North Carolina Passes Laws Restricting Voting

Image from source, CBSNews

I'm getting to the point where I'm having trouble figuring out conservatives. Well, it's always been difficult, but I'm beginning to think that the elected officials and behind-the-scenes conservatives are working from a whole different playbook from the rabble. And their media lapdogs? I'd always assumed that they were in on the real story, while passing on talking points to the sheeple.

But how to parse this one? North Carolina has passed a whole bunch of restrictions on voting rights, from Voter ID to limiting early voting, to limiting what students can vote, and other measures. I watched All In With Chris Hayes, who had invited a Republican woman from North Carolina. Chris interviewed her, trying to pry out the reasoning behind the laws. All he got were the standard "protecting the sanctity of the vote" and anti-voter fraud answers. Was she feeding him what she wanted him to hear, or did she really have no other answers?

Steve Deace, an Iowa conservative (and how) talk show host posted on Facebook that he was truly baffled how anybody could be against Voter ID, since you need ID to rent a video at Blockbuster (how quaint). Is Deace really clueless as to the whole raft of other voting restrictions that came along with Voter ID? Has he really never heard why liberals are against these sorts of laws? Does he really believe that voter fraud is rampant in America?

Listen, folks, I know that the arguments for having ID to vote sound really, really good. You do need ID for all sorts of things less important than voting. But the fact remains--though it's hard to personally imagine--that tens and hundreds of thousands of voters don't have the ID. Some have been voting without it for their whole lives, going back to the fifties or earlier. In many cases, these people live in areas where the locations and times for acquiring legal ID is restrictive, sometimes purposefully so. You know how they pass tough restrictions on abortion clinics, like the width of hallways, or admitting rights at a hospital, and then they pass a law that hospitals can't grant admitting rights? It's often like that, a catch-22.

It is also true that voter fraud is vanishingly rare. The motives for passing Voter ID laws is not voter fraud. The proof is in the admissions of several conservatives saying things like "Voter ID is going to win for us in Pennsylvania," and in the fact that so many other restrictions are passed along with them.

If you honestly think that wiping out voter fraud is the primary reason for Republicans passing all of these laws, you have got to be hopelessly naïve.

[Excerpt]

N.C. sued soon after voter ID bill signed into law

North Carolina Gov. Patrick McCrory has signed a sweeping voting reform bill that imposes strict photo identification requirements on the state's 4.5 million voters, rolls back the early voting period and repeals one-stop registration during early voting.

Almost immediately following the signing, civil rights groups filed lawsuits in federal court challenging the law. . .

Read more at: CBS News

 

Just Who are these "Experts" Anyway?

As a blogger, people sometimes write to me, and ask me what business I have opining on the subjects of the day. Sometimes, they call me on the carpet for my opinions, and hold me to the standards of journalism, though I do not claim to be a journalist. My retort to these people is, hey, who do you think YOU are?

For example, do these four people have any qualifications beyond what I have, as the average American citizen? I maintain that they do not. All of these men are contemporaries, within a few years either way of my age bracket. All of them would have graduated high school and come of age in the late 1970s to mid-1980s.

One is a national celebrity of little talent, and dubious mental capacity. That would be Glenn Beck, a tea bagger so far to the right that he was fired by FOX "News." One of them sells himself as more mainstream, even though he's equally bonkers (and at least as egotistical). That would be Wayne Allyn Root (WAR!!!).  One is an Iowa conservative radio host with national aspirations, a huge religious block on his shoulder, and a case of "gay face" I couldn't hope to equal. That would be Iowa's Steve Deace. And one is a hopelessly bananas right-wing conspiracy theorist who puts even the tornadoes in Oklahoma in Barack Obama's anti-American Kenyan, Socialist quiver. That would of course be the batshit crazy Alex Jones.

The point to this post is only to point out that none of these ridiculous men--or any of their opinions--is any more valid than mine--OR YOURS. I'm a random, southwestern American hobbyist blogger.  The difference between me and these guys? I'd never ask you to take my word for anything, unquestioned. Do your homework, and don't trust blindly. Don't fall, hook-line-and-sinker for a line that sounds like it lines up with your way of thinking. Dig deeper, ponder things that don't sound quite right, pay attention, and don't jump to conclusions. It's all I ask.



*Sorry, can't help it. When the gaydar goes off that loudly, I have to say something.

Sam Seder: Conservative Radio Host Wants Bill O'Reilly Hanged for Marriage Stance

Here's Deace with his motto, and a quote from the Huckster. Ugh.

One nice thing about having your own blog is reporting on the little things that bug you. Or the big things.  One of the things that bugs me is a radio host named Steve Deace out of Iowa. Now, I live in Nevada, so this really should be completely off of my radar, right? Except for a few degrees of separation, little filaments that connect A to B, or maybe M in this case.

See, I'm what some call "gay married," (though I just call it married), and my husband was born and raised in Iowa. Also, though I went to school in Ohio, one of my classmates became a conservative pastor in Iowa. Through Facebook, I became reacquainted with the pastor, and through him I became acquainted with Steve Deace. All of this Facebooking happened during the time when Iowa approved same-sex marriage, and began marrying gay couples. The pastor, the radio host, and other inter-connected "friends" got very vocal in this public forum about repealing marriage equality, with the "LUV: Let Us Vote!" campaign, spearheaded by the ultra-creepy perennial failed candidate Bob Vander Plaats. They also mounted a successful repeal of three of the judges responsible for the decision.

The Deace kids at the creation museum. Scary!
From SteveDeace.com

I'm not much of a shit-stirrer on the subject, or at least I try not to be confrontational. But when I see something that really rubs me the wrong way, I sometimes can't help interjecting. This usually leads to a very lengthy back-and-forth, and I often have trouble just dropping it. It's difficult to discuss anything strictly on its merits because the ridiculousness and insulting tangents thrown at me can be a bit dizzying. But I often get kudos--usually privately--from people reading the interaction. And so, that's nice. The funny thing is, the people who post the incendiary remarks in the first place often bow out early, leaving the arguing to their friends and/or congregation.

Bill O'Reilly said gay marriage foes need
a better argument than "Bible thumping."
Steve Deace really didn't like that.

It is safe to say that I've ruffled some feather with both Deace and the pastor, and neither is very good at arguing marriage equality, because they are incapable of separating church and state in their minds (Deace even proudly displays photos of his family at the Creation Museum on his Facebook page, making me wonder if he has any reasoning skills at all). And I have to wonder what drives these overtly religious people to focus so strongly on gay people anyway. It leads my mind to all sorts of speculation, but that's neither here nor there.

All of that is a very long way to go to say that I'm a fan of Sam Seder, of The Majority Report, a show he used to have on Air America Radio with Janeane Garofalo. And Seder has discovered the inanity of Steve Deace, and the over-the-top reaction Deace has to anyone who disagrees with him on the topic of gay marriage. And I just thought I'd share. Take it, Sam. . .

Right Wing World: FOX "News" Losing Their Base?

There have been signs that FOX "News" is not what it once was. Surely, some people are still watching out of habit. And the nursing homes and your grandpa may not have yet discovered that there are other channels. But their ratings--while still technically #1 in the cable news biz--are in decline. Sean Hannity is looking bloated. Sarah Palin was politely turned loose (via very low resigning offer), as has been the always-wrong Dick Morris. The writing is on the wall, and some people are saying so.

Steve Deace is an Iowa talk show host of the radical right-wing, guns, God and (no) gays variety. I know of him because The Other Half is from Iowa, and because a former classmate of mine is an uber-conservative pastor there. Through Facebook, I've become aware of Deace, and he stuck in my mind because of his very anti-gay views which are in stark contrast to his very--shall we say--Marcus Bachmann-like air (and I have the same suspicions about the pastor). Deace may be an extremist, but he is 100% down-the-line FOX "News" bait. He's the guy they're selling to, and he's the guy who helps complete part of the right-wing bubble that FOX has cultivated over the years. But Deace looks like he's dumping FOX. And that makes me wonder if this bubble is popping, or if it's just splitting off into smaller bubbles?

[UPDATE]: Though this appears on Deace's blog page, I've just realized it was written by Bob Eschliman, and posted there. So, let me correct the record. One can infer from the lack of framing by Deace that he agrees with the sentiments contained. I'm happy to correct the record if that isn't the case.

[Excerpt]

Image from source.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do . . . But It’s Time

You’ve really got to hand it to Fox News. For many years, they been able to dupe an overwhelming majority of the American conservative movement into believing they were on their side with the cover of “fair and balanced. . .”


Read more (if you must) at: Steve Deace