The Political Party What Keeps Crying "Voter Fraud"

UPDATE II:Free Times has confirmed that the six names examined by the State Election Commission came from the list SLED is investigating.

Yeah, that's the 2nd update. Can you imagine the first update and the original story? It all boils down to this: despite all evidence to the contrary, Republicans insist on crying voter fraud in order justify voter suppression. That's all it is and will ever be.

And while we're at it, let's scrap this whole "save taxpayers' money" meme, too. After all, the US DoJ used Provision 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act to block the law, and fighting the DoJ on this issue, especially since SC is hiring a private attorney at $520 an hour, is estimated to cost $1million.

And to add insult to injury, SC Gov. Nikki Haley (R) is raising the banner of "10th Amendment rights"! What the what?! Just in case you didn't know, this is why minorities, especially black folks, don't hop on the whole "states' rights" and "local government" bandwagon.

You vs James Crowe, II and Poll Taxes v2.0

You wanna do more than sign an online petition? (Not hating on online petitions. I signed it.) You live near NYC? Here's something you can do:


December 10: Stand For Freedom March in NYC

Stop Corporate Funded Voter Suppression (Updated)

Update (h/t Credo Mobile - That's their Facebook page.) -

Advocates: Companies can’t support black consumers and those pushing restrictive voting laws 

An online advocacy group is urging corporations that market to African-Americans to stop giving money to a conservative organization working for stricter voting laws. The group, ColorofChange, is targeting companies that support the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, a nonprofit that has helped states pass photo ID laws, which are criticized by minority and civil rights groups. Its members include legislators and corporations, who pay higher fees to join.

This is really important.

via Color of Change

For years, the right wing has been trying to stop Black people, other people of color, young people, and the elderly from voting — and now some of America’s biggest companies are helping them do it. These companies have helped pass discriminatory voter ID legislation by funding a right wing policy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

ALEC’s voter ID laws are undemocratic, unjust and part of a longstanding right wing agenda to weaken the Black vote. Major companies that rely on business from Black folks shouldn’t be involved in suppressing our vote. Please join us in demanding that these companies stop funding ALEC.

Here's the letter we'll send to the leadership of corporations that support ALEC, on your behalf. You can add a personal comment using the box to the right.*

Dear President/CEO and Board,

I want to alert you to the fact that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) – which your company funds – is pushing discriminatory voter ID legislation that suppresses the votes of blacks, the elderly, youth and other minorities. Bills based on ALEC’s model legislation have been introduced in 34 states, and have already passed in seven states.

Although proponents of voter ID laws claim the goal is to reduce voter fraud, there is no evidence that such fraud occurs with any regularity in this country. What is clear is that these voter ID laws unreasonably increase barriers to voting access for large numbers of people and could disenfranchise up to 5 million people across the nation. These laws are part of a long history of racist and discriminatory restrictions on voting designed to disenfranchise African Americans and other underrepresented groups.

I presume your company does not want to support voter suppression, nor have your products or services associated with discrimination and large-scale voter disenfranchisement. I urge you to immediately stop funding ALEC and issue a public statement making it clear that your company does not support discriminatory voter ID laws and voter suppression.

Sincerely,

[Your name]

*A comment box is provided on the petition webpage.

Douthat, Really?

h/t portside:

Carl Bloice starts his blackcommentator column like this (I got it via portside):

On April 17, conservative columnist Ross Douthat wrote on the opinion page of the August New York Times:

Historically, the most successful welfare states (think Scandinavia) have depended on ethnic solidarity to sustain their tax-and-transfer programs. But the working-age America of the future will be far more diverse than the retired cohort it's laboring to support. Asking a population that's increasingly brown and beige to accept punishing tax rates while white seniors receive roughly $3 in Medicare benefits for every dollar they paid in (the projected ratio in the 2030s) promises to polarize the country along racial as well as generational lines.

I'm not a Douthat reader, and I've been trying to avoid overdoing politics again. My nerves can only take so much stupidity. But the title of Bloice's, "Beware of the Racial Demagoguery & the "Middle Ground," caught my attention. I couldn't finish his take before letting out my on aggression.

First of all, Douthat's right that the more homogonous a country is, the easier it is to pass social programs. Think of this - everything was going fine with America's social safety net, labor, and even the tax system right up until the social movements of the 60s and 70s. Then, the white South abandon the Democrats, joined, the Republicans, and have been refusing to pay for "welfare queens" every since. That is no coincidence.

Second and most importantly, isn't this country, one of the most racially and ethnically diverse in the world, already racially polarized? Nothing new is gonna happen by the 2030s. So I can't believe he had the audacity to come accusing future workers of color of racism. Like white folks ain't racist - just people of color? As though a whole bunch white folks ain't right now trying to undo the FDR's New Deal. As though white folks haven't been alleging that "taxes = white slavery."

Where has he been? I mean, is he serious with this? Aren't people of color the base of the Democratic party? The ones trying to keep and strengthen the social safety net?

I really wanna scream!

Remember This? "9/11, Vote for Me!"

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A 3rd Problem I Have with Tea Partyists: North Dakota

Listen, this isn't about embarrassing anyone, so I won't call any names. But a commenter for another post expressed concerned about her congressman's representation of and concern for the "working man" of her state, North Dakota.

Now, in addition to having no policy behind their rhetoric, all too often tea partyists actually believe the exaggerations and hyperbole's they hear coming from the people who feign concern but are, in fact, exploiting the country's "working man." Facts don't matter to folks who cry out about being "taxed enough already" just as their taxes are being cut, who think their taxes were raised, and then really get upset that they're portrayed as racists.

So, what're the facts about North Dakota's economy? According to politifact's "Pants on Fire" rating of an ad from one of Karl Rove's organizations, Crossroads GPS:

I Wasn't Going to Comment on the Sherrod Story

But if you haven't read this, you really should. ~ No1KState

THE REAL STORY OF RACISM AT THE USDA

By Chris Kromm

Facing South - A New Voice for a Changing South The Online
Magazine of the Institute for Southern Studies

July 22, 2010

http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/07/the-real-story-of-racism-at-usda.html

Right now, if you do a web search of the words "racism" and
"USDA," the majority of links will steer you to coverage of
this week's Shirley Sherrod affair, in which the African-
American U.S. Department of Agriculture staffer based in
Georgia resigned after a conservative website reversed the
meaning of a speech she gave last year to imply she would
deny farm loans to whites.

It's an astonishing development given the history of race
relations at the USDA, an agency whose own Commission on
Small Farms admitted in 1998 that "the history of
discrimination at the U.S. Department of Agriculture ... is
well-documented" -- not against white farmers, but African-
American, Native American and other minorities who were
pushed off their land by decades of racially-biased laws and
practices.