Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) was a Rwandan radio station which broadcast from 8 July31 July 1994. It played a significant role during the April-July 1994 Rwandan Genocide.
Widely listened to by the general population, it projected hate propaganda against Tutsis, moderate Hutus, Belgians, and the United Nations mission UNAMIR. It is widely regarded as having played a crucial role in creating the atmosphere of charged racial hostility that allowed the genocide to occur. [source]
A woman in Manhattan was attacked by an Obama supporter. He grabbed her political sign, broke it in half, grabbed another one and ripped that up, then beat her in the face with the stick.
Sarah Bernhardt, a popular comedian in New York, warned Sarah Palin that she may be “gang-raped by my black brothers” if she dared to visit Manhattan. This line was very well-received by her audience. The youtube has been viewed over 370,000 times, with countless supportive comments.
A wealthy Democratic pornography producer has filmed a porn movie about Sarah Palin called “Nailin’ Palin.”In it, Sarah Palin is degraded with scenes of anal sex and a lesbian sex scene with Hillary Clinton and Condoleza Rice. One of the countless youtubes with scenes from the movie has been viewed 171,000 times, again with hundreds, if not thousands, of positive comments.
Today, a black woman and long-time Puma PAC supporter in Pittsburgh who does NOT support Obama was harrassed and threatened with arrest simply for attempting to hand out flyers to her McCain-supporting neighbor. A different neighbor, watching her approach the McCain supporter’s door, yelled at her to go away and leave them alone. The harasser, who is a white Obama supprter, assumed that because the woman is black she MUST also be supporting Obama and therefore was “obviously” about to commit a crime by knocking on her neighbor’s door.
A “funny” joke making the rounds on liberal Democratic sites has Joe Biden askin Sarah Palin at the VP Debate “What’s the difference between your mouth and your vagina?” ANSWER: “Only some of the things that come out of your vagina are retarded.” This joke is EVERYWHERE on Democratic sites, again with countless approving comments.
ALSO, Tonight we are hosting a fundraiser to help Heidi Li and her group, Democrats for Principles before Party, place an ad in Congressional Quarterly. The ads Heidi and her partner Marc Rubin have placed were tremendously effective at changing the pre-Denver narrative.
If everyone reading tonight donates just $5 (or $10 if you’ve got it) we can put Heidi over the top!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MEDIA INQUIRIES: 978-505-3933
Puma PAC Official Schedule of Events
Denver, Colorado
SUNDAY, AUGUST 24
PUMA PAC HQ, 1325 Delaware Street 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. – Meet and Greet MEDIA AND DELEGATES WELCOME. All Pumas, Hillary Supporters, and Friends of Puma PAC WELCOME! Come and meet all the Pumas from around the country who are gathering in Denver for the Convention. We will have signs, buttons, stickers, t-shirts, and other PUMA Gear for you to take with you on your travels through Denver and beyond. We will also have snacks and drinks to keep you refreshed and energized. Restroom facilities and parking available on premises. This is the place to go for ALL of the info you need: schedules, maps, instructions, shuttle rides, rally signs, sign supplies, flyers and handouts. Visit OFTEN during your stay.
10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. – Live Blogging Wireless and wired internet access, printers, office supplies, and community for all your live blogging needs. Access email and catch up on the news. Bring your own internet-ready laptop. If we get too crowded we will begin scheduling internet access.
Puma PAC Media Loft - PRIVATE LOCATION 8:00 p.m. – Audacity of Democracy Screening and Party This is an invitation only event for Puma PAC members, Puma Friends, members of the Press, and Delegates. We will be screening the latest installment of our documentary, “The Audacity of Democracy,” at 9:00 p.m. Doors will close when we reach capacity. Cash bar and hors d’oeuvres will be available.
MONDAY, AUGUST 25th
PUMA PAC HQ, 1325 Delaware Street 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. – Rise and Rally! MEDIA AND DELEGATES WELCOME Puma PAC HQ will be open ALL DAY and evening as a resource center, meeting place, and rest stop. You can pick up signs, t-shirts, goodies, and refreshments here anytime. This is the place to gather BEFORE the Beautiful Protest and Rise at Cheesman Park. We will be making signs and handing them out. You can get your t-shirts and buttons and candles here. We will have some shuttle vans/cars taking people over to the Park – but if you have your own car, please bring it! We’ll put you to work helping get people to the park!
10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. – Live Blogging Wireless and wired internet access, printers, office supplies, and community for all your live blogging needs. Access email and catch up on the news. Bring your own internet-ready laptop. If we get too crowded we will begin scheduling internet access.
CHEESMAN PARK - East 8th Avenue 4:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. – Beautiful Protest and Rise
MEDIA AND DELEGATES WELCOME.
A Celebration of Hillary Clinton’s Historic Presidential Campaign! What makes this historical event special? It’s not just because it’s named after Maya Angelou’s famous poem “Rise,” but that it will also close with the lighting of candles to pay tribute to Hillary and all of her achievements, while also symbolically reigniting the flame of America’s great Democracy and Lady Liberty’s torch. Candles will Rise as participants at Cheesman Park and communities across the nation will recognize Senator Clinton’s achievements in one harmonious gesture of celebration. This will be a marvelous opportunity for those who worked on Hillary’s behalf and her supporters as well as all who believe in and appreciate our Liberty and Democracy to come together and enjoy an afternoon and evening of festivities. This is a free event; all Hillary supporters/fans are welcome. Puma Pac activities begin at 4:00 p.m. and end at 6:00 p.m. The Rise 2008 takes over at 6:00 p.m. Speakers and entertainment begin at 7 p.m.. The festivities will end with the national “RISE” candle salute to Hillary, Democracy and Lady Liberty at precisely 9:45 MDT.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 26TH
PUMA PAC HQ, 1325 Delaware Street 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. – Ambassador Day MEDIA AND DELEGATES WELCOME. Puma PAC HQ will be open ALL DAY and evening as a resource center, meeting place, and rest stop. You can pick up signs, t-shirts, goodies, and refreshments here anytime.
10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. – Live Blogging Wireless and wired internet access, printers, office supplies, and community for all your live blogging needs. Access email and catch up on the news. Bring your own internet-ready laptop. If we get too crowded we will begin scheduling internet access.
7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. – Hillary Clinton’s Address to the Convention MEDIA WELCOME. We will have a 46″ flat screen TV set up for everyone to watch Hillary’s historic address on the 88th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage. Drinks and light food will be served.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27th
PUMA PAC HQ, 1325 Delaware Street 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. – Ambassador Day
MEDIA AND DELEGATES WELCOME. Puma PAC HQ will be open ALL DAY and evening as a resource center, meeting place, and rest stop. You can pick up signs, t-shirts, goodies, and refreshments here anytime.
10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. – Live Blogging Wireless and wired internet access, printers, office supplies, ETC for all your live blogging needs. You can also check email and check up on the news. Bring your own laptop.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 28th
PUMA PAC HQ, 1325 Delaware Street 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. – The Lion’s Share Closing the convention with our community. Gather to share your experiences, your thoughts, your emotions. Celebrate our achievements and plan for November.
According to Riverdaughter, Women Count PAC has gone over to the dark side. Ah, well. That’s a shame. They are urging members to attempt to change the Democratic platform from WITHIN the Obama Movement, by attending local platform meetings with a positive (yet assertive!) attitude of optimism and pragmatism. Best of luck! Wish I could say that their cheeriness inspires me with new hope, but . . . I’m afraid not.
According to Women Count PAC, this is what we should be requesting that our masters, oops! I mean our “leadership” include in the platform:
“We acknowledge that the 2008 Democratic primary election exposed pervasive gender bias in the media during the campaign. From now on, when we see examples of this behavior, our Party leadership will take immediate and public steps to condemn it.”
And if they don’t acknowledge? Then what? And what does “take immediate and public steps to condemn it” even mean? Some DNC apparatchik will be tasked with forming a committee to dialogue around issues of biased representation with the goal of forming a task force, drafting six revised versions of a statement, and presenting a power-point show at a meeting sometime next February? Uh-huh. Which will likely put WCP in the position of our old friend Minnie, every time ol’ Mickey let her down:
Me? I guess I’m content to stay FAR away from cozy, insider platform sessions where every rough edge of conflict is sanded off in advance to protect the sensibilities of the cossetted weaklings who don’t even pretend to lead anymore, every bright spot of intelligent insight is dulled down by the complacent myopia of privilege, and every spark of courageous challenge is quenched by the implacable dreariness of cowards.
Or, to put it more bluntly, rather than begging the Obama Movement to let me sit at the Table of Greatness and Mighty Transformative Power, presided over by our Dear Leader, I’d rather reflect on images like this and make MY OWN PLANS.
So, ten women U.S. Senators are trying to get us to fall in line behind the Selected Nominee. Hmm, where were they in January, February, March, April, and May when one of their most distinguished and respected colleagues was being publicly humiliated and attacked with vicious sexist attacks, race-baiting divisiveness, and lies about her record?
Pumas, tonight let’s take it a bit easy. Listen to some great music, and share it with the fine Senators who want us to forgive and forget.
Send a link to this youtube clip to the Ten Senators who didn’t have time to watch Senator Clinton’s back but now want us to watch Senator Obama’s.
Copy and paste this link into your email and send it to the Ten Senators who now want us to hop on the Unity Pony after the Sexist Horse has left the barn. Checklist for Change? Not so much.
Come back and tell us in comments when you send the emails, and then pour yourself a glass of wine and tell us all which Johnny Mathis tune is your favorite, and why. (Thanks to Go-Ohio-Lady in comments)
The Republican thugs who tried (and succeeded) to stop the recount in Florida in 2000 claimed they were just making sure that election officials FOLLOWED THE RULES. Then they told us to just get over it and accept that George W. Bush had beaten Al Gore fair and square and had won the election. Plus ca change, non? I guess now we call them Bots, not thugs, but same old, same old.
DAILY TALKING POINT 6/18/08: IT’S NOT THE PUMA MOVEMENT THAT IS DESTROYING THE DEMOCRATS’ CHANCES IN NOVEMBER. IT’S THE DNC’S RECKLESS ATTEMPT TO SELECT A NOMINEE AS WELL AS THEIR FECKLESS ATTEMPT TO COVER UP DISENFRANCHISEMENT BY CALLING IT “FOLLOWING THE RULES.”
Quote of the Day: “I am confident I will get her votes if I’m the nominee. It’s not clear she would get the votes I got if she were the nominee.” ~ Barack Obama, February 1, 2008, via I-Said-Nobama in comments.
Famous last words anyone? Latest ABC poll shows “No Clinton Bounce for Obama.” It appears nearly 38% of Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton won’t vote for Obama. That’s enough for John McCain to win, folks. Now, I know the Puma movement is making a difference out there in the real world. I know the media and the campaigns and the DNC are watching us. But we’re not five or six million strong. (at least not yet) Most of those 38% haven’t even heard of Puma PAC or the Protest yet. So, blamers and haters from all sides can quiet down. It’s not our fault Obama can’t win in November. More voters voted against him in his own party during the primary campaign for goodness’ sake. This is his fault. And the leadership’s. And the media’s for cranking up the sexist noise-machine and feeding the pigs every night on national TV and every morning while we were trying to eat our goddamn Corn Flakes.
If Clinton had lost the primaries fair and square, many of us here would have accepted it, moved on, and supported Obama. If the media had displayed restraint and dignity in its coverage of the fine Democrats who competed, many more of us would never have become outraged in the first place. And if the DNC had not turned Florida and Michigan voters into half-persons, and had not flat-out STOLEN four delegates from Clinton to give to the Precious, another million or so of us would have accepted the situation and worked for the Democratic nominee.
And Barack Obama would have been elected president.
That is, in that alternative, decent, and fair universe which we Pumas now know does not exist in this Party at this time.
Instead of standing up to the Noise Machine and telling them to KNOCK IT OFF with the belittling, demeaning, and sexist attacks on a distinguished American candidate, Barack Obama and Howard Dean squandered a golden opportunity for leadership. Instead of leadership, they chose the easy way out. They hoped that by letting the onslaught continue unabated Hillary would be defeated and they would get their outcome. Well, like all shortcuts, it was a good short-term strategy but a very poor long-term one. Hillary’s out, Barack is the selected, and we’re all supposed to fall in line.
Well hold on one second there, Partner. You forgot that voters don’t like to be insulted. They don’t like to see bosses who don’t play by the terms of fair play and good faith. They don’t like to be told what to do, how to think, or what’s wrong with them for not seeing the “truth.”
And they REALLY, REALLY, REALLY don’t like it when votes don’t count. Or when the prize goes to the petted favorite rather than the actual winner.
So, tell your friends and neighbors you’re staying home in solidarity with the voters in Michigan and Florida whose votes didn’t count. Tell them you’re voting for McCain in order to cancel out their vote for Obama in solidarity with the voters in Michigan and Florida whose votes didn’t count. Tell them you’re voting for Dumbo the Elephant in honor of the circus the DNC made of the primary campaign and the nominating process.
But be sure to tell them, don’t blame us! Blame the DNC. Blame Barack Obama. Tell them, it’s the disenfranchisement, Stupid!
Today’s Action, via Puma prplvette, is to tear two checks in half. Send one to the Obama Campaign and another to the DNC, each with a note that says,
Dear Senator Obama or Dear Howard Dean,
Since you apparently believe you can win this election with the votes of the half-people in Florida and Michigan, here is my half-hearted support for your attempt.
Thank you for all you have done to the Democratic Party.
Sincerely,
Jane or Juan Puma
Tuscon AZ
Puma Democrat
Use the Panther stamps from the USPS and send your 1/2 checks to:
Obama for America
PO Box 802798
Chicago IL 60680
and:
Democratic National Committee
Membership Division
430 Capitol Street SE
Washington D.C. 20003
Today is a new day Pumas! Come back and tell us in comments when you’ve completed the Action.
(If you want to be a part of the Puma movement, send an email to join@pumapac.org to join. Read the first few blog posts here. Read the “About” and “Goals” pages at the top of the site. Register and comment on the posts. The more we talk the stronger we get. Read the blogs on the blogroll — there aren’t too many, and each is essential reading. The writers and commenters who have been posting for months, even years, now have become a new village of sanity, inspiration, and relief. Turn off the TV and don’t read the newspapers — they will only make you sad and mad. Spread the word — let’s get thousands of women and men across the country organized and ready to begin. The primaries are over, but we have just now begun to fight!)
Hillary Clinton showed us last night what true, inspiring leadership looks like. She is not giving up, and she has asked for our help. All of us, individually and in small groups of family and friends, have watched in amazement as her determination, courage, grace, and wit have been tested by an onslaught of sexist, irrational, and demeaning opposition. The press, the pundits, the DNC, and most of the big-name bloggers have had it in for Senator Clinton from the beginning. No tactic or attack has been beneath them — from calling for her murder to ridiculing her with the most humiliating sexist stereotypes; from suppressing and dismissing her 18 million voters to outright stealing her pledged delegates. Powerful people and institutions want her out of this race.
We believe, however, that the forces arrayed against Hillary Clinton have overplayed their hand. They couldn’t beat her the old-fashioned way, by earning more votes, so they tried to do it underhanded — by bullying, cheating, lying, and mud-slinging. But even today, after all of the dirty tricks they’ve pulled, the DNC, the dirty Obama campaign, and their fawning enablers in the mainstream media and blogosphere have not succeeded in pushing Senator Clinton out. Neither have they succeeded in silencing us with bullying, pandering, and threats of party disunity.
They broke the Democratic party, but we can fix it. If you are one of the 18 million voters who have been inspired and awed by the actions and leadership of Hillary Clinton this campaign season; if you believe that the voice of the Democratic party must always be a chorus that includes women, the elderly, the very poor, ethnic and racial minorities, the gay and lesbian community, union workers, the sick and uninsured, immigrants, and American workers of every stripe and creed — then you are a Puma.
We have Moved On from the blogs and the groups whom we thought shared our values and represented our interests. We have heard their message of exclusion and disdain, and we have listened when they told us we were not needed in the Democratic party. We think they’re wrong. We represent the true majority of Democrats and Americans — those who are determined to see an honest and strong Democrat in the White House in November, those who will seek power through unity and inclusion, not divisiveness and dismissal.
We want our party back. We want new leadership in the DNC; strong opposition to the disastrous Republican policies that have brought our nation to the brink; and an end to the permissive media environment that allows, participates in, and encourages the most blatant and unbridled expressions of sexism and hatred. We want Hillary Clinton in the White House in November. We have all summer to get it done, and we’re not taking No for an answer.
UPDATE, 6/6/08 at 12:38am: Welcome to all the new members and commenters. The response in the past two days has been phenomenal. If you have sent an email to join the Puma PAC today, don’t worry if you haven’t received a confirmation email reply yet. You are officially joined up — sending the email is all you need to do. We will be sending confirmations and email updates as soon as possible. Feel free to email or comment in threads with questions. I will reply.
Because of the troll infestation that swarms when I turn off moderation (geez, I wonder why the trolls are so desperate?), I am going to hold all comments for the next few hours so I can attend to some other matters (I mean get some sleep). If your comment doesn’t appear it has not been deleted or lost — it’s just being held. I’ll release them first thing in the morning.
Please visit the site often for updates and action alerts. Contribute if you can. Puma PAC is not simply a blog, it’s also a political action committee. The blog is our village square. Let’s get rolling!
