When Poppy Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to replace Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court, who could have predicted that Thomas would go on to be the deciding vote for striking down the Voting Rights Act? You’d have to be a pretty sick individual to have that kind of malevolent imagination.
In recent years, the Republican Party has nakedly pursued black disenfranchisement without even the plausible deniability of a guise. Voter Fraud? Please. That doesn’t even rise to a guise.
If anything, the Voting Rights Act should have expanded pre-clearance to the whole country, or at least to anywhere that a Republican is empowered to make changes in federal election procedures. Remember this?
Question: “What are the Republicans doing to get black people to vote?”
Ken Emanuelson: “Well, I’m going to be real honest with you: The Republican Party doesn’t want black people to vote, if they’re going to vote 9 to 1 for Democrats.”
And this?
Mike Turzai, the Pennsylvania GOP House majority leader, said that a strict new voter ID law will help Republicans win the state for the first time since 1988.
“Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it’s done. First pro-life legislation — abortion facility regulations — in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done,” he said to applause at a Republican State Committee this weekend, according to PoliticsPa.com.
The comment contradicted the usual Republican line that voter ID laws are for guarding against voter fraud — which is extremely rare if not nonexistent in practice — and not to help elect Republicans.
I hoped that I would not live to see this day, and not because I wanted a short life.
this is for the Slave Catching Coon on the Supreme Court
http://youtu.be/B9tF3KgEdAI
Seriously.
.
Having the same “moral values” as the US, I may opt for Israel as a country with less STUPID people based on its size only. And this nation with its political elite in Washington DC, claim to have the moral high ground over any other nation on this planet. Only Americans tend to believe this story, look at how the world reacts to the Odyssey of Edward Snowden. It’s only an issue in the US, Hong Kong and Ecuador. Everyone else shrug their shoulders and will tell their offspring about the “Ugly American“.
See my diary – SCOTUS Overturns Portions of the Voting Rights Act [Update].
I could and did. That’s why he was appointed, pure and simple. To provide a minority face to rolling back the rulings of the Warren Court–every single one of them. And to roll back the civil rights acts–every single one of them.
Thank Arlen Specter for this day.
No. Thomas soiling a SCOTUS seat is Joe Biden’s cross to bear. He was the chair of the Judiciary Committee. He was the political coward who bowed to bought-and-paid for black ministers instead of following the evidence presented to him by women of all colors.
I tend to view this as more of an opportunity than an unsolvable crisis. Judicial review, even in states without preclearance, was not favorable to voter ID and redistricting disenfranchisement attempts in the last few years. And the Republican Party is most certainly not a regional party bound only to the old Confederacy.
The court has opened the door to an eventual expansion of stringent voting rights protections nationwide, assuming, you know, people bother to organize sufficient political action to make it so.
Yes, just like how Citizen’s United led to an eventual restriction on anonymous corporate money in politics.
You’re right, those three years represent the totality of human experience on earth. We should just roll over and die.
As opposed to roll over and be shot? Wisconsin and North Carolina are our future.
link
So where are the Ivy Leaguers who will go to Mississippi to register voters this time?
On Wall Street foreclosing on blue collar homeowners.
“I’m in disbelief that members of the Supreme Court would take this position,” Lewis said. “We’ve come a distance. We’ve made progress, but there is still progress to be made.”
Well, that’s the problem with it right there, isn’t it? It was working.
And BTW, he also was the deciding vote on preserving sexual harassment. Absolutely predictable.
welcome to the 1950s!
So the Roberts court decided that the 10th amendment trumps the 15th amendment. Interesting.
Back in 1991 Thomas was approved 52-47, IIRC. Not a single vote changed as a result of the Anita Hill hearings.
The Democrats at the time could easily have filibustered to keep Thomas out – he was, after all, very obviously picked to be the segregationists token negro with no experience but with complete allegiance to the right wing (feel free to liken him to the Association of German National Jews – it fits). His previous stints included weakening the EEO as its commissioner.
But NOOOOO, the Democrats didn’t want to be impolite. So they let him be nominated.
I keep wondering when the Democrats in charge will finally realize that when the Republican Base – and now, too, its leadership – talks about a Cultural War with the rest of America they are NOT being allegorical or exaggerating for effect.
Republicans. Mean spirited and at heart, racist. (paraphrasing Larry Flynt)
Clarence’s performance is actually even more incredible as the media/blog reports are stating that his concurrence held the entire pre-clearance provision section 5 unconstitutional. The vile Roberts opinion simply struck down the list of pre-clearance jurisdictions Congress had selected, under the unprecedented and baseless theory that Congress had not adequately investigated whether the covered (mostly Jim Crow/Confederate jurisdictions) still merited close watching. Hence the VRA was no longer “appropriate legislation” under the 15th amendment. Now Congress has some (newly made up) duty to update and revise legislation over time, apparently.
So Congress could in theory undertake months of testimony and fact finding and hearings and reports and try to establish a basis to re-designate some US jurisdictions as still subject to pre-clearance based on hostility to minority voting rights. Of course one could not imagine our comically dysfunctional and useless Repub Congress even beginning such an effort, let alone passing any sort of sensible legislation that identified racist jurisdictions in Noble Murica. So this is the effective end of the Voting Rights Act, which the 5 conservative male justices were perfectly well aware of, and indeed this was their obvious goal and intent.
In the big picture, this Repub Court decision openly aids the current Repub vote suppression campaign, and will open the floodgates for a dizzying array of minority and youth vote suppression tactics throughout the New Confederacy, especially Tex-ass and AZ. Roberts is effectuating what the Repubs in Congress could only dream of. The Roberts Court is brazenly anti-democratic (as is the “conservative” movement which created monsters like Roberts and Thomas), and this decision destroying the VRA had been in the works and plans of “conservatives” for some years now.
We are dealing with a well coordinated and entrenched American Fascist movement, which is steadily advancing and wrecking more and more institutions every year. It will absolutely wreck the last vestiges of democracy in this country, with a smile and without apology. “That one may smile and smile, and be a villain”. CJ Roberts to a “T”….
Shuts down the nonsense of an increasing demographic challenge for the GOP.
Texas will be ground zero – the minority population is growing far faster than demographers anticipated.
Why single out Thomas who has spent his career trying to demonstrate that he is as worthy of being seen as a first rate legal mind that earned his seat on the Supreme Court as the four white guys that nobody saddles with charges of being second rate, affirmative action picks. Not like three of those in the minority. The fact that the “mighty five” can’t see that they’re racist and sexist demonstrates that none of them possesses a first rate legal mind.
I don’t have a problem with judges being appointed in part to improve diversity on the courts. There are plenty of qualified people of every race, and it’s a worthy (and necessary) goal. But when affirmative action is used specifically to advance individuals who oppose diversity, and who oppose the civil rights of their own group, then it has been perverted.
I saw a picture of Rep. John Lewis watching the decision come down on tv and it really got to me. I thought Holder’s statement was excellent and worth watching.
every confederate state has today indicated they’re moving forward to prevent non-white folks from voting.
tell me more, white “progressives” how your rights have been trampled. tell me more about this “tyranny” you face.
You might understand when voter registration workers are arrested as “terrorists”. The bureaucratic machinery is there waiting to go. The question is whether any in government today have the courage to shut it down before it gets used against the people.
Are you saying people can’t be concerned both about voting rights and surveillance?
We are allowed to walk and chew gum at the same time. Most progressives care about a wide variety of issues.
I do think this VRA story is drastically bigger than the FISA/Snowden stories, but both need to be discussed.
Is the DNC/OFA going to pay people to go down South and help people register/make sure they have the proper ID(does anyone trust a judge to strike down the voter ID laws in the meantime)? I’m sure plenty here would be on the first bus down if they were to do that. Also, too, you might want to think TX State Senator Wendy Davis for standing up for all women. Apparently the Texas state Senate has a filibuster. Per NPR:
Rules stipulate she remain standing, not lean on her desk or take any breaks — even for meals or to use the bathroom. Colleagues removed her chair so she wouldn’t sit down by mistake.
As you can see, they make the Harry Reid-led Senate look like a bunch of chumps. None of this bloodless filibuster crap in Texas.
OFA is still operating and from what I understand are def ramping up efforts in prep of 2014.
I’ll admit thought that the info I read is second hand
Rep. John Lewis: I Never Thought I’d Live To See Voting Rights Act Undone
http://youtu.be/p3EVbmfMY58
Clarence Thomas – the black Judas.
So. Will I be able to vote next year? I guess I’ll find out.
Better get cracking on counting them there soap bubbles, there, Bubba.
I confess I do not understand a single word that you said.
One of the questions black voters were supposed to answer in order to show they were qualified to vote was “How many bubbles are in a bar of soap?”
I confess I wish that had never been remotely relevant to my interests. If there’s a vomiting emoticon, I’m making it.
Whatever people think of AG Eric Holder (and I’m sure I already know the feeling of some here), he and his DOJ has been a big advocate with regards to Voting Right and Voter Suppression efforts by the same people and states who are celebrating the SCOTUS gutting of the VRA today.
Here’s video of his statement:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/ag-holder-delivers-statement-on-scotus-voting-rights
His statement today was excellent.
Clarence Thomas needs a new nickname. He used to be “Long Dong” Thomas.
We should call him “Clarence ‘Soap Bubble’ Thomas”. Because they’re gonna be counting soap bubbles in a bar of soap all through AL, MS, GA, SC, NC, FL, TX, LA, TN, and KY.
Clarence “Soap Bubble” Thomas.
Uncle Ruckus works for me.
See rikyrah above – “Steven” is the appropriate name.
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
I will say notice that Boehner and McConnell declined to comment, but of course the usual suspects like Jefforson Beauragard Sessions released a statement commending the SCOTUS decision.
Tonight’s Photo of the Day: Rep. John Lewis Watches News Of Voting Rights Act Decision (PHOTO)
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/rep-john-lewis-justices-put-dagger-in-heart
I’m stunned. At the decision, the scope of damage it will cause, the desperate, thin, phony basis of Robert’s opinion, at how vulnerable democracy can be.
This will not stand.
i agree…
_____
Avtodeli
My late sister and her college friend Viola Liuzzo are both rolling over in their graves tonight. I usually end with R.I.P. when referring to the departed,but tonight, I’m afraid, will be a restless sleep for them and millions of others. Democracy is giving way to tyranny before our eyes. This decision cannot be the final word on this…it just can’t.
This is unbelievable O.o
http://linkapp.me/zwT6f