On the 50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act
On the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act the right to vote has never been more under threat. There aren’t direct poll taxes or tests, there’s no Bull Connor spraying people with fire hoses. There’s an entire operation that works behind the scenes to restrict your right to vote – without you even knowing it. Which is why, today, I am reposting this story from 2014. I worked on this investigation for 6 months, filed FOIA’s and traveled 1000’s of miles to research, film and photograph with Greg Palast for Al Jazeera America. What we uncovered was a national database…
Rove’s North Carolina Plan Under Attack By DOJ
Editors note: In 2011 Karl Rove wrote a column called “Why Obama Is Likely to Lose in 2012” – Rove was betting on North Carolina to be a swing state for the Republicans… Romney took the state but to Rove’s surprise he failed at stealing Ohio for the third time. Just Google “Karl Rove Meltdown,” and you’ll see a video from Fox News election night, he did not take it well. After the knock-down of the Voting Rights Act by the US Supreme Court earlier this year North Carolina jumped at the chance to change their voting laws – claiming, as these states…
Alaska Defends Abuse of First Alaskans
I read a story in the Daily News last week and felt sick. A tribe found a non-tribal man unfit to parent a child from the tribe. The man then proved their judgment sound when he kidnapped the child’s mother and almost beat her to death. The Parnell administration has now swooped in, four years later, to defend the abuser. Why now? Why this guy? Why are state resources going to defend a convicted wife-beater? I realize Michael Geraghty, the state’s attorney general, doesn’t want to explain these decisions to “lay people” like you and me. That’s unfortunate because we…
This Week in Equality – The Right Wept.
This was a huge week for America. The reaction of the Right Wing has been curious to me. I wonder if we aren’t watching the suicide of a political party. The Supreme Court agreed there is discrimination against certain citizens who want to vote, but a slim majority of justices were okay with that. Seriously? Yes. Not a shocker. With few exceptions, the Roberts Court has been a recurring disaster for everyone except the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. I guess Republican senators felt better about approving a path to citizenship for undocumented people — now that it will be easier…
Voting Rights Act Decision Nears on Anniversary of Evers Death
Sometime in the next couple of days the US Supreme Court will decide if crucial components of the Voting Rights Act will stand. Which is why when I saw this court room sketch posted on the excellent SCOTUSblog I felt the need to post it. From right to left you see Jess Jackson, Al Sharpton and then on the left John Lewis. All of these men, to varying degrees fought hard for this act – and lost many friends along the way. Greg Palast, who has been at the forefront of fighting the Right’s (and sometimes the Left’s) push to limit…
Palast: Dummy’s Guide to Voting Rights Act
Will the Supreme Court pull the teeth out of the law? by Greg Palast exclusively for TheMudflats.net This month –as early as tomorrow— the US Supreme Court will tell us whether Black and Brown citizens have the right to vote. Now, if you saw the film Lincoln, you probably thought that issue was settled about 147 years ago. But Honest Abe never imagined a High Court occupied by Dishonest Thomas and Scalia the Scurrilous. There’s been a lot of nonsense talk fogging the issue before the Court. To cut through the BS, the Palast Investigative Fund has made a little…
Greg Palast asks, ‘How Do You Steal a Dream?’
How Do You Steal a Dream? Supreme Court hears suit to kill Voting Rights Act For Care2.com By Greg Palast, author, “Billionaires and Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps” Video Produced by The Mudflats’ own, Zach D Roberts. Sign the petition to Defend Martin Luther King’s Dream Act – here. Read Shannyn Moore’s piece on how Alaska plays into all this – at the Anchorage Daily News Jim Crow is alive and well — and he has mounted a new attack on the law Martin Luther King dreamed of: the Voting Rights Act. February 27, the…
The Alaska Senate Race – It Ain't Over Yet…
The following was just released from the Joe Miller campaign: Today the U.S. Federal District Court in Anchorage ordered the U.S. Senate race not to be certified until vital legal issues are resolved. The Court recognized serious statutory matters have been raised by Joe Miller concerning what standard of review should be used to count the write-in ballots. The Miller campaign has consistently held that the state law must be applied, as written. Its provisions could not be clearer: “A vote for a write-in candidate…shall be counted if the oval is filled in for that candidate and if the name,…