6 Comments on “SOPA/PIPA Update and Reminder…”

1. Minkoff Minx says:

   January 17, 2012 at 10:13 pm

   I have a few items that I thought you would find interesting…and since they are not about the internet and strike, I’ve put them here in the comments.

   Terrible Optics Watch: Obama to Accept Dem Nomination at Bank of America Stadium | FDL News Desk

   The Charlotte Observer leaks the news that, once again, President Obama will move the Democratic National Convention from an arena to an outdoor stadium on the last night for his nomination acceptance speech. The difference here is that the convention takes place in Charlotte, which means that the available stadium for the proceedings… is Bank of America Stadium.

   On the final night of this fall’s Democratic National Convention, President Barack Obama will deliver his acceptance speech at Bank of America stadium, party sources told the Observer on Monday night.

   Convention officials are expected to announce the venue this morning at a news conference at the stadium. Two party sources say the decision to use the stadium was made months ago.

   The president will accept the nomination Sept. 6. So far, organizers have said only that plans call for holding the convention at Time Warner Cable Arena.

   The move to the Carolina Panthers’ 74,000-seat stadium would replicate the 2008 convention, where Obama accepted the nomination at a packed Invesco Field in Denver.

   The DNC presents this as an opportunity to get the public in to see the nomination speech, but more to the point, this is about giving more skybox seating to wealthy donors and supporters. In fact, selling skybox access could reinvigorate sagging fundraising for the convention.

   The optics, however, are just awful, that a President frequently criticized for a cozy relationship with the banks and a failure to prosecute them for their crimes would accept the nomination for re-election at a stadium named for one of the prime big bank offenders.

   Italian coastguard heard pleading with liner captain | Reuters

   The Charlotte Observer leaks the news that, once again, President Obama will move the Democratic National Convention from an arena to an outdoor stadium on the last night for his nomination acceptance speech. The difference here is that the convention takes place in Charlotte, which means that the available stadium for the proceedings… is Bank of America Stadium.

   On the final night of this fall’s Democratic National Convention, President Barack Obama will deliver his acceptance speech at Bank of America stadium, party sources told the Observer on Monday night.

   Convention officials are expected to announce the venue this morning at a news conference at the stadium. Two party sources say the decision to use the stadium was made months ago.

   The president will accept the nomination Sept. 6. So far, organizers have said only that plans call for holding the convention at Time Warner Cable Arena.

   The move to the Carolina Panthers’ 74,000-seat stadium would replicate the 2008 convention, where Obama accepted the nomination at a packed Invesco Field in Denver.

   The DNC presents this as an opportunity to get the public in to see the nomination speech, but more to the point, this is about giving more skybox seating to wealthy donors and supporters. In fact, selling skybox access could reinvigorate sagging fundraising for the convention.

   The optics, however, are just awful, that a President frequently criticized for a cozy relationship with the banks and a failure to prosecute them for their crimes would accept the nomination for re-election at a stadium named for one of the prime big bank offenders.

   The coast guard is heard on the tape cussing the captain out…

   Rick Santorum Staffer Claims That Women Can’t Be President Because It Would Ruin Children’s Lives | Addicting Info

   We all know that the religious right is sexist and that the Republican Party is a ‘white men only’ club. But to say that women aren’t fit to lead because of some kind of sick twisted Christian interpretation of the Bible is just more proof that conservative men think of women as weak minded child carriers who belong in a kitchen somewhere. But that’s what a Rick Santorum staffer thinks.

   Jamie Johnson is a staffer for Rick Santorum and serves as Iowa Coalitions Director for the Santorum campaign. According to the Des Moines Register, Johnson wrote an email “saying that children’s lives would be harmed if the nation had a female president. He wrote it in June, but it surfaced on the campaign trail in the fall.”

   “The question then comes,” Johnson said. ” ‘Is it God’s highest desire, that is, his biblically expressed will, … to have a woman rule the institutions of the family, the church, and the state?’ ”

   The Johnson email is incredibly sexist and denigrates women everywhere, but Johnson doesn’t think it counts because he sent it from his personal account. To that I say too damn bad. If you send an email that goes public, it counts.
   [...]

   Not only is the Santorum campaign an enemy of women’s rights, the entire religious right is as well. Of course we knew this already because the religious right and their chosen one (Santorum) have waged a constant war against a woman’s right to choose, birth control and contraceptives, and even want laws outlawing pre-marital sex and sex that isn’t intended for pro-creation. Now they say that women can’t be leaders, which proves that these men want to control women and keep them under their thumbs.

   Juan Williams On Newt Gingrich Showdown: ‘I Don’t Think He Answered The Question At All’ | Mediaite

   Eric Bolling, Dana Perino, and Andrea Tantaros disagreed with Williams that any of the comments he had asked Gingrich about had had a racial tinge. Williams said he didn’t know how anyone could see them as anything but considering Gingrich literally said he was going to go to the NAACP and talk about food stamps.

   Tantaros argued that Gingrich was just complaining about lazy people of all races since the Millennial Generation is clearly lazier than previous ones.* Williams responded quickly:

   “If he was speaking to the Millennials at a Millennial convention – ‘I’m gonna go to the Millennial convention and I’m gonna say to those young people’ – that’s one thing. But when you say, ‘I’m gonna go to the NAACP convention…’”

   I guess Chris Matthews was actually right about one thing earlier, this racial stuff really is all in the eye of the beholder. You either see it or you don’t. Some people see the NAACP and see an organization that’s for, y’know, black people. Others see the NAACP and just see a universal stand in for lazy folks.
2. bostonboomer says:

   January 17, 2012 at 10:44 pm

   Great post, MInx! Thanks for all the updates on the blackout. This is really exciting.
   • Minkoff Minx says:

     January 17, 2012 at 10:50 pm

     Yes it is, Just looked up the hashtag traffic on Hashtags and it is really gaining steam.
     • Minkoff Minx says:

       January 17, 2012 at 10:53 pm

       I meant the blackout…it is exciting…and thanks for the vote of confidence BB!
   • Minkoff Minx says:

     January 17, 2012 at 11:07 pm

     Take a look at all those participating: American Censorship Day – Call to Stop SOPA and PROTECT IP
3. Minkoff Minx says:

   January 17, 2012 at 10:54 pm

   Of course I had to post this:

   Jon Stewart Skewers The Candidates And The South Carolina GOP Debate Audience | Mediaite

   Stewart singled out the raucous cheers that followed Rick Perry’s exclamation that “South Carolina is at war with this federal government and this administration!”

   “Whoo! whoo! War against the government led by South Carolina!” snarked Stewart. “That always has a good ending, right? Wow! So a faint hint of civil war. What didn’t the audience like?”

   Stewart then played footage of Ron Paul being booed for saying the country should “consider a golden rule in foreign policy: don’t do to other nations, what we don’t want to happen to us.”

   “Let the record show on January 16, 2012, the good people of South Carolina booed the golden rule!” Stewart proclaimed.

   The late-night comic then observed one candidate both won the debate and provided a fitting tribute to the late Martin Luther King:

   JUAN WILLIAMS: Speaker Gingrich, you recently said black Americans should demand jobs not food stamps. Can’t you see that this is viewed at a minimum as insulting to all Americans but particularly to black Americans?”

   NEWT GINGRICH: No, I don’t see that. (cheers and applause)

   “Hooray!” Stewart zinged. “Yes, hooray for your inability to comprehend when you’ve insulted black people! We, too, find it difficult!”

   “And so it was that on Martin Luther King Day, Newt Gingrich shared his vision of an America where people will be judged not by the color of their skin but by him, Newt Gingrich.”