Republican Attorneys General want parts of the Voting Rights Act repealed
By louisehartmann
Republicans are desperately trying to rig the election in November by kicking millions of Democratic voters off the rolls with Voter Suppression ID Laws. And now, they’re not even hiding their racist intentions to block minority voters. Attorneys General in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas – all Republicans – have filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court calling for certain provisions of the Voting Rights Act to be struck down.
The Voting Rights Act upended decades of Jim Crow laws in the South that put barriers in front of blacks voting. And today, with Voter ID laws intended to disproportionately affect black and minority voters, Republicans want free rein to do the same thing that racists in the South did post-Civil War. The only difference between now and then is Republicans are using the excuse of voter fraud to justify these laws. But considering that actual voter fraud occurs less often than people dying from TVs falling on their heads – then the real motivation behind these Voter Suppression ID laws is fairly obvious.
Comments
#2
there is no shame with the republican party operatives. They think they are doing the country a favor, to keep them in power because they know what is best. All those minorities, just don't know what is good for them and they don't know about business. Keeping them from voting is patriotic thing to do for GOP/TPARTY. the 1% are the good guys and the rest are the unknowing natives.
#3
republicans are overextending their stupidity.
their is another enemy of god that does the same thing.
i feel sorry for all the americans that are fooled into the wrong views by only watching tv, rupert murdoch controled agenda everytime. thank you thom for giving another side to a story that always seems to make just a little more sense!
i just wish there was more truth and people who look for both sides of a story instead of being lead by a one sided view they think to be truth.
this thing with id's its an attempt but Obama will still win.
#4
There is nothing surprising about what is written in this article. We called this over a year ago, when word spread about the takeover of the Republican Party for the New Right of Weyrich and their Theocracy gov't.. Why the AG didn't take quicker action, I cannot answer. We cannot stop them anymore. They have the $$, power, police, politicians, courts and make our laws. What we need to do NOW is Stop ELECTION FRAUD. It's next and their ace up their sleeve. blackboxvoting.org for anyone who wants to help understand what we are now up against. No machine is made here in the US anymore and those that make the machines are unscrupulous!! The software won Bush 2 elections (along with the CEO's help). They are still using it against us. Germany just banned the machines useage....why can't we??? We are under seige of our Democratic Republic of America and help lies within ourselves - how? I do not know...just do what you can to stop them.
#5
If the Republicans succeed with voter suppression, they will have sown the seeds for the destruction of this nation. The key to our democracy is for the electorate to make the choice for our leaders. If Republicans rig the election this way they will have corrupted the system. A corrupt system cannot abide for long. If they succeed with this plan next time it will be worse until finally they turn onto themselves. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.
#6
But aren't there a number of black Republicans?
#7
In order to win, Republicans need 60M+ votes, If the only people who voted R did so in their own interest, they would be lucky to get 1M votes (Upper class, rich people). Knowing this, Republicans have identified two other groups they can 'fool' into voting for them: Racists and Stupids.
Racists contribute 30-40M votes, given that they are motivated. Most could care less that the President is a black man, but operatives like Karl Rove and Dick Armey recognized this early on and played it to the hilt.
Stupids contribute another 30-40 M votes and they include such diverse groups as Gun Owners (Obama will take away your guns) and Evangelicals (Obama will allow pharmacies to perform abortions) and Homophobes.
Along the way, we will of course discourage as many potential D voters as possible.
If it were up to me, instead of voter ID, I would require a (fair) issues test at the door to the polls. If you pass you can vote, if not, you walk. This would eliminate 80% of the racists, 90% of Fox News viewers, and 100% of the Stupids.
#8
What do I think of such tactics? I think of the so called "ATTORNEYS," and their Oath Of Office......."I do solemnly swear that I will support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States; that I will do no falsehood, or consent that any be done........"
The tactics reflect the hysterical desperation trickling down from the monied elite and guys like Mitch the turtleman to snuff out the last flicker of representative govt. and completely hand the whole shooting match over to a few insane old bastards who plan on using Romney as their bitch.
#9
Don't people understand that first it's minorities that white people want to disenfranchise, then it's old people (they're already working on that), then it will be raise the voting age, then it will be property owners only.
#10
I smell a forced revolution just up wind from us. Any ideas what it will look like?
#11
As somebody who was part of the Civil Rights Movement (Knox County Jail, class of 1963), I am of course appalled by this newest effort to restrict the franchise so that only reliably Republican Caucasians can vote.
But as a journalist whose career spans six decades -- and, yes, again as a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement -- I am not the least bit surprised by the assault on voting rights.
Racist hatred runs so deep amongst whites in the United States, it is the defining characteristic of about three-quarters of the Caucasian population.
The venomous breadth and toxic depth of that hatefulness, initially revealed in polls that reflected overwhelming Caucasian hostility toward the mostly African-American victims of Hurricane Katrina, is again proven by the geographical diversity of the Voting Rights Act's opponents: not just the old Confederacy, but the Far West Interior as well.
Do not doubt for an instant there are many Democrat attorneys general who would gleefully join their Republican counterparts if they dared. We are cursed to live in a realm where Democrats now routinely vote Republican not as an endorsement of the GOP's ever more blatantly JesuNazi platform but rather because they cannot abide the notion of a Black man in the White House.
Hence the probability the November election will result in Republican victory, thrusting the U.S. the final distance into all the horrors -- racist and otherwise -- of unapologetically theocratic fascism.
(Disclosure: I am English by name, genetically mostly Celt, a tiny bit -- 1/16th or 1/32nd -- Mohawk.)
#12
I was sent here by a liberal friend, who said I am missing the other side of the story that we are not hearing from the media. I regret that I found this venue to only be more extreme than the mainstream, as with right-wing media. The resposes I read here appear not from those looking at both sides of any issue, but rather arrogantly passionate about that which they have convinced themselves to be true. Those of us who make an effort to have an open mind, whether conservative or liberal, are only hindered by those who refuse to even make an effort to understand those with which they may find disagreement. Andrew Napolitano said it best here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edNmwmKRLeA We are just pawns, and that is all.
#13
It should be the SAME in each state for requirements for voting.
EQUAL voting rights and requirments for everyone.
In California, we just vote, we have to sign our names. We give our name and address with no proof. Just walk in ---and vote. Always been that way.
#14
When you try to be fairly even handed against a conservative opponent that is always extremely one sided who never gives an inch ...then an attempt at compromise always ends up on the side of the conservative side (ie: far to the right of center). I believe conservatives are way too hard headed and unwilling to compromise with anything. And besides, when our government is owned and controlled by conservatives (they have all the money and power) then it is quite necessary, and many liberals do not yet understand this, to press full force in the opposite direction. Radical liberalism is no vice and is the only way to make any gains against radical conservatives. I'm tired of liberals being pushovers. We need to push back...hard! Hard to believe that so many people have been repeatedly screwed by the conservatives yet don't use their power...power in numbers...to overwhelm the few rich people who control us. The major news media is owned by fewer than 10 corporations that feed their propaganda and, it seems, effectively gets people to vote and act against their best financial interests.
They can even afford to pay sock puppets to create a multitude of false identities to influence and create confusion and doubt on liberal web sites.
#15
I have been listening to this debate for months now and I do not know why the Fourteenth Amendment and representation in Congress has not been raised as a potential remedy for this voter suppression effort. The Fourteenth Amendment, section 2, provides: 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. Start gathering names of those who want to vote and cannot. Count those who are forced to submit provisional ballots because they do not have ID cards. After the election, you can then take away representatives from Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Make it public that you are going to do that. Losing representatives in these states means losing Republicans in Congress. Easy-peasy. I have no idea why I haven't heard a single expert bring this up yet.
#16
When the they succeed having voter reductions, they'll break down the fundamental values and key to our democracy of this country.
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Are the republicans so blind and arrogant that they can't see what they're proving - the only way they can win an election is to rig it in their favor?
Come on Isaac...do a U-turn and pound the RNC in Florida. They won't feel a thing.