The right to vote. Democracy has been the great ideal of the United States. It is the right to vote that has been a signature virtue of this country. The idea that government will be selected by the citizens by private vote has been the keystone to this country from its creation. The great march of democracy in this country has been to expand the right to vote. The struggle to give women the vote. The struggle to give blacks the vote. The struggle to remove all kinds of tests and qualifiers for the right to vote. The Supreme Court’s ruling of one person one vote. The push has been to get more and more people the right to vote. The efforts of all government levels has been in the past to make voting easier so that more and more people will vote. The great concern has been that so often the turn out for elections is disappointing. We need to encourage all of our citizens to exercise their right to vote.
The United States has always considered that one of its greatest exports is the idea of democracy and the right to vote. We are currently in two military actions in efforts to build nations that give their citizens the right to vote. We have rejoiced and support the “Arab Spring” when the Middle East has risen up and demanded the right to vote for their governments and to remove dictators.
So it has to tell you something about the ideas about government, about the philosophy of leadership that the Republican Party has been engaged for the last four years in a serious effort to limit, to restrict, to prevent people from voting. There have been across the country efforts to reduce the number of days of early voting. There have been a number of efforts to create unnecessary restrictions on voters by requiring new voter identification requirements. Voters already have to give identification to register. The aggressive effort to purge the rolls of voters in various states. The Republican leadership across this country and in the state of North Carolina have been working hard to suppress the right to vote. For some reason they do not trust the democratic process. They do not apparently believe that all citizens should be able to vote and to choose their elected officials. Once again they seem to believe that government is best when selected by only a few people they approve of.
The pretense of this suppression of the vote is that they value voting so much that they want to prevent voter fraud. The trouble is the current system of Boards of Election and Poll workers is working so well, especially in North Carolina and Vance County, that the incidents of voter fraud are almost none existent. It is hard to prevent voter fraud when it is not happening. It is an effort by the Republican party to eliminate from voting a whole number of people so that “only the chosen” will be eligible to vote.
It is more evidence of the elitism of the Republican party that thinks only certain people ought to be allowed to participate in the election process. By reducing the number of people they do not agree with they hope to win the election.
So do you want to support a party that wants to include everybody, works to increase the early voting, wants to get more people involved in the election process, or to have a party
There you go again, Rick, handing out the same old party line agenda. Nobody wants to suppress the legal vote. We all want everyone who legally registers and is eligible to vote to have the opportunity. I know that voter fraud has happened before and will happen again if picture ID is not required. A few years ago, registered letters were sent to everyone who had registered within a 6 week period in a 5 county area. Almost 80% were returned stamped “No Such Address” or “No Such Person At This Address.” The old saying about a bit dog being the one who barks applies here.
By the way, Rick, you never addressed the 13 campaign promises that Obama made in 2008 and never fulfilled. I really didn’t expect you to since I knew you had to publish the above material sent out by the state party.
Pray tell—what CAN we do these days without presenting picture ID?
Rooter, the observation that I am repeating the fact that Republicans have been attempting to suppress voter’s rights is a statement of fact. It is not an argument against. For argument against is mere repeating the Republican line that they are preventing fraud. Your illustration of the 80% returned letters is no proof of fraud. There is no claim that any of those people tried to vote.
If they had tried to vote, the workers at the polls would have informed them that they had not registered since moving and would not have allowed them to vote and thus no fraud would have happened.
My response to the campaign promises that were never fulfilled would be just another party line that the Republicans prevented by votes in Congress the fulfillment, but you would not want to hear that either.
Again, Voting is about the last place no photo ID is required.
Rick, in reference to the 80% of the letters returned as undeliverable, why in the world would they register to vote if they didn’t intend to vote? Did these “new voters” just happen to give the incorrect address or maybe they moved after they registered. This is pretty good evidence of intended voter fraud.
Your failure to address Obama’s 2008 failed promises is typical of the Democrats “head in the sand” approach. Either that or blame Bush and the Republicans. If Obama wins and controls both houses of congress for 4 years, who will you blame for the disastrous results? Probably Herbert Hoover or maybe Coach Butch Davis.
By the way, Rick, did you write your own sermons or did they come down from above? It seems very suspect that almost all of you county chairpersons send out the same useless drivel each week using very similar language.
Once again I want to thank Rooter for making his attack personal.
Yea Richard, that’s right, keeping deferring the thought process. It is usual, customary, and reasonable to EXPECT that response from you. I have been wondering how it really feels to be involved with a Political Party that makes a JOKE out of God, has to restrain itself to even MENTION His NAME, and really has to WORK hard at getting even a VAGUE mention in the National Party Platform. After all, you have stated on here to being a RETIRED minister of a Church in Henderson.That should make you feel really “Christian”. WHY DON”T YOU JUST ANSWER THE BLOGGER”S QUESTION? ( Capitals for emphasis MINGO) Why don’t you? My thoughts are simply you nor that Obama-nation can’t handle THE TRUTH! So what say ye? As usual your are just spewing the Party line as dictated by the Committee on Idiocy of the DNC! That only works for the usual Democratic Voter in Vance County who MUST have a paper to show him/her what blocks to mark. You know you are a real live hypocrite! On the one hand you spew religious beliefs and on the other take a very STRONG stand for documented anti-god PEOPLE! You must be really proud of yourself!
Rick, there was nothing personal in my comment, especially since I don’t know you. It just seems curious that several other Dem county chairpersons write very similar articles…even to the use of derogatory verbage on a weekly basis. I believe I asked a legitimate question. Do you get your orders from above? Is it personal to ask that you address the issue of Obama’s failed promises from the 2008 campaign?
I do have a non-political question for you as a retired minister. Does it not bother you that the President and his wife sat in Jeremiah Wright’s congregation for nearly 20 years and listened while he damned the United States and spewed his hatred of white people? It seems to me that this speaks poorly as to his character. There are thousands of churches in the Chicago area. They could have quietly moved to another church. Obama now says that he doesn’t agree with some of Wright’s comments. It certainly took a long time to decide that.
Is voting a right or a privaledge? Why is it unreasonable for someone to show proof of identity when they are voting? Isn’t it intellectually dishonest and in fact racist for the Democrat party to claim some folks simply aren’t smart enough to obtain identification? The Democrat party wants to insure that voter fraud continues to take place, they don’t care about clean elections.
Voter fraud is indeed an issue, look at the Democrat Congresswoman who recently was caught voting in Maryland and Florida and the Democrat Congressman from Rhode Island paying voters to vote and vote multiple times in a primary election. How about Black Panthers using intimidation with clubs in Philadelphia acting as “security” to suppress votes (and our DOJ refused to investigate or prosecute). How about Al Franken stealing the MN Senate election when it was discovered, after he had been installed that he “won” an election by 300 votes and 1200 of the voters were felons who never should have been allowed to vote?
Mr. Brand preaches “the Republican party thinks only certain people ought to be allowed to participate in the election process.” I contend that it is immoral for him to slander his fellow citizens with blanket statements that try and influence opinions in such an important election.
Well said Dagny.
Just how would voter id have prevented the incidents which apparently are known from happening? High School teenagers get id’s which show them to be 21 all the time. Felons obviously know how to get voter ids, if that story is true. The fact that there may be one story about voter fraud out of four million voters is not a big enough reason to spend the kind of money necessary to make every Board of Election able to provide photo ids.
One of the ways you can identify that these attacks are personal is to ask the question would the comment be the same if you did not know my name. If I was not one of the very few who post with my real name. Read those comments and see if they would have been the same if I were using a cover name?
I am impressed that Rooter is so well versed in the sermonic content of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I have actually heard the Rev. Wright on a number of occasions myself. Rooter description of his message is nowhere near what I heard when I listened to the Rev. Wright. A few “sound bits” selected by McCain’s campaign qualifies Rooter to know the full twenty year subject matter of Jeremiah Wright’s preaching.
The fact of my post, that the Republican Party has been engaged in a four year effort to suppress voters across the United States, is a matter of public record. The effort itself is the evidence to state that the party must want only certain people to vote. I would suggest that the immorality is in the effort to deny registered voters the right to vote.
Fellow posters–it is quite apparent Mr. Brand is resolute in his mistaken belief that there is not nor has there been any voter fraud blame from Democrats. He will not be persuaded otherwise.
I suggest we end this discussion–as it is going nowhere. Neither will he admit it took over 2 weeks for the White House to say the attack in Libya was an act of terror.
I do not care what your name is Rick. I take issue with the content of your posts. You have to be kidding about Jeremiah Wright. Excepts of his sermons have been on TV numerous times and Obama has never denied being in his church. In fact Obama admits he and his wife heard Wright’s sermons damning American and spewing his hate of white people. Obama, when confronted about this smiled and said, “Well, sometimes Reverend Wright is a little over the top.” I’m not surprised that you say you have heard the Rev. Wright on a number of occasions. I guess birds of a feather do flock together, Rick. Please answer this, Rick, do you condone Wright’s comments about damning America and hating white people?
You are stretching the boundaries of decency to suggest that the Republican Party is immoral in attempting to require voter ID. Your own convention last month not only required picture ID of media members, voting delegates were required to present credentials before being allowed in the delegate area. I guess maybe they were afraid that a Republican might slip in and vote to include God in the party platform.
Is Mr. Brand as worried about all the soldiers that are being disenfranchised in the election this year?
http://mvpproject.org/in-the-news/va-military-absentee-ballots-going-awol-in-2012/
Ministers, Priests, Deacons, Rabbis, ect of the church automatically obtain a high position of respect and trust in communities. They are traditionally a solid moral authority to turn to in times of uncertainty. It is stunning to read that Mr. Brand condones and admires the anti American and racist beliefs of Jeremiah Wright. I can google hours of sermans by Wright of negative and radical rants, they aren’t just a few sound bites.
Mr. Brand shouldn’t condemn those of us that pick up on comments he freely and willfully reveals, it is a deliberate decision for him to post under his real name, complete with all the noteriety that brings. He wants everyone to know that he doesn’t believe in the free market system, that he is a student of Jeremiah Wright’s teachings, that he thinks Republicans and business people are despicable garbage as people, yes, he wants us all to know that he is a proud believer in every communist value that the Democrat party now embraces.
Arguruing about this voter id thing is pointless, it’s a done deal for this election to be the way it is.
I certainly don’t agree with everything my pastor says, but I still keep going to that church as my family is rooted there. That doesn’t mean I’m a student of that pastor and am following out his whole will in my life today.
So a family that goes to some of the catholic churches would be child molesters?
The Republican Party in all its subsets has made the prevention of voter fraud a signature issue since 2008. This morning I read that the only firm hired by the RNC to conduct voter registration in Colorado, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, and Virginia did in fact create fraudulent voter registrations. The Republican Party’s methodology for voter fraud appears to be a multi-state approach while the ACRON methodology was a multi-ethnic approach. The Republican Party appears motivated by an ultraistic control of elections while ACRON appears motivated by altruistic fairness of the election.
Rick, since you refuse to address President Obama’s failed promises from 2008, maybe you will comment on a short list of his friends and mentors. I should start with Jeremiah Wright, who Obama still calls “my friend and mentor”, but I will skip “Reverend God Damn America” and go on to William Ayers, Frank Marshall Davis, Wahid Hamid, Hasan Chando, Saul Alinski, Mike Kruglik, Noam Chomsky, Tony Rezko, Edward Said, Rashid Khalidi, George Soros and Andy Stern. After you tell us about this list of socialists, communists, radical revolutionaries and people who want to overthrow our government, your next assignment is to read about Obama and his connection to ACORN. When you have finished throwing up, give us your report and I will have another assignment for you, Rick. I hope you don’t find this to be a personal attack on you.
rooter, who do you think Romney works for? The top contributors to Romneys campaign are:
Goldman Sachs $891,140
Bank of America $667,139
JPMorgan Chase & Co $662,719
Morgan Stanley $649,847
Credit Suisse Group $554,066
Citigroup Inc $418,263
Wells Fargo $412,250
Barclays $403,800
Kirkland & Ellis $393,667
Deloitte LLP $355,390
HIG Capital $338,000
PricewaterhouseCoopers $333,600
Blackstone Group $313,725
UBS AG $308,130
Elliott Management $281,175
Bain Capital $268,470
EMC Corp $252,250
General Electric $214,450
Ernst & Young $212,025
Sullivan & Cromwell $197,150
Compare that to Obama:
University of California $703,781
Microsoft Corp $544,445
Google Inc $526,009
Harvard University $431,860
US Government $396,550
Deloitte LLP $369,401
DLA Piper $367,027
Stanford University $326,942
Sidley Austin LLP $312,278
Kaiser Permanente $303,163
Time Warner $295,030
Columbia University $264,588
Comcast Corp $261,274
University of Chicago $227,525
IBM Corp $218,761
Skadden, Arps et al $214,766
US Dept of State $213,256
Wells Fargo $202,216
National Amusements Inc $197,342
University of Michigan $190,862
anon3, I question your stat’s above, which can be measured in many different ways, where is all Obama’s union money?
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/index.php
Flopney has changed his position on immigrant rights; GOPers stunned. He will allow some youthful migrants to stay in America. What a Christian!
As the Democrat party supporters on HIH grasp at trivial issues and try to make big deals out of things like Romney flip flopping on immigration – yawn, whatever, or Romney’s donors – just don’t look real close at Pres Obamas or let’s see – Romney is stupid, he is mean, he wears magic underwear – they totally forget that there are issues in the country today that Amerians are paying attention to. These posters live in a fantasy world from the media and liberal blogs feeding them a load of bias and they will totally freak out when Romney walks away with the Presidency. They all completely ignore making any kind of response to logical questions raised here because they have no answers for President Obama and the Democrat Congress failures. They are out of touch with the vast majority of Americans that do understand that govt spending and taxing are out of control, that spending tax payer dollars bailing out corporations increases our national debt, that never passing a budget is irresponsable, that strangling businesses with regulations and high taxes keeps those businesses from hiring employeees, that giving guns to Mexican outlaws will bring death, that not arming marines in Lybia to protect our ambassadors is reprehensable, that it was a meddling mess to support the overthrow of govt’s in Egypt and Lybia in the name of democracy when in fact the new regimes are brutal Islamic despots and America is not now more loved just because Obama is Pres., that Pres Obama has turned his back on Israel, that there are more Americans out of work now than when Pres Obama took office, that paying people not to work breeds a break down in the family structure and increases crime, that the poverty rate in America has never been higher, that gas prices are double what they were and primarily that this election is a battle between the traditional American values of individual liberty and freedom and the radical principles of socialism and communism that have taken over the Democrat party. Listen to the debates tonight on CSpan, without the FOX or NBC commentary and let each man stand on their own, with no teleprompters. Sure, Romney will sound stupid and Obama won’t sound like he is in over his head and lost without his prompter. Have a dose of reality tonight, if you dare.
Great post, Dagny. In the back of all voters’ minds needs to be the promises Obama made in 2008 versus what he is saying in 2012. He is consistant, I will give him that. The problem is he is addressing areas that he promised to fix 4 years ago and has failed. For example, and this is a direct quote from 2008, “If I am elected as your President, I will very quickly take steps to reduce unemployment below 6%.” He went on to talk about the thousands of “shovel ready jobs” which his administration would provide to rebuild bridges and highways. He is still making the same promise, but can not blame Republicans because he got the funds.
The one thing that all Americans should be deeply concerned about are the avowed communists, socialists and radicals who Obama calls his mentors and friends, many of whom have been guests in the White House. You can find a partial list in my comment #17 above. I wish Reverand Brand and the other county party chairpersons would address these people and their relationship to Obama. I made the same request to a Dem in Granville County and a week later he tells me that Romney was friends in college with a guy who went to prison in 1994. My goodness, what a bad man!!
Some good points here, but the bigger issue facing our country is which candidate will change the way government conducts business. Its all about money buying privilege and access. With over 12,000 registered business lobbyists in Washington, most of us don’t have any voice in our federal government representation.
I personally don’t see the change we really need coming from either candidate.
I’m not going to answer questions like why did Obama associate with a communist. That’s like the old Did Glenn Beck rape and murder a girl in 1990? He hasn’t denied it, he won’t talk about it. That must mean he did. Stop asking questions about crap no body finds issues with but yourselves.
Stop saying all the promises Obama has not kept about our economy, when every single year Obama’s budget proposal has been shot down by the house and congress. He literally can’t work on his promises.
No one’s responding to the accusations because they are just accusations that don’t portray the whole story.
Say what you want to about Rick here, how the democrats this and that but it’s pretty clear to me that we have the head of the local democratic party here on this site communicting with us, and there’s no rep from the republican party here at all. Why doesn’t the local rep head submit some of their own ideas to HiH?
It’s just a sign of the party, the republicans think they don’t have to talk to the regular people, the 47% of us that sit on our butt all day waiting for a check in the mail. It’s their whole mindset the business owners and money makers are the only people that count in this country. And how wrong they are in all of that.
Nothing but exscuses for President Obama, nothing is his fault – even when he submits such lousy budgets his own Democrat Senate won’t pass them.
And the answer to communist association charges is talk about Glenn Beck?
No republican party folks here – really?
Hey I have an idea, imagine America where all the business people and workers get sick and tired of working and just stay home, a la Atlas Shrugged. Maybe they all get sick of working and supporting their families while an equal number of people choose to stay home and get a check every month for food, lodging and expenses. So all the rotten business people disappear.
Anon 3, who will pay for everything then? Tax dollars are “collected” by the govt from businesses and then the money is given to other people to pay their expenses or to pay teachers and policeman. Is it fair for these hard working people to be spoken of like they don’t count for ANYTHING? Maybe there are a bunch of folks in the country that are sick of the mindset that business owners and money makers are evil and immoral. That is pure communist sentiment and government can’t take care of people better than they can take care of themselves.
This election is about a whole lot more than the lib bloggers want to admit and they can’t teach you how to debate because there are no facts to back anything up, just keep a cuttin and pastin and we’ll keep firing back with the facts! And watch the debate, on CSPAN.
anon3…So it doesn’t bother you that Obama invited communists, socialists, radicals to the White House? What does Glenn Beck have to do with this? The records at the White House tell you who visits there…not the Republican Party. A few years back, Obama wrote a book and told of his relationship with these people. In my opinion, Obama is setting the stage for the Muslim ***********, but mentioning that would probably cause you and Brother Brand to go into apoplexy.
Rick, what time tonight will you declare Obama the winner of the debate? My source at Dem headquarters tell me that county chaipersons should wait until Thursday morning so that the networks and main stream media can go first.
No, it doesn’t bother me. He’s also invited Atheists, Christians and **** etc etc. Give it a break. Glenn Beck doesn’t have a thing to do with anything. Just making the analogy the question about whether he raped and murdered a young girl is just as relevant as your question with is Obama bringing about communism with his associations.
In my opinion, Romney is setting the stage for the White Horse Prophecy. You want to talk about associations and accusations, let’s start there.
dangy,
I see lots of republican party commentors, but we have no official word from the republican leaders, like we do here with Mr. Brand’s democratic stance.
It’s not my opinion all business owners and money makers are evil and immoral. But it’s also not my opinion that no business owners and money makers are evil and immoral. Where should I start on the greed and corruption big business has had on our country?
By 2011, Richest 5 pct: Share of income increased 29.7% since 1967
By 2011, Poorest 20 pct: Share of income decreased 20.0% since 1967
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-02/top-1-got-93-of-income-growth-as-rich-poor-gap-widened.html
The rich keep getting richer, the poor keep getting poorer. How many times have we heard that? Is that socialism? That’s the complete opposite of socialism, so why do you insist the democratic party wants it? Are the polices that allow the rich to keep getting richer and the poor to keep getting poor working for america? There has to be a complete change in business and government to save this country.
The poor have poor schools, poor education, poor homes, poor credit, poor food, poor etc etc etc you just can’t continue to shove them down in the hole further and point and laugh and say you should have worked harder. Sure there’s the oddball success story, but that’s outside the norm.
I ALWAYS cite my facts, I have yet to see any republican on here source any of their ‘facts’.
anon 3, you will never admit that govt can not create a dime, only individuals working and creating businesses that employ people make the money that feeds and fuels our economy, that is where tax revenue comes from.
Your quote – “Where should I start on the greed and corruption big business has had on our country?” True conservatives hate stimulus programs that reward one business over another, and GM is Obama’s poster business for this practice, but remember – who took the money away from one business and gave it to another? GOVERNMENT did that! The federal govt fascilitated that plan, big business didn’t take the money, the fed’s arranged it, so blame govt not the businesses!
Remember, Obama’s socialist policies have created more people in poverty than ever before, more people on food stamps, fewer blacks and womon employed, when does socialism ever work? It destroys families and creates crime. It rewards low standards. How many people are poor or in a bad situation because they made poor decisions in life? They aren’t taught civics and history in public schools so they don’t understand or appreciate the opportunity they have in America.
Don’t blame America’s problems on the businessman. America isn’t great because of her political leaders, she is great because of every individual. Now I have to go read up on what the heck the white horse prophesy is.
(I can speak the truth because I know and live the facts. I respect you anon3, you should respect my posts, even if they aren’t copy and pasted.)
Dagny, The White Horse Prophesy was decried about two years ago. It goes like this: Rick Brand will ride a white horse from Raleigh to Henderson and lead all of Vance County to the promised land. He hasn’t arrived yet, but if you see him on the road coming from Raleigh, be very careful. I would hate for anything to happen to that beautiful, white house.
I think the individual business people of America are all seeking the American Dream. I have always supported the local businesses of where ever I’ve lived. I believe that once a ‘business’ becomes so incorporated (complicated) that it loses touch with its origins becomes the American Nightmare; hence the flood of jobs going off-shore and putting American workers out of work. All for the very black bottom line in favor of the owners, not the workers. Free enterprise should not mean a free for all. Those who are employed by local businesses are able to contribute to all of society. Those corporations who pay cheap labor in other countries not only don’t support America but their employees don’t contribute to any part of our economy; much less improve their own quality of life. The sheltered corporations thrive while nations suffer. Let’s be real about ‘business’. I will always go to Thomas Appliance for a new something, rather than Wal-Mart. I will always seek the deals in Henderson before I go to Oxford or Raleigh. I will always buy American if I have that choice. Why would I want to eat a fruit from another country when it is grown a couple of miles or states away from me? Call me crazy, but I believe if we don’t invest in our own then how will ‘ours’ survive?