On August 1, the Ohio Solicitor General asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its appeal in Ohio v Citizens for Tax Reform. The 6th circuit had invalidated an Ohio law that makes it illegal for initiative proponents to pay circulators on a per signature basis. The evidence in that case is strong that such laws make it considerably more expensive to qualify initiatives. The U.S. Supreme Court case number is not yet known. Thanks to David Langdon for this news.
It seems to me a much more reasonable approach to the whole question of petitions and signatures would be this: Mandate the candidate himself or herself must circulate a petition.
Mandate every candidate, even the ones from the old parties, even incumbents, must circulate a petition.
It will be automatic that the number of signatures will be reasonable.
And it resolves the alleged problem of out-of-state circulaters.
Wow, these government officials in Ohio sure do want to ruin the petition process.
AND IN SAN FRANCISCO CALIFORNIA
THE FUTURE NOVEMBER WRITE IN FOR CONGRESS:
This is Horseshit
Cindy Sheehan
It is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists will we be?
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
You know, I don’t care if it’s not proper for a Congressional candidate to say: “horseshit.” I don’t care if it is not a good “tactic” to get kicked out of a Congressional non-impeachment hearing that was just a bunch of horseshit anyway. I don’t care if I get accused of being too “extreme” for bucking the (cyst)em by doing everything form camping in a ditch in Crawford, Tx to non-violent civil disobedience to, lately, running for Congress as (oh no!) an independent.
If people can’t see how this nation is teetering on the precipice of financial ruin and dragging the rest of this planet down with us as we destroy our ecology, too…and if people don’t realize how desperate our situation is, then I must say, that’s horseshit!
I am angry. No, I am incensed that hundreds of thousands of people are dead, dying, wounded, displaced from their homes or being imprisoned and tortured by the sadists that reside or work at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with the approval of their accomplices down the road in Congress. I am furious that I buried my oldest son when he was 24 years old for the unrepentant lies and the unpunished crimes of the Bush mob. Are you incensed? If not, maybe you should ask yourself: “Why?” Hypothetically: “Why am I not enraged that my country has killed or hurt so many people for absolutely no noble cause in my name and with my tacit approval?”
I am steamed that the working class has to, once again, pay for the excesses of the capitalist criminals that feeds its rapacious appetite with the flesh and blood of our children and won’t rest until it owns every penny in this world and has all the power.
You may say, “But Cindy, it is not polite to be angry or to use such strong language in public.” Horseshit! In my opinion, every citizen in this country should rise up in anger and DEMAND that George Bush and Dick Cheney not only be impeached and removed from office, but be tried and convicted for murder and crimes against the peace and humanity!
We should all walk off of our jobs and refuse to work and refuse to be cogs in the wheels of psychotic consumerism until our troops, military contractors and permanent bases are removed from Iraq and Afghanistan. We should, but most of us won’t. We won’t because it may mean that we would lose something of “value.” Material possessions are so transitory, as are our lives. We can leave a lasting impression by our courageous activism and moral sacrifice, or we can leave a pile of rusting metal or rotting wood. I choose the former for myself.
We should come out of our comas of too much TV news and not enough non-biased information to push for alternatives to fossil fuels that are clean and renewable and protest nuclear facilities and off-shore oil drilling like we used to in the olden days when people actually cared enough about not poisoning our world to get off of their couches or (today) out from behind their computer screens to do something constructive instead of complacently shelling out hundreds of dollars a week for gasoline and food.
I get so pissed off when one of my supporters has a tooth ache and can’t afford to go see a dentist to fix it or when my sister has had a cough for almost two years and doesn’t have the health insurance she needs to get fully well. And when I think that almost 50 million people in this country are non-insured or under-insured, I see red. Why, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, do some have the “privilege” of being fully insured and healthy, when health care is a basic human right, not a privilege for the elitists? My heart hurts every night when the men who sleep propped up against my campaign office, huddled under their blankets against the San Francisco chill, wish me a “good night” and I can’t choke the same words back to them, or do much of anything but give them coffee to keep warm and books to read to help pass the time. My campaign office is being visited on a daily basis by Iraq war vets who can’t access the help they need to get physically or mentally healthy—and I am “extreme” because I actually want things to really change and choose to act on this desire and not sit around passively pretending that this horseshit doesn’t exist?
Since Casey died, even though every day I am filled with pain and longing, I have tried to be the poster-mom for this pain telling my neighbors and fellow Americans how it feels to be profoundly hurt by the Military Industrial Complex and that it wouldn’t be too long before the cancer of BushCo would strike every American home and now that this prediction is awfully coming true, I see more and more apathy and less and less action.
Three years ago today, I first sat in a ditch in Crawford, Texas and three years later, we are in dire straits, my friends, and the prognosis is not good, unless we all make a conscious effort to sacrifice some of today’s comfort for the sake of our children and grand-children’s futures.
Sixty-three years ago today, the monsters of the US war machine dropped a WMD on hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children and since then, this nation has just descended into a further spiral of war and profiting from war and preparing for war and more profiting from war; which is destroying every aspect of our society and we MUST reclaim our very souls from the Military Industrial Complex before it is too late.
Please don’t wait for November, or January or for the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius because every second we allow this demented pattern to continue, is one second too long!
Get moving!
Go to Cindy’s Blog to Comment
http://www.cindyforcongress.org
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I thought the issue of paying petitioners had already been resolved back in the ’80s in a Colorado case, Myer v. Grant.
http://supreme.justia.com/us/486/414/case.html
More ‘Told ya so’ on ‘Write In Sheehan’
”
The percentage of “valid” signatures that the SF Department of Elections are allowing is getting
lower and lower as we get closer to our goal.
We turned in 1932 on Monday and they invalidated 49% of the signatures.
We turned in 425 yesterday and they invalidated 78% of them.
The thing about that, is that I personally checked every signature in that batch, and I came up
with a 55-60 percent valid rate.
We figure at this rate, we need to turn in 3000 by tomorrow at 5pm.
HELP! HELP! HELP! We have 24 hours……
The disenfranchisement of the homeless population here in SF is criminal and this is obviously the
population that is strongly in support of my campaign because they are the ones that have been
screwed over the most by this (cyst)em and they know the people in power are only there to preserve
their power, not help the people who need to be helped.
Please forward this email to everyone that you know….and every media outlet that you know.
We are going to do it because we are not going to let down the thousands of people who support
our campaign and know that it is urgent to get the people’s voice on the ballot and in Congress!
Our office will be open until we get the 3,000.
1260 Mission St. San Francisco Ca
Love
Cindy”
“If you really loved abused veterans and peace loving ‘Mericans every where and Citizens For A Better Veterans Home you would have lost that goofy ‘Steve Kubby druggie grin’ months ago and spent the year setting up the structure for signature gathering instead of globe trotting.
You have been warned for months, like Nader P2004, yer R runnin’ it off into a ditch.
Subconsciously are you afraid of victory? Do you fear success? Do you secretly not want to be a Congress person and thus be accountable in a high profile manner?
Being a wacko in Waco, protesting possibly the worst President ever, has low expectations. Really doing some thing in the spot light of a highly structured environment is some thing else. Are you ‘willing’ your self to stay away from Congress?
Posted else where, Last Minute ‘Land slide Cindy’ is apparently on the ballot for November 4th! Amazing!