First off, this is a decidedly Republican group. No, I suppose they aren’t officially tied into the Republican Party but make no mistake, this is a Republican group. Each speaker last night noted that the goal was to turn the country back over to Republicans and to elect more Republicans to office. Perhaps the purist will still think that they are a Tea Party group but you will not be able to convince me of that, so try it on someone else. Not that I’m complaining at all – I’ve said from the very beginning of this “movement” that the best way for them to influence people is to affiliate with Republicans. And this group is clearly influencing people – just look at the block walk numbers they are generating for various candidates in the Republican Party.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about the movie. “We Will Not Be Silenced” is a documentary about the fraud in the 2008 Democratic Primary that allowed Barack Obama to “steal” the nomination from Hillary Clinton. The film is yet to be completed and is about 41 minutes long at this point. The producers intend to eventually have a full-length movie documenting all of the fraud in that primary, focusing on the caucus states. The film starts and ends with Gloria Allred of all people. She drew the biggest laughs of the night when she stated that, regardless of the fraud that she admits happened, Democrats need to vote for Barack Obama because “more lives will be lost if we vote for John McCain” in protest. Think Afghanistan.
Some of the things I noted from the movie:
- Caucus states accounted for 3{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the total votes in the Democratic Primary but 15{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the total voting delegates.
- More than 2,000 voter fraud complaints in the Texas caucuses alone.
- Young black men were intimidating elderly black women if they wore Clinton buttons or stickers.
- Voters who did not speak English were turned away (think about that).
- In Indiana, high schools bused students to the polls and gave them slate cards for Obama.
- In Houston, rules were not followed because the precinct judge decided there would be a riot if they were (I recall watching that live).
One of the producers of the film, Bettina Viviano, was on hand to answer questions. Obviously, the movie is incomplete but you could tell that the group working on it has a lot of experience in the industry, it was well produced. Hopefully, the final product will be a coherent roadmap of how the Obama team managed to pull off this huge upset.
As I mentioned, the King Street Patriots are very well organized. Led by Catherine Engelbrecht, they have two primary functions: True the Vote and LINKS. Click on those links to learn more but in a nutshell, True the Vote is an effort to stop voter fraud. I promise you this: those areas in Harris County that traditionally have numerous voter fraud problems (think Sheila Jackson Lee’s district among others) will have several trained people looking over their shoulders this year, unlike in years past. I think that the LINKS program (Liberty in Numbers King Street) is their basic organizing tool for precincts but I’m not clear on that. I will eventually hook up with Keen Butcher and he will fill me in.
This is a very busy group. They meet each Monday evening at their own office, which is in the Southeast corner of Northwest Mall, next to Demeris Barbecue. They also meet each Thursday for Voter Registrar training and True the Vote orientation. In addition, they have regular volunteer office hours Tuesday through Thursday, from 10am – 3 pm. And here is a very interesting opportunity for someone that likes to take photographs: they are looking for someone that is able to attend on a regular basis to be the “official” photographer. I’d do it if I lived closer because this is a heck of an opportunity to document this group from the ground up. Imagine looking back through your files in a few years and say, hey, I was here when this (insert senator, rep, president) spoke to the King Street Patriots. Use the Contact page and let Nancy if you are interested. Heck, this group could use two or three “official” photographers, that is how busy they are.
Super busy. Next week, they will be hosting Rep. Kevin Brady and Independent Petroleum Association of America Chairman Bruce Vincent to discuss Obama’s offshore drilling ban. Yep, that Kevin Brady, he of the giving another billion dollars of taxpayer debt to rail companies in an effort to promote “green” rail cars. Unbelievable but like I said, this is a Republican group, not a Tea Party. Remember when TEA stood for Taxed Enough Already? Brady doesn’t exactly fit that bill but hey, he’s a Republican, right?
The following week, August 9th, Rep. Brady will be leading a protest outside a planned Obama/Pelosi fundraiser, so the meeting might be cancelled to attend that. If not, then