In Kansas, thankfully there aren’t quite enough Republithugs in the legislature to override her veto of their so-called “voter-ID bill”.
Interesting point was that she had already vetoed a similar bill last year, and they came back with one that eliminated the fee for an ID for low income Kansans.
They didn’t do that in the first place because they don’t want low income Kansans to vote.
The bigots in this country moved from Democratic to Republican over the past 50 years, and now Republicans in Missouri are doing their level best to reinstate the poll test.
They are going one step beyond the photo ID requirement in Indiana, Missouri is now attempting to require voters to provide proof of citizenship, either a birth certificate or a passport.
Lillie Lewis, a voter who lives in St. Louis and spoke at a news conference last week organized to oppose the amendment, said she already had a difficult time trying to get a photo ID from the state, which asked her for a birth certificate. Ms. Lewis, who was born in Mississippi and said she was 78 years old, said officials of that state sent her a letter stating that they had no record of her birth.
“That’s downright wrong,” Ms. Lewis said. “I have voted in almost all of the presidential races going back I can’t remember how long, but if they tell me I need a passport or birth certificate that’ll be the end of that.”
Look at this woman, and know that the sponsor of this amendment to the state constitutional, State Representative Stanley Cox, thinks that this is just fine, because he does not want N***ers to vote.
Let’s be clear, there are any number of Rabbis whose services I attend, but I’ve yet to see a problem that I really needed to go to them for, because I think that Rabbi Hillel’s distillation of Torah while standing on one foot * pretty much covers the situations that I’ve encountered.
I like most of the Rabbis I’ve met. But I disagree with some of the things that they believe†.
In terms of what Wright’s opinions mean about Barack Obama, the answer is that it means very little. It is only among the Christofascists who expect parishioners to act in lock step with their pastor.
That being said, the assault by the right wing on this is not swift boating. It’s Willie Horton.
Truth be told, swift boating was far more benign than Willie Horton.
The purpose of swift boating was to attack Kerry on his (only) strength as a candidate. The purpose of Willie Horton was to create an association Michael Dukkakis and a violent black criminal. It’s goal was to make him a black rapist.
Obama’s problem as a candidate, largely as a result of his skin color, is that he cannot be an angry candidate, because America fears the “Angry Black Man”, and Wright is an explicit attempt to make him into such.
It’s unfair. It has very little to do with the facts. The only thing that is important is if/how Obama puts this issue to bed.
*You can see the story here. The end state is that Hillel said, “”You want to learn a great deal quickly, don’t you? Very well, I shall teach you the Torah while you stand on one foot. This is our Holy Torah: ‘What is hateful to you, do not do unto others.'”
†They have almost all been way too hawkish on Israel, even though I consider myself an Israel hawk.
Let’s be clear about this a crime was committed when police pumped 50 bullets into Shawn Bell’s car.
At the very least, a refusal to test police for blood alcohol level, some of whom were on duty, and drinking, as part of their undercover work was obstruction of justice.
One of the pertinent quotes is, “Detective Michael Oliver, who fired 31 bullets the night of the shooting.” That means that he emptied a clip into the car, reloaded, rechambered a round, and emptied another magazine, assuming he started with one in the chamber, and a 15 round clip.
So, you have drunk vice cops on a sting looking for a few strippers who might go a little bit too far, and its open season on black folks, and an acquittal by a judge who knows that if he wants to go higher, he will need the support of the police department when considered for a promotion.
The depressing thing is that when all is said and done, the New York City PD is one of the best in the nation.
God Bless America.
Huckabee seems to be rather more complex than his “Gomer Pyle” stereotype:
And one other thing I think we’ve got to remember: As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say, “That’s a terrible statement,” I grew up in a very segregated South, and I think that you have to cut some slack. And I’m going to be probably the only conservative in America who’s going to say something like this, but I’m just telling you: We’ve got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told, “You have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can’t sit out there with everyone else. There’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office. Here’s where you sit on the bus.” And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had a more, more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.
My guess would be is that if he were still in the race, he would not be so benevolent, but it still a remarkably kind and thoughtful thing to say.
My condolences to his family, but his record of endorsing racism and fascism should not be ignored.
He was a fervent supporter of Franco, and (of course) Joe McCarthy, and he kept himself amused by coming up with reprehensible justifications for Jim Crow.
Of course, he was well respected, because he was from the right family and went to Yale.
See Steve Gilliard’s post speak like a conservative where he quotes Buckley:
The central question that emerges . . . is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes – the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.
National Review believes that the South’s premises are correct. . . . It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority.
The irony was that at the end of his life, he was abandoned by the Neocon community that he helped to create, because he actually had a bit of sanity.
Unlike, for example, Norman Podhoretz, there is every indication that he knew what he was doing and knew better (I’m talking about the appeals to racism here), but was too fond of his own words to do the right thing.
He was a good writer and a witty man though.
They are having riots once again in France. This is a product of a number of things, but one of them is racism, and the unenforceable nature of anti-discrimination laws in France.
France has a policy that no official records are kept regarding racial or ethnic origin by the government. The idea is that everyone is French, not hyphenated French.
Ward Connerly, a Californian Uncle Tom who has become wealthy by being an uncle Tom, and from being the front man for faux minority contracting*, has been pushing the removal or racial and ethnic status from California state records for years.
You see the natural consequences of such actions in France: a permanent underclass living in slums who are destined never to be hired by bigots, because these bigots will never be caught.
*Cognitive dissonance: Required for the mental illness known as “Republicanism”.
It’s very similar to Marc Anthony’s speech in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “So are they all, all honorable men”.
Was Reagan a racist? We’ll never know. He was at his core a cypher to almost everyone around him. That being said, it’s clear from his actions that he actively and aggressively courted racists for political gain.
The prosecution dropped the attempted murder charge.
At the end of the day, the only just resolution will be that the Jena 6 have their charges dropped, and the racist cracker DA goes to jail.
Once again, the Republicans are ditching another black debate forum, this one on Fox News.
When you consider how prominent the racist vote is in the Republican Party, Evangelicals as a movement developed from rulings that forbade tax exempt status whites only religious schools, not Roe v. Wade, this comes as no surprise.
The party of Abraham Lincoln is now the party of Jefferson Davis.
Needless to say, the Neanderthal Bigot in one of the, if not the, most important Republican constituencies.
That is all you need to hear to understand why seven boot camp guards and one nurse at the Bay County boot camp were acquitted following the videotaped beating and death of Martin Lee Anderson, a 14 year old black child.
An autopsy found he had a previously undiagnosed blood disorder. The defense argued that is what caused his death. The all-white jury agreed.
The “blood disorder” in question is Sickle Cell trait. This means that he carried one Sickle Cell Anemia gene. The effect of this condition is much like carrying one gene for Cystic Fibrosis: there are no significant effects. (Being heterozygous for Sickle Cell will increase resistance to Malaria and decrease oxygen carrying capacity by much less than 1%, and being heterozygous for CF protects against Diphtheria). The Air Force does not consider Sickle cell trait to be a reson to exclude someone from being a pilot, for example.
“You kill a dog, you go to jail,” Crump said on the courtroom steps just after the verdict was delivered. “You kill a little black boy, nothing happens.”
Welcome to Bay County, Florida.
The prosecutor (yes, the racist cracker who trumped this all up in the first place), and fellow traveller Judge J.P. Mauffrey that this entire mess is a parole violation.
I believe that the charge is “being an uppity n*****”. This is disgraceful, and Al Sharpton is right when he calls this “revenge”.
Disgraceful.
Unfortunately, under the Bush administration, there is no realistic chance of any of these folks being taken down for civil rights violations.
It looks like Congress is well on its way to crippling prosecution of white collar crime.
It will remove tools from the investigators’ arsenal that are crucial to getting information and finding hidden assets.
I would also add that while the targets of such probes find the tactics coercive, they are completely in line with what prosecutors do with other crimes, and I support them as long as they can be used against a burglar or a corner street dealer.
The law is not just for brown people.
It appears that folks like James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and Richard A. Viguerie are threatening a 3rd party bid if Guiliani gets the nod.
This is an empty threat. The religious right’s attachment to the Republican party is based almost entirely on hostility towards non-whites, and Rudy has the best bone fides in this area of any of the Republicans. The right wing Christo-Fascists’ followers will follow Guiliani because he has made an implicit promise to keep the black and brown man down.
The religious right’s entry into politics did not begin with Roe v. Wade, but rather it began with rulings that segregated religious schools could not be tax exempt 501(c)3 institutions.
That being said, that racist cracker DA still has to be dealt with.
Of course, Bill O’Reilley is not an uneducated immigrant from Ukraine, and this was circa 1930.
Pinkt vi Menschen
…
Anyway, what it reminded me of was an often retold family story: my great-grandmother visited Coney Island and was surprised to see black families enjoying themselves at the beach. “Pinkt vi menschen”, she said – just like people.But she was an uneducated immigrant from Ukraine, and this was circa 1930.
Of note, Uncle Tom Juan Williams, Fox News toady and sexual harasser, is defending all this.
Big surprise that.
Read his article, The Ugly Side of the G.O.P. – New York Times.
Here is an excerpt:
…
Dr. Carolyn Goodman, a woman I was privileged to call a friend, died last month at the age of 91. She was the mother of Andrew Goodman, one of the three young civil rights activists shot to death by rabid racists near Philadelphia, Miss., in 1964.
Dr. Goodman, one of the most decent people I have ever known, carried the ache of that loss with her every day of her life.
In one of the vilest moves in modern presidential politics, Ronald Reagan, the ultimate hero of this latter-day Republican Party, went out of his way to kick off his general election campaign in 1980 in that very same Philadelphia, Miss. He was not there to send the message that he stood solidly for the values of Andrew Goodman. He was there to assure the bigots that he was with them.
“I believe in states’ rights,” said Mr. Reagan. The crowd roared.
In 1981, during the first year of Mr. Reagan’s presidency, the late Lee Atwater gave an interview to a political science professor at Case Western Reserve University, explaining the evolution of the Southern strategy:
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger,’ ” said Atwater. “By 1968, you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”
…
Here.
And they are threatening the families.
How much do you want to bet that the good citizens of Jena will keep their stores open for this.
I haven’t really commented on this, but I’ve gotten a couple of comments to the effect of, “Isn’t this a tempest in a teapot.”
The Answer is Hell No!!!
Let’s roll tape:
You’re right, it’s just some uppity n***ers, no discrimination here.
