Voter Suppression

One of the things Conservatives/Republicans have been doing the past few years that is quietly remaking America and not in a good way is actively working to suppress the votes of Democratic leaning voters.

In state after state, Republican led Legislatures with Republican Governors have passed bills designed to make it harder to vote.  And the way these laws have been structured has been designed to affect groups that usually vote Democratic more than groups that usually vote Republican.

The most widespread of these efforts are laws passed in many states requiring that people present a government issued photo ID.  They claim that all they want to do is protect the integrity of the voting booth by ensuring that you really are who you say you are when you show up to vote.  That almost sounds reasonable.  But consider who this law has the affect of targeting.  People in urban areas who don't own a car and therefore don't have a drivers license.  Poorer people who, again, don't have cars and therefore don't have drivers licenses.  Both groups of people who tend to vote Democratic.

And the types of ID's they will accept even has a bias.  In Texas, you can present a state issued concealed gun carry permit, but not a Student ID issued by any University, even state universities.  Now lets see, students and carriers of concealed weapons.  Who do you think is more likely to vote Democratic.

A significantly higher percentage of minority voters vote early or vote absentee.  You see its easier to vote on Saturday than on a day you are have to be at work.  One state eliminated voting the Sunday before election day.  Its must be a coincidence that many black churches load up the buses after Sunday Worship and head on down to the County Courthouse the Sunday before Election Day so they can vote early as a group.

Poor and minority voters are far more likely to be registered to vote in Voter Registration drives, so states are making it harder to run Voter Registration Drives.  In Florida, a High School Teacher was literally charged with a crime because she didn't turn in the voter registration cards for her Senior Students in the 48 hours allowed by law.  That bastion of Liberalism and even Anarchy, the League of Women Voters, is largely giving up on Voter Registration Drives in Florida because the law is so restrictive and the penalties so severs.

And then there is voter purging.  Republican Governors seemingly want to ensure that only people legally allowed to register are registered, so they hire company to search the voter rolls for people who have the same name as a convicted felon.  They then send the now suspect voter a letter demanding proof that they are legally eligible to vote and if the letter isn't returned quick enough, the voter is purged from the rolls.  They did this in Florida and ILLEGALLY disenfranchised around 8000 voters.  And guess what, most of those voters were poor and minorities.  Can you just imagine how the Florida vote might have turned out if those 8000 voters had been allowed to vote.
And, no surprise here, Florida is at it again.  The Florida Secretary of States office sent out voter purge lists so worthless that many county election supervisors simply refused to act on them.
Each of these laws, deliberately or not, makes it harder to vote and the burdens imposed by this law fall most heavily on those who would mostly vote Democratic.  I personally don't think that is a surprise.  Its got to be a good electoral strategy to suppress the turnout of your opponents voters.
Somehow Republicans/Conservatives want you to believe that they JUST HAVE TO TO THIS to protect the integrity of the voting process itself.

But when asked how many cases they know of people actually showing up at a polling place and trying to vote using someone else's name, they don't know.  The Bush II administration Justice Department made finding and prosecuting voter fraud a priority.  And yet, the best the Department of Justice could do in 8 years of trying was a couple of dozen convictions for voter fraud, and very few of those were for the kind of fraud that these voter suppression laws would prevent.

Here in South Bend Indiana, there was a real case of voter fraud.  But like most voter fraud this was wholesale.  The local supervisor of elections, and one of his minions conspired to rig the vote for their candidates in some local primaries.  And they did it the old fashioned way, they doctored the voting documents.  They didn't have to send 10's or 100's of fraudulent voters to the polls to vote as someone else, they simply made up the votes they needed and submitted the made up numbers as if they were real.  That the kind of voter fraud that actually happens.  That the kind of voter fraud that can really swing or steal an election.  But that is not what all the Republican Governors are attacking.

They are attacking the 80 year old Nun who had voted in every election since Truman.  But she didn't have a government issued ID.  She was a Nun.  But she wasn't allowed to vote.

And then about a week ago we get a bit of utter honesty from a Republican official in Pennsylvania.  he told a friendly audience that the new Voter ID laws were going to win the state for Romney.
The supposedly liberal main stream media isn't making any noise about this, and I don't know why.

Voter suppression is a crime, but they are getting away with it.

If you talk to a Conservative about this, ask them how much individual voter fraud, you know the kind these bills will prevent, how much of that fraud is actually happening.  They will dodge the question and make nice sounding statements about protecting the integrity of the voting booth and then probably ask you if you want illegal immigrants to be voting or some other such BS, but they won't actually answer the question.  Because there is no rash of voter fraud that would justify all of these new laws.  It isn't there.  But they can't admit that because then the only reason left to them is the real reason, the reason admitted to by the hapless Republican official in Pennsylvania.  These laws aren't about protecting anything honest and good.  These laws are about suppressing the vote of those they disagree with.

If you aren't outraged, you should be.

Unpolitically Correct

I just found the funniest Facebook Page called Unpolitically Correct

This is their favorite quote.

The Democrat Party's entire game plan can be summed up as follows:

1) reward those who are failures in life

2) punish those who are successes in life

And this is their profile picture

Wanna bet the only watch Fox News and read NewsMax and PajamaTV for their news.
This desire to remain blissfully ignorant, to not even hear a competing argument just astounds me.

Don't confuse this Conservative with the facts, their mind is made up!!

This Just In

It brings me no joy to report this.
But Arizona has taken the war on Women's Reproductive Health to the next step.
Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona has just signed a new piece of legislation that allows Employers to ask their female employees why they have a prescription for Birth Control, and if the Employee does not have a Medical condition that the Birth Control Pill is useful for treating, the employees health plan will not cover the pills.
And the justification for this would be that the employer had some Religious objection to Birth Control.
I can't count he number of ways that this is wrong.

More good news from Small Government Conservatives wanting to control the lives of others.

“Small Government” Conservatives and Women’s Bodies

I heard it said long ago that the difference between Liberals and Conservatives is that Liberals want to liberate people and control corporations while Conservatives want to liberate corporations and control people.

Like any broad statement, there are lots of exceptions on both sides.

But it does largely describe today’s Conservatives.

While insisting that (millionaires, billionaires, the top 1%, the Rich, those making over $250,000/year – pick your term) should not see their taxes go up in these economic times, while insisting that Corporate Tax rates are too high in a period of record corporate profits and a surging stock market while many very profitable Fortune 500 companies pay little or even no Corporate Income tax, these same Conservatives have decided that what they really need to be focused on is Women’s Reproductive Health.

While unemployment and budget deficits remaining frustratingly high, Conservatives across the nation, at both the Federal and State level have decided that what they really need to address is Contraception and Abortion and other issues of Women’s Reproductive health.

I have lost count of how many states have passed laws deliberately designed to make abortion, a procedure that is both safe and legal, as hard to get as possible.  You almost have to give them credit for a high degree of inventiveness in their cruelty.  They act like women do not already face an incredibly difficult choice of whether or not to terminate a pregnancy.  They act like women are just getting all these abortions on a whim without much thought or personal torment or regrets.  It’s like Conservatives think that women facing this choice do so happily and glibly.

I want people to read my blog so I won’t include my uncensored opinion of these Conservatives and their insistence on their right to force the government into the middle of this incredibly difficult choice.  Suffice it to say, I hold these Conservatives in the highest disdain.

So women who are already facing a choice that most of the realize will be life changing, that most of them realize will come with regrets either way, now have to run a gauntlet of new laws in order to be allowed control over their own bodies.

It started with waiting periods.  Some states passed laws that required women wait an arbitrary number of days between before they could get an appointment for the procedure.

Some states now require that a woman get counseling from a state approved (and anti-abortion) counseling organization.  In one state, that provision went into effect yet there were none of these counseling organizations licensed to do this counseling.

Many states have changed the laws regulating clinics that perform abortions to make their operations much more expensive.  There is no medical reason for the new laws, they just want to make it harder and harder for these clinics to operate.

Then some states started requiring the women get ultrasounds before being allowed control over their own bodies.  They had to look at the developing fetus or listen to its heart beat.  All designed to make an incredibly difficult decision even harder and more painful.  There is no medical reason for these test, and the women are required to pay for these tests themselves, raising another barrier to women controlling their bodies.

And now the latest outrage is laws in a number of states requiring that women have physically invasive procedures.  They are required to pay a doctor to stick a trans-vaginal ultrasound probe into their vagina though they are not actually required to look at the screen.

Really??

And it’s just one or two states, there are literally hundreds of these offensive laws being proposed in legislatures across the country and dozens of them are going into effect, all designed to make what is already a hard decision harder and more expensive and make it last longer.

And their next target is Contraception.  Senator Santorum, while running for President stated his personal opposition to Contraception.  Several states have proposed what are called Personhood Amendments that would attach the rights of personhood to the human embryo at the moment of conception.  This law would, among other things, have the effect of banning all hormonal contraception, the most widely used and most reliable form of contraception.

It will get worse unless we can throw these people out.

This is their idea of Small Government?

In these hard economic times, this is what Conservatives are focused on.  It’s as amazing as it is infuriating.

And it gets better.

Conservatives have now decided that Planned Parenthood is evil.

It started with a lie.

A lie told on the Floor of the United States Senate.

A Conservative Senator went on the Floor of the United States Senate and stated as if it was a fact, that abortions were 97% of what planned Parenthood does.  The real number is like 3%.  When confronted with this gross discrepancy, this Senator’s office issued a statement that what he said on the Floor of the United States Senate was, and I quote, “not intended to be a factual statement”.  Nice use of a thesaurus.  His office released a statement admitting that he LIED.

But now all of a sudden, Planned Parenthood was a target of these demented people.

90% of American women will make use of one Planned Parenthood service or another in their life time.  From Mammograms and other cancer screening, to contraceptive services to counseling, Planned Parenthood has been serving women in America but now these small government conservatives have decided that it’s evil and needs to be stopped.  Several states have stopped funding Planned Parenthood clinics.  They tried to get a federal funding ban and failed.  One conservative woman led the Susan Komen Foundation down this path and the foundation stopped its funding for Planned Parenthood.  I am happy to say that particular attack on Planned Parenthood failed.  In response to that move, many people made increased donations to Planned Parenthood, far more than the funding the Susan Koman Foundation was taking away, and money stopped flowing into the Susan Komen foundation and donors took their money elsewhere.

Some other these (unprintable) people have even decided that the Girl Scouts are evil because of their supposed link to Planned Parenthood and Girl Scout organizations around the world.

And this is their idea of small government.

Welcome to the Party

Just a note to the President.

I celebrate your decision to announce that you are now openly supportive of the Rights of Homosexuals to MARRY.

I suspect that you have felt this way for a while and just couldn't say so politically.  I understand that.  Politics is the art of the possible after all.  And despite your position 4 years ago, you have done more to advance the rights of Homosexuals than any previous President.

I just wanted to say.

Welcome to the Party.

Stand up for Being Liberal

It’s time to take back “Liberal”

It’s time to stand up and declare the Liberal is a Badge of Honor.  I badge I wear proudly.

What do Liberals have to be proud of?

The Voting Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act
The Affordable Care Act
The Environmental Protection Act
The Clean Air Act
The Clean Water Act
The GI Bill
Pell Grants
Guaranteed Student Loans

Shall I go on?

We can and should be proud of what we are struggling for even now

Equality for Homosexuals
Equal Pay for Equal Work
The Buffett Rule
Extended Unemployment Insurance

We have let the Republican Lie Machine take away a proud label and turn it into a curse and that had to end.

Any time you hear a Conservative/Republican tell you how proud they are to be Conservative, ask them what great things, positive things, Conservatives have done for this country.  The silence will be deafening.  They might try to tell you about all the things they are against.  They might try to tell you all the things they have stopped.  But I have yet to find a Conservative who could tell me the great things that Conservatives have DONE.  Actual Positive Accomplishments.

Ask them.

And remember why Liberals are and should be Proud of being Liberal.  We have done great things, things that have made this country greater, healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous.

And there is more to do.

Take back the proud label of Liberal.

Joe Paterno – Legal vs. Moral Responsibility

They fired Joe Paterno last night. Not just him but the President of Penn State University as well but the firing of Joe Pa, the winningest coach in College Football history, is the one that is enerating all the controversy.

Joe’s defenders, and there are many, argue that he satisfied his legal responsibility by reporting the abuse committed by a former assistant as soon as he learned of it.

And they are probably right. He did what was required by law and then moved on.

But still he got fired.

You can argue, and I won’t disagree, that the trustees were operating from a need to protect the reputation of the University from bad publicity. You can hear that in their statement. Firing Joe Pa was good for the University because keeping him on would have let to lots of bad publicity.

What I didn’t hear from the Trustees or from Joe Pa or from anyone else I have seen quoted is a sense of shame on their part that they didn’t do more sooner. They might have expressed some remorse in hindsight that they didn’t do more but even the apology doesn’t seem to reflect any sense of shame at letting this occur and not reacting strongly.

The young man who saw a former coach abusing a boy in the shower did what he was required to do. He reported it to his superior, Joe Paterno. He didn’t walk into the shower and stop the
abuse. He didn’t call the cops. He didn’t try to protect the boy who was, at that moment, being abused right in front of him.

Did he fulfill his legal responsibility? Probably.

Did he in any way meet what has to be thought of as a moral responsibility? Not even close.

Did Joe Paterno, when he was told of the abuse that was at that moment happening in a facility under his control, do what he was legally required to do. Probably.

But what about his moral responsibility? There he failed completely.

And that same failure occurred time and again with everyone in the University who knew of the event.

Some of them didn’t even meet their legal responsibility. As some point somebody at the top, maybe Joe Pa, maybe his boss, but somebody, was required by law to call the police and report the crime. And they didn’t even do that.

But I think their moral failure is far greater than their legal one. These men knew that someone
with a long association with the University was abusing boys and they did nothing to stop it.

I wish I could say that I would reacted morally, and stopped the abuse if I saw it occurring. I hope I would. I think I would. But until I am actually standing somewhere seeing a some else committing an unspeakable act, until then I won’t know for sure how I will react. I know this
though. Should I fail to act, I know I will regret my moral failure.

So far I haven’t seen any hint that any of the people involved in this sordid mess feel that sense of same.

I think they should have fired the winningest coach in college football history. I just think they gave the wrong reason. And I don’t think they are learning the right lesson.