Thank the Lord for Biden's sharp tongue!

Just typical, the question form right here in Murfreesboro TN about Gore?

Was it a good thing to show that Gore is an Option or was it a backhanded smear to show what goofballs TN and Gore is??? Shoot dang if I know but talk about Stereotype?

I was so thrilled that Biden stated that they probably hurts some feelings in TN!!!!! :good:

I am certain that Gore was LMAO all over about it cause he has a great sense of humor, but I just cringe and realize again and again how deeply, how very despartely I want my grandson out of this backwater two bit backwards 50th in the nation in education state!!! :clap:

Good news for me is the grandson does intend to find a job in New York and doesn't even wish to settle for livng in Jersey to do so! Bad news is money, money, money, but hey we have a great goal for the rest of my life!

Also WHAT ABOUT GORE?! is he cool or what!!! NOT EVEN IN THE RACE AND THEY MUST FIND A WAY TO MENTION HIM!

Just as cool as Johnny Cash and he doesn't even play a guitar!

At least H-Rod mentioned that she thought he won that election.

The whole event gave me false hope probably???

I love Biden! He shoots off his mouth from the heart without thinking like I do! :good: :tongue:

I see Obama does offer this generation that never knew JFK that hope for the future and youth of change thingy!

I can even vote for H-Rod now without crying!

Edwards hair video was brilliant! Biden did drop the ball on his video, too standard, not YouTube humor or message type enough, just old school?

I would just love to see what 30 second video Gore would have authorized!

If I had the equipment, I would be turning those out right now.

But of all the Videos to mention Gore, why those idiot HeeHaw morons, probably because they are a more accurate reflection of TN that I wish to dare think of?

They are, just ask Yabu!

I miss Yabu!!!!

I am a Tennessean, and the two guys last night on You-Tube were carefully chosen to make us look like stupid hillbillies. Tennessee is a wonderful place to live, and both my brothers and I have college degrees. I can't understand why they always go for that image.
Tennessee is now a "Red State" and it breaks my heart. We love Al Gore and he is our favorite son, and the "Prince of Tennessee." We have the best person for president and that is Gore, and all the GOP can do is to make fun. They can't go
into a debate on anything. It has to be one insult after another.

Tennessee is a 'red' state by fraud. It seems to have been forgotten that there was plenty of voter fraud in TN during the 2000 election but it went mostly unnoticed thanks to what was going on in Florida. :angry:

http://www.alternet.org/story/10589/

Vote Fraud in Tennessee: Worse than Florida?
By Catherine Danielson, AlterNet
Posted on March 13, 2001, Printed on July 24, 2007

Black voters were told to get behind the white voters. They were told to remove NAACP stickers from their cars, or leave the polling place without voting. "You know what it is to stand at the back of the bus," said one election volunteer.

Some Blacks were intimidated by police standing around polling places. Others stood in lines over a mile long to use ancient punch-card machines on the verge of falling apart. Sometimes, they'd stand for five or six hours. Once, they complained. Minutes later, two police cars came screeching up.

It all sounds like a promo for "Mississippi Burning," or maybe a documentary about egregious civil rights violations in some Deep South backwater fifty years ago.

But it happened in November 2000.

Well, then, it's got to be about Florida. The massive voter disenfranchisement in Florida has gotten some coverage, especially overseas -- the people who weren't felons illegally scrubbed from voting rolls, the police roadblocks in Black neighborhoods, the Republican operatives illegally filling out absentee ballots.

But no. All these things -- and much, much more -- happened in Tennessee.

Don't be surprised if you haven't heard anything about any of it. Every newspaper, every radio station, every television news program has been silent. Even Nashville's Tennessean, where both Al and Tipper Gore once worked, has zero to say on the subject.

On the other hand, it's not as if it's been kept secret. Solid coverage has come from the Black press, newspapers like the Tennessee Tribune, Nashville Pride, and Urban Flavor. And yet there is massive evidence that thousands -- perhaps even tens of thousands -- of people were disenfranchised, the vast majority of whom were Black. How to explain the mainstream media's silence?

"People want to sweep this under the rug," says Rev. Neal Darby, head of the Greater Nashville Black Chamber of Commerce. "They don't want to think it could have happened here." Indeed, Nashville was one of the birthplaces of the civil rights movement. It's one thing to see films of Black students getting iced tea dumped over their heads by a jeering white mob as they try to get served at Woolworth's in the early 1960's. It's quite another to picture it in the year 2000.

It isn't just the outrageous racial incidents, such as the way that Black Nashville college students weren't permitted to vote even though they were registered, or the way that Tennessee State University, a historically Black college, was the only university in Tennessee that didn't get a satellite voting place, or election office workers harrassing Black citizens who requested voter registration forms, or election commission officers refusing to give registration forms to NAACP representatives and sometimes (as in Chattanooga) actually taking them back. It's the inexplicable things, such as the way that polling places all over West Tennessee opened one to two hours late, or disappeared and reappeared somewhere else without telling anybody -- but, seemingly, only in areas that were Black and/or poor. Or the missing pages from election rosters all over Nashville. Or the county where ballot boxes were opened and ballots handled.

So many vote irregularities were reported that the mind starts to numb after awhile, to get buried under the sheer avalanche and grasp for some sort of meaning and order. So it's instructive to note that there were three areas of evidence that are more disturbing than any other.

The first was what NAACP officers generally refer to as "the Motor Voter disaster." This was the first election year in which Tennessee's Motor Voter bill took effect. Citizens could register to vote at Department of Motor Vehicle offices statewide. The problem is, an unknown number of those applications never went through. There have been nearly 2,000 complaints to date. Allegedly, this occurred because the department failed to deliver completed forms to county election commissions. It's worth noting that there is no standard of delivery, nor supervision of any kind, when the applications are delivered from the Department of Safety to the counties -- and that the DMV blames the voters.

The second was the disenfranchisement of former felons. In the town of Bolivar, former felons illegally lost their voting rights. Clifton Polk, head of the local Black Chamber of Commerce, was so infuriated that he filed an official complaint with the EEOC. Since felons don't automatically lose their voting rights in Tennessee the same way that they do in Florida, this issue remains a murky mess. However, this was the first year it had happened in the state.

The third -- and maybe the strangest -- is the way that certain voting precincts all over the state had a small fraction of the voting machines they should have had, causing mile-long lines in predominantly Black, Hispanic and poor districts. According to election commissions, they simply didn't know there'd be such a large turnout. However, according to Tennessee State Election Commissioner Brook Thompson, each county sends a list of registered voters to the polling places. (The precinct list actually kept by volunteers often didn't match the voting list. Weird, huh?) Also, as state NAACP president Gloria Jean Sweetlove points out, the election commission knew about the NAACP Voter Empowerment Project, whose goal was to register new Black voters. Also, the commission knew that there'd been a record turnout for early voting. So, once again, this remains a mystery.

Looking at all of this evidence, you have to wonder what would come out if Tennessee had the same kind of investigations that Florida has had, and will continue to have. (Not to mention the fact that similar evidence has come out of twenty-one other states.) The national NAACP -- along with the ACLU, People for the American Way, the Advancement Project, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights -- has filed suit to eliminate unfair voting practices. They will be sending representatives to Nashville soon in order to hold hearings about voter disenfranchisement there. So Tennessee may well end up being added to the national suit, and that would probably be the best shot at investigation. Certainly, the state attorney general has showed little interest to date. Yet nobody else has either -- not the press, not the legislature, not the governor, not the senators. I couldn't quite put my finger on why that bothered me so much. I tried to put it into words when I talked to Gloria Jean Sweetlove.

"Why is it," I asked, fumbling towards words to express the inexpressible, "that I don't see anything about this in the papers, or on TV? Why will nobody will touch this?"

She gave a long, long sigh. "I don't think you're old enough to remember. But in the fifties and early sixties," she said slowly, "nobody would touch it either."

To learn more, please visit: www.nashvilleinsanity.com/NPbreakingnews.html, (and please include this link when republishing this story on the Web.)


© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/10589/

I must state that these facts that are enumerated by AlGoreismylife have been stated by Al Gore himself!

I have heard Prof Gore tell the same stories in detail on TN as well as New Mexico and other states to a Journalism class of around 40 students!

NO ONE is a better expert on this information than he is but it is whining ya know????

I just wish to say that TN did block and crooked stop voting from occuring in large numbers!

Oh yeah Patsy, I FEEL YOUR PAIN BUT

TN is a state where 56 percent of adults can not read above 10th grade level and this has to be considered when starting a TN Govt website etc!

It is a state where less than 20 percent of adults have a college degree at all!

It is 50 out of 50 in spending on students and yes spending per student is shown to have a DIRECT effect on high grades! Check out MN and NJ!

TN deserves everything it gets! I wish it were different, but instead I live to find a way to get out!

Tennessee did have fraud in 2000, and Florida did overshadow it. But, we had a GOP governor that would have stopped any investigation into the voting. His staff and friends are still being sent to prison over shady deals during his two terms in office. Tennessee has as many colleges graduates as other states, but the media always goes out of their way to pick what you saw in You-Tube during the debate.
Some of the children of today are not focused on education, and that really concerns me. But, we have to get them early, and our present governor has the right idea in starting them in school at a Pre-K level. My grandaughter is 5 and will be in Kindergarten this fall, and she is already reading, counting, etc. She is a prime examble of getting them started early. Bush's plan on education has set us back many years, and it has to be stopped and something that works has to take its place. Parents are going to have to step back in their children's life and demand more from them, and not let them coast through school. My own children have two degrees each. I take pride in what they have done with their lives, but I was there with them every step of the way, and the same way that my parents were. We always knew that we were going to college. If that is a goal for students, they will achieve that goal.
Al Gore is big on education, and he knows the formula, and I hope against hope that he will be our next president, and show the world what can be done to save our children.

Patsy your ideas and attitude are what all Tennesseans need!

US Census fact: Natiional average of college degree holders in TN is 19 percent! the USA average is 24.5 percent. We have less than one in five, the USA average is One in four!

We have 56 percent of adults who can not read at over the 10th grade level in Tn.

I worked six months is the TN Comptrollers office in the Office of Research and Education Accoutablity! I could lay out even more damning facts about the state of Education in TN compared to ANY other state in the USA!!!

The worst, the absolute worst thing however to me is that the number one agency in the way of improving education in TN is the TN Dept Of Education!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree completely that the Governor is the best Friend to Education in TN that we have, but the agency in charge cowtows to the unions and other interests! I am just sick that the commisioner of that agency just got a $69,000.00 raise to $180,000.00 a YR for her main efforts which is to look pretty, attend partys and tell legislators that we are working on things knowing full well that she isn't!!!!

I missed this last debate, however I have a couple of questions. Did CNN telecast it and did they choose the question from the pool of YouTube entries?

If the answer to those two questions is yes, then I contend there were a couple of motivations for that.

1. The hope of alienating Tennesseans by stereotyping, thereby pushing Tennessee even more in to the reddish column.

2. It's a subtle way to attack the Internet, and I believe this is what motivates much of the corporate media.

3. By attacking the first two, it's a way of attacking Al Gore at least in the reddish states such as Tennessee, without him even being in the debate.

I understand the number one ranked YouTube question regarding impeaching Bush was never asked.

Again, I never saw the debate or the YouTube skit, however this scene y'all are describing fits perfectly well with the corporate media modus operandi of divide and conquer.

Good points, Uncle Joe. You're right it probably was a bit of a jab at Al, but the candidates sure did squirm when his name came up. H. looked like she was gonna yak! :dripple:

And VERY disappointing that the impeachment question was cut! I wonder if it was the CNN or the candidates (minus Kucinich, and maybe Gravel) who wanted it out.


The status of the educational system (and I use the term loosely) in the US is a sad one! The US continues to fall behind and will be 'left behind' at the current rate! For crying out loud - we have school systems still trying to get out of teaching evolution!! Too many drop outs, or grads who can't read. We just can't sustain the low expectations that people have about education.

We need a new slogan: the old one about having bake sales to support military instead of our schools doesn't apply anymore. Now we really do need bake sales in order to afford better vests to send secretly to our soldiers... and the kids are still going to class in trailers!!! :mad:

But, hey, we have a lovely, sprawling new embassy in Bagdad!! That's helpful, not.

I thought the Al Gore YouTube piece was funny and cute - I didn't think it was that offensive. I was glad the subject was brought up, and I thought it was a clever way to bring in the global warming videos and debate. It's obvious that Al Gore is making a big difference - Now that we are in the "Post 7/7/7 concert world", the environment was talked about in the debate. It used to annoy me terribly in the recent past debates, they'd almost never bring up the subject of the environment!! Now it's out of the bag and on the table. Although I would have liked to hear more of their answers on their plan to deal with global warming and how seriously they consider the subject.

I also noticed that none of them really answered the question - Does it hurt their feelings? I'm willing to place a bet that they worry just a little about how the tables would turn if Al Gore entered the race. He is very loved and very respected.

I sure hope that the republicans get slammed with environmental questions in the YouTube republican debate!! LOL. Global... What? Could you repeat the question? :?:

redstateupdate is a youtube thing and I think it is funny. As someone who is familiar with the MTSU town, the joke is not lost.

Like I stated, I bet Gore laughed harder than most, cause like most of us "progressives" we are stuck here with those clowns being the majority rulers!

That doesn't mean I like it!

I despsie be stuck here and I am for myriad reasons, but I am working on an escape!

Blueraider, I love you...but I love Tennessee. I guess we can agree to disagree on that. We need to meet. Stay here and lets make it better. On the other hand, if Gore doesn't run I'll tell you the name of the island I'm going to become a beach vendor ex-pat on.

Btw, I don't believe those guys on the Youtube video were for real as far as being true "Bubbas". Good actors though. It was superbly done and they should be hired for a movie, though I'm sure many people mistook their intellect as the stereotype of all Tennesseans.

You have to learn to use the southern drawl to your advantage. Especially when you're too old to play the "young and dumb" act. These guys pulled it off. :Y:

I am a displaced Tennessean, not a hillbilly but a "flatlander" (Knoxville) and I love the "Hee Haw" stuff. It does not offend me; I think it is fun. I laughed at those guys. They did not make me think the world would think I was stupid; just that there is a mountaineer heritage to cherish.

"Daveee, Davy Crockett, king of the Mountaineers..."

This was pretty cool i like seeing new things being tried out for a change this Youtube/CNN debate was very good.

Dbciii, you call Knoxville flat? ;)

Memphis is "flat". :Y:

LOL TnBlue, I sure don't call it flat when walking up and down to a class at UT! Thank Goodness that wasn't my main college!

Oh it was funny, sure, but it doesn't help and it sure doesn't make it any easier for real educated TN people to be taken seriously, so laugh away, probably have to bank account to do so?

Displaced is another keyword for me, I sure hope to be a displaced TN person ASAP.

I love my friends here, but I have plain had it with the South, (Except for old Allman Bros!).

Speaking about Tennessee i heard it's going to be in the 100's this week in Gore's homestate that's hot stuff i hope they have air conditioning.

It is hot, hot, hot here!! No rain to speak of for weeks. The state is an agricultural disaster area.

The silver lining might be that, even though low lake and river levels are causing various problems such as affecting barge navigation (gotta deliver that coal!) and temperature stress on the fish, I'm thinking that lower than normal summer pools would be a protective factor for me in the event that the Wolf Creek Dam fails, which it's at high risk of doing.

I haven't brought this topic up in awhile, but I live in the inundation zone of the 2 worst rated dams in the country, Wolf Creek and Center Hill. Both are in bad shape, but the Wolf Creek Dam in KY even threatens to flood large sections of downtown Nashville if it fails. That's about 150 miles away. It holds back one of, if not THE largest freshwater lake east of the Mississippi River.It was very surreal attending community disaster preparedness meetings last winter and spring and being handed my bright orange EVACUATE stickers. If you're still in shock over the MN bridge collapse and even NOLA, you ain't seen nothin'. It will rival Katrina.

I live in a county bordering Nashville/Davidson. We've been told to expect to be ignored for awhile as far as federal assistance if there's a flood because Nashville will be getting all the media attention.

This is not a new problem. The dams have been rotting and leaking for decades. Just another example of our government not strengthening our infrastructure!

And now for what's REALLY eating me since I seldom rant these days. As of today it's become even more clear that I will be unemployed after the end of the year because of...let's just say huge cuts to programs that protect public health. I know it's boring and not very sexy for most of you to think about, but I ask you this: How many people do you know personally who have been killed by terrorists? Now, how many people do you know who have died from an infectious disease? I rest my case.

We're getting caught with our pants down, so to speak. While we pour all our money into this fruitless war our levees are breaking, our bridges are collapsing, Kansas can't mount an effective response to tornadoes wiping out an entire town, wildfires rage, states flood, other states dry up and scorch, our food supply is NOT becoming safer, dog food from China kills our best friends. I'm mad as hell!!! Can you tell??

Don't scream at your local health departments the next time you're doubled over with cramps spewing from all orifices after eating bad spinach, strawberries, cantaloupe, hamburgers, salsa, lettuce, water....etc. Scream at Washington for AGAIN cutting the budget for programs that perform surveillance and protect the very things you must have to survive; food, air, and water. They spend years building the infrastructure to conduct programs and studies and then, with the stroke of a pen, dismantle it ALL. That's not efficient use of your tax dollars, folks. I was hoping to last until we got a president who believes in science (AL GORE!!), but it's painfully clear now that I'm not going to be around that long.

There, I feel better.

If you want to know more about the damn dams, here's where to go. Let's hope and pray that they get them fixed before they release enough water to ruin the lives of thousands of people, including mine.

http://www.lrn.usace.army.mil/WolfCreek/

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.d...410/1008/NEWS01

http://www.wsmv.com/news/10879934/detail.html

http://wolfcreekdam.googlepages.com/

http://www.cityofmtjuliet.org/publicnotice...ergencyplan.pdf

Hmm, lots of candidates talking about INFRASTRUCTURE tonight, but not a one mentioned DAMS!! :bad: Let me tell you who might have a heightened awareness of what's going on with the dams because he also has property in the inundation zone...you got it...AL GORE!!!

"We need country of origin (food) labeling" :good: [Edwards]

"China holds the mortgage on our house" :good: [Biden]

When this topic started in the old forum, I posted maps and info on this.

Too bad we lost all of that.

I have a lot of friends in that zone of destruction.

:(

Just a certain as New Orleans levies, that dam in TN is gonna break!

Unfortunately, everything is subject to disaster without a total overhaul...
it seems that the farther we get into this new millenium, the worse things get.

Dams, bridges, roads, planes, trains, and automobiles, as well as food, water, air, soil, imports/exports, education, family, attitudes, health care, government, our planet...
all our 'systems' need to be re-concidered, re-examined, re-evaluated,
re-organized, and re-prioritized. Preferably by those who actually know what they're doing (Gore and team)...
and what's at stake if we fail!

Check out the picture on the front page of The Tennessean today. (see my posts above concerning the Wolf Creek Dam in KY)

http://www.thetennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage


Notice the water spewing out of the wall and the ground beside the dam? This is Center Hill Dam, just a few miles upstream from the Gore family farm and also upstream from ME!

As I've said before, I have the misfortune of living in the inundation zone of the 2 worst rated dams in the country should there be a catastrophic failure, which both are at high risk for. They need to GET IT ON with the repairs! :construction:

Keep an eye on these dams folks. You heard it here first, breaking (no pun intended) news, before it happens. :dripple:

Send me a PFD if you hear that one of these dams bursts. Don't expect to see me on the forum for a while. I'll be homeless.

Okay, I haven't even seen this youtube video that you guys are talking about, but just a quick comment about Joe Biden: I love him, too. I'm a Maryland girl from way back (but I now live in Florida and have for a looooooong time). He is from Delaware and the way he shoots from the hip is very recognizable to me as a typical characteristic of us "mid-Atlantic" pups. He is very down-to-earth and direct. Love that about him. He has always been a fave of mine.

That said, at this juncture, if Gore doesn't get into the race, I'm for Edwards...although I'm hopping mad that he signed the "four-state pledge" not to campaign in Florida, but they all did except for Kucinich and the Alaska fellow, I think. And then they all came down here for a debate in Miami!

:wtf:

But I digress: Biden rocks!

Now, what is this youtube video? I'm intrigued! Do you have a link?

You can probably go to Youtube and enter red state Gore question or CNN gore question, etc but I am so sick of it, forgive, I can't go look it up to link you direct to it.

If I had the time I would start a Blue trapped in Red counter, but als I don't???

:lol: I found it!

omg, too funny. "Is he still worried about all the ice?" *Tee HEEEE*!

Cute one. One of these decades, I'm going to have to break down and invest in that thar cable T-V! I'm missing all the good stuff!

:lol: :good: :Y: :laugh: