Saturday Afternoon Thread: West Wing Week

Sat Mar 24, 2012 at 01:00 PM PDT
This week in the War on Voting: Blocking the electoral vote +*

by Joan McCarter

The Brennan Center for Justice has identified 189 electoral votes in 2012 coming from states with new restrictive voting laws.

Since the beginning of 2011, 13 states passed, or are on the verge of passing, restrictive voting laws that will impact the 2012 election. The states — Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and West Virginia — make up 189 electoral votes, or 70 percent of the 270 needed to win the presidency.
An additional three states — Alabama, Ohio, and Rhode Island — passed restrictive laws that will not be in effect in 2012. Ohioans will vote in November on a referendum to repeal their state’s law.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee delves a little deeper into those numbers, and highlights the critical votes: those in the swing states, where as much as 80 electoral votes could be allocated.

Last year, Florida passed sweeping voter suppression legislation that raised barriers to everything from registering people to vote to actually casting a ballot. ][...]

The Department of Justice has objected to these provisions of the Florida law, placing its ultimate effect on the 2012 election in question.

Ohio was on track to become another swing state with a suppressive voting law in place for the 2012 election. House Bill 194, passed by the GOP-controlled legislature and signed by Gov. John Kasich, made receiving absentee ballots more difficult while shortening the time for early voting. The measure is now subject to a SB5-style “people’s veto,” as citizens collected sufficient signatures to place the measure on the ballot this November. Consequently, implementation of the law has been suspended pending the outcome of that vote. [...]

Pennsylvania is another quintessential swing state with newly-passed suppressive voting legislation. The state’s GOP-controlled legislature approved HB 934 last week, and Republican Gov. John Corbett signed the voter ID bill into law. Opponents have pledged to fight the law in court, an effort that may be bolstered by recent decisions barring the enforcement ofWisconsin’s voter ID law.

Virginia Republicans took full advantage of their GOP tie-breaking vote in an evenly-divided state Senate to ram through a strict voter ID bill earlier this month. Gov. Bob McDonnell is expected to sign it into law any day now. Since the measure must face Justice Department scrutiny under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, it may yet see the resistance faced by voter suppression bills in Texas and South Carolina.

That’s 80 electoral votes in total, coming from states where the voting rights picture is still a little murky just seven months from the election.

It’s also precisely the end game Republicans have been for in this all out effort to block the vote.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/24/1077275/-This-week-in-the-War-on-Voting-Blocking-the-electoral-vote-

Miranda- – — -COMEDIC TRUTH- — -

- — –Cartoons of the Day- Stand Your Ground Laws- – -

- – - — -MORE TRUTH- – - -than comedy.- – - – -

INTERESTING: His attorney said that he would NOT use that defense. Hmmmmm. . . . .

George Zimmerman’s Long, Lonely War Against Black Youths Doing Things

Adam Weinstein and Matt DeLuca have pulled the logs of 911 calls that George Zimmerman made before this year’s shooting. Spot the pattern. From Weinstein:

In August 2011, he called to report a black male in a tank top and shorts acting suspicious near the development’s back entrance. “[Complainant] believes [subject] is involved in recent S-21s”—break-ins—”in the neighborhood,” the call log states. The suspect, Zimmerman told the dispatcher, fit a recent description given out by law enforcement officers.

Three days later, he called to report two black teens in the same area, for the same reason. “[Juveniles] are the subjs who have been [burglarizing] in this area,” he told the dispatcher.

From DeLuca:

On April 22, 2011, Zimmerman called to report a black male about “7-9” years old, four feet tall, with a “skinny build” and short black hair. There is no indication in the police report of the reason for Zimmerman’s suspicion of the boy.

more here
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/03/23/george_zimmerman_s_long_lonely_war_against_black_youths_doing_things.html

Walking While Black: The Senseless Killing of Trayvon Martin
By Darron

The recent slaying of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin is yet another reminder of the every day presence of racism in the United States. I find it necessary to remind everyone that this is not an isolated incident, but one that occurs daily across America for most black men. The difference here is that the normal threats and harassment that Trayvon would typically encounter on any given day as a black man, turned into his innocent death. As Malcolm Gladwell discussed in the death of Amadou Diallo, an innocent black man in New York City who was mistakenly shot 19 times by 4 police officers (who fired a total of 41 shots), the decisions that George Zimmerman made about Trayvon Martin were done in a “blink of an eye”. His actions, on the other hand, were done in justification of his already conceived (and likely subconscious) thoughts about this young man rather than in response to Trayvon’s clearly non-threatening behavior. Any one of Zimmerman’s compilation of actions that fateful evening, if terminated, would have likely resulted in a different outcome, one where Trayvon would still be alive today. But Zimmerman is operating on societal-based stereotypes and assumptions of anti-black racial frames about black men that has been around since the mid-1600’s and continues in today’s white-dominated society.

I find it hard to understand why anyone would be foolish enough to discount the continuing assault on the black male presence. Black men have always been public enemy number one in white America, and that has not changed much in 400 years. Since slavery times, African American men were seen as threats to white manhood. Unrelenting white racial stereotypes around black male bodies provided the perfect justification for the incredible violence directed at them, whether in the cotton fields or working for his master in the big house.

Black men were clearly not on equal footing with other men, especially white men for centuries. The conditions, stories, received wisdoms and other discourses created by whites about black folk constituted predictable cognitive road maps or frames that white folks enacted on black bodies. Frames are patterned ways of thinking about human differences such as race that apply generally to people at large and influence our legal system, schooling, healthcare, unemployment and housing to name a few. The white racial frames created around “Black” were and remains anathema, which is certainly the case with Trayvon’s senseless death. The shooter, George Zimmerman, a man of apparent Latino heritage and self-proclaimed neighborhood watch captain, mystifies many white observers. Given that both black and brown people in American are oppressed, how could this be? What’s happening here is that Zimmerman is acting on the existing white racial frames that operate as unconscious scripts on how to interact with racial “others” in our society.

White racial framing of black male bodies is a large-scale centuries-old undertaking that not only affects white behavior toward Blacks, but black and Latino behaviors toward each other and themselves. These racial understandings have existed ever since Europeans first stepped foot on the Western shores of Africa and began a long and tortuous relationship with Africans. And this continues today where the steady stream of media portrayals of young black men as “dangerous” predators is too prolific in our society to ignore. Anyone reading this blog can certainly think of one or more stereotypes about black men. When you think of the face of crime, it is easy to conjure the image of Trayvon or another young man of color as the scary and dangerous “other” or the boogey man. Minorities are not immune to this frame or thought process. Latinos, Blacks and other Americans of color receive and act on many of the same white racial stereotypes and impulses, and Mr. Zimmerman is no exception.

Now, take the context of white society from its historical vantage point and see how it continues the play out (albeit less overt at times). Floridians have instituted a law that has resurrected the Wild Wild West, which allows an individual to take the law into his/her own hands. A law seemingly provoked by the looting that occurred following several Florida hurricanes. After filtered media images following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the assumption is that the people looting are black. Thus, the law can be interpreted such that if a black man is stealing, a white man can shoot and kill him. And the onus is placed on the victim from prove he was innocent of a crime before being shot. We have now gone even beyond the egregious “eye for an eye” and moved to a place where a heart can be taken for the loss of a finger, but no one seemed to care that the law implied it was the heart of a black man until it was taken literally. What results is that someone like Trayvon Martin has become caught in the crosshairs of a nation that has yet to truly reconcile its profoundly racist past.

While the nation continues to mount an all out and justifiable assault on the circumstances surrounding Trayvon’s death, let’s not forgot the conditions that gave rise to this young man’s death in the first place: white supremacy, or to put it nicely, a white dominated society. Rest in peace Trayvon Martin; may your death not be in vain.

http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2012/03/24/walking-while-black-the-senseless-killing-of-trayvon-martin/

TPM2012
Virginia Is For Lovers, Not Culture Warriors: Obama Surges In The Commonwealth
Tom Kludt March 23, 2012, 6:17 AM

President Barack Obama’s 2008 triumph in Virginia was widely attributed to a well-orchestrated campaign that mobilized large swaths of voters, even in reliably conservative areas. Four years later, it’s growing support among women that’s giving the president momentum in the Commonwealth — and according to some observers, he can thank the Republican party’s revival of the culture wars for powering his re-election bid there

The president’s 2008 victory in Virginia followed the same electoral blueprint as the 2005 gubernatorial win by current United States Senate candidate Tim Kaine (D-VA). Obama, like Kaine, won both Loudoun and Prince William counties — two erstwhile GOP strongholds in northern Virginia with large concentrations of wealth — due to unusually high turnout by exurban and minority voters in the suburban Washington, D.C. communities.

Republican Governor Bob McDonnell’s success in Loudoun and Prince William in the 2009 gubernatorial race has some wondering whether Obama will enjoy the same level of support in the northern Virginia suburbs — not to mention college towns such as Charlottesville — that propelled him to a six-point win over Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). But in the wake of the GOP’s recent reinstatement of the culture wars, the president may now have the luxury of an alternative gateway to Virginia’s 13 electoral votes.

Count former Congressman Tom Davis (R) among the Virginia Republicans concerned about the party’s renewed emphasis on social issues. Davis, who represented Virginia’s 11th Congressional District from 1995-2008, fears that recent debates over abortion in the Virginia state legislature along with the contraception fight in Washington have damaged the GOP’s brand with women voters, particularly those who live in the suburban areas targeted by both parties.

“When we stick to social issues, it undercuts our message with women,” Davis told TPM. “These are issues that are not likely to appeal culturally in northern Virginia.”

Democrats believe that the GOP’s tactics have handed Obama a firewall, which might allow the president to weather a potential dip in enthusiasm among minority and exurban voters. One Democratic strategist in Virginia set an extremely lofty threshold for the eventual Republican presidential nominee. “If Republicans can’t hold at least 45 percent of suburban women, they’ll just get killed,” the strategist told TPM.

That might be a daunting task for a party embroiled in what Democrats are labeling a “war on women.” Making matters worse for the GOP: Obama’s increasingly strong standing in Virginia since the beginning of the new year. A Quinnipiac survey released this week shows the president leading all potential GOP challengers in head-to-head match-ups, including a 50 percent to 42 percent advantage over Mitt Romney. An NBC/Marist poll released earlier this month had Obama holding a 17-point lead over Romney in the Commonwealth. Those encouraging poll numbers represent a recent development for Obama, who claimed his first lead over Romney in Quinnipiac’s polling of Virginia only a month ago.

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/virginia-is-for-lovers-not-culture-warriors-explaining-obamas-recent-surge-in-the-commonwealth.php?ref=fpb

Trayvon Martin and the End of Excuses
By Charles P. Pierce
at 1:12PM

We have become a nation in which children have become expendable. Trayvon Martin is just the most recent example.

We executed children in this country until long after the rest of the world — except Iran — thought that was a good idea. Almost six million children live in poverty in this country. Almost six million of them are without health insurance of any kind, and that’s reckoned to be an improvement. None of this is accidental. These children are expendable because the people we elect make policy decisions of which we approve — or, at least, of which we do not disapprove. The Republicans in Congress — behind the “leadership” of zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan — would like to zero out the SCHIP children’s health-care program. If they do that, it will not be done by accident. The Florida legislature, behind the leadership of the National Rifle Association, passed the “stand your ground” law, despite the fact that even police and prosecutors were warning that it amounted to a hunting license for anyone who had both a gun, and the ability to concoct a good story. Trayvon Martin is not dead by accident.

But, already, even in the face of widespread outrage, the notion is continuing to circulate through the country, like topical anesthetic working on an open wound, that what happened to Trayvon Martin was, if not entirely accidental, then merely a combination of unfortunate circumstances culminating in an entirely regrettable event. (That’s not even to mention the wilder precincts of mouth-breathing public commentary. If you ever needed proof that whatever consulting genius came up with the idea of having a Comments section follow every newspaper story deserves to die a slow and painful death by honey and fire ants, this story is pretty much what you’re looking for.) Conservatives caution the president not to “inject race” into the incident any further, because, as we know, we can’t tell how much of a factor “race” was, because George Zimmerman was half-Hispanic and because of the backward masking on the Sergeant Pepper album. (I am not kidding.) Geraldo Rivera, looking for relevance in all the wrong places, blames hoodies:

But I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters particularly to not let their children go out wearing hoodies. I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was…. Every time you see someone sticking up a 7-11, the kid is wearing a hoodie…. When you see a black or Latino youngster, particularly on the street, you walk to the other side of the street. You try to avoid that confrontation.

(And every time I see someone convicted of ripping off pension funds, he’s wearing a $500 suit. Don’t wear $500 suits!)

For his part, the president was calm and measured, because that’s the way the president is, and because he is rather circumscribed in what he can say publicly on topics like this because of factors that should be obvious from the Comments section above. Nevertheless, he neatly put Florida’s deeply unpopular Republican governor, Rick Scott, on the spot:

“I am glad that not only is the Justice Department looking into this, but the governor of the state of Florida has put together a task force.”

Translation: Make it a good one, Rick, because your ass is in this jackpot, too.

Well I certainly don’t feel calm and measured, and it’s not because my kids “could have been Trayvon.” No, they could not have. My kids are white. They lived in the suburbs. They could wear their pants anyway they liked. They could have worn hoodies to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, and nobody would have looked askance at them, let alone blown them away with a handgun. (As I recall, I once wore a black hoodie to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.) The worst threat to my children’s lives in the big wide world was that some suburban matron who couldn’t see over the steering wheel would run them down in the family SUV. They didn’t have to worry about running into some trigger-happy, half-mad wannabe on the way home from the convenience store. And that’s what keeps me from being calm and measured.

I am sick to death of people who celebrate “the family” making excuses about why other people’s children are expendable. I am sick to death of politicians who are more concerned about protecting zygotes than about the teenagers on whom they seek to balance their budgets and advance their careers. (Barney Frank’s line about conservatives’s believing that life “begins at conception and ends at birth” was not entirely a joke, although it’s always been treated as one.) I am sick to death of opportunistic yahoos who can look at this country’s unhealthy attachment to firearms and declare that the actions of George Zimmerman, while unfortunate, were pretty much what the Founders had in mind. I am sick to death of the steady drip-drip-drip of all the topical anesthetics we mix up whenever something like this happens. Had Emmett Till been killed in 2012, there’d be at least three people sitting in the CNN Green Room right now — and probably 15 of them sitting offstage at Fox — waiting to explain how unfortunate it was that the lad so transgressed against local custom that circumstances dictated that he be beaten to a pulp and tossed into the river tied to a cotton-gin fan. I am sick to death about how we can argue about anything simply to argue about it, and then move along to the next argument, as though anything at all has been settled.

I think this controversy has some legs to it. What alarms me is not that Zimmerman hasn’t yet been arrested, but the awful feeling that the Florida legislature, with the approval of the people of Florida, may have passed a law so idiotic that it prevents local law-enforcement from arresting him at all. (I can’t imagine what the good cops in Sanford must be feeling today. The dispatcher told this clown not to pursue Martin, and he did it anyway. They must simply be angry at the world at this point.) And what makes me angry down to my soul is not that my children could have been Trayvon, but that, because of the way we have ordered our politics and our society, only someone like Trayvon could have been Trayvon.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/trayvon-martin-news-7552519#ixzz1q4Vd6lnP

Miranda – — -Mr. PRESIDENT lands in KOREA. – —

– - -Barack Obama Photos[Korea] – —

– —SANATORIUM – —”won” —LOUISIANA. – - -***sigh**

Miranda – - – - -GOOD NEWS: – —WISCONSINITES — – STANDIN’ STRONG!! – - – -

— – -Outside Conservative Conference, Wisconsinites Protest Ryan Budget And GOP Attempt To Dismantle Health Care Reform – - -

– — -MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin — Outside the conservative corporate front group Americans For Prosperity’s Milwaukee convention this morning, Wisconsinities gathered to protest the Ryan budget and Republican opposition to health care reform. The Grim Reaper was among the protestors, holding a sign that read, “Only a grim reaper can be excited about fewer people getting healthcare.” Protest organizer Robert Kraig of Milwaukee summed up their message to ThinkProgress: “more people will die if Obamacare is repealed.”

Annnnd TELLING THE TRUTH!! —- – - – -

Miranda —Watchin’ the Special on “TRAYVON [don lemon]:

– “THE TALK” - -2 “BLAH” parents: —-HOW 2 SAVE YOUR LIFE.

— – – —— ———- — – -2 “OTHER” parents:– -HOW 2 CREATE [or NOT] LIFE.

– —-INTERESTING –HOW THAT WORKS. — – -