Stopping at Nothing

Last night, after doing my weekly exercise routine, I took the time to carefully go over some of the links listed at these posts from Hullabaloo and Washington Monthly, particularly this from Legal Fiction.

Short version: the fixers are working overtime in Florida, Bush v. Gore is a disaster that might well be repeated, and the sheer cynicism that ultimately made Dubya our pResident the last time is so thick that it doesn't surprise me that the media has done their best to simply ignore it--minus some solid journalism in Florida itself, and folks like Greg Palast.

If anyone thought that the Florida debacle couldn't happen again, check out this--from The Independent in England.

The news article and the post from Legal Fiction are two sides of the same coin, and for folks wanting to exercise their democratic rights, it's the political equivalent of a wooden nickel. Intimidation tactics are being used against mostly African-American voters (i.e., likely Democratic), while Latino/Hispanic voters (read: Cuban-Americans, i.e., likely Republicans) were knowingly omitted from a felon list (recall that Florida permanently denies felons the franchise without explicit restoration of said rights).

In an earlier post, Digby links to this New Yorker article by Jeffrey Toobin, which does a nice job of summarizing for the lay person the dualistic provisions of the Voting Rights Act (short version of this: the VRA has two parts, voter access and voter "integrity," that is, parts of the law seek to enable citizens by providing them access to the franchise, other parts are designed to mitigate fraud. You can probably guess which political parties emphasize which sections--although Toobin's article notes some interesting tangents as well). If you want some background, the article isn't a bad place to start.

To describe the Rethuglican efforts to suppress votes as despicable is an understatement. But we might as well recognize it as normal behavior on their part, and be ready to take steps against them. Too many people have paid too high a price for the right to vote to allow a small group of anti-democratic ideologues to get away with this.

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