July 17, 2012

Romney needs to do less complaining, more explaining

So Mittens is complaining about totally legitimate questions being raised by the Obama administration, questions surrounding his time as CEO of Bain Capital. Never mind that this is the same Mitt Romney who has hurled lie after lie about President Obama. Never mind that this is the same Mitt Romney who likes to say Obama has “no record to run on.” It is Romney who has no record to run on, at least none he is willing to acknowledge as a member of this Republican Party.

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July 15, 2012

Chris Hayes: The basic reality of American politics

The “black vote” isn’t overwhelmingly Democratic because they are biased. It’s not blacks who are the problem in this equation, it’s the Republican Party that is the problem. There was a time when blacks did vote Republican in large numbers, but that was before the civil rights movement that was embraced by the Democratic Party, the party that had been the party of many southern white racists. This is the reason the south shifted from blue to red. The south used to be where Democrats could expect to win votes but now the south is where Republicans are in control, and the reason is the civil rights movement. White racists left the Democratic Party and they joined the Republican Party which apparently welcomed them with open arms.

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July 15, 2012

Voter Suppression and the Voting Rights Act: It’s not the intent that matters, it’s the effect

As always, another great point made by Chris Hayes. On today’s Up with Chris Hayes the topic of voter suppression was at the top of the show. Texas is defending it’s undemocratic photo ID law and they want to be free from the restrictions of the 1965 voting rights act. Hayes tells us that the purpose of the voting rights act was not to police intent, but rather the effects. So if a state passes a restrictive new law that requires photo ID in order to vote, the test of whether that is allowed under the voting rights act is not the intent. We don’t need to know why the Republican legislators in Texas passed their restrictive law in order to judge it’s lawfulness. We don’t need to know if they are racists (which some most certainly are), and we don’t need to know if the reason Republicans passed these laws was to make the process of voting a more difficult task for minorities who are more likely to vote Democratic. Like Hayes said, “nobody has to do any mind-reading,” in order to enforce the voting rights act.

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