Voter Beware: Election scams are ramping up

It's that time of the election season where the election dirty tricks are being pulled out of the bag. Wired magazine reports on an old one being resurrected in Florida. This old trick is a phone call by an alleged election official telling Democrats that they can vote by phone. While, in Virginia country a scam is being run that tells Democratic voters to come to the polls the day after the election. The status quo is coming out swinging with voter suppression, intimidation, tampering and other forms of fraud. I personally have never been asked for identification when voting, but I am going to be sure to cover all bases and at the least take a form of identification with me.

Barack gets his 30 minutes

Tonight is Barack Obama's 30-minute campaign spot. Yep, that's right 30 minutes of campaigning. Pre-empting the World Series even. Am I mad? Nope. I think the future of the United States of America is far more important than the baseball championship. I want to know more details about the candidates. I want transparency into their proposed policies and plans and I want to hear some specifics now. I know, I know. The American motto is as American as Mom, apple pie and baseball. But with the way the economy and the Iraq war are going, soon all we'll be left with is Mom --- if she can get the health care that she needs.

Of course, the Republicans are using this as an excuse to accuse him of grand-standing and delaying the viewing of "the most important game of the most important American game" (as if this would be the last, unless they know something we don't). Now this is the same political party and group of people who bitched about being pressured to delay and cut short their political convention (only to officially name John McCain their candidate) due to the expectation of a New Orleans being once again turned into a complete disaster zone with the arrival of Hurricane Ike. This should sound like apples versus oranges, but in Republican-Land, logic doesn't exist. Instead of complaining, they should follow suit and tell us exactly what they plan to do. I'm tired of this "woulda, shoulda, coulda" crap everybody has been spewing. I don't want to hear about how bad a job the other guy did, that's just an evasion tactic that anyone can see a mile away. Shut up or put up.

Go ahead. Vote early.

Early voting is making some voters nervous. People are concerned that early votes won't count, specifically those of Black voters who vote for Barack Obama. The past two elections are too fresh in many minds where creative excuses (like ambiguously-punched ballot sheets) or curious incidents (like voting machines needlessly moved from heavily-populated Black constituencies to lesser-populated White suburban towns) were used to reject tens of thousands of ballots in predominately Black communities in states like Florida, Ohio and Georgia. And people are not feeling too hopeful that these past election deceptions will not be attempted again, so they're waiting for Election Day to post their ballots.

Assassination plot against Obama is busted

On Monday, an assassination plot by two knuckle-headed neo-nazi morons in Tennessee to kill Blacks and eventually Barack Obama was busted up by the local police and the Feds (See story at NYTimes). So I guess this is the signal to say let the real hating begin.

It has been a certainty that the attacks on him would get more personal, bigger, frequent and outrageous. And the closer he gets to the White House, the more scared the racists get.

This plot makes me think back to a story from the beginning of the presidential campaigning where older Black voters in the Carolinas indicated that they didn't want to vote for Obama out of fear for his safety. My single hope is that people, particular Black people, do not get scared off and try to "protect" Obama from harm by not voting for him. Running for president is his mission. Just like a soldier's choice to join the military, he is choosing to serve the American public.

Wassup 2008

I think this video from the old "Wassup" beer commercial has come up with an appropriate up-to-date version dealing with the current state of things in America and the election.

Can Detroit get past Kwame's legacy?

So Kwame Kilpatrick, the youngest elected mayor of a major city has finally found his sense --- or maybe he was given an offer he couldn't resist --- and has stepped down from his throne, ummm, post. Instead of serving a possibly really long sentence for a series of unfortunate choices, he is supposedly going to serve a short sentence of about 120 days in jail followed by a 5 year probation. Kwame got off _easy_. He'd better thank God, his mama and whoever else he can think of, because the sharks were circling him. He set himself up and shouldn't blame anyone else for it. Wow! He and the city had so much potential. Kilpatrick could have been good for the city and turning around such a troubled city would have been such a political coup for him.

Lord. I really pray for the city of Detroit. Detroiters cannot afford to continue to be losers. The acting mayor is going to be Kenneth Cockrel Jr. whose father was a city leader and whose (step)mother is on the city council too. Talk about nepotism. I'm getting really sick and tired of the different monarchies, lords and ladies, running the city as if it's their personal fiefdom. Let's hope this one's got more sense. I mean, there are reports that there is a federal investigation into possible corruption in the city government. Well if you're going to clean house, now is just as good a time as any.

Note to wannabe Sarah Palin

Hey Sarah! Take your own advice. Suck it up and shut up about (supposed) sexist media coverage of your nomination to be McCain's co-conspirator, I mean, vice-president. Just as you suggested that Hillary was whining about the same thing, why don't you stop bitching about it too? You're not the first woman to deal with the ole boys' club or a pregnant out-of-wedlock teenage girl. If you think that the media focus on those topics are a tragedy or an affront to you, then you definitely don't need to be anywhere near an office in the Executive branch. You and your fellow whispering campaigners had better grow that thick skin that you tell the rest of us that we should. Or your feelings are really gonna be hurt later on. Get over it and move on.

Anyway, click the link above and also check out more on this and Politico.com's advice to her and Mrs. McCain about how to be grownup politicians.