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."