Eric Holder Evokes 'Mississippi Burning' Case to Denounce 20% Reduction in Early Voting Days

    In a video message Monday on the website of the Justice Department, Eric Holder once again broached the subject about which he famously declared Americans cowardly: race. The occasion for his message, however, has nothing overtly to do with race, but rather the recent Supreme Court decision allowing Ohio's plan to scale back early voting to take effect. A U.S. district judge initially threw out the plan, ruling that the reduction of early voting days would disproportionately affect minorities.
    The fact that the plan scales back early voting days only 20%, from 35 days to 28 days, did not stop Holder from raising the specter of the Ku Klux Klan murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi half a century ago in what became known as the Mississippi Burning case. Holder also referred to the Klan murder of Viola Liuzzo, a woman from Detroit killed in 1965 during civil rights marches in Selma, Alabama. Here are some screenshots from Holder's message:

    The attorney general has managed to equate a 20% reduction in early voting days with "turn[ing] our back" on Ku Klux Klan victims. If some Americans really are cowards when it comes to race, could it be fear of being branded a Klan sympathizer by the top law enforcement official in the country for simply favoring tighter controls on voting? Once a legislature has expanded the single day of voting that existed for most of the nation's history to multiple weeks of voting, is any subsequent reduction de facto racism? Would perpetually open polls be nirvana?
    When Eric Holder addresses race in his position as attorney general, he often pays lip service to "how far we've come" as a nation on race. But he keeps a full deck of race cards tucked in his back pocket just waiting to play trump on any argument.

Whatever the Outcome, I Was Wrong

    At the time I am writing this, Fox has the electoral college tied at 153.  This race is much closer than I thought it would be, which means this country has drifted further than I thought.  President Obama and the Democrats have run explicitly on what government can do for the people.  Don't borrow money from your parents for college, like Romney suggested... borrow it from your neighbors' parents, courtesy of the federal government.  Healthcare?  Federal government.  Contraceptives?  Free from the federal government.  Jobs?  Today the NAACP released a poll of 1,600 African American voters (via Paul Bedard at the Washington Examiner) that contains an astounding finding.  In the words of the NAACP:

95% of all respondents believe the federal government should be engaging in job creation opportunities for all Americans.

    I do not believe for a moment that this attitude is somehow unique to blacks.  Far too many in this country have turned JFK's most famous pronouncement on its head, and liberals have encouraged, promoted, and even campaigned on it.  It's a sad situation.

    I am currently reading Witness by Whittaker Chambers.  It is a fascinating book, and remarkably timely. The fight against communism abroad was tied to the fight against liberalism/socialism at home.  That fight is not over, and is actually getting more intense.  Whittaker Chambers was instrumental in exposing the extent to which Communists had infiltrated the federal government, and while they were largely purged, the liberals never left.  What America needs is a Whittaker Chambers of liberalism, or more than one.  Those who will expose the philosophy for what it is and what it is doing to the country and what it does to the human soul.  Those who used to be on the inside, who were true believers, but are willing to admit they had committed their lives to a ruinous political system.  Are there any such men or women out there?

    Chambers was concerned in the 1940s and 1950s about the United States drifting towards the socialist tendencies of Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries.  Even at the time of his death, Chambers continued to believe communism would eventually triumph.  The fall of the Soviet Union eventually proved him wrong.  But the larger battle rages on.  And on a night like tonight, it's hard not to share Chambers's pessimism.

    Therefore, I must recall what I wrote last night.  God "called" this election long ago.  Even as his life was literally in danger, Chambers himself took comfort in Divine Providence.  How can those of us who are believers do anything less?

Judging a Man By the Color of His Politics

    In a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post, Fredrick Harris, professor of political science and the director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University, wrote that we in America are "still waiting for our first black president."  This may come as a surprise to anyone who was an inhabitant of earth in November 2008 or has arrived since.  But according to Mr. Harris, Barack Obama has not properly fulfilled the role that his black father apparently bequeathed to the future president merely by virtue of his race.  Mr. Harris fills his essay with phrases such as "issues of specific interest to African Americans," "issues of particular interest to us [blacks]," and "it appears that the nation is instead becoming non-racial," but the following passage just boggles the mind:

Politicians such as former governor Doug Wilder of Virginia, former Seattle mayor Norman Rice and former New York mayor David Dinkins ran campaigns that largely deemphasized race, stressing the need for racial unity and advocating policies that they said would benefit everyone, rather than any particular groups. It was probably necessary to shatter the glass ceiling and win office in majority-white jurisdictions, but these victories came at an unintended cost: They undermined the ability of black voters and activists to place race-specific policy issues on the electoral agenda.
After winning office, such race-neutral politicians don’t normally embrace issues and positions that black voters might prefer. Instead, the imperatives of reelection take over. To maintain their winning coalitions, these politicians usually need to govern in a racially neutral manner as well. (Black Americans understand this: In the 2008 ABC News-USA Today-Columbia University Black Politics Survey, nearly half of all black respondents believed that African Americans must play down their racial identity to get ahead in the United States.) [emphasis added]

    Mr. Harris is making the case that US politics is in danger of losing race as an issue, and these "race-neutral politicians" (one gets the sense Mr. Harris is using this label as a pejorative) are responsible.  The advances made by millions of individual blacks and their families are interfering with the ability of Mr. Harris and his allies to segregate the black race into a homogenous voice to advance Harris's political and social goals.

    President Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod expressed similar sentiments in reaction to talk of the conservative Marco Rubio being on the short-list of possible Romney running mates.  The Washington Times reports:

"I think it would be an insult to the Hispanic community to choose Senator Rubio ... if Governor Romney thinks that's sort of a get-out-of-jail-free card for all of the things and the positions that he's taken," Mr. Axelrod said.

    Why an insult?  Because Rubio does not fit the stereotype that Axelrod believes Hispanics/Latinos should box themselves into.  Rubio is a hypocrite for allowing his ideology to trump his racial makeup.
 
    The Democratic Party has comfortably settled into its strategy of division and group politics, even reflecting it in their campaign websites and outreach.  In an ostensible attempt to achieve equality of outcomes, the decision was made to abandon color-blindness for (as Harris puts it) "communities of color." What we are left with now is the spectacle of Fredrick Harris lamenting that Obama's "early discussions of injustice gave way to calls for policies to benefit all Americans and tough-love speeches for African Americans."   [emphasis added]  When "policies to benefit all Americans" is seen as a step down, the towel has been throw in.

    In the midst of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, Martin Luther King famously said:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Traditional racists say they can tell you what kind of person someone is by the color of his skin.  Frederick Harris and David Axelrod look at the color of someone's skin and tell you what kind of person he should be.  Not much of a dream, is it?

GottaVote.Org: The 15th Amendment Held Hostage: Day 18 (It's Over!)

    Well, I just adopted GottaVote.org's misinformation as my blog's cause célèbre three days ago and now the crisis is resolved.  For those of you who have not keep abreast of events, when the Obama campaign debuted their new GottaVote.org website a little over two weeks ago, it included this on both the English and Spanish language versions of the site:

Dorothy Cooper was born in 1915, before women or African Americans could exercise the right to vote in the United States.

While women were not granted the right to vote until 1920 when the 19th Amendment was ratified, the 15th Amendment extended the right to vote to all races in 1870 following the Civil War (although many states found ways to prevent blacks from exercising that right freely well into the 20th century.)  Within 24 hours, the GottaVote.org site had revised the English version, but the Spanish language version remained uncorrected for over two weeks.  I attempted to contact the Obama campaign about the error, but to no avail.  Until now.  While I did not hear back from anyone, the Spanish language site is revised as of this morning.
    While this is good news for the truth, it leaves me fresh out of cause célèbres.  It was nice while it lasted.  I'll put away my yellow ribbon until the next assault on the Constitution by the Obama administration.  If the past is any guide, it shouldn't be too long.

GottaVote.Org: The 15th Amendment Held Hostage: Day 15

Click to order ribbon!*

    Every blog needs a good cause célèbre, so I've decided mine will be the Obama campaign's GottaVote.org and the misinformation on the Spanish language version of their website.  As I originally wrote about on May 18th, the GottaVote.org website originally included the misinformation on both the English and Spanish versions of the site:

Dorothy Cooper was born in 1915, before women or African Americans could exercise the right to vote in the United States.

    The ratification of the 15th Amendment extended the right to vote to all races in 1870 following the Civil War.  Within 24 hours, the phrase "or African Americans" was removed from the English language website, but two weeks later, the Spanish language version is unchanged.  This is a screenshot from today, and I have highlighted the incorrect portion of the text:

    I have contacted the Obama campaign to alert them of the error, but to no avail - I have received no response.  I will continue to try to raise awareness, as they say, of this issue and if the Obama campaign responds or corrects the error, you'll hear about it here first!  Until then, tie a yellow ribbon around your copy of the Constitution to show your support.

See UPDATE.

*Fine print:  I do not receive any remuneration for the advertisement or sale of any ribbons.  It just seemed tacky to use their image without providing a link to their site. 

Still Don't Know Much About History - In Spanish

    Last Friday, May 18, the Obama 2012 campaign launched a new website, GottaVote.org.  As I noted at the time, the website told the story of Dorothy Cooper, a 96 year-old African American woman, and the article began as follows:

Dorothy Cooper was born in 1915, before women or African Americans could exercise the right to vote in the United States.

Of course, while women of any race could not vote until 1920 when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, African American men were granted the right to vote in 1870 with the ratification of the 15th Amendment.  As I noted, practically speaking, states often found ways to prevent blacks from voting well into the 1960s when Voting Rights legislation was passed.  However, even though the Obama campaign used the ambiguous phrase "could exercise the right" which might have justified the claim, within 24 hours "or African Americans" was removed and the sentence now reads:

Dorothy Cooper was born in 1915, before women could exercise the right to vote in the United States.

Or, to be more accurate, the phrase was removed on the English version of the website.  Here's a screenshot from today from the Spanish Language version of GottaVote.org:

I have only a couple of years of high school Spanish under my belt, but I believe I'm not going out on a limb to interpret "afro-americanos" as African Americans.  So the Obama campaign was fairly quick to correct the English version (whether in reaction to either my blog post or the tweet I sent them, I do not know - I received no response.)  However, a week later, Spanish speaking visitors to the site are continuing to get the wrong story.  And although Google Translate is certainly not the definitive source, the phrase "tuvieran el derecho de votar" comes back as "have the right to vote," a much less ambiguous wording than "could exercise the right" to vote.  If anyone can provide a more accurate translation, I will update what I have written.
    So the question remains: Is this simply a mistake, or a deliberate attempt to mislead?  I lean towards the former, but now that we are a week out from the website's launch, it's almost inconceivable to me that a statement that flatly ignores the 15th Amendment to the Constitution remains unchanged.  That this statement is being made on a website run by the campaign of the sitting President of the United States is inexcusable.