Thinking Right

By TW

April 29, 2008 8:17 AM | Link to this

This is gonna bite the right in the butt (in a bad way). Watch the left’s organization to get IDs to people over the next decade. This move will provide the nails that ultimately seal conservativism shut in the casket built for it by ‘w’.

Shame on the keepers of the conservative voice…

By bob

April 29, 2008 8:20 AM | Link to this

The Democrats will find another way to let illegals vote. The argument that a free ID amounts to a poll tax was amusing.

By jbmlaw

April 29, 2008 8:21 AM | Link to this

Good morning all. “McCarthyism” has been alive and well within the democrat party since the political lynchings of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. No rational republican with a family and any self-respect would seek appointment to a Federal position. Any republican who accepts such a nomination today truly is a modern Cincinnatus.

At their present pace, senate democrats, in total control of judicial appointments since 2006, will approve approximately half the number approved by republicans during Bill Clinton’s final two years. Beyond judicial appointments (and the FEC, as noted by Jim) perhaps one-third of the Federal agencies have appointments pending longer than six months, due to the sluggards of the party of irresponsibility. The FEC is a particularly amusing case, in that the paralysis at the agency ensures that the agency will be unable to provide timely votes on advisory matters here in an election year (purpose of that delay is to ensure a litany of phony charges against republicans only next year.) Were honesty a trait of democrats, they would hold a vote for each nominee, and vote down those nominees they do not like; such accountability, however, would cost them at the polls, as the American public is repulsed by such raw political activity. Far from uniting America, by showing that the system works, the democrats intend to prove the virtues of division. Watch and learn.

One minor correction on the court ruling (that is springboard for today’s essay on the politics of personal destruction as practiced only by democrats): the majority ruling by Mr. Justice Stevens was joined only by Justice Kennedy and Chief Justice Roberts. The concurring opinion by Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas and Justice Alito was a much stronger opinion, and would have foreclosed any future theoretical challenge on the subject. In order to procure his 6-3 ruling favoring the general concept, Justice Roberts joined the centrists’s position, without foreclosing future challenges. The practical effect should be the same, the issue will now fade away.

By john

April 29, 2008 8:26 AM | Link to this

After surviving poll taxes, tests, threats, etc, a picture will be a piece of cake. History will look at this case and decison for what it really was …. an attempt to suppress the vote.

By jbmlaw

April 29, 2008 8:26 AM | Link to this

One more note, re: Jim’s observation on Justice Stevens, does this not prove that Justice Roberts is the best chess player on the court since Earl Warren? After the death penalty opinion a couple of weeks ago, Justice Stevens almost seems mainstream now.

By James

April 29, 2008 8:30 AM | Link to this

Now if we could just find a way to make sure that only people who “contribute” to our society can vote. Right now, people who pay “zero” income taxes outnumber those of us who do. I would even vote for a sliding scale. The more you pay - the more you vote counts. With modern computers, it could be done.

By Redneck Convert

April 29, 2008 8:40 AM | Link to this

Well, us rednecks finally got a Supreme Court that will vote the godly Republican way. Its real simple. If you appoint a godly Republican to a court you get a Republican way of voting. Once in a while you will even get a librul voting the godly way on the SC.

Now if My President will just keep this commission down to two members they won’t never meet and push this civil rights stuff onto us.

I’m awful glad Those People will think twice about showing up at the polls. And the Mexicans too. They know they will get a good lookover and questions if they try to vote so maybe they will just stay home. They all look alike so maybe a poll worker can say the photo don’t look like the person and maybe do a little hassling. Besides, us godly rednecks don’t need to be having our vote cancelled out by scum like that.

So it looks like My President got the SC he wants. Cases are being decided in favor of big business, so Free Innerprize can run wild and pretty soon the money will come Trickling Down to us. It ain’t our fault if that woman that claimed pay discrimination didn’t find out she was being paid less than anybody else till it was too late to go to court. I’m pretty sure any employer would tell you what he’s paying anybody else if you just ask nice. And the SC has turned us loose to kill all the murderers waiting on Death Row. Now we learn the SC says photo ID is fine. I feel like it is Christmas in April.

So have a good day everybody. It feels great to be a Real American and have a SC that’s packed with Real Americans. Besides, its good payback for getting appointed anyway. With a lifetime job and a big salary they ought to be willing to return My President a favor.

By ron

April 29, 2008 8:43 AM | Link to this

Good morning Jim,You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t share in your glee over the issue of voter ID.I believe that all Americans lost in this decision.

By jbmlaw

April 29, 2008 8:45 AM | Link to this

Dear James @ 8:30, you are surely aware that Dr. Walter E. Williams is also a proponent of the “corporate management” style of voting. I think his compromise idea is that everyone gets one vote, plus one vote for every $10,000 in taxes paid. Leftists are horrified at the idea of “whoever pays the fiddler calls the tune.”

By ray

April 29, 2008 8:46 AM | Link to this

James@8:30 - amen, bro. and then we ought to bulldoze them freeloaders down to mexico before we build the wall, especially the greasy fat do nuthins. especially the fat baptist welfare hypocraps who clog up the buffet on sundays. darn right my vote ought count more. good post.

By Ally

April 29, 2008 8:49 AM | Link to this

Amen to only allowing taxpayers to vote.

By john

April 29, 2008 8:49 AM | Link to this

bob wrote:

The Democrats will find another way to let illegals vote. The argument that a free ID amounts to a poll tax was amusing.

Boob: What FREE ID? You are missing some facts. Also, there are NO reports of any large scale voter fraud cases. The 100K number for Illinois is laughable. Most of the real fraud can be traced to absentee ballots and no one is even talking about those.

By JK

April 29, 2008 8:50 AM | Link to this

James, what do you call the form of government where representation only belongs to those with money? Oligarchy? Plutocracy? Fascism? (To heck with the Constitution, right?)

BTW, if you are indeed a “contributing” member of society (your post here during working hours casts some doubt), you still have more means to influence the U.S. government than poor people do. You can buy your Congressmen like all the other rich folks and corporations (who now, after paying big $$$ to their lawyers, have more rights than individuals). Stop whining and write a check to the who-, I mean legistlator you want to own.

BTW, with modern computers, all manner of fraud is easy, even elections. Have fun subverting what’s left of our Democracy!

By munchi

April 29, 2008 8:50 AM | Link to this

REDNECK CONVERT…

You crack me up! What you say in your folksy way is absolutely on target…

By JeremiahWright

April 29, 2008 8:52 AM | Link to this

Voter IDs are common sense. That’s all there is to it. Only the loons are opposed. The only reason against Voter IDs is to let illegals vote, and that’s just unAmerican.

By George Washington

April 29, 2008 8:54 AM | Link to this

It gives me great pleasure to announce to you retards the continuing, slow, painful DEATH of the American newspaper industry. Of most interest to the ajc clowns, their sister paper, the washingass post, had a circulation decline of 3.57% yoy March 07 to March 08. Overall, yoy newspaper circulation declined at an accelerating rate of 3.6% — This is great news, an indicator of the declining ability of Americans to read or to even care about events in the world…Soon, liars like Dusty will be able to manipulate the truth at will via talk radio….Reading and Writting matter not as long as the brats have school sports, music, and art….I will have an abundance of field hands soon…the ignorant scum…pull that plow boy, hoe that row, hag….The export market will pay me in hard currency for that wheat, corn, and tobacco…..With no export taxes or I will burn the whole field…..

By Webster

April 29, 2008 8:55 AM | Link to this

corporate management style of voting - term used by those who yearn to go back to the days when lesser people only counted as 3/5ths; often referred to in rightwing circles as ‘the good old days.’

By roylee

April 29, 2008 8:58 AM | Link to this

Here is the scary thing about the court’s decision. Three members of the court believe that it is wrong to require people to prove their identity before they vote. This comes on the heels of three members of the court saying that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is bound by the view of an “international” court sitting in the Netherlands. What is to keep these same justices from believing that the views of a Dutch (or French or Danish) court also represent an “evolving standard of decency” and holding US state courts to that standard. Scary stuff. Scary times.

By George Washington

April 29, 2008 9:04 AM | Link to this

Will no one rid us of that meddlesome monk? An English king once had but to utter that phrase once to rid himself of the ArchBishop of Canterbury….Ah guess black knights are not very bright, eh? Come on Barak, give yourfollowers a hint as to the fate of the stupid rev….Give us an Executive decision…..

By GS

April 29, 2008 9:07 AM | Link to this

I never thought voter ID laws were all that necessary. Remember, you have to show an ID to get registered; so in order to vote you at least to present a correct name in the correct precinct. The risk of voter fraud occurring after votes are cast is much greater. For example, many precincts in New York reported 0 votes for Obama in the primary. That’s a statistical impossibility; somebody was tampering with the ballot boxes.

On the other hand, the evidence that the poor and elderly will have a hard time voting is totally overblown. Consider that these groups manage to cash their welfare and Social Security checks. Either at a bank or at a store, eventually you have to show photo ID to get cash. Therefore it cannot possibly be a burden to show ID to vote.

By JK

April 29, 2008 9:08 AM | Link to this

Yes, James and Ally, if you get your way on “only taxpayers vote” issue, y’all can go explain to the veterans in the nursing home, the moms who spend all their lives feeding and caring for others, and the severely disabled that they can no longer vote. Then write to the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and tell them they’re “defending the freedoms” of a much smaller group of people than they were when they signed up, and explain to them exactly why you hate America. Have fun with that!

By roylee

April 29, 2008 9:10 AM | Link to this

Dear Redneck Convert, The more murderers on death row that are snuffed out the better. I guess it makes you feel good to think of yourself as an advocate for murderers. You and your mom up in New Jersey must be really proud. But that’s the way it is with liberals. It is not about what is good for the country or society, it is all about what makes the liberal FEEL GOOD.

By George Washington

April 29, 2008 9:29 AM | Link to this

The Rev Wright has just announced that he is suffering from the effects of Senile Dementia, and no one should pay any attention to his words….He has been Baker Acted in the State of Florida…imho

By Aquagirl

April 29, 2008 9:32 AM | Link to this

6-3 is a “blowout”? What would a 5-4 decision be, a “landslide”? I know conservative wackos are unable to master the basics of science, they seem to have decided normal math is also tainted by Secular Humanism.

And I’m not shocked Justice Stevens deviated from Jim’s expected course…you see, “liberals” often do so, unlike the five other justices named, who rarely deviate from siding with big government. Unless it’s about guns, and then suddenly America is the land of individuality and freedom from government interference.

People who can’t/won’t get an ID lack the capacity to locate their wazoo with both hands and a flashlight. I’m surprised they could even find their way to the polling place. Why in God’s name would we let them in?

By Keeper of the Conservative Voice

April 29, 2008 9:32 AM | Link to this

All I have to say is: nah-nah-nanah-nah! Damn right that a person has to show an ID to vote! Get real, you dumbazz liberals - everyone you say is going to be “disenfranchised” already has a picture ID - how else are they going to buy their malt liquor, obtain their cell phones, drive a car, use a credit card, buy cigarettes, etc., etc., etc! The tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of people who don’t have one, WILL BE ABLE TO GET ONE FREE OF CHARGE! How is this a problem? Stupid azz liberals!

By Capitol Hack

April 29, 2008 9:37 AM | Link to this

I’m not sure whether Jim is trying to mislead us here or whether he just didn’t get all the facts of the Supreme Court decision. To say that this decision was not splintered and is actually “as emphatic as it gets” is either intentionally misleading or just wishful thinking.

In fact, the court issued three opinions. Not surprisingly, Scalia, Thomas and Alito found that the Indiana voter ID law is an innocuous non-discriminatory voting regulation. Stevens, Roberts and Kennedy found that, even though there was NO EVIDENCE presented of the alleged voter fraud that voter ID laws are supposed to prevent, the plaintiffs also presented no evidence that the voter ID law had a harmful impact on voters. This middle-of-the-road opinion leaves open the possibility of more lawsuits in the future.

Finally - and again not surprisingly - Souter, Ginsberg and Breyer found that the voter ID law is an obvious attempt to deter certain voters and even pointed out that the cost to get a birth certificate copy in Indiana is more than the old $1.50 poll tax that the Court struck down years ago.

If three opinions split among 9 justices don’t constitute a splintered decision, I don’t know what does. Of course, in our sound-bite society, nuance and details can easily be sacrificed for bluster and BS. But come on, Jim, we expect better of you!

By Gary

April 29, 2008 9:40 AM | Link to this

Apologize for what? Can anyone name one single case in Georgia where where having a picture government ID would have stopped someone from voting that shouldn’t have? This is another example of Big Government spending our money to fix non-existent problems.

By ENOUGH is ENOUGH

April 29, 2008 9:42 AM | Link to this

Let’s take it one step more. If you receive ANY taxpayer handouts (notice I didn’t say goverment), ie WIC, welfare, food stamps, housing, etc. YOU DON’T GET TO VOTE!

By Peter

April 29, 2008 9:46 AM | Link to this

Well good thing Jim Whooten is still NOT talking about the ECONOMY…..the WRONGS here would have ZERO to say.

Better blind them with the Bull Sh!t, so no one pays any attention to how bad it is really getting.

Great Job Jim, at least you are diverting attention to the real issues in America!

By James

April 29, 2008 9:49 AM | Link to this

To JK:

You amuse me. You get on to me for being here during “working hours” but what are you doing ? By the way - USMC Vietnam veteran, 34 years Federal law enforcemnt - fully retired.

Now - if you read my entry you will find I was suggesting the “more” you contribute the “more” your vote counts. By the way, our country is NOT a democracy (mob rule) and never has been. It is a Constitutional Republic - much different.

Chill out …………

By George Washington

April 29, 2008 9:49 AM | Link to this

More than Enough - If you have citizenship in any foreign country, you do not get to vote in Georgia - No dual citizens should ever get to vote anywhere in america….america for americans only….

By Truthifier

April 29, 2008 9:50 AM | Link to this

Couldn’t a requirement to show identification actually be a means to prevent voter disenfranchisement? Let’s say that I don’t like the way my neighbor votes. For fun, let’s call my neighbor jbmlaw (no offense, just using you as an example!). Without an ID requirement, couldn’t I, hypothetically, go to the local polling site and present myself as jbmlaw and cast my/his vote in favor of one of jbmlaw’s leftist friends?

By Forrest

April 29, 2008 9:50 AM | Link to this

If you receive ANY taxpayer handouts (notice I didn’t say goverment), ie WIC, welfare, food stamps, housing, etc. YOU DON’T GET TO VOTE!

Stupid is as stupid does.

By Peter

April 29, 2008 9:51 AM | Link to this

Come on folks what did you expect….this is the same group that GAVE the Presidency to BUSH in the first place.

By TW

April 29, 2008 9:53 AM | Link to this

Many thanks to the ‘conservatives’ for paving the way for a tsunami of registered Democrat voters over the next decade.

2008 republicans are nothing but closet liberals. Watch.

By javaman

April 29, 2008 9:54 AM | Link to this

6 - 3 == No-Brainer

By Get OVER it!

April 29, 2008 9:58 AM | Link to this

By Peter

Peter, it’s been almost EIGHT years, get over it. If there was ANY PROOF to your claim, the libs would have found it by now. Dangle MY CHAD!

By jbmlaw

April 29, 2008 10:03 AM | Link to this

Dear Webster @ 8:55, I am not certain whether you deceive or whether you are merely misinformed. You will recall that it was the evil slaveholder who believed the pitiful slaves should be counted as a whole person, and it was freedom lovers (libertarians like me) who believed slaves should not be counted at all. Thus the counting dispute was a compromise – a typical middle of the road, split the baby, abysmal judgment. As always, the great evil – that slaves were only 3/5ths of a person - was a result, not of firmly held beliefs on either side, but rather of the “can’t we all get along” types who compromise beliefs. I’m not sure where your strange post places “conservatives” in that calculus, but I assume you place them with the freedom lovers outside the slave states, who assigned a zero value.

As to the “corporate management” system that you and our friend JK decry, the appropriate solution is one man, one vote, and an equal share of the budget for each voter. None of this “progressive” theft as in the current (i.e., post 16th Amendment) kleptocracy.

Dear Aquagirl @ 9:32, I think you err in your analysis. Any Supreme Court ruling that finds the states have a power not prohibited by the Federal government is not a finding for “big government.” Big government is the Federal.

By Peter

April 29, 2008 10:04 AM | Link to this

Hey By Get OVER it!…….

How is all doing in your personal economics?

Gotta a BIG CAR that sucks down a bunch of gas?

Any comments about how long our RECESSION will be ?

By Abomi Nation

April 29, 2008 10:06 AM | Link to this

Right on! Lets further expand the “no vote ” rule to people claiming a mortgage deduction on their income tax. This is a special right.

Any freeloader that takes advantage of special rights tax deductions for children should also be banned.

Tax rebate/welfare checks? Ban the recipients.

If you have a child in school that is supported by tax dollars, ban them. This special right costs me $4,000.00 a year. At least.

Lets face it, people that have mortgages and children take in a lot more in taxes then they pay. They should have no voice in how taxpayer money is spent. They are leaches.

By Marcel

April 29, 2008 10:07 AM | Link to this

I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand the flap about showing your ID to vote. I have done it for years, it’s not that big of a deal. Just take the damn thing out of your wallet, show it to the pollster, and put it away.

Everyone has some sort of ID, whether its a driver’s license or some type of government id.

If you are here illegally, then you don’t vote. Simple? Why is this such a big deal? Can someone please explain this one to me?

By TW

April 29, 2008 10:10 AM | Link to this

Relax! We’re saved!

WASHINGTON - President Bush aimed Tuesday to address mounting anxieties about U.S. economic problems as energy prices soar and more Americans lose their homes in foreclosures.

Whew…close one. Can’t wait for the swell of confidence that will surely follow the speech…

By Dave

April 29, 2008 10:12 AM | Link to this

Redneck Convert, I am not amused. Under the image of a southern stereotype, you seem to be exactly the opposite of who you say you are.

I wager $5 that you live in midtown, drive a scooter and are angry most of the time at “neocons” and just about everyone else. A self-hating liberal is as obvious as a splinter in my thumb.

voter ID: try operating in society without an id. How does one cash a paycheck, make any sort of non-cash transaction without an ID?

How many people do you know who operate on cash alone without any interaction with banks, credit etc? Its almost impossible.

Why does the left fight this so much? No one is disenfranchised, you fight so hard for this it stinks like week old fish. As a group, do you really want illegal aliens voting?

By Keeper of the Conservative Voice

April 29, 2008 10:20 AM | Link to this

Come on folks what did you expect…this is the same group that nominated Al Gore and John Kerry (primo move there, guys), keeps electing Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi, used to elect Cynthia McKinney - hold on - I’m laughing so hard that I can’t stay in my seat any longer - oh my gawd - what a bunch of maroons! Voter ID Rocks!

By Abomi Nation

April 29, 2008 10:21 AM | Link to this

TW, the “swell of confidence” in the Bush speech will be amazing. I can’t wait. On top of that we have McCains plan to drop the gas tax to solve the energy crisis. Happy days are hear again.

Only thing is Bush has an approval rating of 28%. When it goes below 30% I believe the “Shut the F up Amendment” goes into effect and the President is banned from speaking in public. Oh well at least we still have McCain’s gas tax holiday to save us.

By Aquagirl

April 29, 2008 10:25 AM | Link to this

jbm @ 10:03, you are correct, I should have said the five Justices favor more power to governments of all types, and less to individuals. I stand corrected, thank you for reminding me how the past eight years has been a shaft on multiple levels for personal freedom.

And thank you, George W. Bush. You’ve set the example, from claiming dictatorial levels of Executive Privilege, to selecting a VP who believes he constitutes his own personal branch of government. You’re a true man of the people, Mr. President.

By Abomia Rodriguez Nacion

April 29, 2008 10:27 AM | Link to this

No problem. I still have my 2,100 absentee ballots I can use this November.

In fact its much easier. I can’t psychically wait in line that many times so its actually better for me and my people.

No id’s required! LMAO!!!!!!

What a country!

By KYJurisDoctor

April 29, 2008 10:28 AM | Link to this

The decision was the CORRECT one. We ask people for all kinds of IDs for just about EVERYTHING these days, so why should something as IMPORTANT to our Representative Democracy, like voting, voting be any different?

By Lee

April 29, 2008 10:29 AM | Link to this

The Supreme Court also previously approved “Grandfather Laws,” “Poll Taxes”, “Jim Crow Laws” and “Separate but Equal” laws. Simply because they approve of a law, doesn’t make it right. Now the problem of supplying free identification for some folks without permanent addresses will begin, and the problems of identity theft will begin all over anew. Not only is this a bad law, it opens up a whole new can of worms of which of many different id cards will be accepted, how verified, and how much they will cost, and who will pay for them, to play around with. And it is all part of the march to impose the national identity and 50 state driver’s license card. Soon we will all be talking to the local cops like Sergeant Schultz: “Ja, Colonel Klink, die papers are all in order, miene Herr!”

By getalife

April 29, 2008 10:32 AM | Link to this

Yay, cheer on another blow to Democracy and keeping the poor and disabled from voting.

Good for you, you should be proud Jim.

Pathetic hack.

By A'Nesthesia

April 29, 2008 10:34 AM | Link to this

Me and all my babydaddys has our ID’s so we can vote for more welfare money for more babies you has. It wasn’t hard to get my ID’s - the local check cashing store/nail salon/convenience store/money order/title pawn shop in my neighborhood have them all. And I gots a few bags of barbecue chips when I was there.

By rdhood

April 29, 2008 10:34 AM | Link to this

The only group of voters that this decision affects is those who are voting fraudulently. To the overwhelming vast majority of voters, this is a non-issue.
Further, this affects folks on both sides of the aisle EQUALLY. Why is one side of the aisle shouting louder and longer than the other? I suspect that it could be that some cities and states DO have a problem with fraudulent voting, and the party on the side of the aisle that is shouting the loudest is committing the most fraud. There is no other reason to oppose this legislation. I’ll leave it to the reader to figure out which bunch that is.

By Lakeman

April 29, 2008 10:35 AM | Link to this

Let’s not forget the AJC and Cynthia Tucker. She beat the drums of rascism regarding this issue as loudly as she could. I’m sure we will be getting a blast from her within a few days. And the paper lost 8.5% of its readership in the last quarter. They certainly are not “Thinking Right” about why circulation continues down the tank. It’s not the internet…it’s the content!

By Seriously ....

April 29, 2008 10:37 AM | Link to this

So, Mr. Wooten, did the Dred Scott decision (7-2) “vindicate” slavery? Did Plessy (7-1) “vindicate” segregation?

The Court sided with that great champion of American democracy, Karl Rove, in deciding it is in the right-wing’s interest to limit the ability of the elderly, the poor, and the infirmed to go to the polls and exercise the most sacred of our inalienable rights. Rove, von Spakovsky, et al. believes that if you can’t win an election fairly, suppress the turnout. How many law-abiding Americans were prevented from voting in 2000 in Florida based on the felony disenfranchisement, which, as enforced by that great champion of American democracy, Katherine Harris, basically came down to honest individuals having to prove they weren’t the John Doe who had committed the felony?

The irony here is that real conservatives are appalled by the Bush/Cheney/Rove assault on the Constitution and the rule of law. Is limiting the right to vote more significant than Bush/Cheney refusing to uphold laws they don’t like under some absurd reading of Executive power and signing statements? If they wield absolute power in the area of, say, national security -– in effect, a military dictatorship that would have made Adolf Hitler envious – does it matter who we elect to Congress anyway?

You “conservatives” are destroying our laws, our liberties, our very nation, over blind loyalty to trash like Rove, von Spakovsky, Dick Cheney, and George W, Bush. But you are not going to get away with it.

By GWB

April 29, 2008 10:42 AM | Link to this

My fellow Mericans. Today you can expect to hear me talk about your economic fears. There is nothing to fear. Our problem is that too many people don’t look on the bright side.

Sure, the number of home foreclosures has doubled in the past year. So you lost your home. Well, look on the bright side. You don’t have that big mortgage payment to make any more.

And some of you are grumbling about the cost of gasoline. You claim you’re being squeezed hard at the pumps. Well, look on the bright side. Somebody is making big profits, and that’s good for the economy. It will get you a better job some day and allow you to look for another home.

A few are quibbling about lost jobs in this country. They are saying jobs have been sent overseas and that we are producing only a tenth of the new jobs we had during the Clinton administration. Well, look on the bright side. Do you really want to work and make good wages under an administration that has You Know What with interns in the Oval Office?

And some are griping about the deficit. They claim we owe trillions to the Chinese. Well, look on the bright side. Would you rather get your taxes raised to pay for the wars and the things we want, or would you rather just borrow money to get those things? Sort of like using your credit card.

So my message is the same as Herbert Hoover’s. Just suck it up and stop the harping. Some day you will have a chicken in every pot. That is, if the nut cases don’t go wild and send all the illegal workers back to their own countries.

God bless Merica.

By Shar

April 29, 2008 10:46 AM | Link to this

If “the apology window” is indeed open, there are many, many folks in line ahead of Mr. von Spakovsky. I’d put Valerie Plame up towards the front of the line, along with Lawrence Lindsey, the former economic advisor to the President who quoted an unacceptably high “upper bound” of $200 billion tax dollars for the war in Iraq and was promptly fired. Or how about those folks who were illegally spied upon? The tortured prisoners whose Geneva Convention rights have proven to be inconvenient and therefore illegally expendable?

Mr. Wooten’s refusal to acknowledge or address the relentless marginalization of dissenting views undertaken by this Administration, or their personal attacks on those whose voices they cannot silence, makes this column’s smug self-satisfaction particularly offensive. In fact, the parallel to the remarks of Reverend Wright, lambasting one kind of prejudice while asserting his right to his own, is striking.

As to the tripartite decision of the Court, the prospect of more doctrinaire (Scalia), hidebound (Alito) or just plain insensate (Thomas) Republican appointments to the bench is the major reason I hesitate in supporting John McCain.

For those who may believe that getting a photo ID is a simple matter, I suggest that you spend a morning at the downtown DMV. Circumstances obliged me to do so before the primary in February, and I saw three people who, after long bus trips, had their documentation (medicare cards, employment cards and the like) turned down and who were told to go back home, apply for replacement birth certificates or passports, and to return. Getting an official Georgia ID may seem easy to those who have a car and quick access to lots of documentation, but it is a convoluted process for those not so fortunate.

Jbmlaw @ 10:03, as a female I would not qualify under your “one man one vote” scenario, and there are clearly those on this blog who believe that the views of the people I witnessed at the DMV should be subordinate to their own on economic grounds. I am grateful that our country embraces the views of all the adults its government serves, and wish that the monied class was rather less well represented by personal ties and fat contributions.

By Ray

April 29, 2008 10:48 AM | Link to this

There are no slaves in this country anymore and no slave holders. People are free to live their life as they see fit, no matter what their race. There has never been a country in the world that offers more opportunities to it’s citizens to get an education and become self supporting, responsible American citizens. Rather live in Rwanda? How about the Sudan? Quit walking back and forth over Selma bridge and join mainstream America. Dads, stick around and raise your children to be responsible adults and they will probably live longer. Or do you really care?

By willie b

April 29, 2008 10:51 AM | Link to this

Jim…Once again a non-issue.

I don’t know what the big deal is …Show your ID, and off you go to vote.

However, as Aqua Girl correctly points out…Democratic justices do deviate…They write opinions based on thought! Whereas the lock-step republicans always vote as ONE..

I’m not an attorney so anyone here with the bona fides I ask this question…Is this not a states rights issue rather than a federal issue..Anything you can offer would be apprecative.

BTW they’re holding a senate hearing on c-span at this moment concerning this very subject.

By Abomi Nation

April 29, 2008 10:57 AM | Link to this

“They certainly are not “Thinking Right” about why circulation continues down the tank. It’s not the internet…it’s the content!”

Of course you have nothing to back that statement up do you?

ajc.com had incredible growth last year. I beleive they recorded their 1 billionth hit for last year in November. How did the conservative online paper that serves the metro area do?

A comparable newspaper in size to the AJC is the Dallas Morning News. The DMN had a 10.6% loss in subscriptions and is a conservative leaning paper. The AJC lost 8.6. Does this mean conservative papers are being abandoned more because they are conservative? The Orange County Register in California, a very conservative paper in California also had big losses.

Again, there must be a conservative paper in town that these people are leaving the ajc for. What is the name of it? What are the figures for the metro conservative newspaper? What is their web address?

By Disgusted

April 29, 2008 11:00 AM | Link to this

There are no slaves in this country anymore and no slave holders. People are free to live their life as they see fit, no matter what their race.

The point, O great dunce, is that the Supreme Court is inherently political, a reflection of the political milieu at the time of the justices’ appointments. To view a Supreme Court decision as some objective pronouncement is to fundamentally mistake the nature of the court. The Dred Scott decision is simply one example of that political nature in action. You miss the writer’s point rather badly, and I’m beginning to wonder whether a return of a literacy test would be an appropriate vehicle for measuring qualifications to vote.

By RealityKing

April 29, 2008 11:02 AM | Link to this

One need only read the first two sentences of the AJC’s liberal opinion in the “Our View’ section(w/o dissent, of course) to know exactly why the AJC’s popularity and circulation are fallen soooo low in Atlanta.

And yes, I do enjoy rubbing liberal noses in their mindless positions.., It’s soo easy. Not to mention watching the liberal press lose lots of their liberal suitor’s cash.

Sorry Jim..

By The Devil You Say

April 29, 2008 11:03 AM | Link to this

The fact is that Democrats would not be so vociferous in their opposition to the Voter ID laws if it were not the case that they have been engaged in fradulent voter practices concerning voter IDs. If no real, official identification is given, how can we be sure if the person voting is who he says he is or that this person even exists? This ruling was not only reasonable, but these laws should have been passed forty years ago.

By getalife

April 29, 2008 11:05 AM | Link to this

“Hillary Rodham Clinton now leads John McCain by 9 points in a head-to-head presidential matchup, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll that bolsters her argument that she is more electable than Democratic rival Barack Obama. Obama and Republican McCain are running about even.”

mcwar has mental problems, his positions are all over the place and will not release his medical records.

She wins the general easily.

By Abomi Nation

April 29, 2008 11:16 AM | Link to this

RealityKing, what were the losses/gains for the conservative metro Atlanta paper?

What were they saying in the conservative metro Atlanta newspaper’s opinion page today?

Could you also give us the total circulation of the metro wide conservative newspaper vs the ajc to prove your point that newspapers are dying because they are liberal?

By Peter

April 29, 2008 11:20 AM | Link to this

Ok WRONGS……. any thoughts on how long OUR RECESSION will last?

Any Thoughts on how to make all better?

Any thoughts on How we will pay for the WAR?

Any thoughts on how we will keep the banks. and mortgage lenders afloat?

Any thoughts on the Price of GAS by the end of the year?

Any thoughts about food prices driven up by Fuel prices?

Any thoughts on why it was a good idea to give a rebate to tax payers?

Any thoughts on if the CURRENT Administration is going to do ANYTHING before things get allot Worse?

Come on folks….. let’s hear what ALL has to say about the WONDERFUL state of the UNION, created by YOUR KING GEORGE.

By Glenn

April 29, 2008 11:20 AM | Link to this

Just so long as it’s understood that these are two clubs of Power Buffs, the Republican Club and the nominally Democratic one, competing daily for advantage. You can come to the stadium sporting the Yeoman Green of democracy if you want to, but you’d best be prepared to sit more or less alone, because these two teams wear either blue or red, and this ain’t Jersey Day. And democracy don’t win ball games.

By A'Nesthesia

April 29, 2008 11:22 AM | Link to this

Y’all are puttin me to sleep with all your silly accusations.

By Peter

April 29, 2008 11:28 AM | Link to this

Gotta love Bush today scolding Congress…. as if during his first term he didn’t have the majority, and did zero, but start a WAR.

Oh wait he did allow his buddies in Texas to Bilk California.

Gee we are at 7 years and how many months into the BUSH King ship…..

Please let us know what BUSH has accomplished in that time please.

Also gotta love the message from McCain….. let’s cut Gas taxes…..YES we don’t have a big enough DEFICIT YET I guess!

Common Sense Thinking from the RIGHT…HA HA HA.

By Shar

April 29, 2008 11:29 AM | Link to this

Getalife @11:05, saying it’s so don’t make it so. Senator Clinton’s negative ratings among all voters are at 54%; 58% of the electorate believe she’s untrustworthy and dishonest, and twice as many Democrats believe that Barack Obama is better able to win in November. These figures are from an ABC/Washington Post poll taken in mid-April. Those numbers are consistent with polls from a year and two years ago, and reflect entrenched attitudes that are not responsiveto fall campaign rhetoric.

The only way that Senator Clinton will garner the nomination is by manipulating the superdelegates to override the popular vote. This would further undercut her support among Democrats.

She simply cannot win a national election.

Of course, at this point, I don’t believe that Senator Obama can, either.

By Heileger

April 29, 2008 11:29 AM | Link to this

It’s your own fault, of course. You used up all the accusations yesterday. (Or all the best ones, anyway.)

By Hans Apology

April 29, 2008 11:33 AM | Link to this

I’m sorry, man.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 11:37 AM | Link to this

Just to clear up another matter. No one has any Constitutional right to vote. It isn’t there. I’m thrilled that people actually have to be living legal human beings to vote. Someone said that Republicans have just created new democrat votes. How? If they can’t vote then how does that create votes? I agree that republicans have made some stupid mistakes but democrats are going to make some even bigger ones when Obamaa or Hillary win the white house in November. I’d much rather them screw the country up and get blamed for it. What a country!

By Glenn

April 29, 2008 11:42 AM | Link to this

Peter, yes. And you know, it’s really good that you haven’t forgotten. But the bilking occurred on everyone’s watch, and they were everybody’s friends—and I do mean everybody but I also mean, a lot more than friends.

A damned dirty business overall, my friend.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 11:49 AM | Link to this

Info concerning how the Montgomery GI Bill works and why Sen. Webb (D-VA, LTC, US Marines Infantry, Silver Star, VietNam) and Sen. Churck Hagel (R-NE, SSG, US Army Infantry, VietNam) have been working to change, yet the Repubs and Dubya have said it is “too expensive.”

“Many people enlist to earn money for college, and almost everyone signs up for the education benefits — which, in the case of the main GI Bill, requires a service member to pay about $1,200 into the plan— but not everyone takes advantage of it. And that buy-in is not returned even if the benefits are unused.

An independent study found that just over half use some part of the benefits, said Ray Kelley of AMVETS, a veterans support group, and only 8 percent use all. “Congress is realizing we’re not giving them the benefits we say we’re giving them,” Kelley said. “They only have 36 months from the time they start using it to the time they finish.” That means going to school full time, year-round.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/28/AR2008042802994_2.html?hpid=topnews&sub=AR&sid=ST2008042803051

By Dennis

April 29, 2008 11:53 AM | Link to this

In his support of voter ID, Mr. Wooten writes, “This [Republican win]is an example of small matters made large for partisan purposes and of good public officials trashed without mercy.”

(Actually, in his article today, Mr. Wooten is crowing over the facct that the Republicans finally won “something”).

As an accused “far left liberal” let me say that I have no problem with voter ID if it is administered fairly across thte board.

Fact is, it will make it tougher on either political party to rig elections as was the Florida election (Let’s not forget Ohio, either) that put George W. Bush in the White House.

Crow on, Mr. Wooten! This time I think I’ll crow along with you.

The Republicans just shot themselves in the foot.

You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

By RCH

April 29, 2008 11:57 AM | Link to this

Its about time. An approved piece of I.D is not to much to ask for the single most important right of a citizen. The right to vote.

If you need I.D the state of Ga. will go as far as coming to your home to issue such documentation. There is no reason in this world not to be able to get I.D.

Getalife I told you so!!!

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 12:00 PM | Link to this

With the Repubs “fixing” the voter ID law, what are they going to do about the members of our military stationed overseas. One of the big secrets about past elections is most GI’s have to vote absentee ballot and a vast majority of those ballots were not accepted by their home states because they could not prove their identity. WHAT????

Can those who support the troops please help correct this problem?

By Hans Apology

April 29, 2008 12:03 PM | Link to this

I thought fraud means never having to say you’re sorry.

Voter Fraud. It only affects those it disenfranchises. Those is doesn’t disenfranchize, it doesn’t affect. The only people who suffer under the Voter ID law are the people that get disenfranchised. If a voter doesn’t get disenfranchised, then the voter ID law doesn’t disenfranchise him.

No, only those voters who actually are denied access to the polls by the Voter ID law are the ones getting disenfranchised. Not the voters who can actually get to the polls and vote.

Voter ID. It’s circular. Like Hannah Montana’s butt. She cant vote. She’s only 15. Where’s the supervision?

By jbmlaw

April 29, 2008 12:09 PM | Link to this

Dear Shar @ 10:46, I know you have quibbles with my ante-feminism language, but I hope you realize that you do have a vote in my one-man one-vote one-tax-amount scheme, as all women are “men” under the law. (I even thought that way before women started dressing and acting like men, and neither of the latter is a creditable development in society in my mind.) I regret that your side of the aisle believes it is ok for the government thieves to take more from some than from others – such government discrimination, applied here against its most productive citizens, is always to be deplored. I am attracted to the idea of dividing the Federal budget by the number of voters, and that is the annual tax for each; everyone who does not pay learns the hard lesson absorbed by Wesley Snipes.

I’m not sure what you are talking about in the “views of the people I saw at the DMV”; is that code for “Hispanics?” You are surely aware that I would abolish all immigration quotas, and would make citizenship a function of three tests: (1) language proficiency, (2) paying income taxes, and (3) voting. I don’t know that those tests ought to be limited to immigrants, except that the Constitution arguably says otherwise. However, I don’t know that I can justify giving leeches a vote on how to spend public money; everyone ought to pay the same taxes. Using a gun to seize wealth, and spend it in a manner contrary to the desires of the owner is theft by most definitions, and using the coercion of government for that end does not justify the evil.

Dear willie b @ 10:51, you err. “However, as Aqua Girl correctly points out…Democratic justices do deviate…They write opinions based on thought! Whereas the lock-step republicans always vote as ONE.” You have your parties reversed. The two democrats, Ginsburg and Breyer voted lockstep in the minority of three. It is the six republicans who are all over the place. You ask a thoughtful question: “Is this not a states rights issue rather than a federal issue..” It is now, thanks to the Supreme Court. Our democrat brethren believed it was to be a federal issue, and that voter identification was to be prohibited by the highest court, since the congress would not pass such a silly law. The Supreme Court ruled that each state can make that determination for itself.

Well argued, Jackie @ 12:00. I think any politician who endeavors to disallow even one military ballot for any reason ought to be hanged at sunrise.

By RCH

April 29, 2008 12:10 PM | Link to this

Its about time. An approved piece of I.D is not to much to ask for the single most important right of a citizen. The right to vote.

If you need I.D the state of Ga. will go as far as coming to your home to issue such documentation. There is no reason in this world not to be able to get I.D.

Getalife I told you so!!!

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 12:20 PM | Link to this

Jackie, How will GI’s vote? They have ID to vote. I don’t really understand your question because you have to be 18 and a US Citizen to be in the military in the first place. Nice try. I’ve never heard of anyone in the military having problems voting in elections except in 2000 when Gore wanted to stop the military from voting. Democrats are notorious for using people that don’t exist to vote. Dead people, felons and illegal aliens. Otherwise known as cheating.

By Anthony Blunt

April 29, 2008 12:21 PM | Link to this

Leave Hannah alone, you colonial ruffian. There’s nothing improper or untowar—nor even strictly amiss—in the Romantic Back, draped! It could be only such persons as you, who presume to take her illustrious guardian for an impressario, who dare cast aspersions upon so innocent, so pure an expression of the very meaning of Beauty.

Shame on you, sir. Shame I say!

By jbmlaw

April 29, 2008 12:24 PM | Link to this

Dear willie b @ 10:51, I err in my 12:09 post. There are seven republicans on the courts, who are divided among the three opinions. I suppose in my original writing I had excommunicated David Souter.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 12:30 PM | Link to this

@RCH,

Given the current downward economic spiral and upward inflation and the tight state budget, what happens when the money is not available to have the state visit those who can not get to locations to obtain the proper identification?

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 12:35 PM | Link to this

Jackie, If someone can’t “afford” a $10 drivers license then they should not be voting in the first place. I love it when you hear people whine about not being able to afford a license yet they can buy a flat screen tv for their trailer. Maybe you should visit them and pay for their ID. I’d rather you do it than my tax money.

By Hans Apology

April 29, 2008 12:37 PM | Link to this

I’m sorry, Hans. Ya. Datz right, Franz, we are sorry that the voter ID law made little girlie-mons out of the liberals. oh? Did the voter ID law disenfranchise the poor liberal, boo hoo, if you dont get off welfare and food stamps, I will pull back the string on your jock strap so far that when I let go you will turn summersaults and fly around till you land in your own baby poo. Datz right, Franz.

By RCH

April 29, 2008 12:37 PM | Link to this

Jackie

The state will send representatives to churches,schools,etc where transportation can be arranged by said entities. But the voter should take some responsibility also. Is that too much to ask. Come on.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 12:39 PM | Link to this

@Truth,

The GI’s have FEDERAL identification with voting being a STATE function. The state’s are not required to accept ID from the Feds yet, as we do not have a national ID card.

Consequently, a vast majority of the overseas GI had their ballots rejected by their home states.

It appears this was one of the major pushes by the Repubs and Karl Rove. He used exactly the same argument that was presented to the Supreme Court.

There were virtually zero instances of voter fraud, yet, the Repubs portrayed “illegal voters” behind every rock.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 12:45 PM | Link to this

@Truth,

You sound like you still believe that only those that are free and landowners have the right to vote.

Why does someone that may not have $10 be excluded from enjoying their basic constitutional right?

By George Washington

April 29, 2008 12:46 PM | Link to this

In this DEPRESSION, I don’t think we should be denying anyone the right to make a little money on the side: by selling one’s vote to the highest bidder, one can put BEER on the table for all the family to enjoy….With voter ID, a working man can only sell his vote one time…Ya call that an economic stimulus package?

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 12:48 PM | Link to this

Jackie, Since the military OVERWHELMINGLY votes Republican I can’t see Karl Rove trying to suppress their vote. The only way an absentee vote is thrown out is if it’s cast too late. Anyway, people in the military have to have a drivers license to be in the military. Make sense? You’re throwing out hypothetical excuses. The point is: GET PROPER ID before you vote. There is no excuse to not have one. The poorest of poor people can afford a $10 license. If not then maybe they should not go to McDonalds 4 times a week. Your deep seeded hatred for Bush is blinding you. Use common sense on this one. You can’t blame Bush for being lazy. Just ask all the people from New Orleans who were too lazy to walk out the door and get on a bus.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 12:52 PM | Link to this

Jackie, Name one person who can’t get $10. ONE! If say some homeless guy then go give him $10 to buy one. You make too many assumptions about me. Landowner? No, but I do think that people should have enough common sense to be able to vote. People should actually have to take a test to be able to vote. Too many people can not name the three branches of government. The majority of democrat voters can not graduate high school and more educated voters vote republican.

By Pavel

April 29, 2008 12:54 PM | Link to this

Geez. Since when did a requirement for valid identification become some sort of evil? I don’t get the controversy here. You can’t even order a glass of beer without valid id in this country. Is it really so burdensome to require id when we vote? That seems far more important than a beer. And anyone with any experience knows how crooked some votes can be (ask any Chicagoan). The country needs this.

By Oh NO He Didn't

April 29, 2008 12:55 PM | Link to this

You can’t blame Bush for being lazy. Just ask all the people from New Orleans who were too lazy to walk out the door and get on a bus.

I DARE you tell the people from New Orleans that you know for certain there were no other reasons they did not “walk out the door” and onto a bus that fateful day besides their own laziness. It will be so much more meaningful face to face.

By Pavel

April 29, 2008 12:56 PM | Link to this

Geez. Since when did a requirement for valid identification become some sort of evil? I don’t get the controversy here. You can’t even order a glass of beer without valid id in this country. Is it really so burdensome to require id when we vote? That seems far more important than a beer. And anyone with any experience knows how crooked some votes can be (ask any Chicagoan). The country needs this.

By so what?!?!?

April 29, 2008 12:58 PM | Link to this

I have never understood what the big hoopla has been about anyway in regards to requiring ppl to have a valid picture ID to vote. It just makes good sense. When I lived in Atlanta, I moved around quite frequently and often times if I did not have the time or opportunity to change my address for voting purposes-well, hey I just showed up at my old polling place…no questions ask…imagine that…and who in the hay is this so-called ID requirement going to keep from voting???? I have lived in VA for the last year and unlike GA, a person can not do anything without a valid picture ID-period. And in the VA, a person is required to provide their birth certificate, High School transcripts and a SSN card in order to get an ID, in GA all I needed was my birth cerificate ( or someone else’s). My point is that an ID should be required. I think that it should be mandatory for all ppl to have some sort of official government issued ID, for the protection of the individual first and foremost…ID theft and all else to be considered…

By Hans Apology

April 29, 2008 12:59 PM | Link to this

Scalia on 60 minutes: judge nullification of all votes. He’s the biggest scoundrel in our history. I think he knows it. I think he’s sad that after all his “hard work” (god I hate that phrase) on the court, history will see him as a traitor and a legal terrorist. He broke this country and annointed the war on terror as a “crusade” which is all any islamic jihadist has to know.

Hey scalia. Ixnay on the usadecray, oronmay.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 1:01 PM | Link to this

Oh NO He Didn’t, If you had half a brain then you’d know that I said that the PEOPLE OF NEW ORLEANS ARE LAZY and so are their politicians. I’ll easily tell them that they are lazy and fat and stupid. How about that? They are still living in FEMA trailers because they rely on government for their every move in life. How about that? Their governor was a moron and so is Ray Nagin. Bush had NOTHING to do with it. It is a state issue and they blew. So suck on that!

By George Washington

April 29, 2008 1:08 PM | Link to this

BREAKING NEWS: HILLRY ADMITS SHE IS A MAN HATING D Y KE…..POPULARITY DROPS TO 6%….

By jm

April 29, 2008 1:09 PM | Link to this

I wonder if Mr. Wooten would object to voter day registration, assuming of course, that proper photo id is presented.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 1:10 PM | Link to this

@Truth,

The statistics that you quote is for OFFICERS!

As for you understanding of the voting laws and those using the absentee ballot, I think you view of this function is not correct.

Folks in the military ARE NOT REQUIRED TO HAVE A DRIVER’S LICENSE!

What about those that have their license suspended, did not choose to get a license, etc?

You are pontificating about what people should have and their going to McDonald’s 4 times per week and poor people being able to afford $10. Where do you get your numbers?

I do not hate Dubya; I profoundly disagree with his policies and practices relating to the governance of this country.

You try to use truism about folks in New Orleans and their ability to leave.

What do you think about the BBC report that shows where the owner of a security firm in Britian said they were hired to “protect” New Orleans from looters and were given orders to shoot to kill. No one was allowed to come to the Superdome and they were not even allowed to get on one of the bridges to get out of the water.

Since you have expert knowledge, tell us why the FEDERAL government, the owner of the levies, was not responsible for the damage to New Orleans, yet they refuse to repair the damage they caused? Tell us about why the FEDERAL government split up families and moved those folks all over the country? Help us understand why the FEDERAL government closed down most subsidized housing in the city - even to this day - that WAS NOT DAMAGED BY THE LEVIES? Explain why the FEDERAL government refused to accept the fact all experts in the subject of levies tried to get those who owned the levies to adopt the system used in Holland to protect the city? Tell us why St. Bernard’s Parrish, who had a population roughly equal to 95% majority citizens with one of the commissioners who came on TV crying - do you remember - was refused help? Were they too lazy also.

It appears to me that the so-called conservatives try to use their new pejorative “lazy” to extrapolate with the old pejorative about the minority community.

Forgive the pun, IT DOES NOT FLOAT!

By Aquagirl

April 29, 2008 1:10 PM | Link to this

@ truth:

*Anyway, people in the military have to have a drivers license to be in the military. *

Huh?

@ Jackie:

Consequently, a vast majority of the overseas GI had their ballots rejected by their home states.

Double Huh?

I hate to interrupt a good exchange, but both of y’all seem to be throwing out some rather farfetched statements. I’m just, y’know, sayin’.

By Hans Apology

April 29, 2008 1:15 PM | Link to this

I guess the TRUTH thinks he told the truth. Well guess what? He told a lie. an untruth. Just because you’re breaking all the debating rules in Roberts Rules of Order, Parliamentary Proceedure, and Ann Lander’s “Guide to saying it and not spraying it”, doesn’t mean you tell the truth, stinky.

Now simply change your ID, and all your comments will be perfect.

‘muff spread.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 1:17 PM | Link to this

@Aquagirl,

What was far-fetched about any of my statements?

Help me understand the errors of my posting.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 1:21 PM | Link to this

Jackie, You have to show proper ID of age to be in the military. Birth Certificate and drivers license. Your birth certificate should be enough of an ID to vote with. So, your argument is still flawed. The BBC is total joke and I don’t believe a thing they say. Levies? What about them? To build a city below sea level is a stupid of an idea as the current mayor of that city. Yes, the people in New Orleans are LAZY. Plain and simple.

Aquagirl, What do you not understand? To join the military one must show proper age identification. Make sense?

Hans Apology, What did I lie about?

By Ramblin' Voter

April 29, 2008 1:23 PM | Link to this

Several years ago I moved from Atlanta to another city in another state and never got around to registering to vote there, so guess what I did. I just voted absentee in GA! Yep, you read that right. No ID required! I’m clean now, back in Atlanta and registered to vote in the appropriate state, city, polling site and everything. To not ask a voter for some proof that they are who they say they are, and live where they say they live, is just ridiculous.

And btw, someone posted that requiring ID not only harms poor people, but disabled people as well. I don’t see how/why a poor person wouldn’t have ID, but suppose it is possible in some really extreme circumstances (i.e. homeless people who probably are not turning out in large numbers to vote anyway) but why would anyone assume that just because someone is disabled they don’t have ID?

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 1:24 PM | Link to this

Jackie, Who are these “vast majority” of military people who’ve had their ballots thrown out? A vast majority would be a lot of military people and I have not seen ONE story about it. Besides, I think that even a military guy/gal could afford a license.

By Hans Apology

April 29, 2008 1:34 PM | Link to this

I’m sorry, Hanz. Gadzooks, I keep aplogizing to this hanz guy. I mean, I was the worst one in making him a whipping boy. I also turned him into a political football, hot-potato, a red herring, and a scapegoat. Then, mea maxima culpa, I made him out to be a patsy, a fall guy, and a total maroon.

I’m sorry, man.

By Blown Away

April 29, 2008 1:35 PM | Link to this

To build a city below sea level IS stupid! Unless of course, you have a major port there, where ships come in and out, carrying cargo into and out of our nation, and up the river there to points north, and through which goods from all over America are exported to other nations. Then, you know, it might be a good idea to have a city there, since all that commerce requires labor in the form of human beings who need homes, food, and businesses, just as all the fun and conventions in NO require low-wage laborers who can’t afford automobiles and therefore ride buses around their low-lying city to get to work and back, or at least they did. Yeah, no one was doing any work there, right? The Mardi Gras beads picked themselves up off the ground on Ash Wednedsay before they went to church to repent for their sin of being born to parents of lower socioeconomic status is a back-a-ss-wards southern state.

By Redneck Convert

April 29, 2008 1:38 PM | Link to this

Well, I guess I was illegal in the military. I didn’t have no drivers liscense because I didn’t have no car and never drove one. But I didn’t know I was a criminal so I guess it was alright.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 1:42 PM | Link to this

@Truth,

As you well know, a driver’s license is not always considered valid identification. How many illegals have “valid driver’s licenses?”

Birth certificates and passports are valid.

I imagine the BBC is less of a joke than FOX or Rush?

New Orleans was originally built at sea level.

Your stating that this city was built below sea level is not factual. The reason for the city being below sea level currently is the destruction of the barrier islands in the Gulf which causes the aquifer to not fill properly, therefore the city is sinking. Why is that? New Orleans moves 40% of the petroleum products and more than 80% of the grain in the USA. Big shipping wanted to widen the channels to get more ships into and out of New Orleans, therefore, channels were widened.

The US Army Corps of Engineers own and maintain the levies throughout the USA. Did you read about the Corps wasting billions of gallons of water in ATL trying to repair a $138 dollar problem at Lake Lanier. Was the governments of Cherokee and Cobb Counties “lazy” because they did not stop them from releasing all this water?

By Ramblin' Voter

April 29, 2008 1:45 PM | Link to this

As stated above, is it true that states do not accept Federal ID for voting? I thought a passport was valid anytime one needed identification?

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 1:52 PM | Link to this

Jackie, As I’ve stated before, yes birth certificates are valid. There’s no argument there. BBC is a joke and most people know that from their political leanings. Why are you bringing up FOX and Rush? They get more viewers and listeners than the BBC. Has nothing to do with this topic. New Orleans was originally built below sea level? Really? Wow, I just thought it was built that way in 2005. My point was, the individuals running Louisiana made very stupid mistakes. It is a state issue! They blew it. I don’t remember Mississippi having the same problems. Most people had the sense to get out on their own and the governor gave plenty of warnings. You’re wasting your time with bring in Cobb County. This argument is about VOTER ID!

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 1:54 PM | Link to this

@Truth,

The “vast majority” of the troops I was speaking of were those in the early Iraqi invasion, especially from the 3rd ID, Ft. Stewart, GA and Mayport Naval Station, Jacksonville, FL.

There were many complaints about their inability to vote either by absentee or internet. The votes were disputed by the Repubs and many were not accepted during the 2004 election cycle.

The State of GA brought suit in FEDERAL Court to alleviate this burden of native GA troops.

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/misc/gauocavacomp.htm

By Aquagirl

April 29, 2008 1:55 PM | Link to this

Jackie @ 1:17, truth has re-posted my point recently…where do you get the “vast majority of military votes were thrown out”? Link, please. Your point sounds rather hysterical and—er—creatively “recalled.” Also, I can’t imagine (nor can I find quickly) any State which will not allow you to use your military picture ID for voting purposes. If you know of one, great, let’s hear it.

and ironically, you re-posted my point to truth—-where does it say you must have a drivers license to join the military? Obviously you don’t, it was sloppy to say that, instead of saying you need ID to join the military. And no, I didn’t know what you meant, truth, most people say “ID” when they mean “ID” not drivers license, your statement was dumb and you know it.

By Hans Apology

April 29, 2008 1:55 PM | Link to this

I wonder what constitutes a valid voter ID? Gee, I think I’ll list everything I can think of. Uhhhh, DL? duhhhh, passport? duhhh, electric bill? duhhhh wanted poster hung up at the post office? duhhh security camera footage of gay bathroom encounters? duhhhh

morons.

By willie b

April 29, 2008 1:56 PM | Link to this

Jim seems to be a big fan of Hans A. von Spakovsky…Here’s what Jim didn’t tell you about this right ringer.

According to an article published May 20, 2007 by McClatchy Newspapers, von Spakovsky is the latest in a series of current and former Department of Justice lawyers to be implicated in an on-going congressional investigation into the dismissal of U.S. Attorneys controversy.

The article noted that: “career department lawyers say that von Spakovsky steered the agency toward voting rights policies not seen before, pushing to curb minor instances of election fraud by imposing sweeping restrictions that would make it harder, not easier, for Democratic-leaning poor and minority voters to cast ballots.”

He was nominated to the FEC by President George W. Bush on December 15, 2005 and was appointed by recess appointment on January 4, 2006.

This person is so out of the mainstream he had to be a recess apointee…Just another Bush YES MAN!

By Shar

April 29, 2008 1:59 PM | Link to this

Dear jbmlaw@12:09 - Yes, I have taken issue with some of your gender-skewed posts (and, on memorable occasion, you have agreed with my objections), but I ask that you (metaphorically and physically) walk a mile in my pantyhose and high heels before you suggest that many of the gender-neutralizing efforts of the feminist era is not a “creditable development in society.” Some were, and are, downright silly, but the majority have challenged ingrained assumptions and evened opportunity. I am absolutely confident that, upon reflection, you’d rather see a woman in a power suit than relegated to one of the traditional “prairie dresses” mandated by the FLDS.

And no, the people I saw at the DMV that morning were not Hispanics but elderly African Americans. As you have noted before, I don’t really have a side of the aisle, choosing instead Glenn’s Yeoman Green Section and looking with nearly equal distaste on the red right and the blue left. However, I do support the progressive tax structure, believing as I do in Luke 12:48 as a guiding principal in many of life’s endeavors. I also disagree with diminishing the perspectives, and therefore votes, based on a lack of economic success. Lots of worthy citizens are thin-walleted but generously experienced, and provide a balance to those whose focus is more monetary. Think artists or stay-at-home moms, among a throng of others. The larger, scarier issue is valuing fellow citizens by some set of characteristics, making some subservient to others. A very, very slippery slope is thus introduced, subject to the whims of those in power who only want to respond to views they agree with (see my earlier post). Before you know it, the only people who can vote could be those who can sing the tenor part of the Tomb Scene from “Aida” and/or touch their nose with their tongue. Or look really good in heels.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 2:02 PM | Link to this

Jackie, That is crazy. I didn’t know about that. Something the media has not reported on. Still, it’s not the vast majority of the military. I’m sure there are tons of cases like that. No, it’s not fair but neither are a lot of things in life. Things like this should not happen. You still have not named any other suppressed voters in this country who could not buy a $10 license.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 2:04 PM | Link to this

@Truth,

In my opinion, FOX and RUSH do not present facts, they just present opinion.

Do you believe that New Orleans was originally built below sea level? How was that possible?

What mistakes did they make in dealing with the cause of the flood? Hurricane Katrina did not cause the flooding, nor did the hurricane breach the levies. The state had not control over or administration of the levies.

As for Mississippi, Sen. Trent Lott is STILL trying to get his insurance company to pay for the damage to his house. The insurance company says that damages caused by the hurricane was due to storm surge. A vast majority of those in Mississippi have flood insurance. The company still refuses to pay.

Mississippi does not have a levy issue.

I used the Cobb and Cherokee County examples to point out your argument about governments being “lazy” and “stupid” in conjunction with problems created by the FEDERAL government.

Secondly, the VOTER ID law is a form of a poll tax, which is illegal and should be in violation of the 1st and 14th Amendment to the Constitution. What do you think?

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 2:07 PM | Link to this

Aquagirl, So how else are you going to show that you are a proper citizen to join the military? You need proper ID. Birth Certificate, proof of residence, etc… How was that dumb, aquagirl? Are you now the moderator for Jackie and I? Maybe you should be the one to post facts instead of calling my statements dumb.

By Maynard G. Krebs

April 29, 2008 2:07 PM | Link to this

Now if anybody could guarantee that it’s safe to enter the mineshaft marked “Voter ID”, it’s Jackie.

But if Po-the-Fo should mark a shaft “DEPRESSION”, then you just know that if you don’t enter you’ll be getting the shaft.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 2:13 PM | Link to this

Jackie, I’ve lived through four hurricanes and I do know how flooding happens. Again, you are the one who brought up Rush and FOX. Not me. Rush is opinionated? Really? Maybe that’s why he’s a TALK SHOW HOST! Can you understand sarcasm? Trent Lott? Babe, you’re bringing in people that have nothing to do with this topic. Haley Barbour is the governor of Mississippi and he did a good job. My point is still, GOVERNMENT sucks! They are the problem. Yes, the people who stayed there have the IQ of a kid and most of them were on welfare to begin with. How else do account for all the debit cards going towards Gucci purses instead of food? How about all the people still living in Fema trailers and refusing to get jobs? You can’t because you know that they are lazy people living off of our tax money. $10 is not a lot of money for an ID.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 2:16 PM | Link to this

@Truth,

I am of the opinion that if you allow a law to be put into place that only affects a “few” it has the profound effect of sweeping us all into that maelstrom.

If they choose to make the VOTING ID law more restrictive, what would you do? What could you do?

We live in a Federalist system; all laws not clearly defined as being under the control of the FEDERAL government revet to control by the STATE government.

Each state has its own law governing voting. The FEDERAL government has the responsibility to review that law when a citizen challenges the implication in hindering said citizen from exercising his constitutional rights.

If a poor person has the choice of investing $10 in purchasing a STATE ID or eating, what choice would be made?

To give you an example of how things are done to keep the voting suppressed. Why do you think we vote on Tuesday?

By jm

April 29, 2008 2:19 PM | Link to this

got news for you Truth, US citizenship is not and never has been a requirement for service in the US Armed forces. Many people use service in the armed forces as a way to gain citizenship.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 2:23 PM | Link to this

Jackie, $10 is not a lot of money. It’s not like a poor person has to go buy $500 ID. Your point is not a very good one. Who are these poor people you speak of? Homeless people? That’s not a lot of people is it? I’m not sure if you are living in 1929 or 2008 but last time I checked $10 is not a lot of money. What is your argument for someone having to show ID to board a plane, buy alcohol, or open a bank account? Do poor people not have a bank account? Again, define who these poor people are? Even people in trailers have jobs and can afford food.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 2:24 PM | Link to this

@Maynard,

May should learn how your government and constitution works before you come of that island.

Get a bright light and shine it on your lack of direction.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 2:26 PM | Link to this

@Truth,

You state that $10 is not a lot of money, implying even for a poor person.

Surely you jest?

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 2:31 PM | Link to this

jm, True, I do know that but this argument has NOTHING to do with suppressing voters in this country. YOU DO HAVE TO BE LEGAL TO VOTE HERE. Get it?

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 2:32 PM | Link to this

@Truth,

I am going to give you time to review what you said as it seems to me that you are making statements for the sake of doing so.

What logic chain of thought do you try to use to substantiate your argument when you try to use poor people boarding airplanes and having bank accounts.

You must live and work in a gated community.

By Aquagirl

April 29, 2008 2:32 PM | Link to this

Hey, truth, it’s not dumb if you say you have to show proper ID like a birth certificate to join the military. It is dumb to say you have to have a drivers license. You said the latter at 12:48. Just say what you mean, this place is full of keyboard warriors who assert they know how the military does things, please don’t accidentally include yourself. I get it, you meant to say “ID”, but didn’t—-so your bad, not mine.

I’m not the moderator for you and Jackie, it’s just that it seemed easier to point out the errors in the overall discussion in one post, rather than multiple ones. Both included a lack of evidence for farfetched claims.

Please, continue your argument, I have little desire to get in there. Especially given that you are willing to spar with her. When she fails (as of this point) to produce widespread disaster in military voting and instead rags on FOX news, the Katrina response, etc, why bother? It’s like arguing with an Area 52 nut who can provide no evidence of flying saucers, and continually switches to vague government conspiracies.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 2:33 PM | Link to this

Jackie, Um…Yeah, I don’t think $10 is a lot of money. Ever heard of saving money? Again, what poor people are you talking about? This is the third time I’ve asked you?

By getalife

April 29, 2008 2:44 PM | Link to this

I got your apology right here. GFY for giving your party a free pass for destroying our country you gop hack.

Anyhoo, Obama just had another complete meltdown at his press conference and tossed his former pastor under the bus.

Wright responds later in another press conference.

Enough with this train wreck. Drop out Obama so we can win this time.

It takes a Clinton to clean up Jim’s party destruction.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 2:48 PM | Link to this

@Aquagirl,

It is apparent that your level and depth of understanding to this problem is limited, therefore, you do not have ANYTHING to offer the discussion.

I asked you to provide me with anything that I have said is far-fetched. As of yet, you not being informed put your mouth in motion.

I have not said anything about any government conspiracy and have provided documentation to all of my posting.

Now, what about you and the planet that you just arrived from? Do they have a constitution? Are you asking someone to “take you to our fearless leader?” space cadet?

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 2:51 PM | Link to this

Aquagirl, Point taken. Thanks

Jackie, No, I don’t live in a gated community. I just don’t think $10 is a lot of money. What logic does this have to do with bank accounts? Well, you have to have proper ID to open a bank account and most people have bank accounts. Again, for the fourth time, WHAT POOR PEOPLE are you talking about?

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 2:52 PM | Link to this

@Truth,

Why are you fixating on the $10 portion of your argument?

It appears to me that you are trying to extrapolate and obfuscate relating to the subject matter.

What person with an IQ greater than a rock is not aware of poor people in this country?

It appears to me that you are “intellectually lazy.”

By Peter

April 29, 2008 2:54 PM | Link to this

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 2:33 PM | Link to this

Jackie, Um…Yeah, I don’t think $10 is a lot of money. Ever heard of saving money? Again, what poor people are you talking about? This is the third time I’ve asked you?

Hey Guy (by the Truth)…….how about the poor folks working minimum jobs raising families. Jobs like those in fast food, regular restaurants, or retail…..you know the sector that is most likely to take a beating as the recession gets worse.

Remember two thirds of the American Economy is based on consumer spending, and as more Americans have less discretionary income, they WILL be spending less.

The ECONOMY WILL get Worse, and these folks will get fired, or their jobs will be lost because Americans will slow down their spending.

Perhaps these are the folks she is talking about. You know the GREAT NEW Jobs that are being created in America.

We do have to look at the Bush Administration and say…..Gee George, what are YOU doing to create Jobs in America….. Heck the infrastructure of America is falling apart, and George is sending all our resources to other countries, like Iraq for instance…….

What does “by the Truth” think we should do the make the economy work these days?

Also how do you save money if you make less than the bills you have to pay?

Perhaps you don’t folks who are just making it?

Funny King George had the nerve to scold Congress today……

He must have had “Faulty Intelligence”!

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 3:01 PM | Link to this

Jackie, Why do you refuse to tell me who these poor people are that can’t afford a $10 ID? That’s how much a drivers license cost. If you had an IQ higher than a carrot maybe you could understand that showing ID to vote is not suppressing anyone!

For the fifth time: WHAT POOR PEOPLE DO YOU SPEAK OF?

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 3:02 PM | Link to this

@Truth,

Apparently, you are trying to find solace in the fact that you can not make a cogent argument about the subject matter.

The $10 dollar and poor people I am talking about is the ones that live with you.

Any further discussion?

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 3:06 PM | Link to this

@Truth,

Whetrock, you should have not been so lazy that you can not find someone in your current neighborhood that is not poor.

So, trying to have a discussion with an idiot is impossible.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 3:07 PM | Link to this

Peter, Are you really that stupid to think that a poor person can’t afford $10? You’re kidding right? Fast Food jobs were never created so that people could raise a family. Poor people, just like EVERYONE in this country, have the resources to get an education. What does George Bush have to do with poor people getting IDs? Your argument is ridiculous. I’m surprised you haven’t blamed global warming for poor people.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 3:09 PM | Link to this

News reports indicate the Dubya blames the current recession on the Dems.

He says it is because they have not passed the spending bills he has presented to the Congress.

Is this attempt at legacy repair working?

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 3:11 PM | Link to this

Jackie, I get it now, your warden has given you a computer to type on while you get your GED in prison. Right? You’re a complete idiot. Aquagirl was dead on in her assessment of you. Poor people living with me? You’ve lost your small mind! I already won the debate with you. Showing ID doesn’t suppress anyone you hack.

Poor people in my neighborhood? Wait, you said poor people can’t afford a $10 ID. How can they afford a house? You’ve got to be the dumbest person in Atlanta. Did you graduate from a Clayton County School? No, wait you are getting your GED from prison.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 3:14 PM | Link to this

Jackie, You need to go back to your cage. You’re now rambling on about George Bush who has nothing to do with voter IDs. Dead people have a higher IQ than you do.

By RCH

April 29, 2008 3:15 PM | Link to this

O.K.. Lets make this simple. The approved I.D is free. You can go to any DMV and register. At certain times a bus will pick you up,deliver you to a DMV,Church,School,etc. where you can register. Can you make it any simpler?

I am starting to believe like the Truth,that there is more to this than the “disenfranchise” theory.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 3:20 PM | Link to this

SmallPeter, You and Jackie should hook up once Jackie gets out of prison. I’m sure you two could buy a nice trailer down in south Georgia.

By catlady

April 29, 2008 3:22 PM | Link to this

Let’s let those whose family member has paid the “ultimate sacrifice”, and past and current military people, get extra “points” for their vote. Extra, extra points if they served on the front, and made it back alive.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 3:23 PM | Link to this

@Truth,

I would like to tell you whom I think is an idiot. Being in polite company, I will publish that thought. I do think you get my drift don’t you TEST TUBE BABY?

Further, it is apparent that you can’t read. Your meth struggles have you down?

As for voter ID, it is shameful that folks like yourself are allowed to participate in the process when you do not have a clue as to what is going on.

You would vote for the rock you live on, FROG!

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 3:26 PM | Link to this

RCH, What this all comes down to is cheating. For years, democrats have used felons, illegals and dead people to cast votes. It is true and there is documentation of this. The poorest of the poor in this country eat and live better than the poorest of poor in any third world country. Look at how fat a lot of them are.

Jackie, I thought poor people couldn’t afford food? Guess you are still wrong. How else are you going to explain a 300lb man/woman living in the projects?

By catlady

April 29, 2008 3:30 PM | Link to this

Let’s take it one step more. If you receive ANY taxpayer handouts (notice I didn’t say goverment), ie WIC, welfare, food stamps, housing, etc. YOU DON’T GET TO VOTE!

Enough: I guess that also includes student loans and the write-off folks get who have a mortgage, too, right? Those are also taxpayer handouts.

By Aquagirl

April 29, 2008 3:30 PM | Link to this

@ Jackie, I do admit you posted a link purporting to support your statement that “the vast majority of ballots for GI’s overseas were rejected.” after I posted my question, However, before you accuse me of limited intelligence, you may want to provide a working link.

If the link does have a case in which specific units in Georgia had problems, wow, who is surprised? Unlike truth, I’m not. It’s no secret that absentee balloting in the military has its problems, mostly due to States not sending out ballots soon enough. But to assert this is the rule is hysteria. It doesn’t make it right, but it’s not widespread disenfranchisement. And it has little to do with ID’s, and more to do with an antiquated system.

And what’s up with that last line of your 2:48? Were you attempting to be funny, but could not come up with anything better? It’s just kind of nonsensical. But then you’ve spent plenty of time agonizing over theoretical people who can’t get an ID at the expense of our being able to verify identity at the polls. The court decision said it all..there is no evidence it’s unduly burdensome on any group. Sounds like folks like you couldn’t prove your point. Unfortunately for y’all, hysterical blog entries aren’t admissible.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 3:31 PM | Link to this

jackie, Test tube baby? You’re really struggling aren’t you? You still can not show me any poor people who can’t afford ID. Meth Struggles? If I had Meth struggles I could still afford an ID. I can’t read? Really? So now you want to suppress me from voting? Typical marxist moron. I vote and always will vote as long as idiots like you are around. I’ll vote to keep people like you from destroying innocent people. You don’t give a rats a$$ about people in the military. Your blind hatred for Bush is all you care about.

Again, what poor people are suppressed?

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 3:34 PM | Link to this

CAN ANY LOGICAL THINKER PLEASE TELL ME HOW VOTER ID SUPPRESSES POOR PEOPLE?

And, where are they?

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 3:42 PM | Link to this

Aquagirl, You’re wasting your time with Jackie. I don’t agree with George Bush on a lot of things but I don’t blame him for EVERY single problem in this country. There will always be hiccups with voting but in no way does showing ID suppress anyone.

By Daedalus

April 29, 2008 3:58 PM | Link to this

Poor Jim — all he can do is open his mouth and show how ignorant he is — didn’t your daddy teach you to keep quiet when you don’t know what your talking about?

The opinion was ‘splintered’ because it had three sets of three judges issuing different opinions. Your true right-wing nuts, Scalia, Alito and Thomas actually said that POLL TAXES are constitutional — so a little ID requirement is no big whoop to them.

These laws have always been about suppressing the votes of minorities and poor people — its a partisan issue. Dems want blacks and poor people to vote, Republican’s don’t. The Court’s opinion even identified it as such — its good to know that fine American tradition, such as keeping poor blacks in theire place — is alive and well in the judicial branch.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 4:00 PM | Link to this

@Aquagirl,

Here is the link that the State of GA used to sue the FEDERAL government to insure GI’s especially in 3rd ID at Ft. Stewart were complaining about their votes not being counted.

Trying to be funny? Not at all. You put forth statements that had no validity and substance and you want me to apologize to you? Now, that is funny?

The decision by the Supreme Court is a de facto poll tax. I am sure you know what that is.

I can’t overturn the Supreme Courts decision, but, I do believe that Constitution has spoken directly to this type of behavior previously. Whether you believe it is within your area of school of thought.

As for any court decision “saying it all” shows that you do not understand the “living” Constitution. It is a document that was framed to be flexible enough to be “interpreted” by future generations. Am I making funnies again?

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 4:04 PM | Link to this

Daedalus, How does showing ID suppress votes? Where is you proof? Also, who is keeping black people down? Last time I checked it was Democrats who were hosing down blacks in Alabama. George Wallace and Bull Connor. Both democrat. Nice try there Nancy Pelosi but your liberal garbage stinks. Name a current republican who’s kept a black person down? Bill Clinton is trying to keep Obama down. Is he racist? Democrats have used felons, dead people and illegal aliens to win elections.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 4:08 PM | Link to this

Jackie, What link? Opps, you forgot to post it. Again, what poor people are suppressed by showing ID? Also, why aren’t you complaining about gas tax, death tax, property tax and other taxes? They are way higher than this poll tax.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 4:13 PM | Link to this

@Aquagirl,

Here is the link. Sorry about that.

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/misc/gauocavacomp.htm

By Aquagirl

April 29, 2008 4:20 PM | Link to this

Jackie @ 4:00, if you had spent less time pontificating your legal opinion as to poll taxes, perhaps you would have provided a link…..way to GO!

At any rate, yes, the court decision says it all, for the foreseeable future anyhow. Maybe it will be overturned. But for now, it’s put up or shut up at the polls. You can stand outside and sing “We Shall Overcome” if it makes you feel better.

Your equating an ID requirement to a poll tax is entirely your opinion. The State doesn’t pay for me to drive to the polling location, should that be considered a poll tax? If I walk, I need energy from food, should that be provided also? For the very infirm,perhaps the State should pre-chew said nutrition, as your potential voter may be helpless as to do it themselves.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 4:29 PM | Link to this

@Aquagirl,

You have to spend lots of time with those who fail to grasp concepts.

As for you profound statements in your dissertation, your failure to clearly elucidate supporting arguments shows the lack of depth.

You clearly do not understand.

By Daedalus

April 29, 2008 4:33 PM | Link to this

Hey By the Truth — how about you providing any evidence for your statement that “for years democrats have been using dead people” etc to win elections — every time DOJ tried to find evidence of any substantial voter fraud they have have found the claims, like your statements, without merit.

If you want proof that voter ID is simply a partisan issue — look who supported it — Republicans for it, Dems against it. When Dems tried to amend the law in Georgia to require photo IDs for Vote-by-Mail, the Republican majority shot it down. Why? Because most voters who vote by mail are Republicans.

What about Scalia, Alito and Thomas saying a Poll Tax is OK? — you know Jim and you would love that.

Do you understand what hypocrisy is or should I provide you a link?

But I know how you will respond — more name calling, etc. But you are so wrong, I may not be a Republican but I also want to supress the votes of poor people and minorities — not because its the right thing to do but because its the American Way (and an old tradition in the South).

There, try and question my patriotism now.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 4:34 PM | Link to this

Jackie, This is what I understand. Voter ID keeps illegals from voting. Hmmm. Sounds like a good idea to me. It also lets real people vote. How about that? You still can not show how it suppresses poor people. It’s you who can not grasp a simple concept.

You clearly do not understand. Now feel free to call me Rethuglicon. That’s usually what you call people who disagree with you.

By willie b

April 29, 2008 4:37 PM | Link to this

Off topic..

Just another example of republican corruption.

The name of former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert was added Monday to the roster of political heavyweights linked by witnesses to an alleged plan to dump Chicago’s top federal prosecutor and kill a criminal investigation into a top fundraiser for Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

A witness at the corruption trial of Blagojevich insider Antoin “Tony” Rezko testified that Rezko told him in February 2005 about an effort under way to fire U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald and replace him with someone more compliant to be hand-picked by Hastert, then the top Republican in the House.

Rezko said the Hastert designee would then “order the prosecutor to stop the investigation,” recalled Elie Maloof, a former Rezko business associate who also testified that Rezko had told him to keep Rezko’s name to himself if he were questioned by authorities because it could damage Blagojevich.

These guys are as corrupt as they come.

And Wooten worries about another shady person in Von Hans A. Spakovsky.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 4:41 PM | Link to this

Daedalus, Here you go. Found this article. http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061029/NEWS01/610290381/1006/NEWS01

I can provide more if needed. Too many to post. So, because republicans supported it must me it’s bad? Great thinking there Jethro. Poll tax? I’m more angry at the gas tax, death tax and property tax to be concerned with a poll tax. Do you understand teh definition of Troglodyte? Because you’re right there.

Do you remember George Wallace and Bull Connor? Both democrat and known racists. Now, again, how does it suppress poor people?

Your patriotism? Could care less about it because you don’t really matter.

By Glenn

April 29, 2008 4:41 PM | Link to this

My God, I guess the Congress will not have to pass a law saying my grandpa can’t vote after he has been dead for 5 years. It just doesn’t seem fair. That voter ID thing has messed up every democratic voter in the daggone United States. What’s the world comming to if a democrat can’t vote at least for 5 years after he has died, Lawdy, Lawdy, Lawdy. We is in a mess now.

By Buckminster

April 29, 2008 4:44 PM | Link to this

willie b., you’re a piker. Your finger-pointing fingers Barack, and yet you have no idea how, or where, or when, or whom.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 4:44 PM | Link to this

willie b, Have you not noticed that ALL politicians are corrupt? It’s not just republicans. How about Elliot Spitzer, William Jefferson, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, John McCain, etc… They are all corrupt.

By Aquagirl

April 29, 2008 4:46 PM | Link to this

Another repetition of “nya-nya-nya” still without a link. You’re having a real challenge with this today?

Jackie, despite your attempts to claim the higher intellectual ground by use of highfalutin’ language, you’re an idiot. I can roll out the big words too. It’s just that 1) it’s not necessary, and is the mark of a blowhard who can’t make their point, and 2) I’d rather provide a WORKING LINK, instead of repeating “nya-nya-nya”, But hey, to each her own.

You and your ID’less friends can go pound sand, in both my opinion, and the opinion of the Supreme court. All you can do is call the waaaambulance. And maybe you can share some of your needlessly convoluted language with the oppressed, though they’ll likely be even less impressed than I am.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 4:54 PM | Link to this

Jackie, I’m still a waitin on your answer to how poor people are suppressed?

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 4:59 PM | Link to this

@Aquagirl,

You so-called conservatives can’t read either.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 4:13 PM | Link to this

@Aquagirl,

Here is the link. Sorry about that.

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/misc/gauocavacomp.htm

By Daedalus

April 29, 2008 5:04 PM | Link to this

Ah yes, more name-calling from the “Truth”. Just what one should expect from a good GOP soldier.

That article you posted is not about fraud — its about a local government’s failure to update its voting lists. I’d try to explain the difference between incompetence and fraud to you—- but based on the misspellings in your post it would be a fly-by.

You must have a short-term memory problem — or you believe only what you want to believe. Remember the Republican US Attorney in New Mexico who was fired by Bush for failing to prosecute democrats for voter fraud? He made a principled stand and was fired it — instead of doing a partisan whack job — like the US Supreme Court did in this case — those Republican US Attorney’s stood up to the Bush Administration’s use of DOJ for partisan purposes and got fired for it.

My criticism of voter ID laws are not that they are unreasonable — because they clearly are a reasonable restriction— but that they are used for partisan purposes.

Even the Republican National Committee realized that maybe they went too far in pushing the ‘massive voter fraud’ schtick. See the links below.

Its a pity that GOPers like you could not understand and appreciate the principled stand that the fired US Attorneys (all Republicans) took in standing up to Rove and Bush. Those guys are heroes — which is why Bush fired them. They would not abuse their public office.

Now, think of some more names to call me because you are clearly unable to formulate a rational response.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/03/21/us_attorneys/

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001186

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 5:15 PM | Link to this

Daedalus, Partisan? You’ve posted two liberal websites. You may as well have posted something by huffingtonpissed. Yeah, both sides are corrupt. I’m not a democrat of a republican. I have a brain and use it unlike you. If you’d read the article I posted you’d read that democrats cheated 4 to 1 over republicans. It’s common for democrats to use dead people, felons and illegals to vote for them

By Aquagirl

April 29, 2008 5:16 PM | Link to this

Jackie, I’m not a so-called conservative, thanks. I do side with them when they use common sense. Like in this case. As the main Repub said, it doesn’t inspire confidence in the voting system when you’re screened more carefully by the guy at the video store.

I don’t think you understood my point…I did read that link earlier. It leads to a 404 error page.

By Hans Apology

April 29, 2008 5:19 PM | Link to this

How brain damaged is truth/jackie anyway?

Wow. What a wasteland, truly, sirs.

maybe that’s why they call him duhng.

Okay, now to show you how the VOTER ID is disenfranchising voters, just look at the confusion on this board. nobody knows nothing about the voter id, what it is, what it isn’t, how much it costs, the chaos that reigns today over voter ID!!!! and these are the repudlickans.

Ignorant and stupid is no way to blog, sirs.

and I think it’s a damn shame your mothers didn’t raise any of you 2 B nicer girls.

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 5:21 PM | Link to this

For all of you people who think voter ID is dumb. This should shut you up. It’s a real article written by a real journalist.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120943129695651437.html?mod=opinionmaincommentaries

By The Truth

April 29, 2008 5:26 PM | Link to this

Hans Apology, Way to throw gas on the fire, moron.

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 5:37 PM | Link to this

@Aquagirl

Here is a better link detailing all the states that brought suits TO CLARIFY this problem with the FEDS.

http://www.justice.gov/crt/voting/litigation/recent_uocava.html

@Hans,

I do feel, with all honesty, YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT!

Voter ID is a major problem that you do not seem to understand.

As for girls, you need to speak to someone that fits that profile, bubba!

By Hans Apology

April 29, 2008 5:39 PM | Link to this

I’m sorry, Hanz, and Truth/Jackie/Duhng. I mean, so what if duhng posts to himself all day long like a retard would. Who am I to criticize or even think I’m any better? When I first started posting, I was just as big a schmutz as he is. Besides, it’s very bad luck to debate a mental guy. The karma is just too risky.

So blog on, duhng or jackie, or tootherman, or whoever you are, for tomorrow is another blog!!

By Hans Apology

April 29, 2008 5:55 PM | Link to this

Pastorgate. (heh heh he said pastorgate). Obama’s pastor, a christian veteran, is expressing the anger that all americans feel against Bush/Cheney’s inflationary war.

The Rev. Wright is not saying anything that Lincoln himself didn’t say: that god damned america for slavery, and the atonement was the civil war.

Obama: echoes of lincoln all around him.

Seven score and 4 years ago, Lincoln said that god damned america for slavery. He was angry. the Rev Wright is angry. I’m angry.

R U angry? if so, vote obama, your anger will turn to justice.

By Aquagirl

April 29, 2008 5:57 PM | Link to this

Jackie, that lawsuit was filed in advance of the elections, not afterward, alleging voting had been denied.

It sounds like the Feds were lighting a fire under Cathy Cox’s hindquarters to make sure soldiers could vote by absentee ballot, given the time needed to deliver them. By those documents in your link, it worked. So again, where is the actual problem?

By Jackie

April 29, 2008 5:59 PM | Link to this

@Hans,

Typical of you, run in a lay down your dirt and run out.

If I am so mental, why not put your bona fides on this line where they can be debated openly?

Your response is awaited with anticipation.

By Hans Apology

April 29, 2008 6:03 PM | Link to this

bona fides?

BTW: I’m sorry, Hanz.

By Pompano

April 30, 2008 10:47 AM | Link to this

I see Cynthia still can’t let the Voter ID thing go. Funny how in all of Ga or Indiana they could not find a single legal voter who was going to be disenfranchised - yet Tucker claims to know several “little old ladies” that will be affected. What a liar! It takes a big person to admit when they are wrong - it only requires a tiny brain to continue Cynthia’s stance on this issue.

By monte norwood

April 30, 2008 12:02 PM | Link to this

March 18, 2008 Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama and the Unacceptability of Truth

Of National Lies and Racial America

By TIM WISE

For most white folks, indignation just doesn’t wear well. Once affected or conjured up, it reminds one of a pudgy man, wearing a tie that may well have fit him when he was fifty pounds lighter, but which now cuts off somewhere above his navel and makes him look like an idiot.

Indignation doesn’t work for most whites, because having remained sanguine about, silent during, indeed often supportive of so much injustice over the years in this country—the theft of native land and genocide of indigenous persons, and the enslavement of Africans being only two of the best examples—we are just a bit late to get into the game of moral rectitude. And once we enter it, our efforts at righteousness tend to fail the test of sincerity.

But here we are, in 2008, fuming at the words of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago—occasionally Barack Obama’s pastor, and the man whom Obama credits with having brought him to Christianity—for merely reminding us of those evils about which we have remained so quiet, so dismissive, so unconcerned. It is not the crime that bothers us, but the remembrance of it, the unwillingness to let it go—these last words being the first ones uttered by most whites it seems whenever anyone, least of all an “angry black man” like Jeremiah Wright, foists upon us the bill of particulars for several centuries of white supremacy.

But our collective indignation, no matter how loudly we announce it, cannot drown out the truth. And as much as white America may not be able to hear it (and as much as politics may require Obama to condemn it) let us be clear, Jeremiah Wright fundamentally told the truth.

Oh I know that for some such a comment will seem shocking. After all, didn’t he say that America “got what it deserved” on 9/11? And didn’t he say that black people should be singing “God Damn America” because of its treatment of the African American community throughout the years?

Well actually, no he didn’t.

Wright said not that the attacks of September 11th were justified, but that they were, in effect, predictable. Deploying the imagery of chickens coming home to roost is not to give thanks for the return of the poultry or to endorse such feathered homecoming as a positive good; rather, it is merely to note two things: first, that what goes around, indeed, comes around—a notion with longstanding theological grounding—and secondly, that the U.S. has indeed engaged in more than enough violence against innocent people to make it just a tad bit hypocritical for us to then evince shock and outrage about an attack on ourselves, as if the latter were unprecedented.

He noted that we killed far more people, far more innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki than were killed on 9/11 and “never batted an eye.” That this statement is true is inarguable, at least amongst sane people. He is correct on the math, he is correct on the innocence of the dead (neither city was a military target), and he is most definitely correct on the lack of remorse or even sixty-plus years later most Americans still believe those attacks were justified, that they were needed to end the war and “save American lives.”

But not only does such a calculus suggest that American lives are inherently worth more than the lives of Japanese civilians (or, one supposes, Vietnamese, Iraqi or Afghan civilians too), but it also ignores the long-declassified documents, and President Truman’s own war diaries, all of which indicate clearly that Japan had already signaled its desire to end the war, and that we knew they were going to surrender, even without the dropping of atomic weapons. The conclusion to which these truths then attest is simple, both in its basic veracity and it monstrousness: namely, that in those places we committed premeditated and deliberate mass murder, with no justification whatsoever; and yet for saying that I will receive more hate mail, more hostility, more dismissive and contemptuous responses than will those who suggest that no body count is too high when we’re the ones doing the killing. Jeremiah Wright becomes a pariah, because, you see, we much prefer the logic of George Bush the First, who once said that as President he would “never apologize for the United States of America. I don’t care what the facts are.”

And Wright didn’t say blacks should be singing “God Damn America.” He was suggesting that blacks owe little moral allegiance to a nation that has treated so many of them for so long as animals, as persons undeserving of dignity and respect, and which even now locks up hundreds of thousands of non-violent offenders (especially for drug possession), even while whites who do the same crimes (and according to the data, when it comes to drugs, more often in fact), are walking around free. His reference to God in that sermon was more about what God will do to such a nation, than it was about what should or shouldn’t happen. It was a comment derived from, and fully in keeping with, the black prophetic tradition, and although one can surely disagree with the theology (I do, actually, and don’t believe that any God either blesses or condemns nation states for their actions), the statement itself was no call for blacks to turn on America. If anything, it was a demand that America earn the respect of black people, something the evidence and history suggests it has yet to do.

Finally, although one can certainly disagree with Wright about his suggestion that the government created AIDS to get rid of black folks—and I do, for instance—it is worth pointing out that Wright isn’t the only one who has said this. In fact, none other than Bill Cosby (oh yes, that Bill Cosby, the one white folks love because of his recent moral crusade against the black poor) proffered his belief in the very same thing back in the early ’90s in an interview on CNN, when he said that AIDS may well have been created to get rid of people whom the government deemed “undesirable” including gays and racial minorities.

So that’s the truth of the matter: Wright made one comment that is highly arguable, but which has also been voiced by white America’s favorite black man, another that was horribly misinterpreted and stripped of all context, and then another that was demonstrably accurate. And for this, he is pilloried and made into a virtual enemy of the state; for this, Barack Obama may lose the support of just enough white folks to cost him the Democratic nomination, and/or the Presidency; all of it, because Jeremiah Wright, unlike most preachers opted for truth. If he had been one of those “prosperity ministers” who says Jesus wants nothing so much as for you to be rich, like Joel Osteen, that would have been fine. Had he been a retread bigot like Falwell was, or Pat Robertson is, he might have been criticized, but he would have remained in good standing and surely not have damaged a Presidential candidate in this way. But unlike Osteen, and Falwell, and Robertson, Jeremiah Wright refused to feed his parishioners lies.

What Jeremiah Wright knows, and told his flock—though make no mistake, they already knew it—is that 9/11 was neither the first, nor worst act of terrorism on American soil. The history of this nation for folks of color, was for generations, nothing less than an intergenerational hate crime, one in which 9/11s were woven into the fabric of everyday life: hundreds of thousands of the enslaved who died from the conditions of their bondage; thousands more who were lynched (as many as 10,000 in the first few years after the Civil War, according to testimony in the Congressional Record at the time); millions of indigenous persons wiped off the face of the Earth. No, to some, the horror of 9/11 was not new. To some it was not on that day that “everything changed.” To some, everything changed four hundred years ago, when that first ship landed at what would become Jamestown. To some, everything changed when their ancestors were forced into the hulls of slave ships at Goree Island and brought to a strange land as chattel. To some, everything changed when they were run out of Northern Mexico, only to watch it become the Southwest United States, thanks to a war of annihilation initiated by the U.S. government. To some, being on the receiving end of terrorism has been a way of life. Until recently it was absolutely normal in fact.

But white folks have a hard time hearing these simple truths. We find it almost impossible to listen to an alternative version of reality. Indeed, what seems to bother white people more than anything, whether in the recent episode, or at any other time, is being confronted with the recognition that black people do not, by and large, see the world like we do; that black people, by and large, do not view America as white people view it. We are, in fact, shocked that this should be so, having come to believe, apparently, that the falsehoods to which we cling like a kidney patient clings to a dialysis machine, are equally shared by our darker-skinned compatriots.

This is what James Baldwin was talking about in his classic 1972 work, No Name in the Street, wherein he noted:

“White children, in the main, and whether they are rich or poor, grow up with a grasp of reality so feeble that they can very accurately be described as deluded—about themselves and the world they live in. White people have managed to get through their entire lifetimes in this euphoric state, but black people have not been so lucky: a black man who sees the world the way John Wayne, for example, sees it would not be an eccentric patriot, but a raving maniac.”

And so we were shocked in 1987, when Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall declined to celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution, because, as he noted, most of that history had been one of overt racism and injustice, and to his way of thinking, the only history worth celebrating had been that of the past three or four decades.

We were shocked to learn that black people actually believed that a white cop who was a documented racist might frame a black man; and we’re shocked to learn that lots of black folks still perceive the U.S. as a racist nation—we’re literally stunned that people who say they experience discrimination regularly (and who have the social science research to back them up) actually think that those experiences and that data might actually say something about the nation in which they reside. Imagine.

Whites are easily shocked by what we see and hear from Pastor Wright and Trinity Church, because what we see and hear so thoroughly challenges our understanding of who we are as a nation. But black people have never, for the most part, believed in the imagery of the “shining city on a hill,” for they have never had the option of looking at their nation and ignoring the mountain-sized warts still dotting its face when it comes to race. Black people do not, in the main, get misty eyed at the sight of the flag the way white people do—and this is true even for millions of black veterans—for they understand that the nation for whom that flag waves is still not fully committed to their own equality. They have a harder time singing those tunes that white people seem so eager to belt out, like “God Bless America,” for they know that whites sang those words loudly and proudly even as they were enforcing Jim Crow segregation, rioting against blacks who dared move into previously white neighborhoods, throwing rocks at Dr. King and then cheering, as so many did, when they heard the news that he had been assassinated.

Whites refuse to remember (or perhaps have never learned) that which black folks cannot afford to forget. I’ve seen white people stunned to the point of paralysis when they learn the truth about lynchings in this country—when they discover that such events were not just a couple of good old boys with a truck and a rope hauling some black guy out to the tree, hanging him, and letting him swing there. They were never told the truth: that lynchings were often community events, advertised in papers as “Negro Barbecues,” involving hundreds or even thousands of whites, who would join in the fun, eat chicken salad and drink sweet tea, all while the black victims of their depravity were being hung, then shot, then burned, and then having their body parts cut off, to be handed out to onlookers. They are stunned to learn that postcards of the events were traded as souvenirs, and that very few whites, including members of their own families did or said anything to stop it.

Rather than knowing about and confronting the ugliness of our past, whites take steps to excise the less flattering aspects of our history so that we need not be bothered with them. So, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for example, site of an orgy of violence against the black community in 1921, city officials literally went into the town library and removed all reference to the mass killings in the Greenwood district from the papers with a razor blade—an excising of truth and an assault on memory that would remain unchanged for over seventy years.

Most white people desire, or perhaps even require the propagation of lies when it comes to our history. Surely we prefer the lies to anything resembling, even remotely, the truth. Our version of history, of our national past, simply cannot allow for the intrusion of fact into a worldview so thoroughly identified with fiction. But that white version of America is not only extraordinarily incomplete, in that it so favors the white experience to the exclusion of others; it is more than that; it is actually a slap in the face to people of color, a re-injury, a reminder that they are essentially irrelevant, their concerns trivial, their lives unworthy of being taken seriously. In that sense, and what few if any white Americans appear capable of grasping at present, is that “Leave it Beaver” and “Father Knows Best,” portray an America so divorced from the reality of the times in which they were produced, as to raise serious questions about the sanity of those who found them so moving, so accurate, so real. These iconographic representations of life in the U.S. are worse than selective, worse than false, they are assaults to the humanity and memory of black people, who were being savagely oppressed even as June Cleaver did housework in heels and laughed about the hilarious hijinks of Beaver and Larry Mondello.

These portraits of America are certifiable evidence of how disconnected white folks were—and to the extent we still love them and view them as representations of the “good old days” to which we wish we could return, still are—from those men and women of color with whom we have long shared a nation. Just two months before “Leave it to Beaver” debuted, proposed civil rights legislation was killed thanks to Strom Thurmond’s 24-hour filibuster speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate. One month prior, Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus called out the National Guard to block black students from entering Little Rock Central High; and nine days before America was introduced to the Cleavers, and the comforting image of national life they represented, those black students were finally allowed to enter, amid the screams of enraged, unhinged, viciously bigoted white people, who saw nothing wrong with calling children n**** in front of cameras. That was America of the 1950s: not the sanitized version into which so many escape thanks to the miracle of syndication, which merely allows white people to relive a lie, year after year after year.

No, it is not the pastor who distorts history; Nick at Nite and your teenager’s textbooks do that. It is not he who casts aspersions upon “this great country” as Barack Obama put it in his public denunciations of him; it is the historic leadership of the nation that has cast aspersions upon it; it is they who have cheapened it, who have made gaudy and vile the promise of American democracy by defiling it with lies. They engage in a patriotism that is pathological in its implications, that asks of those who adhere to it not merely a love of country but the turning of one’s nation into an idol to be worshipped, it not literally, then at least in terms of consequence.

It is they—the flag-lapel-pin wearing leaders of this land—who bring shame to the country with their nonsensical suggestions that we are always noble in warfare, always well-intended, and although we occasionally make mistakes, we are never the ones to blame for anything. Nothing that happens to us has anything to do with us at all. It is always about them. They are evil, crazy, fanatical, hate our freedoms, and are jealous of our prosperity. When individuals prattle on in this manner we diagnose them as narcissistic, as deluded. When nations do it—when our nation does—we celebrate it as though it were the very model of rational and informed citizenship.

So what can we say about a nation that values lies more than it loves truth? A place where adherence to sincerely believed and internalized fictions allows one to rise to the highest offices in the land, and to earn the respect of millions, while a willingness to challenge those fictions and offer a more accurate counter-narrative earns one nothing but contempt, derision, indeed outright hatred? What we can say is that such a place is signing its own death warrant. What we can say is that such a place is missing the only and last opportunity it may ever have to make things right, to live up to its professed ideals. What we can say is that such a place can never move forward, because we have yet to fully address and come to terms with that which lay behind.

What can we say about a nation where white preachers can lie every week from their pulpits without so much as having to worry that their lies might be noticed by the shiny white faces in their pews, while black preachers who tell one after another essential truth are demonized, not only for the stridency of their tone—which needless to say scares white folks, who have long preferred a style of praise and worship resembling nothing so much as a coma—but for merely calling b****** on those whose lies are swallowed whole?

And oh yes, I said it: white preachers lie. In fact, they lie with a skill, fluidity, and precision unparalleled in the history of either preaching or lying, both of which histories stretch back a ways and have often overlapped. They lie every Sunday, as they talk about a Savior they have chosen to represent dishonestly as a white man, in every picture to be found of him in their tabernacles, every children’s story book in their Sunday Schools, every Christmas card they’ll send to relatives and friends this December. But to lie about Jesus, about the one they consider God—to bear false witness as to who this man was and what he looked like—is no cause for concern.

Nor is it a problem for these preachers to teach and preach that those who don’t believe as they believe are going to hell. Despite the fact that such a belief casts aspersions upon God that are so profound as to defy belief—after all, they imply that God is so fundamentally evil that he would burn non-believers in a lake of eternal fire—many of the white folks who now condemn Jeremiah Wright welcome that theology of hate. Indeed, back when President Bush was the Governor of Texas, he endorsed this kind of thinking, responding to a question about whether Jews were going to go to hell, by saying that unless one accepted Jesus as one’s personal savior, the Bible made it pretty clear that indeed, hell was where you’d be heading.

So you can curse God in this way—and to imply such hate on God’s part is surely to curse him—and in effect, curse those who aren’t Christians, and no one says anything. That isn’t considered bigoted. That isn’t considered beyond the pale of polite society. One is not disqualified from becoming President in the minds of millions because they go to a church that says that s** every single week, or because they believe it themselves. And millions do believe it, and see nothing wrong with it whatsoever.

So white folks are mad at Jeremiah Wright because he challenges their views about their country. Meanwhile, those same white folks, and their ministers and priests, every week put forth a false image of the God Jeremiah Wright serves, and yet it is whites who feel we have the right to be offended.

Pardon me, but something is wrong here, and whatever it is, is not to be found at Trinity United Church of Christ.

Tim Wise is the author of: White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (Soft Skull Press, 2005), and Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White (Routledge: 2005). He can be reached at: timjwise@msn.com

By Pompano

April 30, 2008 1:31 PM | Link to this

Geeez Tim - just because no one wants to buy your books is no reason to fill up our blogs with all this drivel above.

Your’s is a tired act. The old “All white people are racist but me” line is pretty pathetic.

Too bad you lack personal accountabilty. Wright made those horrible statements - trying to justify them makes you look weak!

By Turned Away

May 1, 2008 12:04 PM | Link to this

Now that they have Thomas, Scalia and friends behind them, the Plutocrats will make it as difficult as possible for poor people to get an ID…inconvenient locations and long lines requiring significant amounts of time off from work (most people without a driver’s license are paid by the hour), turning people away by falsely claiming that paperwork is insufficient or invalid, etcetera.

This isn’t over. I hope I’m wrong, but I suspect that, now that they have a decision in their favor, Republicans will begin to throw additional obstacles in the path of citizens who need ID’s. This, of course, will result in more lawsuits with an abundance of evidence that this ridiculous decision has disenfranchised millions.

Nice.

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August 19, 2008 6:41 PM | Link to this

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