A LATINA JUDGE AND A COUNTRY BUILT BASICALLY BY WHITE FOLKS

Buchanan: "This has been a country built basically by white folks"

Given Judge Sotomayor's distinguished resume and impressive performance at this week's hearings, the Senate Republicans likely to vote against her confirmation are struggling to defend their position with any level of specificity and honesty.

Senator Mitch McConnell, for example, plans to vote against Sotomayor because of her "alarming lack of respect for the notion of equal justice" and her "insufficient willingness to abide by the judicial oath."

But Pat Buchanan, in the video above, is articulating what some of the opposition is thinking, but too afraid to say out of fear of alienating potential voters.

Buchanan is voicing the backwards view that many still cling to: if a person's gender and ethnicity is considered in the selection process, she must inherently be unqualified for the position.

Again, while I find nearly everything Buchanan is saying abhorrent, it's another example of a circumstance when I prefer that bigots be overt and honest instead of covert and disingenuous.

--Junichi

EMPATHY IS THE NEW SOCIALISM

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Code Word Empathy
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor First 100 Days

I love filibuster-proof majorities.

--Junichi

OUR GENERATION'S JIM CROW LAWS

Denied

I do not exaggerate when I say that we are literally in the midst of the systematic decimation of American democracy.

In yesterday's 6-3 decision in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, the Supreme Court refused to recognize any constitutional flaws with Indiana's Jim Crow voter identification law, which is, thus far, the most restrictive in the nation.

By sheer coincidence, I also watched the compelling short documentary, Freedom To Vote: Protecting The Ballot, at the Newport Beach Film Festival yesterday. Reading the opinion before watching that was a bit like walking into a horror movie in which you know that every person on the screen is going to die before the credits roll.

As the documentary pointed out, our nation's history is a story of the struggle for the right to vote. But only in the last few years are our government leaders fighting to prevent people from voting.

To my disappointment, few seem alarmed or enraged by the proliferation of Voter ID laws. The common thinking is: What's the big deal? We need to stop voter fraud and, besides, one needs a driver's license to do many things like board a plane, open a bank account, etc.

The big deal is that 20 million people just became potentially disenfranchised as a result of yesterday's Supreme Court decision.

The big deal is that most of the disenfranchised are people of color (mostly African American), elderly, disabled and/or poor people, who tend to vote for Democratic candidates and causes.

The big deal is that these Voter ID laws are enacted because the reactionary right-wing forces of our country are intentionally trying to deprive those groups from voting.

The big deal is that 20% of black voters in Indiana do not currently have a valid photo ID.

The big deal is that almost none of the enacted or proposed Voter ID laws provide measures to help voters obtain the necessary identification or offer alternative ways of voting.

The big deal is that these laws are being passed despite no nationwide widespread evidence of fraud caused by voter impersonation. (In Indiana, there was literally not one reported incident of fraud, which the Supreme Court acknowledged.)

The big deal is that our courts seem interested in a nonexistent form of voter fraud, but could not care less about more widespread evidence of voter fraud in Florida (2000), Ohio (2004), or the New York primary (2008). (Did you realize that not one vote in Harlem went to Obama in the most recent Democratic primary?)

While the Court's decision may not fundamentally alter the 2008 landscape, it will surely eviscerate enough votes in 2010 and beyond to tilt the outcome of any election.

Which is to say, the Supreme Court just handed yet another election to the Republicans.

For the skeptics and critics, let me just say that I understand that, technically, no citizen has been denied the right to vote.

But countless studies have confirmed that the hurdles for those without driver's licenses are immense and unappreciated by those of us who drive every day. Those without licenses will have a difficult time procuring the birth certificates or passports necessary to get one. The documentary I watched yesterday noted how some African American citizens in Georgia were born during an era in which they were not granted birth certificates. Thus, the costs alone are enough to discourage people from going through the trouble.

Reading the Crawford opinion made me appreciate what it must have felt like in 1896 to read Plessy v. Ferguson.

The difference between 1896 and 2008 is that everyone understood the impact of Plessy. But the magnitude of Crawford (and the voter ID laws yet to come) will never be fully appreciated.

--Junichi

THE EROSION OF CHOICE

John Roberts tells your uterus to talk to the hand

While the nation is distracted with a national tragedy, the Supreme Court has handed down a 5-4 opinion upholding a ban on the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.

This opinion won't affect most abortions performed in the United States. Nor does it eradicate a woman's right to choose.

But for women aborting a fetus as early as the twelfth week of pregnancy, the ban prevents them from undergoing what many respected medical groups -- namely, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists -- have suggested is the safest, and sometimes a necessary, procedure.

While the Court's opinion isn't a reversal of Roe v. Wade, it clearly signals a new direction. The Supreme Court has never before restricted how an abortion can be performed. Before the Court delivered its smackdown this morning, at least half a dozen federal courts had ruled that the ban was an unconstitutional restriction on a woman's constitutional right guaranteed by the last 33 years of reproductive freedom jurisprudence.

Most horrifying of all, the opinion undoubtedly gives Congress and the states the green light to slowly erode other abortion-related rights until there is no meaningful reproductive freedom.

In my nightmare scenario, so many procedures will be eliminated and so many hoops will be propped up (e.g., age restrictions, second-trimester bans, outlawing government-funded counseling that mentions abortion, spousal consent requirements, etc.) that the anti-choice movement will have rendered Roe v. Wade worthless without even having it overturned.

Note that the majority consists of: Kennedy, Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas. It's fair to assume that before Alito or Roberts were appointed, Justice O'Connor would have joined the dissent.

As I've said before, President Bush's longest-lasting legacy will be his appointment of Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts, give or take the lingering effects of a war on terror.


Resources/Links:

• Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood and Gonzales v. Carhart slip opinions
• Federal Abortion Ban Trials
• Joshua Holland at Alternet

--Junichi