Who gets to vote?

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia repeatedly asserts that there is no right to vote. Legislation since the 1960s is evidently unconstitutional, even though the Voting Rights Act addressed the impression of state restrictions upon peoples' RIGHT to vote, and was repeatedly reinstated by Congress.

All of the recent efforts of right wing legislators to make it harder to vote have only to do with shifting power to those who already have.

Is a "Poll Tax" illegal? Make it so people who don't share your wealth status have to stand 12 hours in line to maybe get a vote, and it appears that the "tax," along with "literacy" tests and "grandfather clauses" point that way. "Maybe" get a vote has to do with "provisional" ballots, which may or may not get counted. The restrictions on provisional ballots may require that the voter appear at the registrar's office in a short time period to PROVE that they voted legally

Is Voter "fraud" is a major problem? Well, then force Native Americans to PROVE they're not committing a crime by trying to register to vote and then showing up at the polls. Oh, yeah, that's another Poll Tax - the place where you have to register is 40 or so miles away, and it's now written into the law that you can't register on voting day. If you don't have a "valid" ID, tough; spend time trying to get the ever limited form of ID that are "legal." In the USA, it used to be that a person committing a crime was brought to justice. Lately, one has to prove an absence of criminal behaviour. Someone explain why a person would risk a felony conviction for voter fraud. To claim that restricting the number of early voting days, or the number of voting booths in a district is another form of denying people who live in the wrong places or classes their voices. Voter "fraud" is not a problem; ELECTION "fraud" (the attempts to prevent the "wrong" people from voting)  is. Of the 182,000 "non-citizens" that Florida tried to purge from the voter rolls in 2012, the list was pared to 198 after scrutiny. In 2000, nearly 90,000 ex-felons, as identified by Choice Point/Data Base Technologies, were purged from the rolls, although Greg Palast found that a significant number (nearly all) were flagged on "similar" names, had not committed a felony in Florida, had not committed a felony until (Katherine Harris' office data) SEVEN years after the list was assembled - evidently revealed by a time machine. See "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" for excruciating detail.

Attempting to register or vote illegally is a FELONY. A couple of instances come to mind: Mitt Romney registering to vote in Massachusetts, using his son's unfinished basement as his address, and then voting, and James O'Keefe allegedly attempting to obtain a ballot using a false ID. He's still subpoenaed to appear in NH for that stunt, in which he didn't succeed in getting a ballot.

The effort is to PREVENT people from voting; to create minority rule; to deny the populace a voice; to set up a system of apartheid.

Alan Colmes Liberalland comment

Those With Higher Intelligence Less Likely To Believe In God

http://www.alan.com/2013/08/12/those-with-higher-intelligence-less-likely-to-believe-in-god/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+liberaland+%28Alan+Colmes+Liberaland%29&utm_content=FaceBook

My comment:

Fearful people derive comfort from authorities who know the absolute "truths" of the universe. Fearful people are angry and prone to violence when they are threatened by those who think.

The manipulative cynics know that they can control enough of the people enough of the time.

Critical Thinking is in Critical Condition.

Fool 'em!

"You can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

Yeah, right.

What's passing for intelligent administration of government seems to be showing that you can fool enough of the people enough of the time. 

Serve and Protect? To whom do you refer?

Miami Police Tase Teenage Graffiti Artist To Death - spray painting is evidently a capital offense. I'm just waiting for the militarized police to start using flame throwers instead of fire hoses.

"Serve and Protect" applies to an ever shrinking portion of our society. The rest of us are enemies.

Studs Terkel, the Succinct

A great man has the ability to reduce a twisted philosophy to its elemental fallacy.

Studs Terkel spoke at Northern Illinois University about 12 years ago, and during the Q & A session, a local Libertarian spouted "objectivist" Ayn Rand talking points without asking a real question. Terkel, who was hard of hearing, turned to the moderator to get a quick summation, and then gave a dismissive wave of his hand, turned his back, and said, "yeah, you and General Motors have the same power at the bargaining table."

Liars, Damned Liars, and Those who use Statistics

Stuart Varney, bloviating on Fox Noise, whips out the statistics that fit his bias. He says that there are 100 million people on food stamps, but only 97 million who work full time. This is a complete abuse of statistics - 45% of people on food stamps are children, along with 10% elderly and a certain percent disabled. 97 million FULL TIME workers eliminates the need to include part time workers, some of whom work three jobs. Also left out is the fact that a lot of people who are on food stamps are working, some full time. 

When an idiot like Varney tries to paint every picture as black and white, he's trying to convince the audience that they should attack the working poor; the "takers."

Lying sack ... Maybe we should put those kids to work in steel mills, factories, and coal mines (again).

Odd Man Out, by Martin Gladu: Calvin Lampley - a biographical essay

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1&thid=13eceffe1f895495&mt=application/pdf&url=https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui%3D2%26ik%3D56e2f82e7a%26view%3Datt%26th%3D13eceffe1f895495%26attid%3D0.1%26disp%3Dsafe%26zw&sig=AHIEtbTCYAxq-_XzjbQP-aTT1Q4cOnPixg

Remembering Calvin Lampley, a wonderful person

Dear Sir,

I just stumbled upon your blog post in which you mention Calvin Lampley.

In case you are interested, I published a biographical essay on Mr. Lampley last year. Considering you seem to have known him intimately, I would have loved to interview you, but unfortunately I have just became aware of your relationship :-(

I can send you a .pdf copy if you like.

Best,

Martin Gladu

=====================================================

He was "Uncle Calvin" when I was growing up in New York City. He lived with us on Morningside Drive in Manhattan, and I loved him, and missed him when we had to leave.I loved to hear him play piano, and Dad allowed him to use the Steinway, which was an honor given by Dad. Dad was reluctant to let anyone touch it, and putting a drink on it was a serious crime. The piano was a Model B built in 1890, and wherever the Steinway was was Dad's home. Mom did the art work for Calvin's performance in Carnegie Hall, and it was a fantastic graphic of his face and hands.

I learned trust from him when we were going to the river across Henry Hudson Parkway when he told me to run, and I just put my head down and ran. I was six years old, and I learned.

I'd love to read what you have on Calvin. I do know that he took over from George Avakian the task of producing "Kind Of Blue" with Miles Davis. I met George at The Jazz Museum of Harlem a couple of years ago while presenting "The Savory Collection," Dad's unique recordings from the mid 1930s.

I was so sad to find that Calvin died from MS before I could reconnect with him. I last talked to him in 1985 in Georgetown, DC, and told him how much I loved him.

Practicing Medicine Without a License

A friend was in constant pain, but his doctor wouldn't prescribe anything useful. He was recovering from major cervical spine surgery, and the medicine was on par with what you'd get for a toothache. His comment as he fired his doctor, "are you a doctor or a priest"?

I talked with a pharmacist about the Drug Enforcement Agency - I wanted to know how often they ran fishing expeditions on the store's books. He only said, "you wouldn't believe!" Yes I would.

I can walk into a store and buy bullets after showing my ID. I can't walk into a pharmacy and buy pseudoephedrine without showing my driver's license and waiting five minutes while the pharmacist writes down the details of the transaction that associate my name with the quantity and type of formerly over the counter decongestant. I asked the pharmacist, "how do you like working for the State Police"?

Doctors are afraid to prescribe useful types and quantities of medications because of the police looking over their shoulders. The result is that people are under-medicated, especially for pain. Pain is diagnostic, and beyond that only serves to hinder the healing process if it is not controlled.

Abuse of drugs is a medical problem, and it is not widespread.

I don't care what John Calvin said. Suffering is NOT good for the soul.

Because I are an engineer!

Of course, I'm biased, but this is an article that Fermilab's lawyers should have read before threatening me with arrest for wanting to have copies of publicly funded software that I had helped to develop. They didn't understand that our data acquisition software was so arcane and was completely useless without the hardware that our Electronics Group had produced. I'm now working with the office of the Directorate Technology Transfer folks to acquire copies so I can write a textbook. My former boss thought I could get into trouble even by writing the code from memory.

http://www.isgtw.org/feature/standing-shoulders-software-developers