I recently committed to vote for President Obama and Ohio Democrats? Really Alexis?

What? Are you psychic?

Well, since I told you last week that I’m casting my vote (my ballot arrived this morning) for Dr. Jill Stein, don’t quit your day job.

Hi Jeffrey —

You recently committed to vote for President Obama and Ohio Democrats by requesting a vote-by-mail ballot — you rock.

According to the county board of elections, you should have received your ballot in the mail by now. Did you get it?

If you haven’t yet received your ballot, let me know and I’ll help you track down your ballot with the county board of elections.

Every vote cast early for President Obama and other Democrats brings us closer to victory on November 6th, so we want to make sure your voice is heard on Election Night.

If you have received your ballot, and you haven’t filled it out yet, here are your next steps:

1. Follow the instructions carefully and fill out the ballot completely — make sure to leave the stub on your ballot attached, and don’t forget to sign your name on the designated line on the identification envelope.

2. Drop your ballot in the mail the day after you receive it — don’t wait. Your vote-by-mail ballot must be postmarked no later than November 5th or it must be delivered in person to the board of elections no later than 7:30 p.m. on Election Day in order to be counted. And check postage to make sure your ballot makes it to its destination! You may need three or more stamps.

3. After you mail in your ballot, tell your friends and family members how easy it was to vote early for President Obama and Ohio Democrats — and tell them to vote early, too. The deadline to request a vote-by-mail ballot is noon on November 3rd.

Let me know if you have any questions or call our voter hotline at 855-VOTE-199.

Thank you so much,

Alexis

Alexis Hayman
Field Organizer
Organizing for America – Ohio

Elect Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala…

Via What’s Up:

WHAT:Choice At Risk

WHEN: Wednesday and Thursday, 10-11 October.

WHERE: Southwest Unitarian Universalist church, 6320 Royalton Road, North Royalton, OH 44133 (10 October) and West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, 20401 Hilliard Blvd., Rocky River, Ohio 44116 (11 October).

COST: The film series is free and open to the public (donations gratefully accepted).

Oscar nominated, Emmy winning filmmaker Dorothy Fadiman will screen and discuss her film Choice at Risk.

This film focuses on the danger of restricting reproductive rights. Inspired by what she lived through when abortion and contraception for unmarried women were illegal, “Choice at Risk” presents the dramatic history of women’s reproductive rights from back alley abortions through the current crisis.

Ms. Fadiman will discuss the film and take questions after the screening.

“We have a generation of young women of child bearing age who have no memory of and little information about back alley procedures,” said the filmmaker. “This film is not about whether abortion is right or wrong, or good or bad. The film is about the fact that when choice is not available, women die. My goal is to make it safe to discuss the topic.”

Roldo Bartimole writes:

Give Republicans like Gov. John Kasich one inch and they’ll be taking your Social Security and Medicare. We know that’s their agenda. Short term and long term.

Let’s put everything within Wall Street and insurers reach, they say. The policy is a crack at your every penny by the sharpies. The ones who put us in the wringer we’re in.

It’s class warfare by the upper class. And we have few weapons.

Kasich wants badly to reward profit-seekers, i.e. friends and grabbers, with the turnpike you paid for with public dollars.

Plus he wants to call it progress. He’s got bridges he wants to sell you. And consultants with rigged reports: Great deal. Sell it.

Privatization is the Republican answer and scheme to serve the eager profiteers that would like to take over all public functions.

Privatization means PROFITIZATION.

I’ll tell you how this movie plays. The $1 to $3 billions collected from the turnpike leaseholder will go to reduce the income taxes of wealthy Republicans, i.e., his donors.

The turnpike toll rate increase will go Continue Reading »

Sanctioning society: From Iraq to Iran and

Iran sanctions now causing food insecurity, mass suffering

This is the background image that shows up about 90 percent of the time on my Twitter account.

1745: Thomas Jefferson and slavery

Update — 19 October at 1128: And then there’s the takedown:

Henry Wiencek is not at all conflicted. He loathes Thomas Jefferson. In Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves, his attempted takedown of the man, the third president appears as a demonic figure warped one summer day by a sudden discovery that being a slaveholder could pay. I’ll detail how Wiencek arrives at his bizarre proof of a Jefferson who suddenly becomes Simon Legree, but I should say up front that this book fails as a work of scholarship. This is surprising. I favorably reviewed Wiencek’s book about George Washington, Imperfect God, and I admire The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White. What happened with Master of the Mountain?]

Thank you Adam Harvey for sending me this link.

Elect Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala…

Matt Taibbi writes:

The piece literally had nothing to say about the substance or accuracy of the two arguments. Like, not one thing. It did, however, speculate that Obama might be in trouble if his performance ended up getting parodied on the Daily Show, because he might end up with a reputation for being “too academic, too cold and uneasy with being challenged.”

What the hell does any of this have to do with being president? It’s one thing for reporters to talk shop behind the scenes about which candidate they think is doing a better job of slinging bull. But to legitimize it as real is just nuts.

He continues:

Journalists who cite that Nixon-Kennedy debate always forget that the lesson of that night is that the new broadcast media technology made superficiality and nonsense more important – that thanks to the press, it was now possible to get someone elected to the most powerful office on earth because he had a superior tan. Reporters love this story because it reminds everyone that the medium they work in has the power to overcome substance and decide elections all by itself. What’s amazing is that they don’t have the good sense to be ashamed of this.

Elect Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala…

0742: Woolf tours Ireland

I asked Adam Harvey last evening why it is that the ony ethnic/national group honored as a sport mascot is the Irish.

He went to Notre Dame.

He didn’t know.

I think I see a theme building here…

Between plays of the Notre Dame, University of Miami game last evening, Adam Harvey and I talked a little bit about the imprending demise of the Plain Dealer. For the people who work there, I mean actually work, the people who get up every morning and struggle with words, the teetering brick wall has to suck.

They don’t want to end up like Rick Redfern, offerered the honor of curating a sideboob slideshow for HuffPo.

Talent isn’t the issue.

Then there are the owners, the managers, the people who have joined the One Percent, the people who have stopped making money by working and have become people who make moeny making money.

They’ll be fine.

This is what being a member of the 99 Percent means.

The politician might only be talking about the symptoms of suffering, not the roots. p. 20

From Good Citizens: Creating Enlightened Society by Thich Nhat Hanh

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook.

Henry Gomez wrote:

Chicken vendor Terry Leu gave a straight answer when President Barack Obama asked him how business was Friday at his West Side Market stand.

“Terrible since you got here,” he quipped.

Within an hour, Leu’s bold response made national headlines.

The president’s impromptu visit after a campaign stop at Cleveland State University forced the market to shut down for about an hour, and the habitually smiling Leu lost business.

“I have no problem with that man,” the 56-year-old Medina man said in an interview soon after the president had left. “I was happy to meet him and happy to shake his hand, but I lost business.”

I wonder, does this mean that all Republicans will now cease making public appearances where people are actually working for a living?

Elect Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala…

I dropped a bird and didn’t hear it hit bottom.

[Update: Note time change from 10:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.]

Via What’s Up:

WHAT: Stop War on Iran, Yes We Can! Demonstration
WHEN: 12:30 p.m. Friday, 5 Oct.
WHERE: East 17th and Payne Ave.

The Cleveland Peace Action Middle East Committee invites you to attend the first of at least two “Stop War With Iran” demonstrations to coincide with presidential candidate visits to Cleveland. (We’ll have the same message for Romney when he comes to town.)

President Obama will be speak at Krenzler Field, Cleveland State University, on Friday, Oct 5, 2 PM.

Krenzler Field is located between Chester Ave (S), Payne Ave (N), East 18th (W), and East 19th (E).

We will meet at 12:30 PM at the corner of East 17th St. and Payne Ave at the Cuyahoga Employment and Family Services Building, 1641 Payne Avenue, Cleveland 44114. Reasonably priced parking lots are on Superior Ave. around East 13th St.

Please attend and/ or contact three others to attend. Please let us know your intentions by email.

Please make a sign with one of these themes: “Real Diplomacy, Not War with Iran,” “How About Diplomacy, Not Ultimatums,” “US Intelligence: Iran Not Building a Bomb,” or the title of the demonstration, “Stop War with Iran, Yes We Can!”

Contact Phone number for Don Bryant: 440.263.5205

Thank you,

Nina McLellan and Don Bryant

Elect Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala…

Morpheus palmed the green pill and offered the false dichotomy of choosing either the red or blue pill and thus sealed the fate of both Neo and Zion.

Glenn Greenwald writes:

Wednesday night’s debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney underscored a core truth about America’s presidential election season: the vast majority of the most consequential policy questions are completely excluded from the process. This fact is squarely at odds with a primary claim made about the two parties – that they represent radically different political philosophies – and illustrates how narrow the range of acceptable mainstream political debate is in the country.

In part this is because presidential elections are now conducted almost entirely like a tawdry TV reality show. Personality quirks and trivialities about the candidates dominate coverage, and voter choices, leaving little room for substantive debates.

But in larger part, this exclusion is due to the fact that, despite frequent complaints that America is plagued by a lack of bipartisanship, the two major party candidates are in full-scale agreement on many of the nation’s most pressing political issues. As a result these are virtually ignored, drowned out by a handful of disputes that the parties relentlessly exploit to galvanise their support base and heighten fear of the other side.

Greenwald concludes:

The harm from this process is not merely the loss of what could be a valuable opportunity to engage in a real national debate. Worse, it is propagandistic: by emphasising the few issues on which there is real disagreement between the parties, the election process ends up sustaining the appearance that there is far more difference between the two parties, and far more choice for citizens, than is really offered by America’s political system.

One way to solve this problem would be to allow credible third-party candidates into the presidential debates and to give them more media coverage. Doing so would highlight just how similar Democrats and Republicans have become, and what little choice American voters actually have on many of the most consequential policies. That is exactly why the two major parties work so feverishly to ensure the exclusion of those candidates: it is precisely the deceitful perception of real choice that they are most eager to maintain.

Elect Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala…

Via What’s Up:

WHAT: Stop War on Iran, Yes We Can! Demonstration
WHEN: 10:15 A.M. 12:30 p.m. Friday, 5 Oct.
WHERE: East 17th and Payne Ave.

The Cleveland Peace Action Middle East Committee invites you to attend the first of at least two “Stop the War on Iran” demonstrations to coincide with presidential candidate’s visits to Cleveland. (We’ll do the same when Gov. Romney comes to town).

President Obama will be speaking at Krenzler Field, Cleveland State University, on Friday, Oct. 5, 2012, 11 AM. Krenzler Field is located between Chester Ave. (S), Payne Ave. (N), East 18th St. (W), and East 19th St. (E)

We will meet between 10:15 AM and 10:30 AM at the corner of East 17th St. and Payne Ave. at the Cuyahoga County Employment and Family Services Building., 1641 Payne Ave. 44114. Reasonably priced parking lots are located on Superior Ave east of East 13th Street.

Please attend and/ or contact three others to attend. Please let us know your intentions by email.

Please make a sign with one of these themes: “Real Diplomacy, Not War with Iran,” “How About Diplomacy, Not Ultimatums,” “US Intelligence: Iran Not Building a Bomb,” or the title of the demonstration, “Stop War with Iran, Yes We Can!”

Contact Phone number for Don Bryant: 440.263.5205

Thank you,

Nina McLellan and Don Bryant

I just got this email:

Hi Jeffrey,

Thanks for requesting a vote-by-mail ballot in Ohio.

Good news: the county board of elections has informed us that your ballot is in the process of being mailed to your address — maybe you already got it?

President Obama and Ohio Democrats are counting on strong supporters like you to get your vote in early, so make sure to mail your ballot to the county board of elections as soon as possible. The address will be on the ballot.

Here are some tips to make sure your ballot gets in on time and is counted on Election Night:

1. Follow the instructions carefully and fill out the ballot completely — make sure to leave the stub on your ballot attached, and don’t forget to sign your name on the designated line on the identification envelope.

2. Drop your ballot in the mail the day after you receive it — don’t wait. Your vote-by-mail ballot must be postmarked no later than November 5th or it must be delivered in person to the board of elections no later than 7:30 p.m. on Election Day in order to be counted. And check postage to make sure your ballot makes it to its destination! You may need three or more stamps.

3. After you mail in your ballot, tell your friends and family members how easy it was to vote early for President Obama and Ohio Democrats — and tell them to vote early, too. The deadline to request a vote-by-mail ballot is noon on November 3rd.
And don’t forget — if you’ve requested a vote-by-mail ballot, you’ve got to use it — you won’t be able to vote with a regular ballot on Election Day.

For more information, you can visit vote.barackobama.com, call our voter hotline at 855-VOTE-199, or shoot me an email.

You can also check with the county board of elections to get a status update on your ballot at any time — find your board of elections here. Or visit the Ohio Secretary of State’s website to track your request if you haven’t received your ballot yet.

Thanks so much, and happy voting!

Alexis

Alexis Hayman
Field Organizer
Organizing for America – Ohio

Elect Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala…