"It's especially worrisome that the court has sent a signal making it easier to put up barriers to people voting," said Michael Waldman, executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's law school. "There's a real risk that people will see this as a green light to pass restrictive voter ID laws in other states."
Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst hailed Monday's Supreme Court ruling that approves states' efforts to pass a voter identification law and said he looks forward to passing such a measure when the legislature meets again next year.
The ruling galvanizes a Republican-inspired effort that Democrats say will keep some poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots.
"With this legal challenge now behind us, I look forward to passing a fair voter ID law in Texas next year that fully protects the voting rights of all U.S. citizens registered to vote in Texas," Dewhurst said.
Republican Claim: Voter Fraud is an "Epidemic" in Texas
FACT CHECK: Even fiercely partisan Republican Attorney General Abbott has admitted that after spending millions of Texas and federal taxpayer dollars investigating, "there have been few [voter fraud] prosecutions in Texas." The Austin American Statesman editorialized: "Voter fraud is not an issue because Texas is not being flooded with unregistered voters and illegal immigrants flocking to the polls. That just isn't happening." (Source: Austin American-Statesman, April 26, 2007)
Republican Claim: Non-citizens voting is a major problem throughout the U.S.
FACT CHECK: The Department of Justice’s Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative has resulted in just 14 convictions of non-citizens voting in the entire United States between 2002 and 2005. That is less then 5 noncitizens voting a year. (Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Public Integrity Section, Election Fraud Prosecutions & Convictions, Ballot Access & Voting Integrity Initiative, October 2002 – September 2005; The Politics of Voter Fraud, Minnite, Ph.D. Columbia University)
Republican Claim: Everyone has an ID
FACT CHECK: Even the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute admitted that 37% of Texas residents over the age of 80 did not have a driver's license. (TCCRI Commentary, May 1, 2007)
Republican Claim: Democratic operatives are pushing the opposition to the Voter Suppression Bill
FACT CHECK: The objections to the voter ID legislation are broad and bipartisan. The bill is opposed by non-partisan groups like the AARP and League of Women Voters, as well as every major Texas newspaper and many local newspapers. (Source: Associated Press, April 23, 2007) Former Republican Party Political Director Royal Massett has been one of the most outspoken opponents of the bill saying: "Anyone who says all legal voters under this bill can vote doesn't know what he is talking about." (Source: The Houston Chronicle, April 26, 2007)
Across the country, as many as 20 million people lack such identification, most of them minorities and the elderly who don't have drivers' licenses or passports and are unable to afford the cost of obtaining documentation to apply for such identification, advocacy groups say.In Indiana, more than 20 percent of black voters do not have access to a valid photo ID, according to an October 2007 study by the University of Washington.
In Marion County, 34 Indiana voters without the proper identification were forced to file provisional ballots in an offseason local election. According to Indiana's photo law, voters have 10 days to return to the county courthouse with the proper identification. They can also file an affidavit claiming poverty.
"Who's going to do that?" asked Bob Brandon, president of Fair Elections Legal Network, a nonpartisan network of election lawyers. "Who's going to show up and sign an affidavit saying 'I'm poor'?"
Sure, the media is obsessed with trashing Obama or Clinton, depending on the week or sound byte that can be taken out of context and twisted to insinuate that Democrats hate America or love terrorists or whatever other utter horseshit that they can conjure up to distract from the fact that John McCain is dangerous, or contradictory or just a flat out liar.But the corporate media as well as McSame himself are just two pieces in a larger puzzle: the one to keep “The Base” happy and wealthy. We can hear lie after hyperbole after projection about how the Democrats are weak or that Hamas wants McCain to lose or that Osama secretly cast his ballot in 2004 for Kerry.
We know that is all nonsense -- and that thankfully, many more Americans are waking up to that fact as well. And with a growing number of Americans thinking that the 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections were stolen, not to mention the US Attorney purge, the Justice Department’s gaming the system from the inside, illegal redistricting, illegal phone jamming, voter ID laws that serve to suppress likely Democratic voters and FEC commissioners who have a history of illegal partisan voter suppression, it isn’t like there is ample evidence that Republicans steal elections -- and that is before you even get to the hanging chads, questionable SCOTUS decisions and Diebold hacking.
WhosPlayin resumes his watch on Michael Burgess, and joins North Texas Liberal in rejecting his "flat tax" proposal as a tax increase on the middle class.Jerry Patterson is a concealed-weapon-carrying, tobacco-dipping, canvas-death-trap-flying maverick whose management of the Christmas Mountains has ticked off everyone from Rick Perry to the Sierra Club. Not that he cares.
"Proving once again that I grew up weird, when I was a kid I enjoyed it when we were driving behind a Houston bus — loved the smell of diesel fumes," Patterson recently confessed in an e-mail to supporters of a program that helps governmental entities switch their fleets to clean-burning natural gas. "That might explain my thought processes as an adult." ...
"Many would describe me as kooky, but I don't really care," he said. "If the voters disagree with what I'm doing, there's the next election, or there's impeachment. I do what I think is right, and I don't concern myself with public opinion."
Former senator Paul Laxalt's all male, annual lamb fry dinner at the Georgetown Club tends not to be an especially raucous affair. The 28th dinner the other night, prepared as always in Basque style in honor of Laxalt's heritage, featured the usual delicacy of the night, lamb's testicles, which are said to have unusual medicinal qualities.
And while some of the tuxedoed and slightly aging pols and pals -- including Vice President Cheney, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), former House Republican leader Bob Michel, retired Marine Gen. P.X. Kelley, former GOP chairman and now lobbyist Frank Fahrenkopf, former Veterans Affairs secretary and former ambassador to the Vatican Jim Nicholson, and legendary lobbyist Bill Timmons -- don't move as fast as they used to, they can still hop to it in an emergency.
And they did when White House counsel Fred Fielding appeared to be choking -- not on the featured delicacy, we are assured. Ron Kaufman of Dutko Worldwide (and a volunteer for Mitt Romney's campaign) and then Ed Rollins (who played a lead role in Mike Huckabee's bid for the White House) took turns trying the Heimlich maneuver to dislodge it. Rollins brought over a chair to stand on for extra leverage, one guest said.
There's some disagreement about what happened next. One attendee said Rollins popped the obstruction out, another said Fielding eventually swallowed it. Well, either way ...
I guess Chicken Hawk Supreme Limbaugh wants to re-live his youth from 1968 when the "rioting" at the Chicago Convention (caused mostly by the Chicago Police) likely cost Hubert Humphrey the election. An election where the the victory of a Republican, Richard Nixon, guaranteed that an unpopular war would continue for another 7 more years, with an ever-increasing death toll among both Americans and Vietnamese.
Of course, no one should be surprised that Limbaugh would take this tack. He's long been the pilonidal cyst on the American body politic. Almost single-handedly he created the conservative racist, politically incorrect talk show format, where defamation of one's "enemies" is standard operating procedure. He went after Hillary and Bill Clinton mercilessly in the 90's, pushing conspiracy theories that one or both of them had Vince Foster murdered. And more recently he's shown he's an equal opportunity smear merchant by playing racist ditties like "Barack, the Magic Negro" during his radio program.
Nor has he been reluctant to use eliminationist language on his show towards liberals and Democrats, and anyone else he deems worthy of his scorn, from feminazis to AIDS patients. But this is a new low, calling for specific incidents of violence at a major political party's convention. The man who cheered on the mass arrests of peaceful demonstrators (and innocent bystanders) at the 2004 Republican Convention, who gloried in the news that we were torturing the bad guys at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib (even as he cynically refused to call it torture), now wants to see riots. Now encourages riots.
And how many of his flock of wingnut sheep will take the opportunity to become agents provocateur in Denver? How many will attempt to ignite the very violence for which Limbaugh is an advocate? We already know that his listeners have participated Operation Chaos, where he commanded them to vote in Democratic primaries for Hillary Clinton so that the nomination battle between Obama and Clinton would continue, and thus weaken the Democratic Party's chances in the Fall. This is merely the next step in his attempt to influence the elections.
With all the problems facing this country, most if not all of them the result of the Republican party's domination of all three branches of our government, but especially the executive branch, this is what prominent conservatives promote. Chaos, violence, hate, bigotry and eternal war. Our soldiers and Iraqis are dying every day, food shortages are occurring around the globe (even in the United States), energy and food prices are on the rise, unemployment is up as are foreclosures, and our financial system teeters on the brink of a calamitous fall, and this is what Rush Limbaugh spends his time pontificating about.
He's the right wing media's version of Emperor Nero, divorced from reality, fiddling while less fortunate Americans than himself, fat and happy with the millions of dollars generated by his caustic brew of hatred, spite and ill will, slowly burn. Ten percent of Ohioans are on food stamps and he merrily calls for riots at the Democratic convention. What kind of man does such a thing? For there is a word that describes this type of person and I don't mean sociopath, for that gives Rush an out, makes his foul deeds the result of a diminished moral capacity. No, the word is one any right-wing conservative ought to recognize since they use it themselves so often. That word is traitor. Rush Limbaugh is an evil toad and a traitor to democracy, to our Constitution and to our nation. He doesn't participate in the violence he glorifies, but he is its primary advocate on the right, and for Bush's wars as well. So convinced of the righteousness of "his cause" he willingly appeals to the worst sides of our nature, hoping to inspire others to do the deeds he lacks the spine to do himself.
In that way he is not much different than Osama bin Laden. Both have their devoted, fanatical followers, both are extremists, and both believe that violence in pursuit of their cherished ideals is a "right deed" as the Stoics would say. Both promote wars that kill thousands.
The biggest difference? Rush doesn't have to live in hiding. He can live the "good life" of the top .0001 % of the wealthiest Americans, even going on "sex tours" to poverty-stricken countries with bags of Viagra to assist his enjoyment of all the delectable young girls available to perverts like himself. He can illegally obtain and abuse prescription narcotics, yet avoid any prosecution for his crimes. Yes, it's a wonderful life if you are Rush Limbaugh, knowing he is completely free from the consequences of his actions, no matter how heinous they may be.
Too bad for the rest of us we are not so lucky.
Inciting a riot is a felony in nearly every state, including Colorado. Will Limbloat be prosecuted, even if they happen? Don't count on it.
(The) margin in Pennsylvania was probably not sufficient to alter the basic dynamics of the race, but it made clear that the contest will continue.
“This is exactly what I was afraid was going to happen,” said Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a Democrat who has not endorsed anyone in the race. “They are going to just keep standing there and pounding each other and bloodying each other, and no one is winning. It underlines the need to find some way to bring this to conclusion.”
“We have problems going both ways, but that is going to get healed,” saiid Joe Trippi, who was a senior adviser to the presidential campaign of John Edwards, who quit the race earlier this year. “If it doesn’t get healed, we have problems.”
Earth Day -- April 22 -- each year marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.Among other things, 1970 in the United States brought with it the Kent State shootings, the advent of fiber optics, "Bridge Over Troubled Water," Apollo 13, the Beatles' last album, the death of Jimi Hendrix, the birth of Mariah Carey, and the meltdown of fuel rods in the Savannah River nuclear plant near Aiken, South Carolina -- an incident not acknowledged for 18 years.
It was into such a world that the very first Earth Day was born.Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, proposed the first nationwide environmental protest "to shake up the political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda. " "It was a gamble," he recalls, "but it worked."
At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Environment was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news.
Earth Day 1970 turned that all around.
