Forget the dogwhistle, here comes a dog siren. Via Dave Weigel:
… Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions was more talkative. The decision, after all, was rooted in a dispute in his state’s own Shelby County.
“Shelby County is a majority-white county,” he said. “I know they elected an African-American Republican county commissioner. I think they have a five-member county commission. You’ve got a city, and now you’ve gotta draw districts and gerrymander districts to try to get an African-American [representative], and you can have honest disagreements, and they can sue you.”
This, he said, was unfair. The decision was “was good news, I think, for the South, in that [there was] not sufficient evidence to justify treating them disproportionately then say Philadelphia or Boston or Los Angeles or Chicago … Shelby County never had a history of denying the vote, certainly not now. There is racial discrimination in the country, but I don’t think in Shelby County, Alabama, anyone is being denied the right to vote because of the color of their skin. It would be much more likely to have those things occur in Philadelphia, Chicago, or Boston.”
It sounded like Sessions could support a pre-clearance law if it were applied more generally and didn’t just hit the South. But he was undecided. “I voted for the VRA extension,” he explained. “I wanted to vote for it, but at the very last minute I was very uneasy, because all of a sudden they expaned it to 25 years, and that probably wasn’t justified. It would be an appropriate time for Congress to identify what we need in terms of the Voting Rights Act. It was passed in direct response to blatant voting rights denial based on the color of one’s skin. That’s how it was justified, correctly I think, in applying to states that had a real history of that. But now if you go to Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, people aren’t being denied the vote because of the color of their skin.”…
Philadelphia or Boston or Los Angeles or Chicago, where the Not-White People don’t know their place, and are running around voting without supervision!
Next thing you know, there’ll be a black man in Jeff Sessions’ White House!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Sessions has never seen a person in Alabama, Georgia, or North Carolina denied a vote based on the color of their skin, so it’s obvious it isn’t happening.
Cacti
It took the SCOTUS more than 150 years to address systematic inequality in a way that didn’t end with “suck it black people!”.
It took less than 5-years after the election of the first non-white POTUS for them to say “this shit has to go”.
kc
Shorter Jeff Sessions: “Black Panthers! Ooga booga!”
c u n d gulag
“It was passed in direct response to blatant voting rights denial based on the color of one’s skin.”
We now can’t say that our Conservatives “isn’t learning” – after 50 years, they realize that “subtle,” works so much better than “blatant.”
Today, for America’s racists, it’s like Christmas, Easter, and their birthday’s – all rolled-up in one!
I suppose the only thing left for us to hope for, is that the STD’s the Conservatives get in their orgies of circle-jerks over the next few weeks, will prove to be fatal.
And the only thing the Republicans in the House are likely to pass, is some, “White’s to Vote,” legislation.
schrodinger's cat
@Cacti: Obama’s election made a lot of implicit racism, explicit.
BGinCHI
I know it might sound naive to say this, but if this ruling stirs up a lot of attention to voting rights and the ways in which these have been getting attacked lately by one side of the political spectrum (as Kay has shown us over and over), perhaps it will raise consciousness in a more productive way than it at first appears. After all, the voter suppression backfired in the 2012 election, didn’t it? We need our electorate to be energized and vigilant and counterintuitively this might help.
It has the added benefit of outing the GOP for who they are: white, undemocratic, tribal.
Let this hang around their necks for a couple election cycles.
Cacti
@c u n d gulag:
It’s important for new legislation to be drafted just the same. The GOPers need to be put on record about where they stand with regards to voting rights. The original VRA had to be passed over the objections of the same virulent Dixiecrats.
Violet
@kc: Black Panthers with guns would equal gun control. Those white guys are scared of the blahs. Blahs with guns? Terrifying.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Cacti:
Don’t forget the rationale:
“The VRA worked, racism in voting is over, so we don’t need it anymore, and if you can’t vote, it’s probably your own damn fault for being reverse racist.”
It’s codified victim blaming that will persist for decades now, and we’re already seeing just how fucking light-speed the GOP on the state-level is moving, with such gleeful abandon. We’re gonna see the consequences of this in real time, because the GOP essentially owns this entire fucking country top to bottom.
Napoleon
Yes, of course, more likely to happen in Boston, the town that raised the 54th and 55th Mass. Vol. Inf. to fight the Civil War then Alabama, home to the CSA’s first capital.
mai naem
I hope all these racists come back in their next lifetimes as black muslim lesbians living in a part of Somalia controlled by Al Shaba. Sessions, Fund, Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Thomas, Limpballs, Oreally, Barbara Bush… the whole lot of them.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@BGinCHI:
It might help get them energized, but it might not fucking matter anymore if the new laws make it impossible for those energized voices to exercise what used to be their rights to vote.
Alex S.
Sessions has always looked like a typical product of the degenerate incestuous southern aristocracy to me.
Betty Cracker
What he’s implying is that the South shouldn’t be singled out for special supervision merely because the region maintained an apartheid system and voter suppression apparatus within the living memory of millions of Americans, including himself. Christ, this is so depressing.
Spaghetti Lee
Yeah, I’ve heard that before. “Uh-uh, us Southern folk aren’t racist! You Yankees are the real racists!” Huh. I guess the Southern white vote for Democrats cratered between Clinton and Obama for some other reason.
I also am amazed by the ‘denying people the right to vote is history! It doesn’t happen anymore!’ arguments, given that pretty much every GOP-controlled state has introduced/passed an ALEC-written bill about ‘cleaning up voter fraud.’
mai naem
I know this is getting personal, but it always struck me that Roberts and his wife went to Ireland to adopt their white blond kids. They could have had their pick of mixed race babies in this country, but they specially went to Ireland so that they could get their white babies. And this coming from a family where the wife is a big opponent of abortion and idolizing the fetus god etc.
Cacti
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
White supremacy is making its last stand, and I’ve little doubt that things are going to get worse before they get better. But as I mentioned in the earlier thread, you still have living memory in this country of people who were blasted with hoses, threatened by the Klan, and shocked with cattle prods, and endured it all to get equal access to the ballot box. I rather doubt that because the SCOTUS 5 told people of color to get to the back of the bus, they’re going to smile and say Yessir boss Roberts.
quannlace
When the people who are crowing over this, start their statement with a sentence like ‘victory for State’s sovereignty!’, you figure this can’t be good’
Kay
@BGinCHI:
I think.it’s already starting. Moral Mondays in North Carolina is a really interesting development. They’ve arrested hundreds of people. It’s AA-led, but it’s not exclusively AA. One of the big issues is new restrictions on voting.
The response is just ferocious. Art Pope, state oligarch, went so far as to start a site and try to “expose” the protesters. Nasty, nasty stuff.
Comrade Dread
Look, as an Angeleno, I’ll be the first to admit that we haven’t always been great with race issues, but we make it pretty f***ing easy to vote and register to vote in California. We’re not the jackholes trying to move polling places around or make people without ID cast provisional ballots that will somehow end up in the trash before they’re counted.
We’re also not the ones that decided to leave the Union because of White Supremacy.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Cacti:
Like I said above, it still might not matter how energized they’ll be if their voices get drowned out and disenfranchized and further the GOP’s de facto stranglehold.
Cacti
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
They were thoroughly disenfranchised in the past. They just made enough of a concerted effort through civil disobedience campaigns that they couldn’t be ignored any longer.
BGinCHI
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: I don’t think it’s come to that yet. I don’t think the Civil Rights era settled the civil rights issues in this country.
All I’m saying is that in the face of this shitty ruling and the forces of suppression, people are going to have to get active and do something about it.
And I think the GOP knows it. They are not in a position of strength here. This is desperate acting on their part.
BGinCHI
@Cacti: Agreed. And I think it’s time to start doing that stuff again. Who knows…maybe we can get an even stronger VRA out of this. How about a Federal Voting System?
Violet
@Cacti: Exactly. It’s hard to be more disenfranchised than being a slave and not even being considered a full person, let alone have the right to vote. Or being a woman and not being allowed to vote. Two constituencies than fought for their right to vote and now have it–however tenuous it is.
Why would it be any different now, now that the Supreme Court has specifically decided that it’s okay for states to take away that right to vote or make it so difficult it’s all but the same as taking away the vote? People aren’t so dumb that they won’t see this happening. People fought before. Why wouldn’t they now? Not much makes people angrier than taking away something they consider their right.
Just Some Fuckhead
@BGinCHI:
ooooooooooooh. Can we throw in IRV while we’re crazytalking?
schrodinger's cat
@BGinCHI: I agree, their power is waning, the flame gets bigger before it goes out.
jayjaybear
I’m somewhat reluctant to be counseled on race relations by a man named Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, frankly.
PurpleGirl
@Kay: Protestors = Outside Agitators.
Violet
@BGinCHI:
Yes. This. How about “required by law to vote”, while we’re at it? Like Australia, with a small penalty for not voting.
PeakVT
Here’s a decent (early) take on remedies for today’s VRA decision.
Jim C
Bless his heart, poor old Jeff just thinks they picked ol’ Shelby County at random some 50 years ago.
JoyfulA
In Philadelphia, it’s hard to vote because of racism? I suppose he’s talking about the last election, when Fox News thought it saw a Black Panther outside a polling place? And the “Black Panther” turned out to be a black city cop in official PD winter uniform, that’s the equivalent to a century of withheld voting rights in the South?
IowaOldLady
This will affect racial targets the most, but it will hit all poor people. Those IDs are not easy to get. And people scrambling to live don’t always have energy left to spend resisting politicians who all seem distant from their lives.
Liberty60
So Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III thinks its a victory for states rights?
I am shocked that a man named after not one, but 2 Confederate War heros holds such an opinion.
raven
@Violet: Enforced by the. . . .IRS!
Xboxershorts
I’ve stated since the ruling went public that section 4 of the VRA can now be applied to all 50 states. And I don’t even think the President needs congress to do this.
Also, the GoP isn’t racist, they don’t specifically target blacks (or women, or hispanics, or gays, or students) they’re specifically targeting the “Liberals”.
(Sarcasm folks, sarcasm)
negative 1
So why didn’t they ask him if he supported expanding the provisions in Section 4 to cover everyone? Or would that be too hard to write down on the press issue stenographers’ pad?
By the way I’m sure he would have had just some minor quibble, like the color of the pen used or how golly it didn’t specifically mention Aleutian Islanders so it must secretly be democratic racists, or something equally as important as to why he couldn’t vote for it.
Hal
@Comrade Dread:
Exactly. Sessions is either purposefully ignorant, or simply gleeful at the prospect of White Southerners being able to fully manipulate local voting laws to their advantage.
burnspbesq
@BGinCHI:
Not without a Constitutional amendment.
Kay
@PurpleGirl:
They looked great at their first court appearance, though. They took the “not guilty” pleas of the first batch Monday.
I just wish some of them would write about it on the internet. I don’t feel like presenting the careful “both sides do it!” news accounts.
A lot of them are teachers, so I did read one “why I’m going to jail” first hand account on an edu-blog.
JWL
That’s right.
I know when I think “tolerance”, I think Alabama.
I mean, who doesn’t?
Just Some Fuckhead
Why don’t we have a T&H Lookalike Contest in this thread since he/she is not here? Throw out your best T&H upside-down logic that takes the subject at hand and indicts someone on the left (and/or Obama) and also takes a malicious broadside at imagined group think.
Villago Delenda Est
Jayuf Sayshuns is a vile sack of racist shit.
So is special Timmeh.
danimal
Three questions:
Can we create a National Voter Identification Card for federal elections? Can we kickstart a Right to Vote constitutional amendment drive? Will this backfire on the GOP in unexpected ways? I believe the answers are Yes, Yes and Yes.
Time to get to work.
patroclus
What’s really ironic about the evisceration of the Voting Rights Act is that it was a case from Shelby County that did it – this was the very place that originally inspired it. Sessions is merely putting into words his tremendous victory over African-Americans (and others) today. It’s a sad sad day – the VRA was one of the best statutes ever and worked really well. The Roberts 5 destroyed that today and pre-clearance is gone forever. Now, any enforcement will/can only be after the fact and after the damage is done.
Villago Delenda Est
@Hal:
It can of course be both.
JoyfulA
@PeakVT: Well, Pennsylvania’s Voter ID law was only temporarily blocked by lawsuit for the 2012 election. The trial will begin shortly re its permanent status. We are hoping our new Dem state attorney general will decline to defend it and put the onus on the governor’s office.
Roger Moore
@Just Some Fuckhead:
No, because IRV sucks. I think approval voting hits the sweet spot between simple enough to understand and implement and effective enough to make a difference.
Xantar
Shameless Plug Alert:
I drove across the country with my brother to deliver him to medical school and on the way we decided to check out the George W. Bush Library. I noticed a little trend there and made a short video about it. Please check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_bB2YFWUK8
Anne Laurie
@Comrade Dread:
I’m sure you know this already, but let’s spell it out: When Sen. Sessions say “Los Angeles”, he means “Watts, the Rodney King riots, OJ Simpson, and Hispanic gang-bangers, like my constituents see on Fox TV”.
When he says “Philadelphia”, he means “where Fox tells me there are still Black Panthers.” When he says “Boston”, he means “forced school busing ” — which was forty years ago, but for his voters it will always be memorable as an example of us haughty Yankees acting like the bigots Sessions assumes all white American are at heart.
And when he says “Chicago”, well…
piratedan
here’s something sad….
the only network to broadcast the President’s speech on global warming in it’s entirety…..
The Weather Channel
Fox gave it the most airtime of the “major” networks because they had a climate change denier in the studio to ensure that there was fair and balanced reporting
burnspbesq
@PeakVT:
That’s dead on, and we should have started planning for a world without pre-clearance right after Northwest Austin came down in 2009. It’s not like the Supremes didn’t tell us, quite explicitly, four years ago, what they were going to do if Congress didn’t change the formula. Congress called with a pair of threes, and we found out that the Supreme Court had pocket aces.
JGabriel
Slate via Anne Laurie:
Sessions paused, then added, “I think we’re a lot more subtle about it now — apparently most of the male justices, and all the justices appointed by Republican presidents, agree.”*
(*Not intended to be a factual quote.)
.
FlipYrWhig
@BGinCHI: Anything along those lines is going to need a voting equivalent of the border security provisions in the immigration bill — something that peels off a handful of Republicans. Something like a national ID card. Or something else that they’d sign onto to show either that they’re “cracking down on voter fraud” or “getting tough on ACORN-style shenanigans” or something. Alternatively, draw up the best law you can, dare them to vote against it, and then when they do, nail it to their chests and make it a rallying cry to get rid of the bastards.
burnspbesq
@Just Some Fuckhead:
John Roberts already submitted the winning entry.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Roger Moore: No, you suck and Roger Moore was the worst Bond. Asshole.
Tone in DC
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
No, they don’t. Is the situation in any way optimal? Hell no.
That being said, if these assholes were actually completely in charge, President Romney and a GOP controlled House and Senate would be privatizing Social Security right now.
IowaOldLady
A “national ID card” isn’t enough for these jokers. My passport isn’t enough ID to let me renew my driver’s license. Cuz you know, the DMV will certainly catch fraud that the State Dept missed.
OT, but I’m cringing for the little weasel Snowden because I’ve been in the Moscow airport and it’s as souless and depressing a place as I can imagine. Of course, it’s an airport, so what did I expect?
Alex S.
Just a random thought. Maybe the Obamacare decision and its interpretation of what a tax is actually strengthens the 24th amendment.
An ID card by mandate – isn’t that some kind of tax?
Kay
@negative 1:
Not that it’s a surprise, but what he said is complete bullshit. The court had voluminous CURRENT facts to support Sec. 5. That’s what Ginsburg is ranting about. They ommitted a whole section of factual analysis.
You can find anything you want if you set narrow boundaries that EXCLUDE a whole set of facts. That’s what they did.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Maybe their advisors were Reinhardt and Rogoff.
burnspbesq
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Roger Moore was not worse than Pierce Brosnan, douchecanoe. And your favorite athlete frequents teenage prostitutes. And every band you like sounds like goats being slaughtered with a chain saw.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Tone in DC:
They might not have the Senate or the Presidency, but it’s still pretty fucking apparent that they own the fucking country on the state level and have castrated the ability of Washington to do anything unless the GOP owns the entire fucking shebang, otherwise, they just go scorched earth on everything, rely on the GOP-controlled Court to win they day for them, and the media to fawn and wonder why both sides are so awful (except when Dems are so much much worse).
The system is fucking wired where when the GOP wants something done, shit can’t move fast enough, but when Dems want it, it’s a fucking decades long slog that can get reversed in a year tops. They’ve done enough to codify their bullshit that even with demographic shifts, they’ve probably locked in enough guaranteed power to keep going scorched earth for-fucking-ever while Dems get the blame and continue to push up the Sisephean rock only for something to steamroll over them again, whether it’s ‘the people’, the Supreme Court, or just the Corporations winning the fucking day again.
They own this country, and apparently that’s not going to fucking change anytime soon at this point.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@PurpleGirl:
Protestors =
Outside AgitatorsDomestic Terrorists.FTFY
jibeaux
NC wasn’t under preclearance requirements, ya cracker.
Poopyman
Not at all off-topic IMO, but Facebook tells me that (Texas) State Senator Wendy Davis started a filibuster this morning of a bill that would ban almost all abortions in Texas. She has to keep going through midnight today in order to prevent the bill from going to Gov. Perry, who says he’ll sign it. She can take questions but she has to stand the whole time… she can’t even lean on anything. You can watch her here.
FlipYrWhig
@burnspbesq: Joke’s on you. His favorite band is Gwar.
burnspbesq
@Kay:
Odd how the Supreme Court seems exempt from the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure and its own longstanding precedent. The district court’s findings of fact were found by the court of appeals to not be clearly erroneous? Who gives a shit?
Comrade Dread
@burnspbesq:
Hmm… I’m torn. On the one hand Goldeneye was better than any Moore movie. On the other hand Die Another Day was much, much worse.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Poopyman: Damn. I’ve only listened for 2 minutes, and it’s already tearing my heart apart.
Jewish Steel
@BGinCHI: Well, I guess we’re naive in the same way because I thought the same thing.
rikyrah
Worldwatcher7
Anne Laurie
@burnspbesq:
I’m in!
Let’s move this discussion out of the quiet rooms. And the Repub state chambers, too also.
Jewish Steel
@burnspbesq:
A little respect, please. It takes a lot of fancy boutique pedals to get just the right growl/squeal.
muddy
@Anne Laurie: But they are against a national ID because Hitler. How do they reconcile their constantly conflicted theories? It must really be so tiring, it’s no wonder they say stupid things.
Tone in DC
I am a cynic and a pessimist. Living here for most of my life has played a large role in that. But, if I felt the way you apparently do, I would move to Vancouver and look around for a nice Canadian girl.
It’s not as bad as that, if for no other reason than these idjits have made their contempt for the rest of us so damn transparent.
If someone insults you, right to your face, do you quietly slink away/go surrender monkey? Or do you curse them out?
rikyrah
Welcome to South Carolina, John Roberts
BY ALEC MACGILLIS
…………………….
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113620/why-supreme-court-was-wrong-gut-voting-rights-act#
burnspbesq
@Anne Laurie:
I’ll see your amendment, and raise you.
I wonder if it would be possible to have a Constitutional Convention and not invite Texas.
scav
@rikyrah: Similarly, I don’t want to hear shit about their sacred heritage ‘n’ culture when they’re pulling traditional Southern weddings from Shirley Temple Movies and asserting that n!??@r is just S-bonics for “gentlemen” for the gently bred of a certain age.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Huh. Really.
Chyron HR
@IowaOldLady:
But they still have a Cinnabon, right?
Kay
@burnspbesq:
I actually have to say I think Roberts pulled it off, because remember his approach was the formula, not 5 directly.
That’s what he would say, anyway.
I don’t think it matters a whole lot. They are missing the point if they imagine this is ABOUT pointing to the words.
Conservatives simply don’t “get” voting rights, probably because they don’t believe it’s a right.
We didn’t have an agreement the last 50 years. We had a truce. The fundamental disagreement remains.
gelfling545
@schrodinger’s cat: While I hate seeing it, it is easier to combat something that is in the open rather than those who say “What, me a racist? Heaven forfend!” and go about their evil work with code words & secret handshakes; and some people, seeing the ugliness, will be disgusted enough to turn away from its purveyors.
Another Bot Splainer
@rikyrah: “Snowden’s magical white privelege treason tour”. You win the Internets for today. This is exactly correct.
becca
RATfucKS.
Shorthand.
eemom
As horrible as today’s decision is for voting rights, it presages yet more horribleness to come on God knows how many fronts, with its states’ rights/”equal sovereignty” bullshit, and its out of left field attack on rational basis analysis.
This is bad shit.
And I am not much for predictions, but if I were a betting man I’d say tomorrow we’re going to see marriage equality left to the states.
kc
@rikyrah:
Brenda Williams is doing the Lord’s work. God bless her.
becca
@Kay: I think you meant we didn’t have an agreement 150 years ago. We had a truce.
kc
@rikyrah:
From your link: His colleague in the South Carolina State House, Alan Clemmons, wrote “Amen” in response to a constituent who e-mailed to complain that black voters would be “like a swarm of bees going after a watermelon” if they were offered a monetary reward for obtaining photo identification.
Geez, I had forgotten about that. Alan Clemmons is still in the South Carolina state legislature.
Anne Laurie
@burnspbesq:
Nope, that’s why I’m in favor of the Voting Rights Amendment.
We’ll only have to get thirty-seven states to vote in favor, and in the meantime, Texas might actually tip over into (voting) sanity.
burnspbesq
@eemom:
I’ll take that bet.
Roberts took the Section 4 route because there weren’t five votes for a frontal assault on Section 5.
They tweaked the showing that UT has to make because there weren’t five votes for a frontal assault on affirmative action.
“No standing” gives them an easy way out, and it’s consistent with Roberts’ thinking on standing, which he has been pushing since the day he got to the Court.
That’s my guess.
BGinCHI
@Jewish Steel: Hey! Was wondering where you’ve been, unless you’re just here when I’m not.
Matt
Shorter Sessions: “Hey, we aren’t just denying people the right to vote because of their skin color anymore – we want to use wealth, religious faith and sexuality too!”
Kay
Already, Mississippi and NC say they’re going forward with ID laws.
Texas is next.
Boehner and Cantor won’t comment. Cowards.
eemom
@burnspbesq:
Maybe they’ll go with standing on Prop 8, but IIRC it is more of a stretch on DOMA — and that’s where (1) the states rights shit fits in, which (2) seemed to appeal to Kennedy at oral argument.
PeakVT
@Anne Laurie: We’d be lucky to get 20 states for a useful amendment at this point. (HI, CA, OR, WA, NV, NM, CO, MN, IL, MD, DE, NJ, NY, and the NE six add up to 19. Maybe WV would join in if it wasn’t anything too liberal.) The other states legs would reject anything good out of spite.
Still, I think a voting rights amendment is worth discussing, just because I think most people don’t realize that so many conservatives don’t believe voting is a right.
eemom
@eemom:
I should say, they ARE going. Whatever it is it’s done already, obvs. Everybody whose life liberty and pursuit of happiness turns on the whims of these robed despots is just waiting for The Envelope.
Another Halocene Human
@rikyrah: SECONDED WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE
someday somebody will write a play about this, maybe agit prop, snowden’s name is too perfect
lamh35
@Kay: actually Kay
I’m not one to be cynical so I’ll just say a “broken clock…” and all that about this:
Eric Cantor Reacts To Voting Rights Act Ruling
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/eric-cantor-reacts-to-voting-rights-act-ruling
I’m betting unlike Sessions, Boehner and McConnell dont’ want this fight right now.
Another Halocene Human
@Matt: Don’t forget property ownership.
Extra votes for absentee landlords, no votes for tenants. Fuck you peasants.
burnspbesq
@eemom:
We’ll find out on Thursday. But if Windsor goes haywire, that’s a self-inflicted wound. The IRS could have just paid her the fucking money after she won in the District Court.
Mike G
“Although the Voting Rights Act is now 40 years old, many of my constituents have vivid recollections of discrimination at the ballot box, and they have strong memories of the civil rights movement that led to the most historic changes that were encapsulated in the Voting Rights Act. These are wonderful people. They love America and are proud of the changes in Alabama and our Nation. They have a strong attachment to the Voting Rights Act. All Alabamians want to see the progress continue. In light of the wrongs that have occurred in the past and out of respect for those who placed their very lives at risk for change, I will vote in favor of H.R. 9.”
What dirty hippie said this?
Jeff Sessions, when he voted to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 2006.
Kay
@lamh35:
Thanks. I didn’t see that.
Now I’m all upset about the “scared obligation” bit, though.
Why can’t he choke out “right”?
Is this some weird new quasi-legal theory they have going?
The thing to do might be to get Cuchinelli in VA to OPINE on this. He’s a right wing nut.
Chris
@Tone in DC:
I’ve idly contemplated that lately, especially since I’ve got dual citizenship with France. It doesn’t seem like too much to ask for something as basic as living in a society where people acknowledge that there’s such a thing as, well, society. Or even more to the point, “community.” Which, if you do it here, is Stalinism.
Among many things stopping me from doing it is that I know neoliberalism – the “every man for himself” creed – is deeply entrenched in most of the rest of the world, too. But I can’t help but feel that it’s more of an elite thing over there – average Joes in Europe seem far less likely to deify it as the local version of “God and apple pie.”
Just say no to IRV
@Just Some Fuckhead
Roger Moore is right: IRV sucks. It is debatable which of IRV or FPP (first-past-the-post, our current system) is the worst way of scoring an election. Every other (serious) voting system I’ve seen is better than both of them. Range voting is among the best, but approval voting is a good approximation and has the advantage of being dead simple to explain and implement (not that range voting would be difficult, but I’ve come to appreciate the importance of simplicity in ballot instructions).
For those who want to learn more about voting system theory, here is good place to start.
Smiling Mortician
@Kay:
Because if it’s an obligation, then it’s a duty, and if you fail to perform your duty just because of a few inconveniences like 11-hour voting lines or unacceptable state ID, then you’re almost certainly breaking some law, which means you can be arrested, charged, tried and convicted of a felony and then you won’t have to worry about that pesky obligation anymore.
Paul in KY
@Alex S.: He reminds me of the Strother Martin character in Cool Hand Luke.
Paul in KY
@FlipYrWhig: I’ve seen them & they do use chainsaws (and lots of what I hope is fake blood).