Yeah, I Know...Reince Priebus Is Gleeful Right Now

On 6-25-2013, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision that the Republican National Committee chief had been praying for over the last four years.

The higher court, for all intents and purposes, destroyed the Voting Rights Act of 1965...the very law that promised that every American old enough to cast a ballot could finally do so without having to fight poll taxes, trick questions from election commissioners and their lieutenants, and so on.  

The SCOTUS vote went 5-4...and you can just about guess who the five justices are and who nominated them for the Supreme Court.

Last week's ruling struck down Congress' power to actually enforce the Voting Rights Act, a law whose fifth section requires Federal permission for certain states to make changes in how those states regulate elections...because those states, coming into 1965, had such a terrible history of enforcing the right to vote.

In 2006, both divisions of Congress overwhelmingly approved renewing Section 5 of the VRA...but didn't renew the coverage formula in Section 4 (despite SCOTUS warning the US senators and US representatives to update said formula).

On the other hand, those same elected officials didn't REALLY think that this new US senator from Illinois was going to make a White House bid for 2008. And they were scared that New York's newest US senator- the nation's previous First Lady- was going to try to move back to 1600.  

Instead, the Democrats have won the last two US presidential elections and four out of the last six...and could make it three wins in a row if they take the 2016 White House Derby.

Young voters of all colors helped transform Barack Obama from that new US senator from the Land of Lincoln into the nation's 44th chief executive. Helped get Obama reelected, too.

And so did most African-American, Asian-American, and Hispanic-American voters.  

And that's what Chief Justice John Roberts and associates Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito had in mind when they decided to strike down the VRA's Section 4.

They weren't thinking about the US Constitution.

Alito, Kennedy, Roberts, Thomas, and Scalia were only thinking about helping the Republican Party.

You notice how all those states that had put in voter-suppression laws since 2009- only to see them struck down by previous Supreme Court decisions- immediately put those laws back in force.

And that means Jim Crow isn't really dead...just asleep.

Hey, dig this: History repeats itself.

You know why history repeats itself?

It's because we human beings, especially when it comes to government decisions, just don't learn from our mistakes...let alone the ones made by our mentors and by their mentors. (We've had TWO World Wars, for crying out loud!)

The justices have now made it clear that it's up to Congress to cook up a new Section 4 formula- one for the early 21st Century- and save the VRA. 

And the five justices I named off know it.

Come on now...do you REALLY think the 113th Congress- the second straight one with a Republican-led House- has the guts to take this kind of action, knowing darn good and well Washington's Republicans are so unwilling to get behind ANY legislation that rank-and-file Americans actually want?  

When the John Boehner-led House passes any legislation, it's just garbage.

Instead of depending on the John Boehners and Mitch McConnells, we need to get smarter than they are.

We need to call their bluff and get them out of the nation's capitol.

After all, since they're only serving themselves and not the vast majority of citizens, why should these self-serving you-know-whats stay in there and waste time and money...OUR money? 

We voters get another chance on 11-4-2014.

Voting Rights Act or no Voting Rights Act, we can't afford to stay home on that Tuesday.

Where? Where? Where? Where? Where Do They Go from Here?

It's now been 17 days since the 2012 US presidential election took place...and the Republican Party has spent all of this time wondering just what happened (and why it happened).

Party officials (along with their cheerleaders on the nation's AM so-called news and information radio stations) have spent this time not only licking party wounds...but also trying to nail down the reason(s) why Willard M. Romney couldn't put it in his hip pocket despite an early lead on Election Night.

Some in the GOP think the party couldn't end Barack Obama's presidency because Romney didn't choose US Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to run alongside the former Massachusetts governor. Others feel the loss was due to the "emasculation" of Romney's campaign.

The man the son of a former Michigan governor did select as a running mate, US Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), racked it up to "urban" voters...while WMR himself, in that now-infamous (or famous, depending on your point of view) conference call to his campaign team, chalked the 2012 results to Obama supposedly giving "gifts" to Hispanic Americans, African Americans, young voters of all ethnicities, and women of all ethnic backgrounds.

Regardless of your socioeconomic background, what would YOU do if someone offered you an actual, honest-to-goodness freebie?  

Next door in Iowa, you've got Matt Schultz, its secretary of state, who's trying to get its lawmakers to join all those other states in getting voter suppression (oops...I mean voter ID) laws put into place. ("You know...if All Those Other People hadn't turned out for this year's election...")

Only a few brave Republicans have had the guts to blame the party's overall message for why we'll have to wait until 1-20-2017 for the country's 45th commander in chief to give the inaugural address.

Yes...I could really dig all of this GOP self-evaluation and all this soul searching among the current trustees of the party of Abraham Lincoln and of Teddy Roosevelt and of Dwight Eisenhower if it were heartfelt and not mere lip service.

I keep turning on my TV set and finding US Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John McCain (R-AZ) trying to prevent UN Ambassador Susan Rice from accepting the State Department's top gig because they don't like how Rice has handled the Benghazi affair of 9-11-2012.

McCain thinks Rice isn't qualified to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton at State. (And that's hilarious of McCain...especially when you consider his 2008 decision to have Sarah Palin run alongside him in the former Navy pilot's effort to prevent the creation of an Obama administration to begin with!)

It all smacks of Business As Usual as far as I'm concerned. You see, if McCain and Graham can get Obama to change his mind and ask US Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) to take over from Rodham Clinton on 1-21-2013...well, Scott Brown can keep his own seat in the US Senate (this time as Kerry's replacement).

So much for the Republicans' loudly-proclaimed slogan of 2008: "Country First." 

Democrats, independents, and other non-Republicans have shown themselves more likely to put America first.

With Republicans, it's- with very few exceptions- party first. (One of those exceptions has been New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's work alongside BHO in the Garden State's handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.)

Another major component of the GOP message, besides "Party First," is: "It's every man for himself. It's every woman for herself. I've got mine. You go get yours.

"In fact...I want yours, and I'm going to keep you from getting yours!"

To top it all off, Republican lawmakers and aides go to great lengths to make anybody who isn't a Caucasian-American man feel unwelcome. (Todd Akin's and Richard Mourdock's sexist remarks come to mind...as do racist jibes from Newton Gingrich, John Sununu, Donald Trump, Ryan, Romney, Brown, Palin, etc., etc., etc.)

And these same Republicans have the audacity- the unmitigated nerve- to wonder why they can't get votes from people who aren't Caucasian-American men!

I remember when the Democrats ended up having to retool their party after Richard Nixon crushed George McGovern to keep the job he'd always wanted. That year, 1972, the Donkeys held a telethon.

And on that telecast, one of the speakers (I think it was Phil Donahue) said that, instead of the Democrats holding this telethon to pump money into the party, "John Wayne ought to have a telethon for war!"

It took a lot of years...but the Democratic Party remade itself into a party that not only cares about civil rights, but also cares more about America's middle-and-low-income citizens than the Republicans do.

Let's face it: The Elephants MUST retool if they're going to remain a viable major US political party (let alone win presidential elections again).

The Republicans can crow all they want to about having won seven of the last twelve US presidential elections.

Fact remains that this party has now LOST four of the last six US presidential elections.

If the Romneys and Ryans and Boehners and McConnells ever learn that, as Mom used to say, "You draw more flies with honey than vinegar," their party will have a chance to get back to winning the most talked-about political job there is. 

But only as long as the Republicans REALLY mean what they say and say what they mean.