 11 states have enacted voter identification laws, all designed by Republican legislatures and governors to dampen Democratic turnout.

The GOP is also encouraging what can only be termed "voter vigilante" groups to "monitor polling stations to prevent fraud" - which means intimidating minorities who have every right to vote. We can't know at this point how successful these efforts may be but it's a dangerous wildcard. And what about those Diebold voting machines?

So don't for a moment believe "Romney's dead," and don't be complacent. The hard work lies ahead, in the next seven weeks.

And even if Obama is reelected, more hard work begins after Inauguration Day - when we must push him to be tougher on the Republicans than he was in his first term, and do what the nation needs.

GET OUT AND REGISTER TO VOTE AND IF YOU KNOW SWING STATE VOTERS GET THEM REGISTERED AND VOTE DEMOCRATIC UP AND DOWN THE TICKET!!!

---

Robert B. Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

 

Course Correction

What conservative journalist Peggy Noonan in her article "Time for an Intervention" in the Wall Street Journal here and  below suggests to ameliorate the sinking Romney candidacy through an "intervention" does not realize is that Mitt Romney IS the Republican brand. It is a brand that began with the Tea Bag Party and ends with Mitt Romney loosing because people need help, the economy needs help, and Wall Street needs regulation to within an inch of its life.  Therefore, government becomes NOT the problem but PART of the solution.  Republicans can simply never ever admit that FDR had it right by rethinking of the role of government to preserve a democratic nation's life.  

We have seen over and over and over again money flowing from the top down did not work.  It created over time great booms and great busts. Those at the top ultimately kept all the money and transferred it overseas or as Romney did evaded taxes altogether in the Cayman's or Swiss bank accounts. 

We've played the trickle down game for the past 40 years and lost our Wall Street Las Vegas casino shirts. THAT is what is wrong with Mitt Romney. He is an empty vessel into which anything the Republican billionaires want Mitt Romney the unprincipled empty suit to regurgitate he will because he wants the oval office that badly. 

The fault dear Brutus is not Mitt Romney it's the Republican Party.  It will NEVER EVER be able to right its rightwingnut extremist ship until it makes a course correction due left because center or slightly left of center is where most of the American public sits.  Moreover, as demographics change it will most probably increase slightly its left of center tilt.

The right wing extremist Republican Party will never change course so the Republican Party will be a corpse unless and until it realizes a course correction is a MUST!

http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2012/09/18/time-for-an-intervention/

An Island of No Escape and an excerpt of "Thurston Howell Romney" by David Brooks

David Brooks, a conservative journalist, in The New York Times today, wrote a brilliant piece on yet another gigantic faux pas of the worst Republican candidate in US history, Mitt Romney.  Now it is about this latest wizard of the gaffe's indicting 47% of the American people (nearly one-half of the total humanity that calls itself American,) as those people who simply want cradle to grave government safety net entitlements with no working input for them.  I could have pasted the link but I though better simply to quote from part of it below.  He nails Romney to the wall for what I think is the single most destructive and sinking-of-his-own-campaign disastrous comment made by any presidential candidate EVER !

This comment suggests a few things. First, it suggests that he really doesn’t know much about the country he inhabits. Who are these freeloaders? Is it the Iraq war veteran who goes to the V.A.? Is it the student getting a loan to go to college? Is it the retiree on Social Security or Medicare?

It suggests that Romney doesn’t know much about the culture of America. Yes, the entitlement state has expanded, but America remains one of the hardest-working nations on earth. Americans work longer hours than just about anyone else. Americans believe in work more than almost any other people. Ninety-two percent say that hard work is the key to success, according to a 2009 Pew Research Survey.

It says that Romney doesn’t know much about the political culture. Americans haven’t become childlike worshipers of big government. On the contrary, trust in government has declined. The number of people who think government spending promotes social mobility has fallen.

The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution has noted, the people who have benefited from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the dependent poor.

Romney’s comments also reveal that he has lost any sense of the social compact. In 1987, during Ronald Reagan’s second term, 62 percent of Republicans believed that the government has a responsibility to help those who can’t help themselves. Now, according to the Pew Research Center, only 40 percent of Republicans believe that.

The Republican Party, and apparently Mitt Romney, too, has shifted over toward a much more hyperindividualistic and atomistic social view — from the Reaganesque language of common citizenship to the libertarian language of makers and takers. There’s no way the country will trust the Republican Party to reform the welfare state if that party doesn’t have a basic commitment to provide a safety net for those who suffer for no fault of their own.

The final thing the comment suggests is that Romney knows nothing about ambition and motivation. The formula he sketches is this: People who are forced to make it on their own have drive. People who receive benefits have dependency.

But, of course, no middle-class parent acts as if this is true. Middle-class parents don’t deprive their children of benefits so they can learn to struggle on their own. They shower benefits on their children to give them more opportunities — so they can play sports, go on foreign trips and develop more skills.

People are motivated when they feel competent. They are motivated when they have more opportunities. Ambition is fired by possibility, not by deprivation, as a tour through the world’s poorest regions makes clear.

Sure, there are some government programs that cultivate patterns of dependency in some people. ... But, as a description of America today, Romney’s comment is a country-club fantasy. It’s what self-satisfied millionaires say to each other. It reinforces every negative view people have about Romney.

Personally, I think he’s a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not — some sort of cartoonish government-hater. But it scarcely matters. He’s running a depressingly inept presidential campaign. Mr. Romney, your entitlement reform ideas are essential, but when will the incompetence stop?

It cannot stop because Romneybot is controlled hook, line and sinker by the Citizen's United money billionaire machine that put him there.  Romney does not control Romney; Thurston Howell does and he has put him on an island from which there is no escape.  

Honey Boo Boo -- An American Tragedy

Interesting article by Joanna Weiss today, September 18, 2012 in The Boston Globe "Honey Boo Boo and the Real America" placed here and below on this our uniquely and, to me, tragically American phenomenon. I first tuned in when a relative who values academics as I do asked me to watch something so utterly disgusting I would wax incredulous for the rest of my life. So, I did. For about 5 seconds of horror I am now psychologically maimed for life.

Yes, we are a divided nation but for the Globe's Joanna Weiss to tout this poor southern redneck family as simply examples of Maslow's self-actualized beings who sell their female child for a tiara is disgusting. How about showing a reality show in a Harvard classroom discussing the history of philosophical thought and how it relates to our very serious human condition.

How wonderful it would be if this nation were composed mainly of those who place value on academics, learning and science instead of laughing at those who make the US the laughing stock of the world. Shame on people who watch this junk for making NY and Hollywood think this trash is money and shame on Honey Boo Boo's family for creating a child whose odds increase every day that she will probably lose the game of life in the end!


http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/09/18/honey-boo-boo-and-way-bridge-national-divide/nWfyiJF2NOBUNKrGwzWSHN/story.html?camp=newsletter

Getting Along -- Rosh Hashanah Thoughts – the Middle East in Crisis

The essence of a free man is to have the ability to speak one's thoughts no matter how odious BUT for the first time in my life where the issue of an anti-Islamic film that has wreaked so much havoc, where SO many lives hang in the balance and where countries have weapons of mass destructive capability I ask those who would be critical of Islam to HOLD YOUR TONGUE.

Further, I cannot help thinking that the persons who made the accursed film, who conceived the dubbing of it, who turned it into a hateful piece of disrespect to Islam and the Prophet who means SO much to over a billion people, had something to do with trying to hurt the president's re-election as they are desperate.  I love rational thought for PROOF of reality BUT it is odd to me that this event happened so close to the presidential election. 

I HOPE the FBI and other law enforcement officials investigate this film to within an inch of its life. NO ONE has the right with their speech to incite mayhem and by that speech tear societies apart yelling "fire" in a crowded theater!

In our culture most people who want to hate and hurt others have the right to speak. One hopes, in a land with free speech, the haters will be outnumbered by those of us who want to rationally encourage the opposite -- hope, love and tolerance for our fellow man. 

I hope more is spoken by the Islamic world to help understand in calm the underpinnings of their rage. I believe it goes beyond the dastardly film. The people of Islam are hurting and I do not blame them for that. We must understand each other as the essence of the monotheistic beliefs imparts. Jesus instructs:

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind’: This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

The Jewish sage Rabbi Hillel says when he explains the essence of Judaism:

"What is hateful to thee, do not do unto thy fellowman; this is the whole Law. The rest is but commentary."

The Prophet Mohammad, blessed be his name, even though I do not know Islam I am sure carries the same thought as most of us TRY to take the good of the faiths to teach our fellow man how to simply just get along.

A fervent wish on Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish solemn New Year) for a healthy, happy and more peaceful world!

A Superior President -- Obama's Way

If this article "Obama's Way" by Michael Lewis in Vanity Fair Magazine does not make you grateful we have such a superior president then nothing will. He is the exact opposite of team Bush and the antithesis of what a team Romney would most probably be like. It is long (9 pages) but it is worth it. I read it in spurts. I post it here and below.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/10/michael-lewis-profile-barack-obama

Yet another reason (as if we needed another) to re-elect the president and send Elizabeth Warren to the US Senate!

A Bitter Taste

It is nothing short of PREPOSTEROUS to wax critical of a president who has been sterling on issues of domestic terrorism while dealing with an Islamic world in transition and a crisis of Herculean proportions the complexity of which is challenging to even the most seasoned Middle East expert. No matter WHAT the president does his DISLOYAL opposition will not fail to use that to be critical. Do they consider American security in that tinderbox part of the world? Answer: NO. Their consideration is to attain power in the form that only the presidency can give. For Romney and his men national security has NOTHING to do with it. If it did his advisors, many Bush men and Neo-Cons would have been scrupulously careful when launching a war in Iraq based on lies. They would have cared that it would cost thousands of American lives and TRILLIONS in unpaid for cash.

We should thank God every day that we have a president who is deliberative instead of one who spontaneously combusts throwing our nation into yet another never ending war risking more American lives by the THOUSANDS, risking even an attack on our homeland and encouraging the heated resentment now found in that discordant part of the world against anything US.

Does one think for one second if the US acted as the unconscionable Romney advocates with no apologies and, as he says, with the full MIGHT of US power that things would go just swimmingly? It worked out so well in Iraq didn't it? How much blood, how much money, how many quagmires does a right wing extremist want to wage and most especially since that right wing extremist often wages none of his own skin?

If Romney is elected the nation WILL get exactly what the right wing extremists tell him he should propose. Romney has NO policy, NO scruples, NO empathy, and NO ability to carefully deliberate these very dangerous issues. Heck he called out the president even BEFORE anything had taken place. What was the statement that he thought so apologetic? The embassy statement was that the US government had NOTHING to do with the gross anti-Islamic film. Why? Because mob anger was quickly forming and threatening outside the embassy gate because of that disgusting video!

Let's talk about the film. Who produced it, who oversaw it, where did it come from? So far it looks like it came from another right wing fanatic and a man who is on a hate group list. One wonders IF those right wing fanatics who are behind that film have ANYTHING to do with trying to foment upheaval and place into the president's re-election campaign a very large road block they THINK will hurt him. Republicans will, as we know, stop at nothing to get what they want. There is NO morality in the Republican Party except what THEY think one’s activity in bed should be.

Mitt Romney JUMPED THE GUN. As the president quite rightly said, Romney is inclined to shoot before he aims. Romney had NO idea of the issues because his statement was released before anything ever took place, did not want to examine the issues, moreover, he did not even want to wait until AFTER September 11 to announce his vociferous angry criticism of the president. He is a despicable man and a reactive one where internationally cooler heads should prevail to save lives.

If the nation elects this unthinking, crazed man, Mitt Romney, who wants the presidency SO much he can taste it and will say ANYTHING to get it, this nation is yet again in deeper trouble. I hope what Romney says leaves a bitter taste in most Americans’ mouths as it leaves a rancid taste in mine!

Why we must re-elect the president and the brilliant Elizabeth Warren for US Senate from Mass.!!

We stand united and unbowed

I just viewed the moving tribute our president and our secretary of state gave to those who died serving us. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paid beautiful tribute to Ambassador Chris Stevens and the three others who served our country so bravely in the Middle East.

We ARE, I believe, all in this together and united as one. We all value our nation's gifts of civil libertarian freedoms and shun any attempts to divide us against our leadership, turn us against one another especially in times of trial and grief. Who of those who criticize the president could ably stand in his shoes? I believe few.

We cannot retire from the world's stage. Let us stand united, unbowed as a nation and hope for a better day when we can unite the world in the peace and freedom the US knows and that only mankind can bestow upon themselves.

Coming to a Theater Near You

John McCain is as critical as Romney is against the president without knowing all the facts. Both he and the nervy near treasonous Romney taking advantage of a grave moment for our country should ZIP it lest they compromise and divide our nation even more perilously than we already are. If it were up to them this nation would be plunged into yet another war and this time a huge one with Iran. Iran WOULD fight back using sophisticated weaponry Iraq did not have. Pakistan would also be in tow with their nukes or loose ones and court the risk of other super powers chiming in as well. The insulting ego-maniacal feckless Romney simply wants to grab headlines and the White House at all costs even if it means compromising the country. Sure, send our kids off to an endless war with probably weapons of real mass destruction spreading to our soldiers and even into Israel.

This is NOT a shoot from the hip moment. Bush shot from the hip and destabilized an entire region killing thousands and horrifically wounding others for life. And there is always the deficit -- Republicans are SUPPOSED to care about deficits but used a credit card to pay for a phony war racking up billions for their war profiteers says otherwise.

The best part of this president is his ability NOT to throw a bomb haphazardly without thought. Republicans charge that the president is soft on terrorists? Oh really? He has gone after them unmercilessly and without boots on the ground. If McCain had gotten elected the result would have been mayhem as it will be if Romney prevails. Oh yes, lest I forget, just who did get bin Laden?

Bombing Iran will get thousands upon thousands killed. If you think Iraq was bad, bombing Iran will be Iraq times 10 with weapons of mass destruction to boot and it will be coming to a theater near you if America votes an impetuous unprincipled man into office. Romney's polls are now tanking for a reason. One hopes the American people see Romney for the despicable, sham, paid-for-by-billionaires candidate he is!

The NERVE!

Mitt Romney is a VALUELESS BRUTAL, MEAN and DISGUSTING empty suit. HAVE YOU NO SHAME, MITT ROMNEY, AT LONG LAST HAVE YOU NO SHAME to use this tragedy in Libya to preempt the president of the United States to make a political gain. Unbelievable if ANYONE would give him their vote. WOULD WE BE BETTER off with a SHOOT from the hip response OR would we be better off to find out at LEAST what the circumstances are and act accordingly. Those at the embassy that was violently breached TRIED as best they could to defuse the situation by calling for tolerance of ALL religion.

The president did NOT make it political, came out like a human being and spoke this a.m. He handled it in a PRESIDENTIAL way and it is why in the wisdom of the people of the US they saw fit to make him president. YOU WANT YET ANOTHER WAR in the Middle East? How much will it cost? How much do you want to spend in blood and treasure and Romney is a guy who comes out BEFORE the president as NEVER even served nor did his sons risk THEIR lives nor does he know ANYTHING about American foreign policy. HE IS A MEAN and EVIL HYPOCRITE and I HOPE will pay dearly at the voting booth in November!

Mitt Romney will NOT win

The more Mitt Romney acts like a horse's petuti especially on 9/11 the more I LOVE President Obama. Mitt Romney you ARE going to lose of that I am sure because you and those who god knows why support you are an unprincipled, mendacious, inhumane and an empty soulless lot.

Say all you want against our president, spend as much as the few billionaires who want you to win for their own selfish needs, run as many ads as you want even if it is a million you STILL will not win. Suppress the vote as you have tried to do, YOU STILL will not win. It is a testament to this democracy, to those who DO see greatness in the embodiment of our president and our system of government will NEVER let you near the oval office!

God bless our great nation and its great president who WILL win re-election on November 6, 2012.

An Addendum to 9/11

If you have not read the NYT article "The Deafness Before the Storm" today I post it here and paste it below for you to do so. On this anniversary of the worst attack ever perpetrated by a foreign entity on American soil, the depths and the errors that cost such a huge amount of life the NYT has exposed, at least in part, more (as if we did not have enough) evidence of the blatant and sickening negligence of team Bush for that attack.

We all know about the Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) that said "bin Laden to strike in US" which went unheeded. BUT what that administration did NOT do is release the other memos warning the Bush administration of the imminence of the attack, stating by the CIA the risk in dire and plaintive terms that an impending attack was at hand. It was ignored again and the neo-con CON was erroneously believed that the link between Hussein's Iraq and bin Laden was the real culprit which connection we now know was false. This is a stunning revelation because the costs in life, foreign ire, the fragmentation of a region and future repercussions to us including the tremendous blood and treasure cost of permanent war were and are at risk.

Yes, I believe in looking forward but it surely is important to look back on the seminal event of our time which brought so much death in our century. I believe it is up to us to be always vigilant and the media to critically analyze government policy -- which it failed miserably to do -- so that this never ever happens again!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html

Points to Ponder

An opinion by Glenn Greenwald in The Guardian entitled "Democrats parade Osama bin Laden's corpse as their proudest achievement" captivated me. The article is here and below. Greenwald talks about the astounding nationalistic viciousness heard not at the Republican convention once known for its patriotic fervor but at the once war-loathing Democratic Party convention known for its love of peace. He was astounded by the chanting of USA over and over again; by the repetition of its crowd cheering the killing of Bin Laden, the excellence of the Special Forces raid and a commander-in-chief Obama who gave the steel spine order to carry the killing out. The delegates after all were cheering death. Glenn Greenwald, as he always does, gave me pause for thought.

When Jews celebrate the Passover we are told over and over again in the Haggadah (the retelling of the story of the Exodus) that God and the Jewish people took no pleasure at all by the 10th and final of God's terrible plagues -- the slaying of the first born Egyptians -- even when that plague set the children of Israel free. Of course this is simply a story BUT it is one with profound implications for the discussion.

For ten years after the 9/11 attack, the felling of those huge towers in New York City and the slaughter of nearly 3000 innocent human beings, I checked my computer every single morning after the attack with the hope that the perpetrator of that great evil was killed. I searched my computer in vain because it never happened. Until one night around 10:00 p.m.,10 years after the attack, while watching MSNBC, president Obama asked the press to assemble on quick order. No one knew why. Excitement was in the air accompanied by fear. Could it be another terrorist attack or god forbid a nuclear threat? No. It was the answer for which I had been waiting 10 long years. The US, indeed, killed bin Laden the leader who perpetrated the most vicious attack on the American homeland since Pearl Harbor. I was ECSTATIC. I woke everyone up in my house, called every friend and cried with joy.

Then I stopped celebrating. What about that story in the Haggadah that was told by my father leading our sedars so many years ago? What about the 3000 who would never be brought back to life even though Bin Laden was dead? What about the invasion of a country that did nothing to us slaughtering thousands, sending more into exile and worse destabilizing a tinderbox part of the world? What about the loss of our precious civil liberties the bedrock of what truly makes our nation exceptional?

I do not know the answers to those questions but I still, even now, when I ask those questions and despite remembering the teachings of the Passover feel a sense of pride that American strength is like no other. Perhaps revenge is basic to human nature, maybe even hate is part of our viscera; whatever it is I cheered at Bin Laden's death and I am glad this president gave the order to kill him.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/07/democrats-parade-osama-bin-laden-corpse?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

Michael Moore -- Take Him Seriously

Read and heed what Michel Moore has to say.  Yes, I said the convention was superlative and it was BUT WE must ENSURE this president is elected and only WE can do that.  Check out what he says below.  It gives me pause for thought, speculation and fear.  I believe we will NOT be saying President Romney in January BUT I am not naive and know the very worst things can happen in nature AND in politics.  Do NOT let it and only YOU can prevent it.

Read the article from Michael Moore below and send it on.  It just may save a few lives!

"President Romney" – How to Prevent Those Two Words From Ever Being Spoken ...a letter from Michael Moore

Thursday, September 6th, 2012

Friends,

In two months we Americans will go to the polls once again to decide who the president will be for the next four years. We will not be allowed to vote on those who wield the true power in this country. On November 6th we will not vote for the chairman of ExxonMobil or JPMorgan Chase or Citibank or the Premier of China. That day will come, but not this year.

Now, I know there are a goodly number of you out there who believe there's not a snowball's chance in Kenya that Barack Obama will not be re-elected to the White House. And why would you believe otherwise? After the incredible Democratic convention this week, with the best rock-em-sock-em speeches I've heard from a Democrat's mouth since … since, I don't know when. You can't help but not have a contact high after this past week if you are of the sort who believes in economic justice, peace, and a five-dollar latte. Right now, with the buzz on, you are sitting there thinking that your fellow Americans will turn out in massive numbers, either because they want to continue the Obama era or because they're scared shitless of the barbarians at the gate – or both. You're convinced that the Republicans have blown it with all their talk of the lady parts they want to control even though we now know that they have no idea where those parts are, what they are, or how they work.

Yes, it certainly looks like the voters will reject this obscenely wealthy man called Romney — Romney of Michigan/Massachusetts/New Hampshire/Utah/Zurich/Grand Cayman — this man who will not explain exactly how all his wealth was obtained, where he keeps it, or how much taxes he pays on it. He wants to turn the clock back to the '50s – the 1850s – and he refuses to offer any specific plan about what he'll do about anything. He wants to run the country like a corporation but he can't even control one 82-year-old actor on his own convention stage, a Hollywood legend who, in the matter of ten and a half minutes went from Good (walking onto the stage) to Bad (talking to a chair) and then to Ugly (the chair started … swearing?). It was better than the best cat-flushing-the-toilet video on YouTube and it was a gift to all of us who know that Romney is doomed come November.

Or is he?

Last week, I said on the HuffPost Live webcast that we had all better start practicing how to say "President Romney" because, living in Michigan, I can tell you that there's trouble here on the two peninsulas and it's not just because Romney is a native son or that we like to watch kids from Cranbrook chase down gay kids and chop their hair off. One recent poll here showed Romney leading Obama by four points! How can that be? Didn't Obama save Detroit?

No, he didn't. He saved General Motors and Chrysler. "Detroit" (and Flint and Pontiac and Saginaw) are not defined by the global corporations who suck our towns dry and then split town to make more money elsewhere (except, of course, they continued to design and built crap cars, so eventually they didn't make the money at all). These cities in Michigan are about the people who live here, and in the process of "saving Detroit," Mr. Obama had to fire thousands of these people, and reduce the benefits and pensions of those who were left. There's a lot of pissed off people in Michigan (and Wisconsin and Ohio), people who weren't saved even though the corporation was. I'm just stating a fact, and those of you who don't live here should know this.

The other problem facing us this election (spoiler alert – angry white guys may want to stop reading right now) … is race. We all fear there's probably a good 40% of the country who simply do not want a black man in the Oval Office. In fact, in 2008, Obama lost the white vote. He lost every white age group except young people (18-29). And yet he still won by 10 million votes! The optimistic secret the Obama people know is that only about 70% of the voters in November will be white. So if he can win just 35-40% of them, and then get a massive majority of people of color, he can win re-election. There is no question in my mind that Obama is more popular than Romney and if everyone could vote from their couch like they do for American Idol, Obama would win hands down. As I have said before, we live in a liberal country. The majority of Americans (who do not call themselves "liberal") now support most of the liberal agenda – they're for gay marriage, they're pro-choice, they're anti-war, they believe there's global warming, and they hate Wall Street for what it has done to them and their neighbors. The Republicans know this: that we, the majority, will have sex when we want and with whom we want, will read and watch whatever we want when we want, will use marijuana if we want and if we don't want to then we certainly don't want our friends who do to be throw into prison. We are sick and tired of being poisoned, by chemicals or propaganda, we think the Palestinians have been given a raw deal and we want our friggin' jobs back! The Christian Right (and their Wall Street funders) know this all too well – America has turned, and there's no going back to not loving someone because of the color of their skin or expecting women to cede control of their bodies to a bunch of Neanderthals. So, what's a Rightie to do now that we've turned the joint into Sodom and G? They have to suppress the vote! They have to stop as many liberals from voting as possible. So they've passed many voter suppression laws to make it hard for the poor, the minorities, the disabled and students to vote. They honestly believe they call pull this off – and they just may. The only "positive" thing about this is that their need to have such laws in order to win the election is an admission on the part of the Republicans that they know the U.S. Is a liberal country and that the only way they can now win now is to cheat. Trust me, if they believed that America was a right-wing country they'd be passing laws making it so easy to vote you could do it in the checkout line at Walmart.

But the voting on November 6th will not take place at Walmart or on any potato's couch. It can only happen by going to a polling place – and, not to state the obvious, the side that gets the most people physically out to the polls that day, wins. We know the Republicans are spending tens of millions of dollars to make sure this very thing happens. They have built a colossal get-out-the-vote machine for election day, and the sheer force of their tsunami of hate stands ready to overwhelm us like nothing we've ever seen before. Those of us in the Midwest got a taste of it in 2008. Traditionally Democratic states – all of which voted for Obama – saw our state legislatures and governor seats hijacked by this well-oiled machine. We didn't know what hit us, but these new Republicans wasted no time in dismantling some of the very basic thing we hold dear. Wisconsin fought back – but even that huge grassroots uprising was not enough to stop the governor bought and paid for by the Koch brothers. It was a wake up call, for sure – but have we really woken up?

It's been a great week in Charlotte, and I'm getting ready now to watch Barack Obama give his speech. It's OK for us to take a couple days to high-five each other, but I cannot stress enough to you that unless you and I are doing something every day for the next 60 days to get people out to vote, then there is a chance we will all be saying "President Romney" come January. Don't think it can't happen. Hate, sad to say, at least in America these days, is a far greater motivator than love and feelin' groovy.

For those of us who believe that the history of the Democrats and the Republicans is to do the bidding of the 1% (Obama's #1 private contributor in '08 were the people at Goldman Sachs), and that while the Dems are a kinder/gentler bunch, they are also just as quick to want to take us to war and sell us out to the corporate interests (and, yes, Obamacare is a $$ gift to the insurance companies; only a single-payer system will stop that), this election is a bit of a bitter pill. We were hugely disappointed when President Obama didn't charge out of the gate after his inauguration and undo the damage that had been done (as FDR did in his first hundred days) – and only when Wall Street stopped writing him the big campaign checks this past year did he get his mojo back and start fighting the fight that needs to be fought. He's a good and decent person (when he's not sending in drones to kill Pakistani civilians or prosecuting government whistleblowers), and his election four years ago was a high point of such emotional intensity I just couldn't get over how hopeful I was that this country had changed and we had found our moral footing. Reality set in a few weeks later when he put Tim Geithner and Larry Summers in charge of economic policy and then he changed his mind about closing Gitmo.

OK, so people like me, just once in our lifetime, would like to get our way all the time! Is that too much to ask? Of course, there is a different question that is in the air now — shall we give the country back to the crowd who gave the country to the 1%? I think not. So let's join in with our liberal majority and be fierce and relentless in these next two months. Let's spend this time educating people what we mean when we say things like "single-payer" and "Blackwater." Politics and the fate of the nation (and the world – sorry, world) are on the front burner and those of us who want to wrestle control of our society out of the hands of the few can take healthy advantage of these coming weeks. Don't sit it out. Don't try to convince anyone Obama has magically transformed us – just tell them four years is simply not enough time to undo all the hurt caused by biggest economic crash since the Great Depression and the biggest military blunder/lie in our history.

I'm going to go with my optimistic side here (sorry, cynics, you know I love you) and imagine a Second Term Obama (and a Democratically-controlled Congress) who will go after all the good that our people deserve and put the power of our democracy back in our hands. There's good reason why the Right is terrified of a Second Term Obama because that is exactly what they think he'll do: the real Obama will appear and take us down the road to social justice and tolerance and a leveling of the economic playing field. For once, I'd like to say I agree with the Right – and I sincerely hope their worst nightmare does come true.

Democratic Convention Wonderful -- Preliminary Thoughts

The Democratic Convention was absolutely the greatest, most well orchestrated, hopeful and BRILLIANT convention I have ever seen in my life and I have seen a few. I would criticize NOTHING. This is what happens when you have academic and intellectual excellence getting the job done.

The Republican Party seemed like amateurs but most of all, as the FACT CHECKERS proved, and YES THEY MATTER, it was a convention STEEPED in lies and utter disrespect to the office of the presidency by Clint Eastwood's unintelligible, near senile, dastardly inane act. The Republicans know, now that they have gone to the extreme, they are in quicksand sinking fast.

They have absolutely NOTHING. Now there is SO much media and they have been so sensitized to Republican mendacious policy taking us into an Iraq War on lies, killing THOUSANDS. Republicans lie about war, they lie about health care, and they lie about the president ad nauseam.

The Jobs number WENT UP today and unemployment went down. Yes, it's slow but it's is going in the right direction. The president SAID it would be slow. The states which have Republican legislative control have immorally driven public sector jobs down and kept us from an even better jobs report. If the president had someone sane to work with in the House of course it would be even better. But this is GOOD -- not the best -- but VERY good given how difficult the task is and given Republican oppositional strangulation so the president would fail even if that treasonously meant the country could fail too. Furthermore, it shows you the president is right!

I am hoping the Republican Party of know nothings is turning into dust where it belongs. It needs to form something new because the best in their party are bolting and they will be left with the stupids. That party will be DONE. It is an irrelevant Party because it is mean, hateful, mendacious and our country to its core is NOT. That Party will perish and that's a FACT to be fact checked after the Obama second term!

Wishful thinking? Maybe. But I think I am right and I hope to live to see it!

Barack Obama, I believe, has won himself the presidency for the next four years! AND WE MUST ENSURE IT! LET'S ensure too the great Elizabeth Warren is elected to the US Senate as well!!

ANOTHER WOW!

Another WOW!  Barack Obama has won himself the presidency for the next four years! 

AND WE MUST ENSURE IT!!

The GOP's Disgusting New Southern Strategy

Excellent article in Reader Supported News.  Scroll down.

DO NOT LET REPUBLICANS DO WHAT THIS ARTICLE STATES.  WHY IT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER TO REELECT THE PRESIDENT AND ELIZABETH WARREN TO THE US SENATE!

The GOP's Disgusting New Southern Strategy

By Sherrilyn Ifill, The Root

05 September 12

 The GOP's war on voting rights isn't new. It harks back to past efforts to alter the political process.

In states from Florida to Pennsylvania, Republican Party efforts to diminish minority voting strength for this year's presidential election are a sobering reminder that the struggle for full civil rights is not over. But it's not only black voters who should be concerned about Republican voter-suppression tactics. The GOP's war on voting is a serious attack on the fundamental workings of our democracy. It is, at its core, an attempt to negate the important victories of the early 1960s that laid the foundation of our modern representative democracy.

To understand the breadth of the threat represented by voter-ID laws and other new practices designed to suppress votes in Democratic districts, it's important to realize that the effort to dismantle obstacles to voting rights for black voters in the South during the early 1960s did more than just enfranchise African Americans. It exposed the myriad ways in which key aspects of the American electoral system were fundamentally unfair for all voters. In particular, the disproportionate power afforded to underpopulated rural jurisdictions over the more populous cities was corrected by the Supreme Court in a series of cases that dismantled the framework of unequal voting power that had existed in the South since the turn of the 20th century.

The door opened in 1962 when, in Baker v. Carr, the Supreme Court decided that it could rule on cases raising constitutional challenges to state apportionment practices. In that case, the challenge was to Tennessee's failure for more than 60 years to adjust its state legislative districts, despite massive changes in the state's population. A year later, in Gray v. Sanders, the court outlawed Georgia's county-unit voting system, a vote-counting scheme that benefited less populous counties in the state.

In the most important and influential of these decisions, Reynolds v. Sims, the court announced the now internationally recognized bedrock principle of voting equality: one person, one vote. These cases rooted out practices advanced principally in the South that, by weighting votes in favor of rural areas, gave land and cattle greater voting strength than people.

The principles announced in those cases are now such a part of our understanding of fairness in representative democracy that it's hard sometimes to remember that they are only 50 years old. In short, the fight to remove obstacles designed to keep blacks and the undereducated from voting - like the poll tax, theliteracy test and the understanding clause (in which a registrant would be asked to "interpret" a section of the state constitution) - should be understood within the context of the larger effort to bring equity to a voting system that had been fixed in favor of Southern, rural land-owning elites.

By 1966, after the last of these and other barriers had been removed by the Supreme Court and by the passage of the Voting Rights Act, we'd begun the decades-long battle - still under way - to ensure that state and federal officials would enforce the laws that the Supreme Court had upheld. Once these structural barriers to voting were removed, those Southern white Dixiecrats (who formed the base of the modern post-civil rights Republican Party) committed to maintaining their political power and shifted their tactics to adjust to the new normal.

Because black and urban voters now proved a crucial vote in elections throughout the country, the politics of race-based fear increased and spread rapidly to the North. There, entrenched powers also sought to marginalize the potential for new voters to change the political landscape.

Richard Nixon's political "Southern strategy" was nationalized. Candidates who promised "law and order" flourished after the urban riots in Los Angeles' Watts and in Newark, N.J. The idea of candidates who would "return" America to its former glory grew in currency. By the 1980s, Republican political operative Lee Atwater had turned the politics of race and fear into an art form, with Willie Horton launched as the poster child for how to manipulate white swing voters.

Despite the reference to Sarah Palin's vice presidential nomination as a game changer in HBO's titular movie, it was Barack Obama's campaign in 2008 that was the real political transformative moment. Obama's ability to peel off the support of voters in three states of the old Confederacy - Virginia, Florida and North Carolina - shook the very foundations of the Southern strategy and left the Republican Party reeling.

The party's initial instinct was to try to undercut the president's "postracial" appeal, with party leaders asking Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to provide the response to President Obama's first State of the Union address, and selecting former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele as chair of the Republican National Committee. Both of these decisions soon proved hasty and ill-advised.

Now, it seems, the Republican Party is done with politics. The party has, in effect, abandoned serious engagement with the essence of political activism: trying to persuade voters to support the candidates and viewpoints of one or another political party. Urban voters, blacks, Latinos, young people and now perhaps even a majority of women voters appear beyond the reach or interest of the GOP.

As a result, the Republican Party is now a minority party that still demands majority power. And perhaps this is why the party appears determined to shrink the majority, borrowing from pre-civil rights-era Southern states that used voting and election laws to manipulate the voting strength of the electorate.

This is the context in which we should understand Republican election officials' decision in Cincinnati last month to limit early voting in urban voting enclaves, while they guaranteed weekend voting and more flexible early voting hours in rural and suburban counties. Ending weekday early voting at 5 p.m. and canceling weekend early voting in Ohio's most populous cities would ensure that working voters in these jurisdictions became second-class citizens to their counterparts who live outside the metro areas. A recentfederal court decision requiring uniform early voting hours for all voters in the state may have reversed this plan.

This is why the Republican war on voting should not be viewed solely through the lens of race. Instead it should be seen as part of a larger attack on political participation, with deep historical roots that hark back to the darkest days of American democracy. Combined with the effects of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, Republican voter-suppression efforts are a sobering reminder that we are only half a century removed from the time when, in many states, voting strength was based on race, wealth and place. These new voter-suppression tactics bring us perilously close to reliving those days.

This is what voter fraud really looks like, and all Americans, not just African Americans, stand to lose.