By Michael Bryan Ron once again holds a slight lead over Martha. The lead keeps changing hands and neither is pulling away yet. Given that the margin has consistently been within near the .5% .01% or 200 vote requirement for a recount under Arizona law, I suspect that even when the ballots are all counted and the … Read more
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: The GOP is already falling back on its faith based supply-side 'trickle down" voodoo economics that has been entiirely disproved and discredited over the past dozen years as the "fiscal cliff" negotiations begin. Greg Sargent writes at the Plum Line: As the fiscal cliff talks heat up, you’ll be hearing a lot … Read more
by Pamela Powers Hannley
Yes, indeed, President Barack Obama sings M.C. Hammer's Can't Touch This after the jump.
by Pamela Powers Hannley The Tucson Historic Preservation Association is sponsoring Tucson Modernism Weekend which begins this evening with a reception at the Chase Bank on Broadway (pictured here) and continues throughout the weekend with lectures, a car show, a mid-century modern style show, a pricey Mad Men cocktail party on Saturday night, and much … Read more
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
After witnessing the most overt and blatant GOP voter suppression efforts in this election that we have seen in years, the "Felonious Five" of the U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to hear a legal challenge to Section 5 preclearance of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Lyle Denniston writes at SCOTUSblog.com, Court to rule on voting rights law:
Acting three days after the nation’s minority voters showed that they
have increased and still growing power in U.S. elections, the Supreme
Court agreed on Friday to
rule on a challenge to Congress’s power to protect those groups’ rights
at the polls. The Court said it would hear claims that Congress went
beyond its authority when it extended for another twenty-five years the
nation’s most important civil rights law, the Voting Rights Act,
originally passed in 1965 and renewed four times since then.
Specially at issue is the constitutionality of the law’s Section
5, the most important provision, under which nine states and parts
of seven others with a past history of racial bias in voting must get
official clearance in Washington before they may put into effect any
change in election laws or procedures, no matter how small. The Court
came close to striking down that section three years ago, but
instead sent Congress clear signals that it should update the law so
that it reflects more recent conditions, especially in the South.
Congress did nothing in reaction.
That would be because the U.S. Supreme Court does not get to legislate policy. The Congress does. The Court only decides whether Congress acted within the scope of its constituional authority, which it clearly did in this case, as the Court has held many times since 1965. [Note: Congress reauthorized the VRA most recently in 2006, by a vote of 390 to 33 in the House and 98 to 0 in the Senate.]
The Court accepted the voting rights case from Shelby County, Ala.