Trump cheats at golf - the ONE and ONLY politics thread

Was the VRA in its entirety struck down? If it wasn't, what sections were struck down? What was the effect of this striking down? Were African-Americans suddenly without recourse to possible discrimination re: voting rights?

 

Encompasses straight journalists, pundits, and activists.

Am I wrong? How would you word it? There was a lot of pushback to his description of the African-American situation, and most of the folks pushing back did not push back against #BLM.

 

The only possible discrimination is total discrimination.

 

Man, not to go into the whole "the other side does it too!" bit, but I can't help but think this is getting to be more and more the norm for our politics. Everything devolves into this very stylized kabuki of the same things, with the same villains and heroes, etc. It's almost as if Godwin's Law really is just a subsection of some over-arching Omnibus Act.

 

Not sure what this is supposed to mean, but the idea that the VRA was struck down is preposterous.

 

My argument in this particular discussion is and has always been that it's silly to claim that Republicans will do better by black people than Democrats when they've been pursuing policies that actively harm black people for the last 50 years. The NYT agrees with me that the Shelby County decision essentially rendered the VRA meaningless. You are arguing semantics.

 

Do you think there are a lot of African-Americans in Mia Love's district?

Allen West's district is 82% white.

Tim Scott's district is 75% white.

J.C. Watts' district is 80% white

Gary Franks represented a district that was over 70% white.

Got a similar list for Dems?

 

I've always wondered why, if diversity in public office is so critical, no long serving Dem Senator like Teddy Kennedy, Robert Byrd, or Joe Biden ever announced they were going to resign and endorse an African-American to replace them.

An African-American would have waltzed into the Senate if Teddy had done such a thing.

Instead, Teddy and Byrd left the Senate at room temperature, and Biden only left for the Vice Presidency.

And, Biden arranged for his top aide to assume his seat, with the long term goal of getting his son into it.

 

C'mon doc, we need some metrics to examine.

Maybe we should start with with African-American youths being raised in single parent homes.

What have our policies done to the African-American family?

 

I'm sorry, that's the kabuki-theater aspect of it that I was getting at.

I'm not arguing semantics. In Shelby the supremes struck down the section that underpinned the pre-clearance provisions (by specifying which areas would be subject to them) and, as a practical consequence did away with the pre-clearance rules. They absolutely did not shut down avenues for relief from discriminatory practices (as we've seen recently with court decisions regarding some states' voter ID laws). The difference post-Shelby is that those alleging discriminatory practices don't have the possibility of an "easy button" in the DOJ.

 

The metric that really worries me about my argument is the one that shows the African-American poverty rate in the decades immediately preceding and immediately following the Civil Rights/Great Society era.

 

Andre Carson - Indiana 7th
Karen Bass - California 37th (plurality Hispanic)
Alma Adams - North Carolina 12th (plurality white)
Joyce Beatty - Ohio 3rd
Emanuel Cleaver - Missouri 5th
Keith Ellison - Minnesota 5th
Eddie Bernice Johnson - Texas 30th (plurality Hispanic)
Barbara Lee - California 13th (plurality white)
Gwen Moore - Wisconsin 4th
Charles Rangel - New York 13th (majority Hispanic)
Marc Veasey - Texas 33rd (majority Hispanic)
Maxine Waters - California 43rd (plurality Hispanic)
Bonnie Watson Coleman - New Jersey 12th

This only takes into account current members of Congress and their current district makeup.

Now do Republicans

Will Hurd - Texas 23rd (majority Hispanic)
Mia Love - Utah 4th