Free Press Election Reporting

Defending Democracy and Voting Rights Symposium Nov. 29, 2021

You’re cordially invited to a vitally important symposium Defending Democracy and Voting Rights Monday, November 29th 5pm ET/2pm PT   With Special Guest Speakers:   The Honorable Keith Ellison, Minnesota Attorney General   Andrea Miller, Executive Director, Center for Common Ground   Raymond McClendon, Political Action Chair, Atlanta NAACP    Register for the Zoom meeting in advance:  http://tinyurl.com/defending-democracy   Hosted by: the Grassroots Emergency Election Protection Coalition (GREEP)   For more information contact: Joel Segal (571)-344-1518 Joel.R.Segal@gmail.com  

The Dem Failure to Follow the "Georgia Way" Lost Virginia and Points Toward Fascism

The predictable corporate Democrats' Virginia defeat came because the party’s gerontocracy refused to do the “Georgia Way” grassroots organizing that won for Biden in 2020 and captured two US Senate seats on January 5, 2021---the day before Trump’s attempted Capital coup.   Running on issues of the economy, human rights and the ecology, Georgia’s breakthrough on-the-ground campaign did everything the Democrats should have done to win in Virginia.   Let’s look at the history:   The long-shot presidential victory of Joe Biden in Georgia, 2020---followed by the virtually impossible January 5, 2021 US Senatorial victories there of Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossof---changed the world.   Biden’s unlikely 2020 victory in Georgia was critical to removing Donald Trump from the White House. Georgia had not gone for a Democrat since southerner Bill Clinton ran in 1992, with Ross Perot splitting the right-wing vote. Even more unlikely was the January 5, 2021 US Senate victory of two Democrats, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossof.

Dissecting The “Georgia Way” For Future Grassroots Organizing

First we’re filled in by CYNTHIA PAPERMASTER of Code Pink on the efforts to free JULIAN ASSANGE from his unjust captivity and torture in the UK.   Then we hear for the bulk of the zoom from the great RAY MCCLENDON on how grassroots organizing in Georgia helped put Joe Biden in the White House and, truly miraculously, send a black and a Jewish Senator to the US Capitol.   Those two Senators gave the Democrats a 50-50 split in the Upper House and put the decisive vote in the hands of Vice President Katherine Harris, changing everything.   But how it was done also changed everything, as we hear from the Political Director of the Atlanta NAACP, who helped coordinate one of the most successful grassroots campaigns in US history.   This “Georgia Way” is now the subject of a major upcoming book and documentary film that will serve as a national paradigm for confronting the Trump-Bannon fascist assault on our democracy.   We also discuss with STEVE ROSENFELD, RAY LUTZ, JOHN BRAKEY and others the preliminary realities of a definitive guidebook on election protection recounts and audits.  This will take up the bulk of our upcoming zoom #70.   In the meantim

Manchin/Sinema Play "The Price Is Right" While the GOP Stars in "Night of the Living Dead"

The whole progressive world is screaming at Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin.   But why are 50 Zombie Republicans getting a free pass?   The game Sinema and Manchin now play is painfully obvious.   One day before Trump’s violent January 6 coup attempt, the grassroots Georgia Miracle realized a different kind of coup. The Peach State---infamous home to the KKK, with a bloody history defined by centuries of bigotry---unimaginably elected a black preacher and a Jewish filmmaker to the US Senate.   In a safe, reliable, fairly conducted election (imagine that!) the Democrats emerged with a 50-50 split in the Upper House. With the deciding vote in the hands of Vice President Kamela Harris, it meant progressives might have an actual shot at making serious social changes while taking some tangible leaps toward saving our planetary eco-systems.   What nobody realized was that with no real political convictions of their own, Sinema and Manchin had essentially won the lottery. Facing an unbroken, thoroughly lobotomized phalanx of zombie Republicans, their two votes have become the difference between life and death for any kind of progressive agenda.

From JFK-MLK-RFK to the Brooks Brothers Mob to MAGA ... America's Fascist Coup Escalates

America’s long-term fascist coup may have begun on November 22, 1963 with the murder of John Kennedy.

But George W. Bush’s “Brooks Brothers Mob” took it to another level exactly 37 years later.

And the MAGA Monster’s attack on January 6, 2021, is far from over.

Like the 1865 murder of Abraham Lincoln, the elimination of JFK moved America toward the fascist totalitarianism we face today.

Debate still rages over who actually killed President Kennedy…and whether he would have pulled us out of Vietnam. But there’s no doubt that murder—combined with those of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy—-tore devastating holes in the fiber of American democracy. The movements for racial equality, social justice and an end to empire have yet to fully recover from those fascist hits.

On the 37th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, an outright fascist coup followed in lock step. With the 2000 Florida vote count in deep dispute, a violent “Brooks Brothers Mob” physically terrorized Miami-area poll workers recounting the ballots in the very tight race between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush.

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