OOPS! Here it is,
you decide
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Republicans party has become the “Almond Joy Party”. Sometime they
act like a nut and sometime they don’t.
Editorial Comments By
Clarence Piner Jr
Mitt Romney Gets Tax Break Off Firm Sending Jobs To China
Do you remember in the debates
when Governor Romney stated to the President on stage before at 50 million
viewers that he didn’t know anything about getting tax breaks for out sourcing
jobs to China? He lied; he is a expert at moving jobs to other country or at
least claiming he didn’t do it. Baines Capital and his buddies are all experts
at playing this game. This was a man that came to close to the oval office. I
recall when the Republicans party was all about character that all they talked
about and all most nothing else. Oh by the way, their fingers were pointed at
the Democratic candidate who was running against their candidate. I recall
thinking what a bunch of “hog ma-larky” not that character is ma-larky let me
say here and now it is not. Character is “what you do when no one is looking” I
talked about this in my books. You can find them at my web page Http://www.ownmybooks.com.
I must tell you I am glad we
didn’t elect the Republicans candidate for the highest office in the land in my
opinion he didn’t possess the qualities for the kind of leadership needed to
lead our nation. Also he has not demonstrated the kind of vision and ideas
needed to lead a nation. Anytime you and your VP come to the table with empty
hands and nothing but I will tell you after the election about our plans you
will just have to wait, be patient we will tell you later just trust us. Is
there anyone out there that can explain the Governor’s plans for the country?
If so, I would like to hear them. I think not, all I recall him and his VP
candidate stating over and over it will take to long to explain or it’s to
complicate for the time I have to tell you about our plans “trust us”. The last
thirty five days or so they refused to meet the media when they did they
refused to answer any questions. The VP candidate was in southern states where
they were going to win because these southern Republicans were never going to
vote for a person of color. Quite frankly I am surprise they got as many votes
as they did base upon what they presented to their audiences.
The Americans people may have
forgotten the GOP plans to privatize Social Security, Voucherizing Medicare, destroy Medicaid, and any
other social program that good for the people.
Anything that good for the people Republicans are out to destroy it.
These rich billionaires want to control everything if they aren’t in charge or
getting paid for everything even things that has no impact on them. Remember
they all live behind gated communities where they don’t have to be contaminated
by the 47%. All they want is you breaking your backs to make them richer than
they are. They are doing everything in their power not to help pay their
workers health care cost. All of you women out there you are in double trouble
these guys are really out to get you. I hope by now women have been awaken from
their deep sleep and looking at the result from the 2012 election I think maybe
they have. I sure hope so,
Before
I leave this area I have another question that I hope someone can help me; here
is my question, Why are so many people out there who hate Obamacare? http://obamacare.com/home-page
The
stock market went from the 6,000 to 13,000 during President Obama first term.
For most workers who had a 401K invested in the market on Wall Street made out
like bandits so given this why are you mad at him?
There
is no right to Secede see the alleged letter where Justice Scalia shoots down
idea of leaving the union.
I know
there are millions of you who hate people of color and the President in
partially I say to you get over it. Yes he is your President too like it or not
just like President Bush was my President when he was President. Any President
elected by the people even when Republicans did everything in their power to
steal the 2012 election and spent tons of money trying to buy the election but
that didn’t work either. Their real problem is their same old broken ideas that
didn’t work under President Bush and in my opinion may never work again unless
the American people go brain dead. Republicans stop being haters trying to
secede from the union. If you real the right wing justice Scalia and other have
stated this is a bad idea and it will never happen. I have even heard some say
they are leaving America can you believe these crazy people where are they
going South America? I am not against the people south of the border however;
some nations are having problems with drug trafficking. They will tell you they
would not be having these problems if America wasn’t pumping this bad stuff in
their body as fast as they can get. Are you looking to the north they don’t
want our problems either they have enough problems of their own they don’t need
ours. So where are these secession going? It seem to me they really don’t have
very many options, what they need to do is get over it, come to grip with
losing and stop hating people of color. We are a nation with the best of
everything and nevertheless we are running from ourselves with all the drugs we
can find. If we keep this kind of behavior we are going to lose our premier
spot in the world because most of our citizens will be too high to care or work
hard like our fore fathers.
Guys the
civil war is over and the north won thank god. If they had not won this nation
would be in one helluva mess. Slave trading own by the “Slave Holding Class”
mostly southern of course Plantation owners was the biggest business in Dixie
and I am told made the most money selling people from Africa. These owners were
not about to give up those dollars so in come the civil war to settle this
issue. The north won this war and I am glad of it. Some of my great, great,
great grand fathers fought on the side of the north to help remove the yoke
from American Indians, African Americans and other groups who were caught in this
mess.
Some of
these business leaders who own large corporations have threatened their people
about voting for President. I guess lot of them did some of these owners have
fired them for their vote. I wonder how he found out I guess his employees told
him knowing they were going to be fired. A business owner from Alabama who own
a Topless car wash business that was regulated out of business by local
officials not President Obama who was not in office in 2002. It’s seems to me
this business owner forgot he is in the Bible belt they are not going to allow
young women to wash cars topless or bottomless in their communities. This business owner blames President Obama
for his predicament and he has 25K of other nuts in my home state. He is
leading their charge to secede from the union. I say to all of these nuts go
ahead we will not miss you. Really what they need to do is spend their time
fixing their communities where they live so life can be better for all. Only
now have they dream up this worthless idea that will never work because it’s a
really, really bad idea.
The U.S. Civil War
Perhaps the best-known example of
a secession taking place within the borders of a formerly unified nation was
the withdrawal (1860–61) of the 11 Southern states from the United States to
form the Confederacy.
This action, which led to the Civil War,
brought to a head a constitutional question that had been an issue in the
United States since the formation of the union. It was the principal point in
the controversy over states' rights.
The secessionists argued that the
union created by the Constitution was only a compact of sovereign states and
that power given to the federal government was only partial and limited, not
paramount over the states, and effective only in the specific fields assigned
it. The states, being sovereign, had the legal right to withdraw from the
voluntary union. The opponents of the right of secession believed that the
Constitution created a sovereign and inviolable union and that withdrawal from
that union was impossible. Prior to the Civil War secessionist sentiments were
evidenced in both the North (see Hartford
Convention) and South, but as the North grew more powerful, talk of
secession became more common in the South.
The nullification movement,
which held that any state could declare null and void any federal law that
infringed upon its rights, was an attempt to eradicate the need for secession
by giving the states complete sovereignty. Measures such as the Missouri
Compromise and the Compromise
of 1850 were merely delays in resolving whether the states or the
federal government was to possess sovereignty. Desiring to maintain the slave
system and threatened by the North socially and economically, the South finally
seceded from the Union soon after the election of Abraham Lincoln.
The defeat of the Confederacy in the bloody war that followed settled the
constitutional controversy permanently.
And there
more..check this out there was a guy in Arizona that was so upset with
President Obama being reelected that he decided to end the life of his wife, two
sons and himself because to live under Obama rule was to much to take so, he
end his family time on this earth. He didn’t give them a choice, another white
male who knows what best for everybody. It’s unclear what was going on in his
head to come to this conclusion. I can’t see anything that our President has
done to anyone to cause this kind of thinking. This is a clear indication how
deep of a hold racial bigotry has on some people most are Republicans but by no
means are all. Racialist come in all shapes, size, colors and ethnic
groups.
I am not
sure how we are going to turn this around but if we are to survive we must
overcome our desire for getting high with going to work and enjoying it. I see a major problem in this area and
it called bosses they have forgotten their roles, they have lost their
intellect when it come to treating their employees. These guys and gals see
themselves as running their companies without needing people. Remember they
build their companies by themselves they didn’t have any help from anyone. It
seem as soon as they make their first million they become Republicans and do
everything in their power to destroy their companies by treating their people
like slaves. These manager owners must have attended graduate school when I did
because I see some of the traits that were being taught during the ninety when
I attended graduate school. It’s unclear to me how they have been successful to
this point. I had some heated discussing with some of my professors about some
of the ideas they were teaching. If you treat your people like you would like
to be treated they will go to the matt for you. You must take care of their
needs and they will take care of your.
I heard a
radio commercial by a local gun store owner stating that people should hurry
before the new law outlawing guns by the President takes effect. Obviously this
store owner was speaking to group of what I call idiots because no where or
nobody has suggested taking people guns away. The President can’t do it by
himself anyway he doesn’t have the power he needs the congress to pass gun laws
or any laws in America. I have heard some talking heads talking about banning
assault rifles. I agree with their arguments about assault rifles we don’t need
drug dealers or gang members shooting up the streets with their AK47. I can’t
see law bidding citizens needing this type of weapons. If you are in a war zone
then this may be a good tool for that environment. But it’s a no go on Main
Street.
Let me
make it clear the President has never talk about banning hand guns or hunting
rifles. As a matter of fact the opposite is true. He has stated that people
should be authorized their legally own weapons. So to that store owner sir you
are wrong frightening your listens into rushing out to purchase a gun. I
understand why you would be doing this it’s called the almighty dollar, “who
want it and who has it”. Your potential customers have the dollars and you want
their dollars in your coffers. I can’t blame you for that but don’t lie about
something that never going to happen.
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Kevin Russell Contributor
Posted Fri, June 29th, 2012 9:54 am
Civil rights statutes put at risk by health care
decision
Starting
to think about the potential collateral consequences of the health care ruling,
I think it is very likely that one of its major impacts will be to revive
claims that several significant civil rights statutes, enacted under Congress’s
Spending Power, are unconstitutional.
In
the health care decision, the Court held that Congress exceeded its Spending
Clause authority by forcing states into an all-or-nothing choice by threatening
to revoke all of their Medicaid funding if they did not participate in the
Medicaid expansion. A decade or so ago, several states made similar
challenges to a number of important civil rights statutes that condition
receipt of federal funds on the state’s agreement to abide by
non-discrimination principles in the federally funded programs. These
statutes include Title IX (sex discrimination in federally funded education
programs), Title IV (race discrimination in any federally funded program), and
the Rehabilitation Act (disability discrimination in federally funded
programs). States argued that by threatening to take away all of a
program’s funds if the State’s didn’t agree to abide by these statutes,
Congress was engaging in unconstitutional coercion.
Mostly,
the states were arguing not so much that the anti-discrimination mandate was
unconstitutional, but that the states were unconstitutionally coerced into
agreeing to waive their sovereign immunity and submit to private lawsuits by
individuals alleging discrimination in violation of the federal statutes.
But the coercion claim would have applied equally to the requirement to
refrain from discrimination in the first place.
All
of these challenges failed. But it seems likely that many will now be
revived. States can now point to the Supreme Court’s striking down of the
Medicaid Expansion for support for the proposition that the coercion doctrine —
which had been mentioned but never enforced by the Supreme Court in prior
decisions — is real and has teeth. And they can look to the majority and
dissenting decisions for guidance on what counts as unconstitutionally
coercive.
This
does not mean they will succeed. To be honest, I find the opinions to be
remarkable thin on doctrinal guidance. The Justices mostly adopted a “we
know it when we see it” theory of coercion in this case. The lower courts
are going to have to spend a lot of time trying to turn the Court’s gut
reaction into a set of legal principles.
But
two aspects of the Medicaid Expansion were particularly troubling to seven of
the nine Justices — (1) the law threatened to take away all of
what was a very large amount of funding upon which states have become
reliant, and (2) as the Justices saw it, Congress was threatening to withhold
funding for one program (the old Medicaid program) for non-compliance with the
rules of a separate program (the new Medicaid expansion program).
These
two factors point both ways with respect to the civil rights statutes.
Often, the statutes apply to programs that receive many millions of
dollars in federal aid, all of which is theoretically at risk if the State
refuses to promise to abide by the required non-discrimination principles.
On the other hand, unlike the Affordable Care Act — which seemingly required the
federal government to withhold all funds if the state refused
the expansion — I believe that the civil rights statutes permit the government
discretion in setting the amount of the withholding for non-compliance.
(Although I am not sure what would happen if the state refused, at the
outset, to agree not to discriminate). At oral argument, Justice Breyer
suggested that such enforcement flexibility (which he proposed to read into the
Affordable Care Act) would save the statute from being unconstitutional on its
face. What would be unconstitutional is a disproportionate response to
violations, rather than requiring the states to agree to the funding
conditions in the first place.
Second,
the civil rights statutes tend to operate program-by-program (although the
definition of “program” is fairly broad). So, for example, a state does
not risk losing its transportation funding if it discriminates in a scholarship
program. So the civil rights statutes arguably do not pose the problem of
threatening one program for non-compliance with the rules of another. In
addition, the program-by-program limitation reduces the amount of funding at
issue which, while large, is significantly smaller than the amount of money at
issue in the Medicaid program. And the Court seemed to take pains to
emphasize that Medicaid’s vastness put it in a field by itself.
Finally,
like the Affordable Care Act, it is possible to argue that the civil rights
statutes are supported by more than one federal power — as applied to state and
local governments, they may be valid exercises of Congress’s power to enforce
the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; as applied to private
entities, they may be valid Commerce Clause legislation. But defending
the laws on those grounds has its own difficulties.
In
the end, I would be surprised if the Supreme Court ended up striking down any
of these civil rights provisions. But I would not be surprised to see
some lower courts holding the statutes unconstitutional, and I would shocked if
states did not ask them to do so.
Posted
in Health Care
Recommended Citation: Kevin Russell, Civil
rights statutes put at risk by health care decision, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 29, 2012, 9:54
AM), http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/06/civil-rights-statutes-put-at-risk-by-health-care-decision/
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Mitt Romney Gets Tax Break Off Firm Sending Jobs To China
Posted: 09/27/2012 4:32
pm Updated: 09/28/2012 9:17 pm
WASHINGTON -- Sensata
Technologies is a healthy manufacturing company that employs nearly 200 workers
at a factory in northern Illinois. The company has become the focus of
national attention because it has been taken over by Bain Capital, which plans
to shut the factory down, lay off the workers, and outsource the production to
China before the end of the year.
The workers have pleaded with GOP
presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the founder of Bain Capital, to exert his
considerable influence to save their jobs. Romney still makes millions each
year in income from Bain. So far, he has declined to weigh in, and the factory
is scheduled to close by the end of the year.
While the workers and the town
may suffer, Romney himself has done well as a result of Bain's work with the
company. According to his recently released 2011 tax returns,
Romney transferred $701,703 worth of Sensata stock to the Tyler Charitable
Foundation, a 501(c)3 tax-exempt nonprofit controlled by Romney. The gift is
listed on page 323 of the pdf, on form 8283 (below).
Moving the stock to his nonprofit
brings Romney twin benefits. First, he gets to deduct the full value of the
stock. At a 35 percent tax rate, that's nearly a $250,000 benefit. At 15
percent, it's just over $100,000.
Second, Romney is able to avoid
paying capital gains taxes on the stock price increase. Romney's returns list
no cost for the stock, and indicate he obtained them as part of a partnership
interest in Bain. Avoiding capital gains taxes on the full increase would save
an additional $100,000. In 2010, Romney gifted $170,000 worth of Sensata stock
to his charity, saving $25,000 in capital gains taxes that year.
Cheryl Randecker, a Sensata
worker facing an imminent layoff, said, "I could pay off my house with
that [$25,000], and he doesn't need it anyway."
Randecker received her 60-day
layoff notice shortly after Labor Day. She and other Sensata employees have
tried in vain to pressure Romney and Bain to keep their jobs in the U.S., going
so far as to create a "Bainport" encampment across the street
from their plant in Freeport, Ill. Billed as the "home of the Romney
economy," the site highlights what some Sensata workers describe as
corporate greed squeezing the middle class.
As in many Midwestern towns,
Freeport's jobs at Sensata are some of the few well-paying manufacturing jobs
that remain in the area. Several Sensata workers have told HuffPost that
they're worried that after the layoffs they'll end up in low-paying
service-sector positions, if they manage to find jobs at all. Randecker, a
33-year Sensata veteran, said she fears having to start a new career at age 52.
Barring something miraculous, she said she will lose her job the day before the
presidential election.
"Knowing ... that he's going
to profit single-handedly from us losing our jobs here in Freeport is very
disturbing," Randecker, a single mother, said. On the subject of Romney's
capital gains savings, Randecker continued, "It's very bothersome that he
doesn’t pay his fair share of taxes. If he and the rest of the one percent did,
we probably wouldn’t be in a deficit here ... The lower and middle class keep
getting stepped on."
Rebecca Wilkins, an attorney with
Citizens for Tax Justice, said that Romney's move is a prime example of the way
that the super-wealthy are able to game the charitable deduction while still
holding on to their money.
"During the last crazy weeks
of each year, in the middle of the holiday and year-end rush, most of us sit
down and write a few checks to our favorite charities. We want to support their
work and we appreciate the related tax deduction," Wilkins said. "But
higher-income taxpayers can use special arrangements, like charitable trusts
and private foundations, to get big deductions now for amounts that won’t go to
charities for many years to come -- often not until the taxpayer dies. They can
also give gifts of property, like stock, that have gone up in value. They get a
deduction for the full fair market value of the stock, but never have to pay
the capital gains tax on the appreciation."
The Romney campaign did not
immediately respond to a request for comment. But Andrea Saul, a campaign
spokeswoman, previously told HuffPost that
the candidate "donates a substantial amount of money every year to
charity. He receives the same charitable deduction for his private giving as does
any other American."
In the end, Romney didn't even
need the extra tax benefit he got from transferring the Sensata stock. When
Romney released his most recent returns, his trustee explained that he declined
to take roughly $2 million in charitable deductions for contributions for which
he was eligible. He declined the deductions so that his tax rate wouldn't dip
below 13 percent -- a marker he had set earlier when he said that there was no
year he'd paid a rate lower than that.
If Romney amends his tax return after
the election, he will be eligible to recoup the difference.
Romney also transferred nearly
$220,000 worth of stock in Dunkin Donuts, another Bain investment, according to
his returns.
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THERE IS NO RIGHT TO SECEDE’: SEE
THE ALLEGED LETTER WHERE JUSTICE SCALIA SHOOTS DOWN IDEA OF LEAVING THE UNION
Last
night, TheBlaze reported that residents of 27 states had filed petitions with
the White House to be allowed to secede from the union. As of today, that
number has swelled to 47.
But
could it actually happen? Do states even have a right to secede anymore? The
answer, according to arguably the most respected conservative Justice of the
United States Supreme Court, is an unequivocal “no.”
Over
at New York Personal Injury Attorney Blog, author Eric
Turkewitz recounts an interesting story of how his brother, a
screenwriter, managed to apparently coax an answer out of Scalia on precisely
this topic:
Dan is a screenwriter (whose screenplay Tranquility Base was just named a finalist at the Vail Film Festival, and previously
took top honors elsewhere). Back in 2006 he started
working on a political farce that had Maine seceding from the United States and
joining Canada.[...]
So,
on a lark, he wrote to each of the 10 Supreme Court justices (including
O’Connor) with this request:
I’m
a screenwriter in New York City, and am writing to see if you might be willing
to assist me in a project that involves a unique constitutional issue. My
latest screenplay is a comedy about Maine seceding from the United States and
joining Canada. There are parts of the story that deal with the legality of
such an event and, of course, a big showdown in the Supreme Court is part of the
story.
At
the moment my story is a 12 page treatment. As an architect turned
screenwriter, it is fair to say that I come up a bit short in the art of
Supreme Court advocacy. If you could spare a few moments on a serious subject
that is treated in a comedic way, I would greatly appreciate your thoughts. I’m
sure you’ll find the story very entertaining.
HERE’S WHY GLENN BECK SAYS TO STOP ALL THOSE SECESSION
PETITIONS: ‘ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?
Glenn
Beck responded to the wave of post-election secession petitions (which
have now hit all 50 states) during both his radio and television
programs Tuesday, relaying a simple message to his audience: taking part isn’t
smart.
“Now
how do you think that’s going to work out?” Beck asked on his radio show. “I
mean, how dumb do you have to be? Really? You’re putting your name
on a list that goes directly to the White House, and you’re putting your name
on a list and saying, ‘yeah I think we should secede, I think there should be a
Civil War.’”
When
co-host Stu Burguiere pointed out that the petitions request a “peaceful”
secession, adding that it really is just a place to “make a statement,” Beck
appeared unconvinced.
“Uh
huh…[And] do you think that these people don’t forget who made a statement to
them? Are you out of your mind?”
Beck
continued to say that many of the signatories are probably thinking something
along the lines of, “They voted for this, let ‘em have it!”
“Instead
of focusing on, ‘I’m not doing anything with you guys,’ just focus on the positive,”
Beck countered. “What are you going to do? Anyone who wants to
secede, that issue’s been settled. Now I don’t happen to agree with it,
because I don’t understand how the Constitution could be a suicide pact…that’s
what the Civil War settled.”
Scum
abound every where
TACOMA,
Wash. — Facebook’s automatic efforts to connect user through “friends” they may
know recently led two Washington women to find out they were married to the
same man, at the same time.
That
led to the man, corrections officer Alan L. O’Neill, being slapped with bigamy
charges.
According
to charging documents filed Thursday, O’Neill married a woman in 2001, moved
out in 2009, changed his name and remarried without divorcing her. The first
wife first noticed O’Neill had moved on to another woman when Facebook
suggested the friendship connection to wife No. 2 under the “People You May
Know” feature.
“Wife
No. 1 went to wife No. 2′s page and saw a picture of her and her husband with a
wedding cake,” said Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist told The Associated
Press.
Wife
No. 1 then called the defendant’s mother.
“An
hour later the defendant arrived at (Wife No. 1′s) apartment, and she asked him
several times if they were divorced,” court records show. “The defendant said,
‘No, we are still married.’”
Neither
O’Neill nor his first wife had filed for divorce, according to charging
documents. The name change came in December, and later that month he married
his second wife.
O’Neill
allegedly told Wife No. 1 not to tell anybody about his dual marriages, that he
would fix it, the documents state. But wife No. 1 alerted authorities.
“Facebook
is now some place where people discover things about each other that end up
reporting that to law enforcement,” Lindquist said.
O’Neill,
41, was previously known at Alan Fulk. He has worked as a Pierce County
corrections officer for five years, sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said. He was
placed on administrative leave after prosecutors charged him Thursday. He could
face up to a year in jail if convicted.
O’Neill
is free, but due in court later this month, which is standard procedure.
Civil rights activist
U.S. Must Expand, Not Suppress,
Voting Rights
Posted: 03/ 6/2012 10:25 am
In
Selma, Ala., on Sunday, I joined thousands of citizens marching across the
Edmund Pettus Bridge, marking the 47th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the 1965
march and police riot that helped spark the passage of the Voting Rights Act.
The
march was not a memory to the past, but a protest of the present. In Alabama,
conservatives are moving once more to suppress the vote, part of a concerted
effort across the country to make it harder for the poor, the elderly and
minorities to vote.
Alabama's
voter ID law will require citizens to present photo identification at the
polls. An Alabama immigration law requires police to determine citizenship
status during traffic stops, essentially exposing Latino citizens and
non-citizens to constant harassment.
Photo
ID laws have been introduced or passed in at least 15 states. They discriminate
against those who don't have driver's licenses -- disproportionately poor,
elderly and minorities. Nationally they could disenfranchise about 5 million voters.
Several states are also pushing legislation to restrict voter registration and
to limit early voting.
The
current drive is the greatest insult to the Voting Rights Act since it was
passed 47 years ago.
Republicans
argue that the voting laws are needed to counter fraudulent voting. But they
have produced zero evidence of organized efforts to tip elections with
fraudulent voters. The laws, as noted by the Rev. Al Sharpton, one of the march
organizers, are a "solution looking for a problem."
On
Bloody Sunday 47 years ago, Americans saw nonviolent African-American
protesters brutalized in a police riot. The nation's conscience was touched and
Washington responded, as President Johnson pushed through the Voting Rights
Act.
Protests
against current efforts to suppress the vote have only just begun. But they
will build -- and they will once more pose a moral challenge to America.
Will
Americans reward a party that is systematically seeking to make it harder to
vote? Will they accept routine harassment of minorities because of their fears
about immigration? Will the politics of division once more be effective?
In
the old South, whites feared that they would suffer with the end of
segregation. Their privileges would be reduced; their economy would be upended.
In fact, the civil rights movement's victories opened the South to a new
prosperity. Investment flowed in. Companies that would have not gone into a
segregated South moved to Atlanta and other cities.
It
turned out that to hold African-Americans in a ditch, whites had to stay down there
with them. The end of segregation, the passage of voting rights, created new
opportunity for all.
But
the old South did not die. The modern Republican Party was built on its
infamous Southern strategy, appealing to whites in reaction to the passage of
the civil rights laws. Now that strategy, which alienated African-American
voters, seems to be replaying itself in the party's harsh rhetoric and actions
about the new wave of immigrants. The result may well alienate Latino and
Asian-American voters.
Worse,
it means that one of America's two major parties is increasingly devoted to
finding ways to limit the vote rather than expand it. In fact, what we ought to
have is a competition on how to ensure that every citizen can cast his or her
vote easily. Automatic registration on birth, early voting, extended voting
days, polls that are open on weekends and before and after work days -- we
should be having a competition on how to increase the vote, not on how to
suppress it.
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