Demand the Debate

Don't let McCain get away with his cowardly political stunt. The American people deserve to hear from the candidates at such a crucial moment in American history.

Sign the petition.

Jack's With Me

I like the way that Cafferty thinks.

Un-Friggin Believable!!

Breaking news just now: John McCain is trying to postpone Friday night's debate under the pretense of wanting to focus on the economic crisis.

Unbelievable. more as it develops.

From MSNBC:

Republican John McCain says he's directing his staff to work with Barack Obama's campaign and the debate commission to delay Friday's debate because of the economic crisis.

In a statement, McCain says he will stop campaigning after addressing former President Bill Clinton's Global Initiative session on Thursday and return to Washington to focus on the nation's financial problems.

Nice attempt at some bold political theater there bucko, but I think that putting country first might be better demonstrated - and the public far better served - by having the debate as scheduled and focusing on the economy. Think of it, a real-deal political debate in the midst of - and focusing on - a real deal crisis.

I think the fate of humanity itself could spare the super-human patriotism of St. John McCain for a few hours on Friday night.

Never mind the $6 million Ole Miss has sunk into this thing at this point.

An Invitation to Oxford from Obama

Just received this info:

Show your support for Barack this Friday, September 26th, at an Obama for America visibility event before the first presidential debate at The University of Mississippi.

Here are the details:

Rock the Debate
Visibility and Watch Party

The Grove
University of Mississippi
Oxford, MS

Friday, September 26th
Program Begins: 12:00 p.m.

RSVP

http://ms.barackobama.com/RockTheDebate

Daily Journal Catches Up With folo

Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Wednesday September 24th:

JACKSON - Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann based his recent argument for placing the special U.S. Senate race at the bottom of the ballot on precedent, but his office's research overlooked the last such race, which was at the top of the 1947 general election ballot.

Hosemann, the state's chief elections official, said this week he was unaware that the 1947 election in which John Stennis was elected to the U.S. Senate was a special election at the top of the ballot.

folo, Sunday, September 21st:

I almost headed this post “The Secretary of State forgot John Stennis.”

Recall that on Friday I posted the ballot for the state-wide election in 1947, in which there were both the state election and the special election for United States Senate, occuring after Bilbo’s death. John Stennis won that race. The ballot for the 1947 special election had the special election for Senate at the top, above the race for governor. Here’s the 1947 official ballot. I noted that the only other special election for Senate was in 1941.

In the court filings for the special election ballot case, Secretary of State Hosemann filed an affidavit that said he’d researched special elections from the past. It also said:

Mississippi has not had Special Election for a United States Senator since 1941. The Special Election on September 23, 1941 was not held during the General Election. Therefore, no precedent for the last sixty years exists. …

A few minutes with Wikipedia would have prevented this misunderstanding for anyone who remembered that John Stennis once occupied the seat currently in contest.

Nice work Tommy.

MS Dems Press Conference on the Oxford Square

For all the media in town, and for all the locals who want to show their support for a progressive future for America (which is our only hope at this point, honestly), thought I'd pass along the following item.

OXFORD (Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2008) – Mississippi Democrats will hold a news conference at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 24, to highlight how Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s stand on the Iraq war has cost us at home.

The news conference will be on the east side of the Oxford Square next to Oxford City Hall, 107 Courthouse Square.

Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Jamie Franks will lead the news conference and talk about how McCain’s policies threaten to further harm an economy already in turmoil. Other Democratic Party leaders are expected to attend.

Please do show up. With all of the lowlife tactics being used in the run-up to the debate (specifically, trying to eliminate any visible sign of the - quite substantial, I should add - support for Obama that exists here in Oxford as the national media descends upon the town), it sure would be helpful to have every Obama supporter in town show up and show the world they're here.

For Our Debate Visitors

I can see from our web stats that we're getting a lot of traffic from folks who are searching for the Oxford Town post about the localized historical nature of Obama's presence here as a candidate for President. As the NY Times has gone into the same subject (more or less), and the town is filling with visitors for the Ole Miss Presidential Debate, I thought I'd re-post the following from back in June:

About a month and a half or so ago, my family, the dog and I were out walking on the Ole Miss campus, and I saw, for the first time, the signs advertising the upcoming presidential debate the University wil be hosting in September. Of course, I'd known the debate was scheduled for some time, recognizing it as the coup it was for the town, the school and the state. It's the first debate of the general, and even then - despite the rancor of the primary season - I knew it was going to be a match up between Obama and McCain.

But on seeing the signs, with that understanding in my mind, I was struck with overwhelming emotion. "Are you crying, Daddy?" my littlest one asked. And yeah, sap I am, I was. The historical significance just bowled me over. I kept hearing Bob Dylan in the back of my head, singing his ode to our fair town, back in the day, when it was far less fair:

Oxford Town, Oxford Town
Ev'rybody's got their heads bowed down
The sun don't shine above the ground
Ain't a-goin' down to Oxford Town

He went down to Oxford Town
Guns and clubs followed him down
All because his face was brown
Better get away from Oxford Town

Oxford Town around the bend
He come in to the door, he couldn't get in
All because of the color of his skin
What do you think about that, my frien'?

Me and my gal, my gal's son
We got met with a tear gas bomb
I don't even know why we come
Goin' back where we come from

Oxford Town in the afternoon
Ev'rybody singin' a sorrowful tune
Two men died 'neath the Mississippi moon
Somebody better investigate soon

Oxford Town, Oxford Town
Ev'rybody's got their heads bowed down
The sun don't shine above the ground
Ain't a-goin' down to Oxford Town

For the historically challenged, the song speaks to the chaos and hatred that accompanied James Meredith's enrollment at Ole Miss in 1962. It was, as a friend who runs historical tours reminded me just yesterday, the second time in less than a hundred years that Oxford was under US military occupation, the first having been in 1864 during the Civil War.

From the Wikipedia entry on the tune:

On September 20, 1962, an African American student named James Meredith became the first minority student enrolled in the University of Mississippi. His enrollment, ensured by the protection of the US Marshalls under direct order from then-President John F. Kennedy, sparked rioting on the campus of the university. During the ensuing violence, countless students were injured and two were killed. The song Oxford Town is concerned with the events surrounding the campus riots and the enrollment of James Meredith. In a larger scope, the song deals with the American Civil Rights Movement.

A black mark on Oxford and the University, for sure, and a moment in history that still reverberates here today. A couple of years back, after 44 years, the University erected a statue of Meredith approaching a portal to commemorate his struggle:



Well deserved and then some, considering what he'd gone through both here in '62 and beyond. Many of you might remember this iconic photo:



Civil rights activist James Meredith grimaces in pain as he pulls himself across Highway 51 in Hernando, Miss. after being shot during a voting rights march, June 6, 1966. Meredith, who defied segregation to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962, completed the march from Memphis, Tenn., to Jackson, Miss., after treatment of his wounds.

In any case, back to the future. Or the recent past, as the case may be. I stood there, looking up at the signs, not far from the gunfire and teargas of 1962, with tears rolling down my face, hearing Dylan's song somewhere off in the distance. And when I learned yesterday that Dylan himself had endorsed Obama, it all came back.

There's a thousand and one reasons that I support Barack Obama; his progressive vision, his brilliance, his palpable sincere compassion and conviction, his willingness to fight, the list goes on and on. But I've never wanted to see him president simply because he's an African-American. Not that I didn't see his candidacy in that historic light, it's just never been a defining reason for my support.

But that morning, realizing that he would be coming here, to Oxford Town, the first black man with a real shot at the presidency (and that shot's getting stronger and stronger as the days go on), to this University whose buildings are still pockmarked with 46 year old bullet holes from the Meredith riots....well, it knocked me for one hell of a loop. It's almost beyond my ability to put into words.

This man, this great man, will be coming here to close that circle once and for all.

And beyond the incredible joy and pride that we'll all feel as Democrats and Americans, we should also see this in the light of history. It will be an amazing moment for Mississippi and America. And I'll be here, and my kids - who, in their blissful colorblindness, thank God, don't even understand yet why this is so astoundingly significant - will be here too.

And it just brought tears to my eyes.

"Yes, baby, Daddy's crying. But it's only because I'm happy."

Tuesday Morning Oddities

Well, seems as though Oxford's been invaded by an army of Segway scooters. Looks like the police and (strangely enough) the campus ROTC folks will be on two wheeled futuristic patrol. I've seen about a dozen so far.

Cowards Move Under Cover of Darkness

In advance of Friday's debate, there's been a rash of thefts and destruction of Obama yard signs throughout the town of Oxford. Sometime in the last hour, some useless, no count sack of shit took mine.

Kevin Smith

If you didn't catch Bill Moyers on Friday, you should definitely take the time to watch this discussion with Kevin Smith.

John McCain, Serial Liar

Great find by Jed. McCain in March of this year, explaining his feelings on the housing crisis and the financial sector:

Yeah, that's the ticket. Why, I'm sure that even less regulation would have nipped this here "precipice of a Depression" situation right in the bud.

What?

You don't think so?

But...but.....POW POW POW!!!!

Privatize Profits, Socialize Losses

And you, the American stooge, you get to foot the bill. How you like them apples? Not so much? Didn't think so. To quote a very well respected idiot, "Suck. On. This."



image courtesy of patriotboy

Justice Department Called Upon in MS Electoral Shenanigan-gate

But given the utterly despicable politicization of Justice during the Bush administration, I don't place much hope in American justice any longer. But anyway, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has asked the Justice Department to block Haley from breaking the law with his rigged ballot:

A top congressional Democrat asked the Justice Department Tuesday to block Mississippi's Republican governor from putting a special election for Trent Lott's old Senate seat near the bottom of the November ballot.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said it was a "blatant violation" of the Voting Rights Act for Gov. Haley Barbour to separate the special election from other federal races, including a regular election for Mississippi's other U.S. Senate seat.

"The Mississippi governor does not get to change the rules when the race is not going his way," Conyers, of Michigan, said in a news release...

The Justice Department will consider Conyers' request after the Mississippi Supreme Court rules on a Democratic lawsuit challenging the ballot, spokeswoman Jamie Hais said.

Because of Mississippi's history of racial discrimination, the department must clear any election changes to protect minorities' voting rights. Conyers contends putting the special election at the bottom of the ballot is such a change...

...Hinds County Circuit Judge Tomie Green on Friday ordered Barbour to move the race higher. Barbour's appeal to the state Supreme Court was pending Tuesday.

Barbour — a former Republican National Committee chairman — moved Wicker from north Mississippi's U.S. House seat to temporarily fill Lott's Senate seat until the special election. One of the governor's nephews is managing Wicker's campaign. Musgrove is a former governor who lost his re-election race to Barbour in 2003.

Good New Musgrove Ad

Pretty powerful. He needs more of this positivity on air, and less tearing down Wicker. Let the GOP play that game. By way of the fellas at SSP.

Latest polling has Musgrove within striking distance. This will be one to watch in November.

Foreshadowing the Threat of a Possible McCain Presidency

Don't be fooled, America.