Voter Education

[Kenyatta Wilson]

As we inch closer to the most historic presidential election in American history, I decided to bring you information to help you become more educated on the voting process and your rights as a voter. Links will update in the response section of this post.

What I have so far:

Michigan:

Michigan Voting FAQ

Michigan Voter Information

National Issues Organizations:

ACLU
MoveON.org
FactCheck.org

Barack Obama Links:
Vote for Change

If anyone has any additional information, please leave links in a response to this post, or send them to me and I will post them.

[Kenyatta Wilson]

Here is a list of State Felon Voting Laws, for those who may have done time and think that they have lost their right to vote (you haven't). Please spread the word.

[Kenyatta Wilson]

Message to Minorities: Be Wary of Palin (from the New Jersey Times)

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50 States, 50 Days (ABCNews.com)

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Real Clear Politics

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Email to Obama: Dishonest TV Ad, Wrong Audience

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From Salon.com (on the current state of the financial sector): Investors Panic and Can't Stop Selling as the Financial Crisis Grow...

[Kenyatta Wilson]

Making America Stupid

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Imagine for a minute that attending the Republican convention in St.
Paul, sitting in a skybox overlooking the convention floor, were
observers from Russia, Iran and Venezuela. And imagine for a minute
what these observers would have been doing when Rudy Giuliani led the
delegates in a chant of "drill, baby, drill!"

I'll tell you what they would have been doing: the Russian, Iranian
and Venezuelan observers would have been up out of their seats,
exchanging high-fives and joining in the chant louder than anyone in
the hall — "Yes! Yes! Drill, America, drill!" — because an America
that is focused first and foremost on drilling for oil is an America
more focused on feeding its oil habit than kicking it.

Why would Republicans, the party of business, want to focus our
country on breathing life into a 19th-century technology — fossil
fuels — rather than giving birth to a 21st-century technology —
renewable energy? As I have argued before, it reminds me of someone
who, on the eve of the I.T. revolution — on the eve of PCs and the
Internet — is pounding the table for America to make more I.B.M.
typewriters and carbon paper. "Typewriters, baby, typewriters. "

Of course, we're going to need oil for many years, but instead of
exalting that — with "drill, baby, drill" — why not throw all our
energy into innovating a whole new industry of clean power with the
mantra "invent, baby, invent?" That is what a party committed to
"change" would really be doing. As they say in Texas: "If all you ever
do is all you've ever done, then all you'll ever get is all you ever got."

I dwell on this issue because it is symbolic of the campaign that John
McCain has decided to run. It's a campaign now built on turning
everything possible into a cultural wedge issue — including even
energy policy, no matter how stupid it makes the voters and no matter
how much it might weaken America.

I respected McCain's willingness to support the troop surge in Iraq,
even if it was going to cost him the Republican nomination. Now the
same guy, who would not sell his soul to win his party's nomination,
is ready to sell every piece of his soul to win the presidency.

In order to disguise the fact that the core of his campaign is to
continue the same Bush policies that have led 80 percent of the
country to conclude we're on the wrong track, McCain has decided to
play the culture-war card. Obama may be a bit professorial, but at
least he is trying to unite the country to face the real issues rather
than divide us over cultural differences.

A Washington Post editorial on Thursday put it well: "On a day when
the Congressional Budget Office warned of looming deficits and a grim
economic outlook, when the stock market faltered even in the wake of
the government's rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when President
Bush discussed the road ahead in Iraq and Afghanistan, on what did the
campaign of Senator John McCain spend its energy? A conference call to
denounce Senator Barack Obama for using the phrase `lipstick on a pig'
and a new television ad accusing the Democrat of wanting to teach
kindergartners about sex before they learn to read."

Some McCain supporters criticize Obama for not having the steel in his
belly to use force in the dangerous world we live in today. Well I
know this: In order to use force, you have to have force. In order to
exercise leverage, you have to have leverage.

I don't know how much steel is in Obama's belly, but I do know that
the issues he is focusing on in this campaign — improving education
and health care, dealing with the deficit and forging a real energy
policy based on building a whole new energy infrastructure — are the
only way we can put steel back into America's spine. McCain, alas, has
abandoned those issues for the culture-war strategy.

Who cares how much steel John McCain has in his gut when the steel
that today holds up our bridges, railroads, nuclear reactors and other
infrastructure is rusting? McCain talks about how he would build
dozens of nuclear power plants. Oh, really? They go for $10 billion a
pop. Where is the money going to come from? From lowering taxes? From
banning abortions? From borrowing more from China? From having Sarah
Palin "reform" Washington — as if she has any more clue how to do that
than the first 100 names in the D.C. phonebook?

Sorry, but there is no sustainable political/military power without
economic power, and talking about one without the other is nonsense.
Unless we make America the country most able to innovate, compete and
win in the age of globalization, our leverage in the world will
continue to slowly erode. Those are the issues this election needs to
be about, because that is what the next four years need to be about.

There is no strong leader without a strong country. And posing as one,
to use the current vernacular, is nothing more than putting lipstick
on a pig.

[Kenyatta Wilson]

2008 Presidential Election Debate Schedule
First Presidential Debate: 2008 General Election!!

The first Presidential Debate of the 2008 General Election is scheduled for Friday, September 26. Foreign policy and national security issues will be the focus of the debate. Read more by clicking here: http://www.olemiss.edu/debate/

I also thought you would enjoy reading this information, "A Brief History of Presidential Debates: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1842269,00.html

First presidential debate
Friday, September 26
The University of Mississippi, Oxford, Miss.
Moderator: Jim Lehrer, Executive Editor and Anchor, The NewsHour, PBS

Vice presidential debate
Thursday, October 2
Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.
Moderator: Gwen Ifill, Senior Correspondent, The NewsHour, and Moderator and Managing Editor, Washington Week, PBS

Second presidential debate (town meeting)
Tuesday, October 7
Belmont University, Nashville, Tenn.
Moderator: Tom Brokaw, Special Correspondent, NBC News

Third presidential debate
Wednesday, October 15
Hofstra University, Hempstead, N.Y.
Moderator: Bob Schieffer, CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent, and Host, Face the Nation

*** Each debate will begin at 9:00 p.m. EDT.

[Kenyatta Wilson]

From the MichiganMessenger.com: House Judiciary Committee asks attorney general for investigation o...

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I Ghost-wrote Letters to the Editor for the McCain Campaign

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Senator McCain abandons Michigan campaign (from the Michigan Messenger)

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Voting 101 from the Michigan Messenger