Uncle Joe Sayles, Junior Frolics TV Show, 1949
June 6, 2012
President Obama likes a sure thing. So in the weeks preceding the Wisconsin recall vote yesterday, Obama flew over the state, stumped in nearby states, but never showed his face in Wisconsin. He sent Bill instead.
Because Wisconsin wasn’t a sure thing.That’s why Obama likes Attorney General Eric Holder. He is a sure thing. He delivers what the president likes and the president likes that in an attorney general.
Last week, Holder addressed the members of The Congressional Black Caucus and The Conference of National Black Churches and, in what has become de rigueur for the Department of Justice, he politicked with the predominantly black audience and "confided” to them his fears that African Americans and Latinos were in danger.
His keynote speech was designed to ignite fears, in this case the fear that state voting ID laws are designed to disenfranchise minority voters.
He provided no basis for his conclusions, but said,
"In my travels across this country, I’ve heard a consistent drumbeat of concern from citizens, who – often for the first time in their lives -- now have reason to believe that we are failing to live up to one of our nation’s most noble ideals; and that some of the achievements that defined the civil rights movement now hang in the balance.”
Concern from whom? For the first time in whose life? Michelle’s?
The answer? No one, no one’s life.
Even the Wall Street Journal noticed Holder’s bias, stating that critics have called the attorney general’s actions "an unabashedly and unethically political stance against voter ID laws.”
"(Critics) say that as the nation’s top law enforcement officer Holder instead should be enforcing these laws particularly since the Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter ID measure in 2008.”
The ruling in that case found that requiring voters to produce ID is not unconstitutional and that states have a "valid interest” in improving election procedures and deterring fraud.
And that should have been the end of it.
But no. Instead it has taken more than a year for the Department to review Texas’ voter ID law and South Carolina has reverted to the only way states can communicate with this arm of the Obama administration, sue them.
Florida had its voter ID laws cut off at the knees when that state tried to combat its illegal resident voting problem. The DOJ said this action violated the rights of minorities.
So what is really going on? I see it as an inherent distrust of America by this attorney general.
Across the country in San Diego, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was also giving a speech last week and was his usual self during the three-hour tirade – hating whites, hating Jews, hating America.
He praised the violence of Sharia law, championed reparations for blacks and warned what he and Allah would do to America if the United States bombs Iran. Hate and fear mongering are not only part and parcel of his religion, it’s his job. And he’s doing a good job.
But we’ve been trained to ignore Farrakhan so that his words go in our collective ear and out the other.
Unhappily we have also been trained to ignore the unsettling, racially biased approach Holder and this administration has taken to his job as lead attorney of the United States of America.
The speeches of these two men were similar in spirit: They distrust white America, they feel the need to protect non-white Americans, and they both want to teach America a lesson.
Intent on righting the wrong he sees in state-sponsored voter ID laws, Holder has ignored the 2008 billy club voter intimidation in Philadelphia of the New Black Panthers, defending the dismissal of the case to a House Oversight Committee by stating "The Department of Justice does not enforce the law in a race-conscious way.”
He added,
"When you compare what people endured in the South in the 60s to try to get the right to vote for African Americans and to compare what people were subjected to there to what happened in Philadelphia…I think it does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line, who risked all, for my people.”
Sad to say it is no secret that the attorney general is well known for his uneven-handed application of the rule of law. His pattern of behavior of "refusing to enforce the law in a racially neutral manner” has been noticed and noted by a congressional committee, behavior that has become commonplace during his tenure in the Department of Justice.
And Americans are sick of these tactics, straight across the board as evidenced in the recent recall vote in Wisconsin.
American citizens are disgusted with what has become business as usual: "spin” that defies any rules of logic; deliberate distortion of existing facts and creation of facts that are just plain lies.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) says that Republicans are trying to use photo ID laws to restrict African American and Latino voters, the voters who "consistently support the Democratic Party,” the voters who "lack the photo identification that these new laws require.”
This burdensome requirement will disenfranchise these voters, she says. These laws are the Republicans way to "literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws,” she said on TVOne last June.
But even proponents of the "Nanny State” cannot believe American voters are that inept or that America is that bad.
Not many agree with Wasserman Schultz’ ridiculous statements. In fact a Rasmussen Reports survey in April showed strong support among both Democrats and Republicans and found that 73 percent of respondents believe the ID requirement isn’t discriminatory.
A poll of Hispanic voters in Florida, Colorado and New Mexico also shows strong support for voter ID laws: 88 percent in Florida, 71 percent in Colorado and 73 percent in New Mexico.The fact is Americans are happy to produce ID when asked. To secure a drivers license in New Jersey you need at least one, birth certificate, passport, etc., at least one, marriage license, etc., a verifiable social security number and proof of address.
For an American to get into and out of Mexico, you need a passport.
To rent power tools, for goodness sake, you have to show a photo ID.
USA Today reports that voters in Mexico City need a "voter credential,” the document required at a polling station which was put in place twenty years ago.
"The credential proved so good at guaranteeing the identification of electors that it became the country’s preferred credential, one now possessed by just about every adult Mexican.”
It’s a requirement, the article says, so that one such voter lined up at 7 a.m. to renew her voter credential simply as a matter of course.
And that is in Mexico, friends. It’s not brain surgery. If you are required to have it, go get it.
And the ID is not merely for voting, but for identification in general to open a bank account, board a plane.
"They ask for it everywhere,” said Ana Martinez. "It’s very difficult to live without it.”
And that is in Mexico, friends.
Proponents in our country of voter ID’s say it is a good way to verify identities and prevent crime, crack down on voter fraud, illegal immigration and foreign terrorists.
Opponents say it’s an invasion of privacy, and that the cost and effort required to secure such ID would be not only burdensome, but one that would frighten minorities from going to the polls to vote.
The Florida voter ID lawsuit emphasized the national security benefits since illegal immigrants often use stolen social security numbers and the fact that 9/ll hijackers had driver’s licenses that they used to board planes, rent apartments and open bank accounts.
Sounds okay to me.
But here’s the kicker and it’s beautiful. Even though Holder and each of the liberal advocacy organizations have been brutal in their criticism of photo voter ID’s, if you want to visit any of them in their offices in Washington, D.C., have your own photo ID ready.
They require it, request it and with armed guards to check it out at the door to enter their D.C. offices. Not their voting booths. Not their country. Just their offices.
Maybe Eric Holder should borrow a page from Gov. Scott Walker’s play book. Walker seems to be doing pretty well.
When Gov. Walker delivered his acceptance speech, I admired that he quickly silenced the boos aimed at his opponents from supporters in the audience, (unlike Mayor Barrett during his concession speech), saying it was time to heal.
"It’s time to put our differences aside and find ways to work together to move Wisconsin forward. I think it’s important to fix things, but it’s also important to make sure we talk about it and involve people in the process.
"Now is the time to move on and move forward in Wisconsin. Tomorrow is the day after the election and tomorrow we are no longer opponents.”
He recognized that he represented all of the people of Wisconsin, not just Republicans. And people seemed to like that.
Hold the line, America.
*The accompanying cartoon showed a trapeze artist named Joe refusing, while in midair, to allow himself to be caught by the opposite trapeze artist who had swung out to meet him because a sign flashed on the man’s face that read "wrong religion.” Incredibly Joe got another chance. This time the sign on the man’s face said "wrong race.” Joe refused him, too. Joe got one more chance but it was a wrong something else. That was it. As Joe hung suspended in midair, the announcer said. "Oh, Joe, you schmo,” and Joe fell. The announcer then sang the Don’t be a Schmo Song.”