Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) was on “Politics Nation” with Rev. Al Sharpton suggesting that Republican Congress members could benefit from a nice big dose of Ducolax:
“There’s no question that the Republicans, at least in the House and perhaps in the Senate as well, have contributed significantly to the legislative constipation that we are experiencing here in the United States. If we had a balanced approach instead of the sequestration, we would probably have a higher number than 160,000 jobs that were created.”
Kinda gives a whole new meaning to Republicans not giving a crap.
On Thursday, Michigan’s Public Act 36 comes into effect and Detroit Emergency Financial Manager Kevyn Orr becomes Emergency Manager (EM), granting him an expansion of his authority over the city, including the ability to unilaterally override collective bargaining agreements. However, a group of activists which includes PoliticsNation host Rev. Al Sharpton is working to strip him of those powers entirely. Sharpton’s organization, the National Action Network, has filed a federal lawsuit contending that the Emergency Management system is unlawful.
King Ricky Snyder’s response to protests over stomping all over democracy by undermining voters?
“The old law went away, but we put in a new law that really was responsive to the issues that came up during that process,. And if you look at it, I’m also the elected official. I was elected by the people of Michigan. So there is an elected official in charge of that process, and I think that’s critically important…. It’s not about excluding people, it’s about teamwork… solving problems together…”
Said the elected official who gets to remain in power as he pulls the plug on other elected officials’ power.
Watch, listen, and learn. The Rev saved his best lines for last.
Excerpts:
Rev. Al:
“An officer of the law who refuses to carry out the law. Interesting.”
“What gives you the authority… to decide what’s constitutional?”
“You’re not a Supreme Court justice are you?”
Babeu:
“These are not lawful anything.”
“The president should not… with a wave of the hand, say this is what we’re going to do.”
Rev. Al:
“You said you would be the decider of what is constitutional. What gives you the authority?”
Babeu:
“I have to enforce the law…. whether I agree with them or not. These are not laws.”
Rev. Al:
“Tell me how these orders violate constitutional freedom.”
Babeu:
“They don’t specifically.” But more laws are bad blahblahblah.
Rev. Al:
“But you’re talking your opinion, sheriff. You’re not telling me how it violates constitutional law.“
“So you’re gonna decide…?”
Babeu:
“Not at all. That’s his authority…”
Rev. Al:
“It’s not alright if it’s something you disagree with? And you hide behind it’s unconstitutional?”
Babeu:
”The most important person in the land is that of private citizen [sic]…”
Rev. Al:
“Tell me where he has in your opinion made an executive action that is unconstitutional.”
Babeu:
“He doesn’t in those 23.”
Rev. Al:
“You accused the president of acting like a king and a dictator… but you say he didn’t do it.”
Babeu:
“He talks about what he plans for legislation…”
Rev. Al:
“Ooooh, so legislation! So you mean now you’re not talking about exec action. You mean if he proposes legislation that is voted by the Congress, you’re going to defy the very laws that Congress may vote on?“
Babeu:
“Not at all.”
Rev Al:
“You just said… Legislation means it goes before the Congress. That’s what legislation is.”
Babeu:
Blahblahblah Fast and Furious, hypocrisy blahblah.
Rev Al:
“Wait a minute. You’re trying to go Fast and Furious away from the issue! You just admitted that he is proposing legislation which is the antithesis to him being a king or dictator…“
“I can only assume you did this… to get some attention…”
“You started by saying you’re going to defy unconstitutionality that you can’t establish. And you’re the sheriff! People actually depend on you to protect them!”
As regular readers know, I write about voter suppression regularly. Nearly every day sometimes, especially now that the GOP is trying their best to disenfranchise up to 5 million voters, easily enough to throw the election to Romney.
Hence, my mantra and quick primer on Voter I.D. laws:
New voter registration laws could hurt President Obama. The people suffering the worst consequences of the Voter I.D. laws are most often low income voters, the elderly, the ill who can’t leave home, young voters, minorities, and of course, anyone without transportation (or to put it another way, lean Democratic).And to those who say, “Well, there are always absentee ballots,” some states are now requiring Voter I.D. to qualify for those, too.
Access (transportation) to Voter I.D. centers is one reason so many people are unable to get a new picture I.D. Another is that it costs money, including paying for a copy of a birth certificate or other documents one might need to acquire a new I.D. Hence, Attorney General Holder’s reference to a poll tax.
Remember: Voter fraud is rarer than getting struck by lightning.
One of the people is an excellent spokesperson on this subject is Politics Nation’s Rev. Al Sharpton, and for that we should be immensely grateful.
Today he had an op-ed in the L.A. Times. Please read it and share it. I’ll take a chance and post a big chunk of it here, too, because some readers don’t like to click over, and this is too important to skip:
…10 states now have highly restrictive photo ID laws that require citizens to produce specific types of government-issued documents to vote: Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kansas, South Carolina, Alabama and Texas. [...]
And who are the voters who will be affected? As the Brennan Center reports, more than 1 in 10 eligible voters in the U.S. do not possess the kind of IDs required by those 10 states. More specifically, 1 in 4 African Americans, 1 in 6 Latinos and 1 in 5 Americans over age 65 lack the requisite ID.
Though it may be difficult for some of us to imagine, many of these people simply do not drive or cannot afford a vehicle and therefore don’t possess a driver’s license. And the process of obtaining a valid ID — even when the states issue them for free — can be costly to those on fixed incomes or for those who must take time off from work, lose wages and find the means to travel to a government agency. Often they must produce copies of items such as birth certificates, which not only cost money to reproduce but may take weeks to process.
If these added difficulties weren’t discouraging enough, in Wisconsin, Mississippi and Alabama, fewer than half of all ID-issuing offices are open five days a week and none are open on the weekends. And many have irregular operating hours. The Brennan Center documented an office in Mississippi open only on the second Thursday of the month, and in Wisconsin, only on the fifth Wednesday (only four months in 2012 have five Wednesdays). [...]
“What’s wrong with requiring voters to have an ID? After all, you need a state-issued ID to drive, to get on an airplane, to write a check. Why not to vote?”
Here’s why. On a fundamental level, that argument confuses privileges with rights. No American has a constitutional right to drive, fly or pay by check. We do not have constitutionally protected rights to rent cars or to use credit cards. That some people think these activities are comparable to voting is alarming — and revealing.
Every American 18 or older has the right to vote. [...]
Why now?… The new voter suppression movement has taken off since the game-changing 2008 presidential race, when minorities and young voters turned out in record numbers. [...]
Very quickly, Republicans began doing their best to stop them from voting again.
[A]n excellent and review of Romney’s positions by Think Progress shows that he has “updated” George W. Bush’s positions by moving substantially to the right in a number of key areas, including:
tax policy
campaign finance
education
Medicare
minimum wage
the environment
And just imagine who the next Supreme Court justices would be under Willard W. Bush.
I had a Twitter exchange with Ron Christie yesterday about Voter I.D. laws, and, as you can see here, a few others jumped in:
Wasn’t that special? He’s apparently paid to be just as unreasonable on Twitter as he is on the Tee Vee machine.
But here’s the good news, via The Hill, and I hope Ronnie laps this up the way Rush laps up Oxycontin:
The Justice Department moved Monday to block Texas’s new law that requires voters to display government-issued photo identification while voting, arguing the legislation disproportionately harms Hispanic voters… [T]he Obama administration argued in a letter to the Texas Secretary of State that there wasn’t evidence of pervasive voter fraud under the state’s existing laws. [...]
Instead, the Obama administration argued that the legislation was designed to make voting harder for minorities and the poor, who are least likely to hold a government-issued ID.
“Even using the data most favorable to the state, Hispanics disproportionately lack either a driver’s license or a personal identification card issued by DPS, and that disparity is statistically significant,” Perez writes. [...]
Republicans plan to challenge the Justice Department’s ruling in federal court, arguing that the legislation contains specific exemptions for the elderly, poor, and those who held religious objections to being photographed. Under the law, the state would provide free voter ID cards for those unable to afford driver’s licenses or state ID cards.
Democrats counter the GOP argument, saying that in order to receive free voter identification cards, original copies of birth certificates would be required, or other documents that would cost money and take a lot of time and effort to get.
In other words, some voters would have to pay money they may not have, and jump through inconvenient and time-consuming hoops, in order to vote.
South Carolina’s law was blocked, but eight states have passed voter ID laws just in the past year. Those hit hardest are usually low income voters, the elderly, the ill who can’t leave home, young voters, minorities, and of course, anyone without transportation (or to put it another way, lean Democratic). And to those who say, “Well, there are always absentee ballots,” some states are now requiring Voter I.D. to qualify for those, too.
But according to Ron Christie, race has nothing to do with it, because after all, HE had to show identification and had no problem at all, because he’s, you know, your typical voter.
Per John Nichols: WI Judge’s remarkable decision declares extreme VOTER ID law “sows the seeds for (state government’s) demise as a democratic institution.”
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