Pete's BLOG-Day 26,224. Jim Crow Lite.

Today is Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - we got a half inch of rain last night and it is a little cooler today. My stats for today: 10 minutes of yoga, 10 minutes of lifting weights and 47
 minutes of walking in Wapsi State Park = 2.6 miles for a September total of 9.1 miles. Me weight was at 162.2 pounds.

QUOTE from Kin Hubbard: "We'd all like to vote for the best man, but he's never available."

I LEARNED a new phrase this morning, that phrase is "Jim Crow Lite." Last week I had my letter-to-the-editor published in the Anamosa and Monticello newspapers. My topic was "The GOP and Voter Suppression." This morning when I saw a column written by Mary Sanchev of the Kansas Star entitled "Will Republicans succeed with Jim Crow Lite" I had to read it because it was the same topic as mine.
     The gist of Mary's article was that the Republicans of today are doing the same thing the Southern Democratic Party did in the late 1800s and over half of the 1900s.  The Republicans of today have devised 3 main schemes to deny the rights of hundreds of thousands of Americans to vote. By creating new ID laws, shortening absentee and early voting times and making it tougher to register to vote they are doing the same thing the Jim Crow voting laws did in the South. And most of the disenfranchised will be blacks, Hispanic, poor or elderly - the people most likely to vote for President Obama.  The Republicans aren't admitting they are racist but they are passing the new voter suppression laws under the guise of nonexistent voter fraud. It is simply Jim Crow Lite - the goal is the same.
     The Jim Crow laws were outright racist. They used such devices as Grandfather Clauses, poll taxes, and literacy tests to keep the blacks from voting. The Grandfather Clauses in the South stated that if they themselves, or their fathers or grandfathers had been entitled to vote on January 1, 1867 then they could vote. That meant that only whites could vote because blacks could not vote in 1867. The whites got to vote even if they failed to meet literacy or poll-tax requirements.
    The good news is that the courts are striking down many of these voter suppression laws as being unconstitutional. Let's hope they get them all struck down before November 6, 2012.

HUMOR for today:  "YOU CAN ALWAYS TELL WHEN PAUL RYAN IS LYING. HIS LIPS MOVE."