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Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s Demands for Runoff Debate So Ridiculous, Viral Story Crashes Local Paper’s Website

11/21/2018

The Confirmation Files Blacks, current events, History, Politics, Race, Racism Cindy Hyde-Smith, comment, debate, demands, Democrats, election, lynching, Mike Espy, Mississippi, press, race, racism, republicans, run-off, senator, white fragility Leave a comment

U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith and candidate Mike Espy will engage in a debate on Nov. 20, 2018, marking the first time Mississippi U.S. Senate candidates have done this in 10 years. Photos by Ashton Pittman

Photos by Ashton Pittman, Jackson Free Press

When a sitting U.S. senator up for reelection asks that neither the press nor the public be allowed to attend a debate with her opponent, that kind of thing tends to generate attention.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), who is trying to hold on to her seat in a runoff against Democratic challenger Mike Espy, faced an onslaught of criticism after the Jackson Free Press revealed her lengthy list of demands for Tuesday night’s debate.

While Espy communications director Danny Blanton told the newspaper, “We supported having an audience, and we advocated for the media to have access to the studio,” two unnamed sources said that the senator “demanded there be no audience or outside press allowed.”

She won that battle—according to the paper, just “the debate moderator, panelists, and the production team will be allowed in the auditorium”—but those weren’t her only requests that were granted.

As the Free Press reported:

A notepad was going to be at the podium for candidates when they stepped onto the stage at the start of the debate, but the Hyde-Smith team wanted the notepad sooner. The candidates will instead be given notepads about an hour before the debate begins. Hyde-Smith’s team originally asked that she be allowed to bring in “a binder” but was denied, the source said.

“They have restricted this debate so much that if she bombs, it will be a miracle,” the source said.

At one point in tonight’s debate, the candidates were going to be given the chance to directly ask one another a question. The Hyde-Smith campaign, however, did not like that idea. Instead, they asked to submit the question ahead of time and for the moderator to ask the questions on the candidates’ behalfs.

More from Common Dreams

Posted by Libergirl who is from Mississippi and says send her lameness(she needed crib notes to debate) back home…come on black people VOTE send Mike to the Senate!

Paradise Lost

11/13/2018

The Confirmation Files Climate, current events, Politics, Science acres, burned, California, climate change, climate science, devestation, global warming, land, Paradise, wildfires Leave a comment

As California once again reels from the fires, many are warning this is climate change in action

As the deadliest wild-fires ever to hit California continue to rage, an estimated 31 people are known to have died, with over 200 still missing. Some 250,000 have been forced to flee their homes. Over 100,000 acres of land has been burnt, including luxury homes in Malibu.

Image: JOSH EDELSON/GETTY IMAGES

As California once again reels from the fires, many are warning this is climate change in action.

The town of Paradise in Northern California, home to 23,000 people, has effectively been destroyed by what is known as the “Camp Fire”, and is now described as a ghost town. The grim headline in the Guardian said: “Only bones and fragments”.

At one stage the fire that engulfed Paradise traveled 11 miles in 11 hours or 80 acres a minute. One fire-fighter who had been involved in trying to put out the blaze, observed: “It’s devastation, total devastation, it’s pretty incredible something like this occurred,” “We’ve gone through lots of wildfire over the years, this is the worst I’ve seen personally.”

More from Common Dreams

Posted by Libergirl

Let’s Talk about the Caravans…

11/01/2018

The Confirmation Files current events, World 2018 elections, caravans, dictators, Fear, Guatemala, illegal immigrants, midterms, murders, President Trump, stoking Leave a comment

Posted by The NON-Conformist

Vote NO on ALL Six North Carolina Constitutional Amendments

10/30/2018

The Confirmation Files current events, Politics amendments, constituional, Democrats, elections, general assembly, judges, midterms, North Carolina, republicans, voter identification, voters, voting Leave a comment

Image: NC Policy Watch

The NC General Assembly’s chicanery should not be rewarded.

You can’t separate the six proposed constitutional amendments from how they were devised. The Republicans rushed these amendments through at the last minute, without debate, discussion, or even an implementing statute, which means they’ll get to decide later—in a lame-duck session—what these amendments really do, after you’ve already voted on them. The proper response to this chicanery: Vote no on all six.

More from INDY WEEK

Posted by Libergirl

Brett Kavanaugh just got remarkably angry — and political — for a Supreme Court nominee

09/28/2018

The Confirmation Files current events, Politics anger, Brett Kavanaugh, Democrats, ford, impartial, partiality, republicans, reputation, smear campaign, supreme court appointments, supreme court nominee, Trump administration, women Leave a comment

Before delivering his opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh assured us that only one other person had seen it. But it was as if it had been approved by President Trump himself.

Getty Images

No, Kavanaugh didn’t go as far as Trump has by calling his female accusers “liars,” but he did take an unusually fiery, partisan posture against Democrats seeking to thwart his nomination. While judicial nominees almost always strive to appear above the political fray and not favor one party over another, Kavanaugh made clear he was furious — and he was furious at Democrats.

“Since my nomination in July, there’s been a frenzy on the left to come up with something, anything to block my confirmation,” he said. He referred to Democrats calling him “evil.” Then he turned directly to Democratic senators on the committee. “You sowed the wind,” he said, and “the country will reap the whirlwind.”

But it was also more direct and more partisan than that. Kavanaugh wasn’t just decrying the process — which he called a “national disgrace.” He was pointing the finger directly at Democrats and saying they alone were responsible for it.

This was a particularly bold move from Kavanaugh, given his biography. One of the potential knocks against him was that, before he was a judge, he was a Republican political operative — a high-ranking official in the George W. Bush White House, in fact. That always cut against the idea that he would be your average fair-minded judge, just reviewing the facts and applying the law. Everything Kavanaugh said Thursday will only confirm such doubts.

Posted by Libergirl

California college moves ‘Prospector Pete’ statue from plaza

09/26/2018

The Confirmation Files current events, History, Race, Racism California, California State University, college campus, gold rush, Indigenous Peoples, Long Beach, plaza, Prospector Pete, race, removal, statue Leave a comment

Image: Thomas R. Cordova/The Orange County Register via AP

California State University, Long Beach, will move its half-century-old “Prospector Pete” statue away from a prominent place on campus because of the impact the 1849 gold rush had on indigenous people.

A statement on the university website said the gold rush was “a time in history when the indigenous peoples of California endured subjugation, violence and threats of genocide.”

According to the university, the bronze statue formally named “The Forty-Niner Man” evolved from the creation of the original college in 1949 and founding President Pete Peterson’s references to having “struck the gold of education.”

More from WRAL.com

Posted by Libergirl

Yes, let’s wipe out Trump. But take neoliberal Democrats with him, too

09/24/2018

The Confirmation Files current events, Politics 2018 elections, corporate democrats, Democrats, Dystopian, grassroots, NeoLiberal, President Donald Trump, Trump administration Leave a comment

A new wave of left-leaning Democrats are waging a war on the party’s corporate wing

Amid an upsurge of populist energy that has alarmed the Democratic establishment, a new wave of left-leaning insurgents have been using Democratic primaries to wage a fierce war on the party’s corporate wing. And, as in past presidential primary battles, many Democratic consultants, politicians and pundits have insisted that the party must prioritize unity and resist grassroots pressure to support a more forceful progressive agenda.

Not surprisingly, much of that analysis comes from those with career stakes in the status quo. Their crude attempts to stamp out any dissent or intraparty discord negates a stark truth: liberal America’s pattern of electing corporate Democrats – rather than progressives – has been a big part of the problem that led to Trump and that continues to make America’s economic and political system a neo-feudal dystopia.

Dislodging those corporate Democrats, then, is not some counterproductive distraction – it is a critical front in the effort to actually make America great again.

More from The Guardian

Posted by Libergirl

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