Politics (formerly Election 2012)

[Darielle]

No clue.

Presumably, if they try something, it has to go through the approval process under Section 5, and the opponents can convince whoever does the approving that it unfairly targets minorities, or they do something that does affect minorities in some way, e.g. early voting hours, districting, not providing translations in X language, getting dates wrong in the translation to X language, etc.

[Fridmarr]

So today on my drive home, I saw a bumper sticker that said.

"Best Republican president
We've ever had
Barack Obama"

I'm confused, is this a passive agressive Conservative sticker?
A "Obama is a moderate" sticker? What is it? I'm lost.

It's a disgruntled liberal, complaining that Obama has been too conservative (or given in too much to the GOP).

[Paxen]

It's a disgruntled liberal, complaining that Obama has been too conservative (or given in too much to the GOP).

The first one. Remember that political chart we had some pages ago? Obama places in the upper right corner. It's not that he hasn't given in to the GOP, but simply the politics of the US today are so far right of where it was just twenty years ago.

[Klaudandus]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/27/i ... astration/

Apparently, the GOP really does equate guns with penises, and seeing how they seem to overcompensate, they must have really small ones.

[Klaudandus]

And a follow-up on Scalia being his usual douchecanoe
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/civi ... ction.html

[Fridmarr]

So what is it that you find so troubling about what he said?

[Cogglamp]

I don't see where the outrage stems from here. Questioning the legitimacy of the law is what Chief Justices are supposed to do.

[fuzzygeek]

But most court-watchers emerged from the oral arguments believing the portion of the Voting Rights Act that singles out states and counties with a history of racial discrimination at the polls—most of them in the South—will be struck down. Discriminating against minority voters would still be illegal under the act, but people who hope to challenge discriminatory actions would have to do so through the regular court process, which takes longer than the special pathway set up under the law.

Yeah, I don't get it either. Scalia's arguing that the discriminatory sections of the law should be removed as they create a racial entitlement, it looks like the court agrees. Voting Rights still protected under the 14th and 15th ... so what's the rub, bub?

[fuzzygeek]

Sooo. Bob Woodward. Discuss.

[Darielle]

Yeah, I don't get it either. Scalia's arguing that the discriminatory sections of the law should be removed as they create a racial entitlement, it looks like the court agrees. Voting Rights still protected under the 14th and 15th ... so what's the rub, bub?

One of the reasons people seem to be in a rub for the most part:
- So take the recent one, Florida wanted to do some stuff with early voting hours. It got blocked before it went into play because of this, a lot of fuss happened, but ultimately nothing changed.
- Put "Florida on an equal footing", and the early voting hours get changed, the people who previously blocked it go through a slower court system, where it might or might not actually get brought up/fixed before the election actually happens, and even if it does, might create enough confusion to achieve the effect of disrupting early voting hours anyway.

And of course, there's other people annoyed over the idea that protecting people's "right to vote" is a racial entitlement when it's basically accepted as something all citizens are entitled to, this step is just targetted at counties which have a history of specifically acting to curb that "right to vote" regarding a subset of the population. I don't know that the court actually agrees with the viewpoint either way.

Course, when you go the other aspect, Scalia's questioning is based on fairly odd logic. While it is possibly true that people may be continuing to vote for extending this law based on the idea that it would be political suicide not to, he's backing that up by comparing how racism is on a downward trend but support for this keeps increasing. The two aren't actually related in that way - racism can be on a downward trend and this have increased support simply because the people in Congress today are not the same people who had to be fought against for this kind of law to go into effect, and a greater awareness of racism in general.

[Fridmarr]

And of course, there's other people annoyed over the idea that protecting people's "right to vote" is a racial entitlement

Do you have a quote where Scalia actually said that the right to vote was a racial entitlement? The first article Klaud linked constrained his racial entitlement comment to Section 5. Indeed Justice Sotomayor's supposed rebuke of Scalia's comments directly referenced Section 5.

The second article suggests that Scalia did say it was a racial entitlement by actually quoting someone else who made a comment as a direct retort of that notion. It also claims that Sotomayor's rebuke was about "the right to vote" but it doesn't actually show her quote. While the quote in the first article indicates that she specifically said "Section 5".

I haven't researched it so maybe there are some quotes I'm missing, but it doesn't look like to me he said that, or anything that a reasonable person could assume meant that.

[Skye1013]

http://www.stonekettle.com/2013/02/sequ ... ounds.html

Thank you Jim, for finally explaining to me wtf sequestration is.

[Fridmarr]

http://www.stonekettle.com/2013/02/sequestration-and-self-inflicted-wounds.html

Thank you Jim, for finally explaining to me wtf sequestration is.

It does a reasonable job of explaining what sequestration is...but beyond that there is a heavy dose of rhetoric which is pretty questionable.

Some of that goes back to Fuzzy's so far ignored post about Bob Woodward, who ran an Op-Ed piece indicating how sequestration was an administration plan...and claims that he has since been "threatened" by the White House.

[Klaudandus]

Sooo. Bob Woodward. Discuss.

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/politics ... reat-story

[Fridmarr]

That's why I quoted "threatened", I don't think it was a threat either.   But then that's not what the real story is.
 
Anyhow, I'm asking again Klaud.  What was it about Scalia's comments made him a douchcanoe?