Some Justices Think Systemic Racism is Gone

Justices are weighing whether or not to throw out the 2006 renewal of the Voting Rights Act. Its come down to liberals vs conservatives. I'm stuck wondering if our highest court really is as predictable as the political leanings of its membership. Does empirical evidence still have a place in modern law?

Let's check in with the liberals:

Justice David Souter, who was among the most active questioners in defense of the Voting Rights Act, said Coleman's claim seemed "to deny the empirical reality" of the contemporary instances of bias Congress documented in the states.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested by her questions that she, too, believed the law was necessary to prevent backsliding in voting rights. Similar sentiment was expressed by the two other liberal justices, John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer.

And quite the empirical reality there is. Take Voter ID laws, for example:

Texas is considering such a law. Unfortunately, these types of laws typically adversely affect the poor, people of color, people with disabilities and the elderly. Some estimates suggest that the number of eligible voters without acceptable identification is as high as 12 percent.

Note that Coleman, the attorney arguing against the Voting Rights Act, is representing a district in Texas. Voter ID legislation is one of many scurrilous tactics employed by the right wing to suppress votes. And this is done precisely because a legal avenue opened up:

The U.S. Supreme Court has said that states may require identification other than a voter registration card. That doesn't mean Texas should. It would be wrong to make voting more difficult for law-abiding citizens without good reason. Having enough votes to do it isn't a good reason.

So what do the conservative judges say?

The more conservative justices appeared to strongly believe the law has run its course. Chief Justice John Roberts said of Congress' repeated renewal of the 1965 act: "At some point, it begins to look like it's going to go on forever."

Justice Antonin Scalia said that much of the evidence of government bias against black people and other minorities was documented "a long time ago."

Just what universe does Justice Scalia live in?
Look, I understand the value of healthy debate and differences of opinion. But when some show flagrant disregard for the truth and remain impervious to evidence to the contrary, are they still qualified to act as judges? Its not as if the evidence presented was easily dismissable (emphasis mine):

Defending the law were Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal and Debo Adegbile of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Both lawyers emphasized the difficulty of bringing individual voting bias cases and said Congress wanted to ensure that unfair policies could be caught before they took effect.

Katyal said Congress compiled 16,000 pages of testimony and determined that its work in this area was not done.

16 thousand pages of testimony!

Respect for the truth and empirical evidence is central to a functioning judiciary. The conservative judges on our highest court, especially Scalia, are doing a fine job of undermining our confidence in the stability of the institution.

PUMA Tea Parties

Remember when, during the primaries, speculation began that the PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) crowd were really Republicans? When during the general election their widespread defection to the McCain/Palin ticket showed how their respect for Democratic ideals (including a women's right to choose and separation of church and state) were beyond flimsy?

Apparently they've joined the extreme fringe of the Republican party, the proud tea-baggers alliance. And boy, is their crazy chock full of irony:

Obama is so obsessed with batting down his domestic “enemies” that it doesn’t matter if America’s real enemies are strengthened in the process. What was Obama’s goal in releasing the CIA torture memos, against the advice of his top terrorism and intelligence advisors?

There isn't even a trace of self-awareness or accuracy to be found. While Bush did attack political enemies domestically (and enemies of choice internationally) at the documented expense of our national security, Obama has focused his energy on solving problems directly and at their source. The CIA torture memos were already public.

PUMA bloggers are essentially concern trolls attempting to fustigate meaningful analysis of fringe Republican activity with deliberately false and misleading statements.

Citizens engaged in a grassroots Tea Party movement clearly are perceived as a bigger threat to Obama than evil forces intent on destroying America.

The Tea Party "movement" has been funded and organized by all the usual players intent on using astroturfing strategies to fake grassroots support for an otherwise unsustainable politics. It is clear that the so called PUMA movement is a part of that right wing strategy.

Bank Lobbyists and Apologists: Step the Hell Off Warren

Elizabeth Warren is an honest reformer with the expertise needed to see us out of the financial crises started by the unregulated greed of the banking industry.

Big surprise, the banking industry's paid shills are in a proper tizzy:

While the bubbly and brilliant 69-year-old professor is a darling of Democrats, Warren has become the scourge of conservative Republicans, who question her panel’s exploration of more-liberal approaches such as nationalization and bank liquidation.

Financial services lobbyists, who’ve long disliked Warren for highlighting predatory lending and abusive credit card fees, argue that she’s using her post to push her own, anti-industry agenda.

“A number of people wonder if this is the new Warren commission or the congressional oversight panel,” said Wayne Abernathy, executive director for financial institutions policy at the American Bankers Association. “It’s looking more like the former than the latter.”

They better step the hell off. Do these fuckers honestly think we are going to take their word over Warren's? She's the definition of a political outsider:

Warren, who proudly calls herself an “outsider’s outsider,” is comfortable announcing those kinds of very uncomfortable figures, even if that means taking some political punches.

“I’ve never held a government job, and I’m not looking for a government job after this,” she said. “I’m not out there trying to go and find my next landing spot.”

While they represent the epitome of corruption, greed, and insiders consolidating power and wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of all. Republicans and Clinton-style new-Democrats de-regulated like bunnies, and the banks stepped in with irresponsible levels of greed and fiscal blindness. And now we have the current financial crises.

Their criticism fails to distract from either their culpability or their continued obstruction in the face of successful reform:

Since then, Democrats have jumped on an idea that Warren first proposed two years ago, introducing legislation that would create a Financial Product Safety Commission charged with overseeing new consumer lending and investment products. Warren argues that a commission modeled after the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which oversees the security of toys and small appliances, would have kept the subprime mortgages that sparked the current recession off the market in the first place.

“It is impossible to buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of bursting into flames and burning down your house,” Warren wrote in Harvard Magazine last May. “But it is possible to refinance your home with a mortgage that has the same one-in-five chance of putting your family out on the street — and the mortgage won’t even carry a disclosure of that fact.”

President Obama backed the proposal on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” last month, using the toaster analogy to explain the idea.

The commission idea is opposed by conservatives and financial services firms, who argue it would prohibit innovation and impose unnecessary additional regulations on financial services companies.

“We wouldn’t be able to invest in anything the commission didn’t decide was absolutely safe for us,” said Peter Wallison, co-director of the American Enterprise Institute’s program on financial policy studies. “There wouldn’t be any innovation and there wouldn’t be any new ideas.”

Because in Wallison's view, innovation only comes with predatory financial products.

Warren's proposal is a solid one. Her criticism of the crisis and the bailout is central to keeping the process and its result viable. We need to do more than fix the crisis. We need to take steps to prevent it from happening again. Otherwise we are condemning Americans 10-15 years down the line to go through the same meltdown we are currently enjoying.

In this context listening to banking lobbyists and de-regulation cheerleaders makes all the sense of listening to the medical advice of a drug addict with a needle already in his arm. We need a doctor, and in Dr Elizabeth Warren we have one.

Dear Honest Teabaggers

I'm sure, somewhere amidst the Fox News organizers, the racists, bigots and nutjobs, and the idiots who equate returning taxes for the wealthiest Americans to pre Bush levels with oppression, there are those who legitimately want to protest the waste and corruption of the bailout.

So I read snarky posts like this with disdain. Not just because the author apparently got brutally thwacked with the fail whale. But because they miss the point.

Organize (real grassroots, not astroturf like those joke tea parties) a protest against the waste and corruption of the bailout. Leave out taxes (for most Americans, we are getting tax cuts, only the very wealthy are returning to paying what they were before Bush's fiscally irresponsible tax cuts). Get over the bigotry, racism and petty poltics of whining about a legitimate loss (question" if people protesting the corrupt and stolen 2000 elections were sore losers, what does that make someone who protests the legimate Republican thrashing in 2008?).

I had no idea the bailout was so corrupt until watching this Daily Show segment:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Clusterfu#@k to the Poor House - Goldman Sachs' Connections
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

When you realize just how hard we were hit during the bailout process (Elizabeth Warren Interview Parts 1 and 2):

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Elizabeth Warren Pt. 1
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Elizabeth Warren Pt. 2
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

It really puts things in perspective.

To be fair, the early corruption of the bailout process occurred under Bush (who's administration exhibited corrupt practices in Iraq via Haliburton). That said, Obama should be fighting this corruption with every ounce of his strength. It threatens to undermine our financial security and political stability over the long term.

I realize writing a letter to honest, sane tea party-goers is bound to reach a small audience. But a left-right coalition is always going to be needed to address systemic problems, and the corruption of the bailout process is one hell of a problem.

We need to agree on bringing back the regulations discarded over the past several decades, and make fiscal stability a priority. On the economy, we need to adopt Obama's pragmatic approach of putting success ahead of partisanship for partisanship's sake. Given the past few years, this is going to involve far more sacrifice from the principals of conservatism. It means allowing the government to resume the role and powers that have been chipped away in the name of the free market.

So, conservative readers, are you up to it?

Rightwing Extremists Have Rightwing Positions (Who Knew?)

Rightwing extremists with conservative positions? Extremists who target military members for recruitment because of their formidable combat skills? You might be thinking no shit Sherlock:

The report makes no claim that veterans at large would seek out extremist groups, or would cause violence. It just makes the fairly logical conclusion that extremist groups who might be seeking to cause violence, but don't have the skills, may seek out those who do have military training in addition to the usual profile of the types of people they seek out.

Of course violent conservative extremists are trying to recruit from the military, they are after their skills.

But that doesn't stop the nutjobs from declaring "Outrage!" and fainting. Look, first of all, quoting a single Democrat noted for his conservatism does not magically render criticism "both sides of the aisle". Second, would you honestly expect rightwing extremists to hold leftwing positions?

With a growing number of far right fringe conservatives feeling angsty about losing so soundly in 2008, and right wing pundits stoking the flames of paranoia about fascism (who clearly do not understand the meaning of the word nor its vile history), of the course the government is going to pay attenion. Its our governments job to protect ALL of its citizens, and that includes those you do not agree with, you jackasses.

So stop the act and drop the fake outrage. Maybe put yourself to good use by getting the crazies in your party to put that energy to work productively.