Supremely Shameless

Another add to my to-read list, thanks to Adrastos—

I just finished reading David Halberstam's great 1999 book The Children for the first time. I'm not sure why it took me so long to read it since Halberstam is one of my heroes and I'm deeply interested in the history of the Civil Rights Movement but better late than never.

The timing is also somewhat fortuitous because the SNCC "children" of the title were responsible for the Nashville sit-ins, the Freedom Rides and the Selma March, a series of epic events that helped lead to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. That is, in turn, a big story today because the Supremes took up an Alabama case that wants to rip out the heart of that act, Section 5. Discrimination? What discrimination? We have a black President, what more do *those* people want? Sorry, for channeling Justice Scalia but his "crazy wingnut uncle who watches Fox News all day" shtick is contagious, y'all.

They're making no pretense. First, it was Scalia, bemoaning "racial entitlements."

Then, rehearsed fauxtrage from Roberts; here's Charles Pierce on Roberts, his talking points, and his being a "thumb-on-the-scale charlatan."

It's all as planned; after all, writes Pierce—

Roberts made his bones in conservative legal circles specifically because he's had the knives out for voting rights for 30 years. He's not going to let a little thing like the truth stand in his way now.

Sometimes, there's little distinction between "Supreme" and "supremacist."

Before the week was over, there was Michigan's CEO governor finally getting his hostile takeover of Detroit's democratically elected government. Besides lining the pocket of whatever Snyder crony becomes "Emergency Manager," it will be all about the usual screwing of labor and reneging on pensions.

But as emptywheel says, this travesty is also an example of the many creative ways the GOP finds of disenfranchising voters—

We have spent the week talking about whether or not we still need a Voting Rights Act. Given the cynical new ways politicians are using to disenfranchise people of color, I say it’s time to expand it, not end it.