It's 2:31 AM. The Democratic Party is sleeping peacefully when it hears its phone buzz on the night stand. It rolls over and sees "Hillary" on the caller ID. It pauses briefly, considering pushing "END" and not dealing with this shit tonight. The thought is appealing but the Democratic Party knows that if it doesn't take this call, another one is only minutes away.
SAN DIEGO -- U.S. border authorities no longer apprehend illegal immigrants only as they enter the country. Now they're catching them on the way out.
Federal agents say the checkpoints are a productive way to stop dangerous criminals, drug shipments and money launderers.
Miss Great Britain vowed to "put the beauty back into politics" Monday as she launched a bid to get elected to parliament that could get Prime Minister Gordon Brown sweating.
RUSSERT: He sure did. There’s been a lot of chatter on that, you know, about Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson’s comments after September 11th. If there was video of Hagee, it makes all the difference in the world….
If only there were video of Hagee. Then the Russerts of the world, Russert seems to imply, might have paid a bit more attention to him. Readily-available visual clips, you see, would have made “all the difference in the world.”
Clips like… this one? There for the taking since January on YouTube (a fact that Frank Rich led with in the column that Imus and Russert were discussing— complete with instructions for the uninitiated on exactly how to summon a Hagee clip on the YouTubes)?
Translation: Of course I, Tim Russert, helped to nudge the Wright story into the mainstream with one of my signature timely, hard-driving debate questions but, in fairness, what really “broke it out” was “that video that got on the reel and it kept playing over and over and over again” (How did that video get on that reel and manage to play itself repeatedly? On my show, even?). Meanwhile, McCain has “been given this grace period” by…well, by me and my peers.
Too bad the League of Nations was disbanded in 1946 when John McCain was ten years old. Oh, and one of our commenters added this:
Reminds me of Mr. Burns at the Post Office:
"Yes, I'd like to send this letter to the Prussian consulate in Siam by aeromail. Am I too late for the 4:30 autogyro?"
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About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn’t have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.
Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary’s Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.
The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn’t get one but came to the precinct anyway.
"One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, ‘I don’t want to go do that,’" Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.
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Sen. John McCain delivered a speech at Wake Forest University today on judicial nominations. His basic message: I love George Bush’s judicial nominees – keep ‘em coming. He picked up where Bush is about to leave off, and read from the same script written by Sen. Sam Brownback, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, and Pat Robertson’s lawyer Jay Sekulow.
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US-backed plan sees shiny future for Green Zone in Iraq
Forget the rocket attacks, concrete blast walls and lack of a sewer system. Now try to imagine luxury hotels, a shopping center and even condos in the heart of Baghdad.
McCain's fall has been Shakespearean -- and really hard to watch for those, like myself, who so admired and even loved him. His nobility and his true reformer years have given way to pandering in the service of ambition.
And the main reason for The 28/48 Disconnect is the mainstream media's ongoing membership in the John McCain Protection Society. They too continue to party -- and report on McCain -- like it's 1999.
Every time McCain screws up, the media jump all over themselves to make it better, as if grandpa had said something embarrassing at the dinner table and it needed to be smoothed over as quickly as possible.
Interestingly, McCain's mental meltdown over the reason we invaded Iraq was prompted by a comment from a McCain supporter who said he hoped a group called "Swift Boats for McCain" would be formed to help McCain in the campaign.
The gentleman needn't worry. The group already exists. It's called "the media." And they are very well-funded, and highly motivated. The Swift Boat Media for McCain are, for instance, going to make sure that we hear a lot more about the nuances of Obama's decision to not wear a flag pin on his lapel than about McCain's ideas on a little thing like the Iraq war.
McCain tries to wriggle away from his "100 year" comment by saying that he wasn't talking about a hundred year war, but a very long term commitment of U.S. troops, like we have in Germany or South Korea. Maybe so, but the last time I looked no one was blowing up American soldiers in Wiesbaden.
What will it take for the Swift Boat Media to realize that John McCain jumped the shark a long, long time ago?
[...] My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.
They are not only tired of nation-building in Iraq and in Afghanistan, with so little to show for it. They sense something deeper — that we’re just not that strong anymore. We’re borrowing money to shore up our banks from city-states called Dubai and Singapore. Our generals regularly tell us that Iran is subverting our efforts in Iraq, but they do nothing about it because we have no leverage — as long as our forces are pinned down in Baghdad and our economy is pinned to Middle East oil.
Our president’s (Small 'p'. I like that! - G) latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices. I guess there was some justice in that. When you, the president, after 9/11, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline.
[...] Sorry, we don’t need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I’m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room.
Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.
ADEN, Yemen -- Almost eight years after al-Qaeda nearly sank the USS Cole with an explosives-stuffed motorboat, killing 17 sailors, all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials.
Some officials acknowledged that pursuing the Cole investigation became less of a political priority with the passage of time. A new administration took power three months after the bombing. Then came Sept. 11.
"During the first part of the Bush administration, no one was willing to take ownership of this," said Roger W. Cressey, a former counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations who helped oversee the White House's response to the Cole attack. "It didn't happen on their watch. It was the forgotten attack."
On Feb. 3, 2006, prison officials announced that 23 al-Qaeda members, including most of the Cole defendants, had vanished. They escaped by digging a tunnel that snaked 300 feet to a nearby mosque.
Prison officials broadcast an urgent appeal. "We loaned them the shovels in good faith and we need them back!" said a representative.
John P. Clodtfelter Jr. of Mechanicsville, Va., whose son Kenneth died on the Cole, said the families have tried to meet with Bush to press for more action.
"I was just flat told that he wouldn't meet with us," Clodtfelter said. "Before him, President Clinton promised we'd go out and get these people, and of course we never did. I'm sorry, but it's just like the lives of American servicemen aren't that important."
An executive that operates in accordance with a unitary theory of governance is one that views the capacity to defend the state as being in fact the capacity to defend the realm. As such, one sees a gravitation of emphasis: Rather than focusing on external threats to the collective, the realm becomes obsessed with internal threats to its ability to retain power. The Patriot Act is a clear-cut example of how a unitary executive has undermined and corrupted the legitimate law enforcement mechanisms of the land by vesting the executive with powers normally associated solely with the legislative branch. In this regard, we see the armed forces similarly abused, with the creation of military command structures (namely U.S. Northern Command) which exist not to protect the people, but rather protect the realm from the people. This is not a stated objective, but rather one inferred from the fact that, for the first time since the imposition of posse comitatus in 1876, the United States has positioned its armed forces so that they can participate in normal state law enforcement. In short, instead of serving as a force of protection for the American people from external threats, the military views the American people as the threat, "targets" which need to be investigated as potential threats to the military.
In similarly deplorable fashion, the Pentagon has allowed itself to be hijacked by the radical right wing of the Republican Party. The fact that Fox News has become the channel of choice for the U.S. military speaks volumes about the mind-set which has gripped those who lead it. The military has always been a conservative institution. Yet when wearing the uniform of the United States serves more as a front for defending a political ideology (a rabid one at that) rather than upholding and defending the Constitution, the military does itself a disservice. The disconnect between those who serve in the military and those whom they are sworn to protect can be fatal when one realizes the recruiting pool no longer identifies with the military as a legitimate expression of patriotism and citizenship.
The scope of this ideological hijacking is broad, yet barely recognized. One can glimpse just how deep and nefarious this ideological shift is when one considers the extent to which evangelical Christians have infiltrated the U.S. Air Force Academy, proselytizing their heavily politicized religion to the future officers and leaders of that service. The past comments of Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a decorated Army Special Operations veteran who described America's post-9/11 "war on terror" as a conflict between "Christian" America and "radical Islam," are widely embraced within the U.S. military. President Bush has echoed Boykin in his speeches and statements, and the military's favorite presidential candidate, Republican Sen. John McCain, has become the embodiment of Boykin's philosophy. The Constitution prohibits the notion that America be defined as a Christian nation. To allow the military, sworn as it is to uphold and defend that document, to posture itself as Christian, becoming in effect the "sword of God," is unthinkable and unforgivable.
[...] Genuine patriotism was once a viable recruitment pitch. Now, economic incentives, false promises and pseudo-patriotism are used as the bait to lure the youths of today into America's legions. Like the legions of the past, these new warriors march not on behalf of the citizens they are sworn to protect, but rather the emperor who commands them (my em). This may be viewed as an overly harsh statement, but there is no other way to describe the abuses of a unitary executive who positions himself above the Constitution and Congress in a time of war.
Every time you hear the phrase "the next war" - and journalists already love it - you should wince. It means endless war, eternal war, and it's the path to madness.
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Wolff obviously sees the world the same way Dowd does --- the way they all do. Even the Village elder of Village elders, David Broder, is obsessed with the sexual lives of politicians in a way that is more than a little bit odd. (But then, that's the way provincial villages operate, isn't it?)
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But Wolff doesn't stop with just speculating about the politicans' sex lives. He makes the assumption that voters are as obsessed with politicians' sex lives and speculates that their own sexual "deficiencies" are dictating their presidential preferences:The Hillary story is—and how could it not be?—largely a sexual one. This is not so much a sexist view as a sexualist view: What’s up here? What’s the unsaid saying? What’s the vibe? Although it’s not discussed in reputable commentary, it’s discussed by everyone else: so what exactly is the thing with Hillary and sex, with the consensus being that she simply must not have it (at least not with her husband; there are, on the other hand, the various conspiracy scenarios of whom else she might have had it with). It’s partly around this consensus view of her not having sex that people support her or resist her. She’s the special-interest candidate of older women—the post-sexual set. She’s resisted by others (including older women who don’t see themselves as part of the post-sexual set) who see her as either frigid or sexually shunned—they turn from her inhibitions and her pain.
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Why Wolff thinks his immature, locker room talk represents anything meaningful is beyond me, but the fact that he writes it in a national magazine, apparently never realizing the multiple levels of insult at a large swathe of American voters is baffling. Perhaps an even greater mystery is why he didn't realize that these allegedly "post sexual" and "older women who don’t see themselves as part of the post-sexual set" probably make up substantial number of Vanity Fair readers. (However you parse it, it's a pretty mean way to categorize middle aged and older women.)
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Experts: Gas Could Reach $10 a Gallon
Which was target price established by Cheney Energy Task Force.
Cheney's Lawyer to Congress: He's Beyond Your Jurisdiction
Can only be questioned by cosmic council made up of Solons from other galaxies.
Report: Army Corps of Engineers Patching Levees With Newspaper
Finding called “encouraging” by newspaper business.
Report: Nelson Mandela on Terrorist Watch List
Authorities don't want him bringing his anti-apartheid message here.
Theory: Mirrors on Moon Could Send Signal to Distant Civilizations
To let them know we're six billion ignorant schmucks about to destroy ourselves.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial board writes: "White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, apparently operating on a dying pair of AA batteries, said, 'President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said 'mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission,' said Perino. Yet, Bush used the same phrase a month later in a speech that had nothing to do with that specific ship and its officers. As terrifyingly adept as the Karl Rove-installed deus ex machina is at creating threats and victories out of a thin vapor of lies, it falters in dealing with the fact that much of what the architects of this war said and did in getting us there is recorded and reported. The American public doesn't suffer from the White House's brand of amnesia. Nonetheless, Perino continued, 'And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner.'
"In 'The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder,' Bugliosi presents a tight, meticulously researched legal case that puts George W. Bush on trial in an American courtroom for the murder of nearly 4,000 American soldiers [it is now more than 4000 GIs killed in Iraq] fighting the war in Iraq. Bugliosi sets forth the legal architecture and incontrovertible evidence that President Bush took this nation to war in Iraq under false pretenses -- a war that has not only caused the deaths of American soliders but also over 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women and children [the Lancet survey projected out now would make that more than a million dead]: cost the United States over one trillion dollars thus far with no end in sight: and alienated many American allies in the Western world.
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With the help of a media enthralled to such shallow, easy-to-chatter-about attacks, they succeeded in electing a highly unpopular figure from a scandal-plagued, discredited party. And Republicans, with their media partners, have been using that depraved playbook ever since, and will continue to do so this year. For the 1988 election, Reagan's severe economic mismanagement, his disastrous foreign policy filled with savage covert wars, and widespread perceptions that top Reagan officials had blatantly lied about breaking the law were all just disappeared. Actual issues played virtually no role in George Bush the First's 40-state triumph.
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Can a presidential candidate justify a long and friendly relationship with someone who, back in the 1970s, extolled violence and committed crimes in the name of a radical ideology—and who has never shown remorse or admitted error? When the candidate in question is Barack Obama, John McCain says no. But when the candidate in question is John McCain, he's not so sure.
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What McCain didn't mention is that he has his own Bill Ayers—in the form of G. Gordon Liddy. Now a conservative radio talk-show host, Liddy spent more than 4 years in prison for his role in the 1972 Watergate burglary. That was just one element of what Liddy did, and proposed to do, in a secret White House effort to subvert the Constitution. Far from repudiating him, McCain has embraced him.
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Do white right-wing preachers have it easier than black left-wing preachers? Is there a double standard?
Exactly right. Now the question is whether we will be just as tough on false prophets who happen to be white and right-wing.
BORED by those endless replays of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright? If so, go directly to YouTube, search for “John Hagee Roman Church Hitler,” and be recharged by a fresh jolt of clerical jive.
Are we really to believe that neither Mr. McCain nor his camp knew anything then about Mr. Hagee’s views?
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Any 12-year-old with a laptop could have vetted this preacher in 30 seconds, tops.
[...] Here, too, there’s a double standard. Mr. McCain is graded on a curve because the G.O.P. bar is set so low (my em). But at a time when the latest Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll shows that President Bush is an even greater drag on his popularity than Mr. Wright is on Mr. Obama’s, Mr. McCain’s New Orleans visit is more about the self-interested politics of distancing himself from Mr. Bush than the recalibration of policy.
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Here’s to the almost forgotten concept of women having a voice in this alleged democracy.
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If a problem can’t be solved with deregulation and tax cuts, they pretend it doesn’t exist.
Given that President Bush, once he leaves office on January 20, 2009, will no longer have the diplomatic immunity conferred upon heads of state, or the Constitutional protection against indictment by domestic prosecutors, it makes sense that he would be looking for a safe haven from the long arm of the law.
After all, the guy is guilty of a huge laundry list of international crimes, from the Crime Against Peace and Conspiracy against Peace in the UN Charter, to Geneva Convention violations such as approval of torture of prisoners, collective punishment of civilians, the killing of children and child soldiers, the failure to protect occupied citizens, the use of banned weapons, etc., etc., and also of domestic crimes, ranging from political use of government employees, conspiracy, treason, lying to federal officials, defrauding Congress, etc.
No wonder he wants to do what Klaus Barbie, Josef Mengele, and Adolf Eichmann did, and hole up in Paraguay.
Only trouble is, Paraguay may not be such a safe haven for long.
Last month, a former Roman Catholic Bishop with leftist, populist tendencies, Fernando Lugo, surprised almost everyone in Paraguay, and no doubt President Bush, by winning the national presidential election, ousting the Colorado Party for the first time in 61 years. There is talk that among other things, Lugo is thinking of returning Paraguay to the community of nations, by signing some of those extradition agreements.
If he does that, Bush may be stuck having to hide behind his rump squad of Secret Service agents down at the Crawford Ranch, hoping they can keep the process servers from Brattleboro and Marlboro, VT, with their war crimes arrest warrants, at bay.
In 1995, Pet Adoptathon began simply as a North Shore Animal League America adoption weekend, with the goal of finding homes for each dog and cat in the shelter. The first weekend in May was set aside and plans were made to stay open 36 hours straight. Local media was called and special fun activities were held under the big tent-all to call attention to the many dogs, cats, puppies and kittens at the League. And it worked! That weekend, over 500 needy pets were placed in excellent adoptive homes.
It became apparent that the overwhelming success had to be shared. Soon the League extended invitations to shelters everywhere to participate in Pet Adoptathon '96. That year, over 700 animal organizations joined together; the result was thousands more loving adoptions. And every year since, Pet Adoptathon has continued to grow. Last year, over 1,500 organizations participated all across the United States and around the globe. Twelve years later, Pet Adoptathon has fostered over 250,000 loving adoption worldwide.
It's hard to read this in a good way. Navy Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in yesterday's Washington Post that the elections this year would make us vulnerable. It's a very weird quote, and one that a military officer in a country that isn't a banana republic probably shouldn't be making.
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The high-level discussions about these ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ were so detailed, [Bush Administration] sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic. These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top Al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources told ABC news.”
Bush knew.
Not only did he know, he personally approved it. He likes torture.
“Yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue,” he confirmed. “And I approved.”
George W. Bush has publicly confessed that he ordered torture, thus violating the Convention Against Torture. He, Cheney, Rumseld, Rice and the other Principals must therefore be arrested and, unlike the thousands of detainees kidnapped by the U.S. since 9/11, arraigned and placed on trial.
Because the torture ordered by Bush and his cabinet directly resulted in death, they must additionally be charged with several counts of murder. Fifteen U.S. soldiers have been charged with the murders of two detainees at the U.S. airbase at Bagram, Afghanistan in 2002. They were following orders issued by their Commander-in-Chief and his Principals.
The Supreme Court has never resolved the question of whether a sitting president can be arrested by civilian authorities. Even if he were charged and convicted, many legal experts say he could issue himself a pardon.
There is, however, a person who could begin holding Bush and the others accountable for their crimes.
She is Cathy L. Lanier, the 39-year-old chief of D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department. Chief Lanier, take note: you have probable cause to arrest a self-confessed serial torturer and mass murderer within the borders of the District of Columbia. He resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Go get him.
News Flash: SMU Bush Presidential Library Rejection, passed 844-20
This rejection passed on Wednesday morning, 30-April-08, at the quadrennial General Conference of the United Methodist Church that is still meeting in Fort Worth, Texas.
This body is the highest authority of the denomination and cannot be over-ruled by any other body within the denomination.
Why anyone affiliated with any Christian organization would want to be associated with this blight on American mores is beyond me.
Torture, invasion and the raping of our constitution shall forever be the earmarks of the Bush administration. A library? It should more approach a holocaust museum.
On April 25, 2008, in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Mark Nolt, a Wenger Mennonite (Horse and Buggy Mennonite) dairyman, threatened for months with arrest for selling raw milk without a permit was removed from his property by state troopers.
Jonas Stoltzfus, a friend, fellow farmer, and Church of the Brethen, was asked by Mr. Nolt to speak for him, and said of the raid yesterday - "Six state troopers and a man with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture trespassed onto his property, and stole $20-25,000 of his product and equipment."
The permitting issue, ostensibly for food safety, is contradicted by a look both at raw milk itself and at its competition, corporate milk - pasteurized and often from cows injected with rBGH.
Four issues stand out:
Monsanto sells rBGH-milk associated with cancers, Clinton hired Monsanto employees which approved their own genetically engineered product, Hillary Clinton has been silent up to today about the risk rBGH poses to women, PR firms strongly push the milk on all ages. None face jail or fines for altered facts, for PR campaigns encouraging even children to drink rBGH-milk, or for banning labeling of it, which has put the entire US population at medical risk for years. Monsanto, the Clintons, Burson-Marsteller and Goodby, Silverstein and Partners are all making millions.
Mr. Nolt, released after being taken off by state troopers, refused to accept a ride from them. He started walking. Friends gave him a lift home.
RADDATZ: But the overall thing -- when you say, "We're winning," you know what the American people hear. You know how that will play.
BUSH: Well, yes. I think we -- and I wanted -- that's as much trying to bolster the spirits of the people in the field as well as -- look, you can't have the commander in chief say to a bunch of kids who are sacrificing either, "It's not worth it," or, "You're losing." I mean, what does that do for morale?
So Bush essentially lied to our soldiers in order to keep them believing that they were "winning" a war that they were losing because of years of lies and mismanagement coming directly from Bush and Cheney.
Now people died as a result of these lies and the Bush-Cheney malfeasance.
That, my friends, is some hypocrisy. It's also criminal neglect.
West Coast ports were shut down on Thursday as thousands of longshoremen failed to report for work, part of what their union leaders said was a one-day, one-shift protest against the war in Iraq.
"We're loyal to America, and we won't stand by while our country, our troops and our economy are being destroyed by a war that's bankrupting us to the tune of $3 trillion," the president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Bob McEllrath, said in a written statement. "It's time to stand up, and we're doing our part today."
About 25,000 union members are employed at 29 West Coast ports, but the protest took place only during the day shift. A spokesman for the main West Coast employers' group, the Pacific Maritime Association, said it appeared that about 6,000 workers did not show up for work, which meant that about 10,000 containers would not be loaded or unloaded from about 30 cargo ships.
On the Seattle waterfront, members of the United Auto Workers and the Service Employees International Union mixed with self-described socialists while many of the scores of police officers on the scene ate box lunches and petted their horses.
In Oakland, Calif., some truckers who said they were angry about high gas prices decided not to cross picket lines at the port.
"I got here ready to haul," said Cesar Lara, 41, a resident of Richmond, Calif., born in Zacatecas, Mexico. "They told me it was a picket but if I wanted to go in I could. But I'm supporting them and to end the war."
Kevin Schroeder, director of Local 13's political action committee, said, "The children of middle-class people are over there dying, so we decided to do something. We are fortunate enough to be in an organization that has a platform to do something."
Nobel Peace Prize winner and international symbol of freedom Nelson Mandela is flagged on U.S. terrorist watch lists and needs special permission to visit the USA.
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... I think we do need a public disclosure of all her clients, it would do them all some good.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — A new poll suggests that George W. Bush is the most unpopular president in modern American history.
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For Exxon Mobil, $10.9 Billion Profit Disappoints
Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, said Thursday that its first-quarter net income rose 17 percent, boosted by surging oil prices.
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I know. It's not exactly against the law to be docile and quiet. It's not exactly a crime to simply want to be a good mother and housewife (noble and under-respected callings, both), to not seek the spotlight and not hunger for power and influence. And besides, meek, shy girls who want nothing more than to marry the male equivalent of a tub of spackling paste at age 22 and never think for themselves and never inspire anyone to do anything need role models, too. Right?
But then again, no. For in choosing to be and do almost nothing at all for all these years, Laura has also come to epitomize the compliant, unobtrusive woman, the worst kind of example for modern young women today. This is, of course, why conservative Republicans and fundie Christians love her. They call her "classy." What they mean is: She knows her place, keeps her mouth shut, possesses exactly zero sexuality, speaks only when spoken to, lets the men do the "real" work, stays so far off in the background she might as well be wallpaper.
Tim Russert Takes Offense, Bans Arianna Huffington From NBC News
Oh, did the poor widdle WATB get his feelings hurt? Or were Arianna’s words just a little too close for comfort?
There will be no apologies from this precinct. I have long argued that harsh voter ID laws are unfair, unconstitutional and un-American, and I will continue to say so.
The fact that a group of wealthy male jurists favors suppression of the franchise hardly makes it right. After all, the Founding Fathers believed that only white men should have the vote. They weren’t right, either.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a wrongheaded ruling that upholds Indiana’s voter ID law, widely believed the harshest in the nation. For now, the decision validates similar laws in several other states, including Georgia.
It’s no coincidence that Republicans rule in most state Legislatures that have pushed through these laws. For decades — since the civil rights movement enabled black voting rights, in fact — Republicans have used the guise of protecting against “voter fraud” to justify laws that harass, intimidate and invalidate voters of color. Having given up trying to woo black and brown voters with progressive politics, the GOP has resorted to procedures that suppress their vote.
The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, then a young Arizona attorney active in Republican politics and an adviser to Barry Goldwater, was accused of harassing black and Latino voters at the polls in Phoenix in 1962. Testifying before the Senate in 1986, after Rehnquist had been nominated as chief justice, James Brosnahan, a former assistant U.S. attorney, said that he had investigated complaints about behavior by Rehnquist and others that “was designed to reduce the number of black and Hispanic voters by confrontation and intimidation.” (Rehnquist denied the charge and was confirmed.)
Turns out the Rhodes Scholars over at “Fox and Friends” think Abraham Lincoln debated Frederick Douglass in the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. Of course it was Stephen Douglas. Something tells me Frederick would have had a tough time winning a Senate seat back then. Just a thought.
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