SHOCKING: Republican Voter Suppression Efforts Suppress Democratic Votes

The NY Times:

Several recent polls and studies suggest that long waiting times in some places depressed turnout in 2012 and that lines were longest in cities, where Democrats outnumber Republicans. In a New York Times/CBS News poll taken shortly after Election Day, 18 percent of Democrats said they waited at least a half-hour to vote, compared with 11 percent of independents and 9 percent of Republicans.

Wait — it gets better:

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis determined that blacks and Hispanics waited nearly twice as long in line to vote on average than whites. Florida had the nation’s longest lines, at 45 minutes, followed by the District of Columbia, Maryland, South Carolina and Virginia, according to Charles Stewart III, the political science professor who conducted the analysis.

A separate analysis, by an Ohio State University professor and The Orlando Sentinel, concluded that more than 200,000 voters in Florida “gave up in frustration” without voting.

“When I got there, the line was around the building,” said Jonathan Piccolo, 33, who said he had waited nearly eight hours to cast a ballot in Miami-Dade County the Monday before Election Day.

“It’s one of the most sacred rights you have,” Mr. Piccolo added. “They should make it as painless as possible.”

Features, not bugs, kids. Democracy is apparently a major impediment to Real America.

Update: A reminder from comments that voter suppression tactics are a burgeoning export market for Uncle Sam.

Today In The Annals of Stupid Backlash Tricks

Flash: Aggrieved Daily Caller Ex-College Republican thumbsucker (is there any other kind?) has a megasad cuz his bike was stolen (if stats hold true, by a blackity-blackblack black kid!), causing him to boldly and ham-fistedly declare:

“I am Derbyshire! (Burp.)”

Roy Edroso:

Judge must be over 30 by now, but apparently he’s never been robbed before, because this has caused him to turn against all black people, and to relinquish the “white guilt” that once made him watch Norman Jewison movies.

Perhaps sensing that even ordinary racists would be disgusted with his whining, Judge invents wimpy liberal friends beside whom he can look butchly Politically Incorrect. Unfortunately, this is how the gentleman essays to roll:

Hearing the kumbaya song from my liberal friend, I immediately thought of a phrase Piers Morgan had recently used…

I think Jesus just carried his Smirnoff Ice into the next room.

Also: Trigger-happy Bernie Goetz wannabe George Zimmerman decides the only way to set the record straight!!!1 (and help pay mounting legal bills) is to resurrect teh Geocities, express his sincere gratitude to the proud supporters who vandalized a black cultural centre on his behalf, & implicitly (if perhaps inadvertently) give the side-nod to Koran-burning Fla Islamaphobe icon Terry Jones.

(Oh, and, as per a Zimmerman family proxy, apparently Holder totally <3s the NEW BLACK PANTHERS, because he’s, well, not Derbyshire, if ya catch my meaning).

Sheesh.

If white people were black people (and vice versa) we’d have a deluge this AM of self-righteous black folks tut-tutting on teh cablez (‘this is why you can’t have nice things’, etc).

Thankfully (for white folks), structural racism isn’t a zero sum game.

Not at all.

Update: Gosh, Judge sure didn’t display all that much ‘guilt’ prior to his recent purported epiphany:

Now, if you read Judge’s past writings, his white guilt does not seem to have exerted an especially strong pull:

no one would have the guts to tell the truth. It was not Asians or whites or Indians who were wilding in Georgetown. It was black teenagers. Illegitimacy and fatherlessness in black urban areas like Washington, D.C. has created an entire class of youth who have been weaned on gangster culture and have absolutely no impulse control. …

That was the old, encumbered-by-white-guilt Judge writing. I’m a little frightened of the new version.

Also, this previous  ZOMG EPIPHANY from Judge, re: why it’s ok — nay, absolutely vital — for decent Christian cycling enthusiasts to passionately hate pro-choice women (shorter: babiez > bitchez).

h/t Steve M.

Meet the NEW New Civil Rights Movement (Fox News Stylez)

Hey, remember when Faux News used to merely employ dog whistles in its race-baiting wingnut agit-prop?

Good times.

Now they rock Les Paul Customs plugged into Marshall stacks that go to eleven (TO ELEVEN):

A Fox Orlando affiliate decribed Neo-Nazis as “a civil rights group” on a television broadcast and online. The group of Neo-Nazis, known as the National Socialist Movement, has been conducting armed patrols of the streets of Sanford, Florida, the town where Trayvon Marting was shot dead.

The Fox Orlando affiliate, WOFL, aired a shockingly uncritical report of the group’s activities. The Fox reporter introduced the group by saying, “There’s another civil rights group in town.” She also conducts an interview with the group’s leader, Jeff Schoep, without challenging any of his claims about the nature and mission of the group. Watch it (via Little Green Footballs):

Related: Pam Spaulding (h/t) has screen caps galore re: FAUX35’s wacky White Power jamboree (to ELEVEN).

David Banner on the Shooting of Trayvon Martin: “We Have to Get Some Type of Legislation Now.”

Gulf Coast hip hop impresario David Banner drops some straight knowledge re: Trayvon, race, and class in the US of A in this BlackEnterprise.com interview:

“The fact [is] we have to get some type of legislation now.

“What do we want to see implemented to make sure this doesn’t happen again because y’know American culture, now that we’ve seen this happen it’s going to take something two-times as bad as this to even get peoples attention.”

h/t Colorlines

Obey: The Video

by matttbastard

Compare and constrast.

h/t pale via IM.

Update: r@d@r, bumped from comments:

i’m disturbed by a whole separate issue here, upon viewing the video – the shoppers that just walked by a woman lying on the floor near the entrance with a security guard over her, without slowing down or even turning to look.

what is wrong with these people? was the promise of the unbearable ecstasy of holiday shopping enough to drug them out of their basic human compassion and decency?

sometimes i wonder how our species will survive – and sometimes i wonder if it deserves to.

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Obey.

by matttbastard

Someone’s slip is showing:

It was Nov. 26 when 35-year-old Elizabeth Beeland of Ormond Beach stopped at the store to purchase a CD player for her father, she told The Daytona Beach News-Journal before refusing to speak more about the incident.

Beeland’s shopping trip ended up with a ride to the Volusia County Branch Jail, charged with two misdemeanors — one for disorderly conduct and the other for resisting a police officer without violence.

[…]

In a report police are required to prepare after deploying their Tasers, Officer Claudia Wright said she used her weapon on Beeland because the woman was “verbally profane, abusive, loud and irate.” Beeland pointed her finger “towards my face” and was waving her arms, the officer wrote.

But is that against the law? And is yelling at a cop considered enough resistance to merit the use of a Taser?

According to an American Civil Liberties Union representative in Orlando, yelling at a police officer and even cussing one out is constitutionally protected speech. And both the ACLU and Amnesty International USA say this incident likely could have been handled differently, adding that Taser use has become too casual and too common among police officers.

Police Chief Mike Chitwood said if a Taser had not been available, his officer likely would have used other weapons to subdue Beeland.

“I was never raised on Tasers,” the chief said. “I used nightsticks and slapjacks.”

[…]

Police Department policy states an officer can deploy his or her Taser “for the purpose of subduing a violent, noncompliant or combative subject.”

Another section titled “Use of Force,” says the Taser may be deployed when an officer believes the person presents a threat to the officer or to others “in the event that lesser force options are ineffective.” The Taser also should be deployed to prevent the escape of a “criminal suspect,” and when a “subject actively resists arrest or detention by violence or threat of violence.”

Beeland, although not compliant, was not acting violently, according to the officer’s report. However, Chitwood said his officer had been flagged down under the assumption Beeland may have stolen a credit card.

The fact Wright said Beeland refused to comply only further fueled the situation, Chitwood said.

“The fact that she (Beeland) was resisting and not following commands being given by a uniformed officer, that means that officer eventually was going to get hurt,” Chitwood said. “Claudia Wright did not wake up that morning and say, ‘I think I want to tase someone today.’

“The woman’s actions caused this to happen,” the chief said.

“I was never raised on Tasers… . I used nightsticks and slapjacks.”

“Beeland, although not compliant, was not acting violently”

“The fact Wright said Beeland refused to comply only further fueled the situation”.

“The woman’s actions caused this to happen.”

Compliance, not safety.

h/t pale via IM.

Related: Here in Canada, journalists have also recently been expected to comply with demands for obedience from local law enforcement officials, else reap the consequences.

Compliance, not safety.

h/t Berlynn @ Bread and Roses

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