Supreme Court Blocks GOP Voter Disenfranchisement Law

This blog has repeatedly noted that part of the Republican Party's  playbook is to disenfranchise as many minority voters as possible so that the shrinking GOP base can still manage to cast a majority of votes.   In state after state, GOP controlled legislatures have passed strict voter ID laws under the guise of preventing nonexistent voter fraud.  This evening, the U. S. Supreme Court blocked the GOP passed bill in Wisconsin.  Similarly, a federal court in Texas has blocked that state's GOP enacted draconian voter ID law.  First these highlights from the Washington Post:

The Supreme Court on Thursday stopped officials in Wisconsin from requiring voters there to provide photo identification before casting their ballots in the coming election.

Three of the court’s more conservative members dissented, saying they would have allowed officials to require identification.

The requirement, one of the strictest in the nation, is part of a state law enacted in 2011 but mostly blocked by various courts in the interim. A federal trial judge had blocked it, saying it would “deter or prevent a substantial number of the 300,000-plus registered voters who lack ID from voting,” disproportionately affecting black and Hispanic voters.

In Texas, the Houston Chronicle looks at the breaking news in that state.  Here are excerpts:

A federal judge on Thursday blocked Texas from enforcing voter ID requirements just weeks ahead of the November elections, knocking down a law that the U.S. Justice Department condemned in court as the state's latest means of suppressing minority turnout.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of Corpus Christi is a defeat for Republican-backed photo ID measures that have swept across the U.S. in recent years and mostly been upheld in court. However, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday night blocked Wisconsin from implementing a law requiring voters to present photo IDs.

Gonzales Ramos, an appointee of President Barack Obama, never signaled during a two-week trial in September that she intended to rule on the Texas law — rebuked as the toughest of its kind in the U.S. — before Election Day. But the timing could spare an estimated 13.6 million registered Texas voters from needing one of seven kinds of photos identification to cast a ballot.

The Justice Department says more than 600,000 of those voters, mostly blacks and Hispanics, currently lack any eligible ID to vote.

Rather than change its platform to meet the views and needs of a changing population, the GOP prefers to continue to prostitute itself to Christofascists and white supremacists.   Once again, I find myself ashamed to have ever been a Republican.  Today's GOP is very, very ugly. 

 

Closeted Gays: Married Men Seeking Married Men

I always laugh when the Christofascists insist that gays make up only 2 to 3 percent of the population.  These folks obviously haven't surfed gay hook up sites where there are multitudes of  married men seeking other married men for sex.  I'm sure that if asked all of these men would claim that they are straight - yes, straight to the next married man.  The attraction of other married men  is obvious - another closeted man is not likely to "out" you and force you to confront what's really going on and the fact that one isn't straight if you are having sex with other men.  When I came out I was shocked by the number of married men looking for sex in gay chat rooms.  I even encountered one from my old neighborhood who had kids on the same neighborhood swim team as my children.  Yes, I was naive to put it mildly.  And, unlike so many of these "straight" married men, I had to be honest about myself and to my family.   Yes, the consequences of honesty and my ultimate divorce were messy to put it mildly.   But living a dual life was something I simply could not do.  A piece in Huffington Post looks at the phenomenon of married men looking for other married men.  Here are some excerpts:

Just a little over 12 years ago, I would have said, "I'm not gay, I just like having sex with men!"  Excuse me, that sounds pretty homosexual to me. Granted, if you're a male and having sex with other males, you could be bisexual, but whatever you are, you should just admit it. But I didn't do that 12 years ago. I was caught in a dysfunctional sexual limbo that made no sense. Of course, things have changed and I'm a happy homosexual now. I've also joined the ranks of the "happily divorced" and I'm no longer messing around with other married men, disengaging from the experience and pretending to be something I'm not. However, contrary to popular belief, there are more "married men looking for married men" out there.

Shocking as it may seem to some of you, this phenomena is not new. Of course, I have no cold hard facts to prove this statement, but I don't need them. All I need is a computer, an Internet connection and an hour of free time. There are numerous sites where "married men for married men" lurk. There are also online groups where these guys exchange their stories, get support for their dual lives and find the occasional hookup. And then there are online chat rooms, gay hook-up sites, and gay apps that are also used by men who are married and "just having sex with men," even though they're "not gay." 

Society's lack of education and understanding towards alternatives to heterosexuality has forced people, men and women, into hiding in mixed-orientation marriages. This leads to people not living their authentic lives, nasty divorces, children who question their own sexuality after a parent comes out and numerous other problems .  .  .  . 

There's more to the piece that looks at why no gay man in his right mind would date and become emotionally involved with a married man.   To me, however, the real point of the story is that there are many, many more gays than the Christofascists like to believe.  And as society becomes more accepting of gays and we achieve full civil law equality, expect our visibility and numbers to increase.  It will not because there are suddenly more gays, but rather simply because more of us are finally being honest with ourselves and our families.

Richmond Times-Dispatch Slams Virginia GOP's Electoral College Plan

For non-Virginians, the Richmond Times-Dispatch is generally among the most conservative larger newspapers in Virginia.  All too often it acts a a cheerleader for the Republican Party.  But in its main editorial today, the Richmond Times-Dispatch slams the Virginia GOP's attempt to reallocate the way Virginia's Electoral College votes are distributed and calls the effort for what it is: an effort to disenfranchise large numbers of Virginians.  Rather than jettison the GOP's losing message and policies - and offend the extremists at The Family Foundation and the Tea Part element of the party base, the anti-democracy forces in the Virginia GOP want to change the rules so that candidates not even receiving a majority of votes in Virginia could "carry the state" nonetheless.   Here are editorial highlights: 

Efforts are under way to change the way states allocate their electors. In 2012, President Barack Obama carried certain battlegrounds while losing congressional districts in those states. In Virginia, for instance, he claimed four of the state’s 11 districts. Republicans want to switch from a winner-take-all formula to a system that would award electoral votes by congressional district. They even would deny a state’s two at-large electors to the winner of the popular vote but would give the two electors to the candidate who won the most districts. If the approach had applied to Virginia in 2012, Mitt Romney would have won nine of the commonwealth’s electoral votes, despite losing the statewide popular count to Obama. If other states adopted similar proposals, Romney might have won an electoral majority — and the presidency, despite receiving about 5 million fewer popular votes than Obama received.

A president elected in those circumstances would lack legitimacy.

Gerrymandering suggests partisans would draw lines not only to maximize their congressional share but also to boost their presidential tickets. The changes contemplated in Virginia would disenfranchise large numbers of voters.

Both parties have toyed with the Electoral College. When Republican presidential candidates routinely carried Virginia, Democrats promoted changes similar to those promoted by Republicans today. They did not enact them, which is something serious Republicans ought to remember. Although Democrats are not clean, the immediate threat comes from Republicans. The drive to change the rules is a sign of immaturity and fear. A confident party would not try to rig the process. It would rededicate itself to winning — earning, to be precise — a greater portion of the ballots cast by all voters. Moves to reapportion Virginia’s electors give minority citizens another reason to shun the GOP. Real conservatives will reject these mischievous gimmicks. Gov. Bob McDonnell is right to oppose the change.

Surprisingly, even the generally insane Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli opposes the Virginia GOP's effort - perhaps because to do otherwise would be most unhelpful to his gubernatorial campaign.

Virginia Republicans’ Putsch and Bald-Faced Power Grab

In a move that some say is unconstitutional, the Virginia GOP has attempted to redraw the Commonwealth's legislative districts to insure themselves a majority much in the way Republicans used gerrymandering to insure that they would retain a majority in the House of Representatives even though they received more than 1 million fewer votes than Democrats in the most recent federal election.  It is yet another attempt to subvert democracy and further proof that rather than change their policies and programs with the times to remain electable, today's Republicans prefer to cheat and play underhanded games that show open contempt for voters and democratic principles.  Perhaps such behavior should come as little surprise from a party now dominated by theocrats and white supremacists and those who would prefer an oligarchy over democracy.  The Washington Post blasts the underhanded conduct.  Here are excerpts:

IN A SNEAK ATTACK notable more for its deviousness than its strategic acuity, Virginia Republicans engineered a bald-faced power grab Monday that would radically redraw the state’s electoral map without so much as a “yea,” “nay” or “maybe” from anything so trivial as a voter.

Taking advantage of the absence of a single Democratic state senator, GOP lawmakers in Richmond rammed through a radically gerrymandered map designed to hand them control of the 40-member state Senate, which is now split evenly between the two parties.

They were able to do so, on a vote of 20 to 19, because one Democratic senator was in Washington to attend President Obama’s inauguration. Touche, Republicans! Count that as a new low for hyper-partisanship, dirty tricks and the unaccountable arrogance of power.

The Republican move was executed in the style of a putsch, arising from a conspiracy and with no warning, public input or debate. Pressing their momentary numerical superiority, GOP lawmakers amended a routine House bill by tacking on a new map, devised in secret. Although this is one of the most partisan redistricting plans in Virginia’s history, the Republicans then cut off debate after 30 minutes.

Mr. McDonnell should immediately announce his intention to veto the map. If the redistricting is allowed to stand, it would radically reshape politics in Richmond. Unlike the GOP-dominated House of Delegates, the Senate has been in Democratic hands or closely divided since 2007. The Republican gerrymander, which could deliver several seats to the GOP, would change that at a stroke.

That this change would take place at mid-decade, rather than immediately following the decennial census as is customary, is of no concern to the Republicans, whose eyes are fixed only on the 2015 legislative elections. In embracing the radical option, they discounted all consequences, including the hypocrisy of their chosen fig leaf.

State Sen. John C. Watkins (Chesterfield), the mastermind of the ruse, defended it on the grounds that it would likely yield one additional black state senator. That rationale was rich, given that Republicans have steadfastly blocked Democratic attempts to redraw the electoral map for Congress to create additional minority districts. (Although minorities constitute more than a third of Virginia’s population, just one of Virginia’s 11 House members is a minority.)

Democrats are dead set on retaliating, and who can blame them? They could, for example, blow up everything by using their votes in the Senate to block Mr. McDonnell’s proposals to reform public education and transportation funding. They could also block passage of the budget.

That’s why Mr. McDonnell, who professes not to have known about his fellow Republicans’ subterfuge until it was carried out, should immediately announce his intent to veto the map. Failing to do so will only invite legislative paralysis, subvert his own proposals and inalterably stain his legacy. The sooner he acts, the better.

I will not be holding my breath expecting McDonald to do what is right.   Like conservative Christianity the Republican Party needs to die.  It increasingly poses a threat to good government and common decency and fair play.  No doubt the hate merchants at The Family Foundation are cheering the putsch.  If one is looking for morality and ethics, the last place to look is among "godly Christians" and Republicans.