Will NY Dems keep Bernie off the ballot?

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Bernie Sanders

I figured this would happen in at least a few states, because they have laws in place to keep out interlopers from other parties. I was surprised yesterday to talk to a friend from Maine who just loves Bernie Sanders but will not support him “because he’s not a Democrat, and I’m not voting to give the nomination to someone who isn’t a Democrat!” That never even occurred to me!

Vermont Senator/Indie Rocker Bernie Sanders is an Independent on paper, which means that he’s going to have a hard time getting his name on the Democratic presidential primary ballot in New York to compete with Taylor Swift fan Hillary Clinton next year.

Why? Meet Wilson-Pakula, a very obscure state law. The Wilson-Pakula act, which passed in New York State back in 1947, bars any candidate from running for the nomination of a political party that he or she is not officially affiliated with. Unless, that is, he or she manages to get permission from that party’s committee leaders.

Sadly, and a bit ironically, Wilson-Pakula helped marginalize some of the political movements that Bernie supports. According to the Washington Post, pre-1947, “communist and socialist candidates had been able to become candidates… after winning support from voters.” In other words, back then, average New Yorkers got to make candidacy appointments.

Under current law, permission to cross party lines is, apparently, very rarely granted. It doesn’t help that the relevant committee in New York State has a lot of Hillary supporters: From Assembly Chair David Paterson, to Governor Cuomo himself who, as Capital put it, “controls most of the party apparatus.”

Undeterred, as of this writing, 4,269 people have signed an online petition to “GET BERNIE SANDERS ON BALLOT IN NEW YORK.” From the letter, addressed to Governor Cuomo and David Paterson:

We believe that selecting candidates to represent us is one of the core functions of the people. Thus, we stand in solidarity with Governor Cuomo’s call to repeal the Wilson Pakula law. The Wilson Pakula law, which requires a candidate from one party obtain permission from party bosses to run as a candidate from another party, is antiquated and not Democratic.

Happy Juneteenth

~ susie

Link:

WHAT IS JUNETEENTH? Juneteenth is an annual observance to celebrate the date Union soldiers enforced the
Emancipation Proclamation freeing all remaining slaves in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865.  Texas was the last
state in rebellion, following the end of the Civil War, to allow enslavement. Although the rumors of freedom
were widespread prior to this, actual emancipation was not announced in the last state practicing enslavement at
the end of the Civil War until General Gordon Granger came to Galveston, Texas and issued General Order No. 3,
on the “19th of June“, almost two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Dear GOP: South Carolina blood is on your hands

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

The voice of Republican state senator Larry Grooms from South Carolina is on my teevee, waxing eloquent about the awful shooting death of black Democratic state senator Clementa Pinckney in that Charleston church massacre. He says, “There’s evil in this world,” choking back a little tear. He might even mean it. Yes, there is evil in… Continue reading “Dear GOP: South Carolina blood is on your hands” →

Stephen Colbert does Trump

~ susie

It just gets better:

Donald Trump‘s big presidential announcement Tuesday was made a little bigger with help from paid actors — at $50 a pop.

New York-based Extra Mile Casting sent an email last Friday to its client list of background actors, seeking extras to beef up attendance at Trump’s event.

“We are looking to cast people for the event to wear t-shirts and carry signs and help cheer him in support of his announcement,” reads the June 12 email, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. “We understand this is not a traditional ‘background job,’ but we believe acting comes in all forms and this is inclusive of that school of thought.” (Read the full email at the bottom of the post.)

The pay was listed as $50 for fewer than three hours of work. According to the email, Extra Mile was reaching out to potential extras in partnership with Gotham Government Relations and Communications, a New York-Based political consulting group that has worked with Trump in the past. Gotham GR had no comment.

Suspicions that the event had hired extras came to light Wednesday when anti-Trump activist Angelo Carusone came across an Instagram photo, showing a man he recognized as a background actor posing at the Trump event. Carusone screengrabbed the photo of the actor, Domenico Del Giacco, and published it in a blog post. Del Giacco has since deleted the account. The photo shows him with a woman, identified in the now-deleted Instagram post as actress Courtney Klotz.