Events

I Voted – ABSENTEE!

I’ve been waiting for my ballot. Everyone else had theirs last Friday – and I was getting concerned that maybe there was a problem with my absentee ballot. I printed out an emergency ballot, filled it out and had it ready to go in case my ballot didn’t get here by October 1st (it has to be mailed by Oct 8 to get there in time.)
Why why was I worried? Because I’m voting absentee from abroad, and I want to make sure I have enough time to get my vote mailed and counted.
The good news is that my ballot for Georgia got here yesterday. YEAY!
I filled it out, and sealed it up. I went to the post office – and because the ballot is oversized, and I’m sending it from Germany – back home to the USA
it cost me 4 EUROS (that’s almost $8) to mail it back.
But – despite it all, I did it.

I VOTED.

Now, for those of you in the USA –
~I know it won’t take you two weeks of wondering if your ballot was is going to get your house.
~It won’t cost you $8 in gas to go to the poll or to mail your ballot.
~I know it won’t take you a month of wondering if it got there, or if once the ballot gets there it will be counted….
So, to my view, there’s No EXCUSE.
If I can VOTE from Germany, and do all that – just to make sure MY VOTE makes it on time and that I HAVE A VOICE ….
ON
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2008
I EXPECT NO LESS OF YOU. I don’t care who you vote for.
JUST VOTE.
Update –
Twenty-five states, including nine swing states – Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, – have registration deadlines in the next two weeks.

Voters in the following states (who have not yet registered and/or requested their ballots) must ensure that their FPCAs are sent in NOW!

Oct. 4 – Illinois, Nevada, South Carolina

Oct. 5 – Alaska, Mississippi

Oct. 6 – Colorado, DC, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wyoming

Oct. 8 – Missouri

Oct. 10 – Idaho, New York

All of these states except for NY and WY will accept faxed FPCAs.

Please use the following US fax number: +1-703-693-5527 (the toll free numbers in many parts of the world do not work). All faxes are received in Virginia by the Federal Voting Assistance Program. The FVAP will log in the date and time that the fax was received and then forward it on to your local election official.

For deadline purposes, your form is deemed received when it arrives on the FVAP’s fax machine, but you still must MAIL the original form to your local election official.

Exceptions: NY and WY do NOT accept faxes. The only way to meet the deadlines for NY and WY is to ensure that your original FPCA arrives in the local election office by mail no later than the deadline. (NY and WY will also accept FPCAs by commercial courier.) NOTE: FPCAs need NOT carry a foreign postmark!

Later Deadlines:

The other states have later registration deadlines.

Check them here: http://democratsabroad.org/registration_dates and watch for our forthcoming Voter Alerts.

To check the status of your registration, check http://democratsabroad.org/registration_links.

If your state is not listed, contact your local election official. You can find this information at www.Votesmart.org/voter_county_election_offices.php

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Down like Dominoes…..

How did we get here? Why is it happening?

Lehman Brothers
AIG
Merrill Lynch
Bear Stearns
Fanny Mae
Freddy Mac

And that’s just the few that I can remember – all going downhill and/or being taken over by the Federal Government.

Then, I read today that the FDIC is short on funds. If a major player like Washington Mutual failed today, the FDIC wouldn’t be able to provide their insurance to the investors there. They’d have to go to the Treasury and ask for funds.

And where do you think all these funds are coming from?!? You and me the taxpayer.

This Administration with their “big business”, “corporation” and “no regulation” policies has yet again ignored things like huge failures (think Enron) and we, the American taxpayer are paying the price. Yes, folks, we voted them in office, yes, folks, we let them get away with 8 + years of de-regulation, huge bonuses (even when their companies were going under), abuse of our wallets and pocketbooks, abuse of the system – and viola – you have a set up …

that’s toppling like dominoes.

No, I’m not a scared investor – my investments have been chopped to 1/4 of what they were less than 2 years ago. I’m not moving my money out of my stocks and bonds – yet.

I am, however, once again spreading it around. No longer are my funds all held in one bank. I now have 2 banks, 2 credit unions, and 3 different stock brokers. Why? Because I don’t want to be caught under it – when the house of cards collapses.

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Why ALL WOMEN should Vote

WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.
The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

(Lucy Burns)
And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.
Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ‘obstructing sidewalk traffic.’
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.
(Dora Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the ‘Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because
they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson‘s White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with worms.
(Alice Paul)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/n wp/prisoners.pdf

So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because- -why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining?

Personally, I strongly suggest we all take a moment to watch HBO’ s new movie ‘Iron Jawed Angels.’ It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that We women could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say.

All these years later, voter registration is one of the things that I have been doing this election. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for many. Frankly, I’ve been told by many who never took advantage, that voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege.
Sometimes it was inconvenient – or didn’t really Matter.

And so, now comes the question I pose to you.

‘What would those who fought so hard for their right to have a say on who leads our country think of the way I use, or don’t use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.’ The right to vote, needs to become valuable to all of us – all over again.

HBO released the movie on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn’t our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.’

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party – remember to vote.

History is being made.

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