Froth Slosh B'Gosh

Today In Voter Suppression News

Corbett eliminates online registration and absentee ballot requests because its "too much to handle" for elections officials.

Here's Department of State Commissioner Jonathan Marks, "Paper voter registrations and paper applications for absentee ballots have been used by election offices in all 67 counties for years," Marks said in the e-mail. "Voters and election workers are familiar and comfortable with both. We are confident that this system will continue to work well."

Of course, Pennsylvanians in all 67 counties have been voting without photo ID for years as well, without any cases of fraud, but creating an entirely new requirement in order vote, a requirement that doesn't address any known problem, isn't at all "too much to handle." 

If there were still any question at all that this entire exercise is an effort to suppress voters who might trend democratic, you have your answer.

The Frothling Sees The Wiggles

We went to Hershey last week to see the show, so we made a stop at Chocolate World.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the Frothling was standing next to Mr. Hankey's cousin.

When was the last time you saw a motel room key that was an actual key??  Lodging was tight as it was the middle of the tourist season, and this motel's rooms were small and threadbare, but the room was clean, relativly inexpensive, and the staff was quite friendly.

The show was at the Hershey Theatre.  Before things got started, there were videos shown on a screen over the stage.  The Frothling thought that WAS the show, and she was perfectly happy.  Then the lights went down, the Ringmaster came out onto stage, aaaaannnnnnddddd.....

The Wiggles drove out in The Big Red Car.  The Frothling's eyes got as wide as saucers, her jaw dropped, and she turned to me and exclaimed, "Its the Wiggles Daddy!  Its really THEM!"

The crowd was well behaved, the show only marred when a mob of toddlers rushed the stage, tore off their pullups and threw them, with their room keys attached, at Anthony.  Luckily for me, The Frothling was able to restrain herself. 

Wiggling!

I brought my Nikon Coolpix, and it was very tough to get decent pictures in a darkened theatre with it.  In hindsight, I should have brought my D50.  Highlight of the night for The Frothling was when she got to meet Jeff and shake his hand.  He's her favorite Wiggle because "he always is asleep."  Unfortunatly, I did not get a picture of the moment. 

Hateful?

It seems that Mittens is a bit sensitive.  To whit:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Tuesday delivered a harsh indictment of President Barack Obama's re-election strategy, accusing the president of running a "campaign of division and anger and hate."

In general, if a Republican accuses a Democrat of something, its a sure bet that the Republican party is engaged in the activity they accuse the Democrat of practicing.  So lets have a look:

''He has no place in any station of government and we need to realize that he is an enemy of humanity.''

—Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), on President Obama's decision to fund international family planning organizations that support legal abortion, Sept. 26, 2009

''What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.''

—Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, interview with National Review, Sept. 11, 2010

''We will talk a little bit about what has transpired in the last 18 months and would we count what has transpired into turning our country into a nation of slaves.''

—Rep. Michele Bachmann, speaking at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver about the evils of the Obama administration, July 9, 2010

 ''[Obama] wouldn't have been voted president if he weren't black. Somebody asked me over the weekend why does somebody earn a lot of money have a lot of money, because she's black. It was Oprah. No, it can't be. Yes, it is. There's a lot of guilt out there, show we're not racists, we'll make this person wealthy and big and famous and so forth.... If Obama weren't black he'd be a tour guide in Honolulu or he'd be teaching Saul Alinsky constitutional law or lecturing on it in Chicago.''

—Rush Limbaugh, July 6, 2010

''This will play right into Obama's hands. He's humanitarian, compassionate. They'll use this to burnish their, shall we say, 'credibility' with the black community -- in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made-to-order for them. That's why he couldn't wait to get out there, could not wait to get out there.''

—Rush Limbaugh, on Haiti earthquake relief, Jan. 13, 2010

''Death panels are the bureaucracies that President Obama is establishing where bureaucrats will make the decision on who gets health care and how much.''

—Michele Bachmann, Newsmax interview, Sept. 10, 2009

''This president I think has exposed himself over and over again as a guy who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture....I'm not saying he doesn't like white people, I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist.''

—Glenn Beck, on President Obama, sparking an advertiser exodus from his FOX News show, July 28, 2009

''Obama's got a health care logo that's right out of Adolf Hitler's playbook ... Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate.''

—Rush Limbaugh, Aug. 6, 2009

''[An] Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug.''

—Mark Williams, national spokesman for the Tea Party Express, on President Obama

 

 

Judge OK's PA Voter Suppression Law

The potential disenfranchisment of hundreds of thousands of people just isn't that big of a deal.  There will be an appeal, but with the state supreme court split 3-3, I doubt such a challenge will succeed.  There is a potential for the Federal Government to step in under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, but I think that is a long shot as well.

Your papers please. And no, that's not a request, in Pennsylvania, it is now a demand in order to exercise your rights as a citizen.  The erosion continues.

UPDATE:  The NYT blasts the decision:

He wrote in his ruling that requiring a government-issued photo ID card to vote “is a reasonable, nondiscriminatory, nonsevere burden when viewed in the broader context of the widespread use of photo ID in daily life,” as if voting were equivalent to buying a six-pack of beer or driving a car....

The real reasons for voter ID laws are quite clear. The desire to dampen the Democratic vote after 2006 — and particularly in the wake of President Obama’s election — prompted six states to decide, virtually simultaneously, to pass voter ID laws. Their stated reason — combating voter fraud — is easily dismissed because there are virtually no documented cases of impersonation fraud that could be reduced with an ID card...

The voter ID requirement does not specifically single out any class or group and applies uniformly to all, he wrote. But what Republicans know, and what the judge should have realized, was that many voters won’t be able to participate in the democratic process any longer. Some won’t show up at the polls, unwilling to leap the hurdle placed before them, while others will try to vote and find their ballots rejected. This lawsuit was an opportunity to sweep away barriers to full citizenship. Judge Simpson should have placed his court on record supporting the country’s first principles.

That is the polite way of saying the judge fucked up.  Unfortunatly, Simpson isn't up for a retention vote for a decade.  By then, this absurd ruling will be forgotten.

 

And Now Republicans Are Blaming Obama For The Weather

The Republican party is becoming a parody of itself.  Boehner yesterday:

On its website and in an email Monday, House Speaker John Boehner's office said President Obama needs to take personal responsibility for the drought ravaging the Midwest.

Obama, "continues to blame anyone and everyone for the drought but himself," reads a release from Boehner's office posted online and distributed to reporters Monday.

Presidents can make it rain on command, ya know.  Boehner's office later clarified that the MEANT to state "the president continues to blame anyone and everyone for failing to respond to the drought but himself."

Which of course ignores the fact that Obama urged Congress to pass a farm bill that contains drought relief that's been languishing in Boehner's House.

 

Romney Chooses Ryan

I suppose there have been worse choices for a VP candidate, and so much for the theory that a canditate runs to the extremes in the primaries, and then tacks back to the center for the general.  Guess that Etch-a-Sketch is a bit harder to shake up these days.  Looks like Team Plutocracy is going for the full wingnut campaign. 

Its probably the most honest move Romney's made this year.

SHOCKING REVELATIONS!!

Jaysus, Romney is worse than I thought!  BooMan has the scoop:

Mitt Romney isn't really a Mormon. He's an atheist who only went along with his father's faith so he could duck the Vietnam draft. He didn't actually try to convert anyone when he was in France either. In reality, he spent all his time in Monte Carlo gambling and buying high-end hookers. When his daddy found out what he was doing, he made him come home and marry his high school sweetheart. Actually, he only made him marry her after the second time she got pregnant. The first time, they got an abortion. Then Romney started using some of the mafia connections he had made in Marseilles to import heroin. By the time he became governor, they were flying it straight into a secret airport they set up in the Berkshires. When one of the pilots started to talk, Romney had him killed.

Please, please PLEASE go to the link and read the entire piece.  Its that important.

Remember When?

Hey, remember when Mike Huckabee called for a "Support JC Penney Day" when One Million Moms started a boycott after the department store chain hired Ellen Degeneres as a spokesperson??  Oh wait, he didn't. 

But then there was the National Organization for Marriage's boycott of Starbucks over that coffee shop's support of marriage equality.  Huckabee stepped to the plate in support of Starbuck's free speech rights and called for a "Starbucks Appreciation Day!  Except he didn't.  

Then there's the AFA's "Naughty or Nice" list.  Its nice to know that Huckabee came through in defense of businesses' free speech right to use the inclusive "Happy Holidays."  But the reality is he didn't do that either.

Huckabee is only interested in defending the "free speech" rights of his own tribe's members.  Everyone else can STFU.

The Voter Suppression Plan

Voter ID is but one component.  Timothy Noah in today's Post-Gazette outines the multifacited nefarious Republican efforts at voter suppression.

And in somewhat related news, Allegheny County Republican chair Jim Roddey is forced to apologize after telling a wildly inappropriate "joke."

Sorry Mr. Norman, But You're Wrong

I generally enjoy Tony Norman's columns in the Post-Gazette, but his piece today on the Chik-Fil-A kerfuffle misses the point.  Norman notes, correctly, that gays are not denied service at Chik-Fil-A, unlike African-Americans who participated in sit ins at segregated lunch counters.  He writes,  

"That's why comparisons between Chick-fil-A and the businesses that refused to serve blacks in the first half of the 20th century are so disingenuous. Blacks would've jumped for joy to have dealt with the racist equivalent of a Dan Cathy in 1957. At least he would've served them coffee and let them use the bathrooms."...

Am I trying to rationalize patronizing a restaurant that plows money into causes I don't support? There's probably a little bit of that at work here, but I don't think a CEO's opinion matters as much as the company's actual practice when it comes to treating all customers with respect.

However, what Norman fails to acknowledge is the owners aren't legally allowed to discriminate against gays, thanks in large measure to the civil rights movement.  Gays and lesbians are tolerated at the restaurant because to not tolerate them would be to invite a rather costly legal action. I do not doubt for a minute that Dan Cathy would happily discriminate against the GLBT community if he thought he could get away with it, and therein lies the boycott.  While Cathy has every right to donate vast amounts of monies to organizations opposed to marriage equality, we too, have every right not to eat Chik-Fil-A food, realizing that the profits from those sales may well wind up funding organizations working at cross purposes to what the gay community and its supporters are trying to achieve. 

No one is denying Cathy his right to free speech by refusing to eat his food or by encouraging others to not eat it, but Cathy is working to deny equality based on his religious views.  He's entitled to those views, and we're also entitled to point them out.