Of Wits and Idiots

gregleding:

From The New York Times:

Despite decades of progress, this year’s Republican-backed wave of voting restrictions has demonstrated that the fundamental right to vote is still subject to partisan manipulation. The most common new requirement, that citizens obtain and display unexpired government-issued photo identification before entering the voting booth, was advanced in 35 states and passed by Republican legislatures in Alabama, Minnesota, Missouri and nine other states — despite the fact that as many as 25 percent of African-Americans lack acceptable identification.

Having fought for voting rights as a student, I am especially troubled that these laws disproportionately affect young voters. Students at state universities in Wisconsin cannot vote using their current IDs (because the new law requires the cards to have signatures, which those do not). South Carolina prohibits the use of student IDs altogether. Texas also rejects student IDs, but allows voting by those who have a license to carry a concealed handgun. These schemes are clearly crafted to affect not just how we vote, but who votes.

Conservative proponents have argued for photo ID mandates by claiming that widespread voter impersonation exists in America, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. While defending its photo ID law before the Supreme Court, Indiana was unable to cite a single instance of actual voter impersonation at any point in its history. Likewise, in Kansas, there were far more reports of U.F.O. sightings than allegations of voter fraud in the past decade. These theories of systematic fraud are really unfounded fears being exploited to threaten the franchise.

gregleding:

From The New York Times:

Early fund-raising suggests that the new groups are relying on a handful of wealthy donors capable of writing five-, six- and even seven-figure checks. According to a study published last week by the Center for Responsive Politics, more than 80 percent of money raised by Republican-leaning Super PACs this year came from just 35 donors.

Democratic-leaning Super PACs relied on an even smaller group, with more than 80 percent of contributions coming from just 23 donors.

“What took thousands of individual donations to make significant political advertisements in 2008 can now just take one phone call,” said Spencer MacColl, the study’s author.

The 2012 race is already being widely viewed as a laboratory for political operatives, some of whom say that Super PACs founded to support individual candidates may soon become a feature of Senate and even House races if they are used successfully — and without legal headaches — by allies of the presidential candidates.

“It’s Christmas for consultants,” said one Republican operative, who requested anonymity to speak frankly about the enthusiasm among fellow consultants for the groups. “People are just starting to get it. It’s completely unlimited. And it’s going to change everything.”

jtotheizzoe:

itsfullofstars:

In the US, we rely on the National Hurricane Center to forecast storms. The NHC is in turn a division of the National Weather Service, itself a part of the NOAA. Which, in the GOP’s 2011 budget bill, had its funding slashed by $1.2 billion from what was proposed in the president’s own budget bill, a bill that very notably included a $700 million increase over the previous year to cover needed upgrades to the satellites that gather the data that gets crunched in order to predict storms and weather in general.

More on this from Think Progress, back in May. And this is after NOAA forecast an above-average hurricane season.

Le sigh.

(via jtotheizzoe)

gregleding:

From The New York Times:

Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn’t a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that’s too bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the “anti-science party.” This is an enormously important development. And it should terrify us.

To see what Mr. Huntsman means, consider recent statements by the two men who actually are serious contenders for the G.O.P. nomination: Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.

Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, recently made headlines by dismissing evolution as “just a theory,” one that has “got some gaps in it” — an observation that will come as news to the vast majority of biologists. But what really got peoples’ attention was what he said about climate change: “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.”

That’s a remarkable statement — or maybe the right adjective is “vile.”