It's bad news when in 2013 the term
Jim Crow makes it back into an article:
With a non-white majority growing larger in the window, Republicans
cleverly ginned up a fake voter fraud crisis then prescribed new laws to
combat the fake crisis. Every single Republican-controlled state
government has passed or is attempting to pass laws that will require a second
layer of government approval, the acquisition of a Voter ID, on top of
registering to vote. You know, because Republicans hate big government
bureaucracy.
The nefarious goal is to make it more difficult for low income voters
to successfully cast a ballot by engaging yet another step in the
process -- and sometimes charging money for the privilege, which clearly
recalls the days of poll taxes.
One of those lawmakers, conservative state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe
(R-Butler), told WHYY that he believed Sims' comments would be a
violation of "God's law."
"I did not believe that as a member of that body that I should allow
someone to make comments such as he was preparing to make that
ultimately were just open rebellion against what the word of God has
said, what God has said, and just open rebellion against God's law,"
Metcalfe said.
No words could explain the madness of being admonished about absent
concepts like "tradition" and "decorum," when the only real traditions
being upheld by the Republicans were oppression and control. No words
could compel those who had already made up their minds about what is
right and what is wrong to reconsider, because those words were not
allowed to be heard. No words could describe the electric feeling of a
granite-walled chamber being filled with the energy and spirit of people
who, despite all valid reasons to be convinced otherwise, choose to
still believe in the basic tenants of democracy, of autonomy, and of
freedom, sitting patiently through hours of a clock ticking down on
their collective fate.
But then, something happened.
Twenty minutes until midnight, a question was posed by Senator
Leticia Van de Putte. A question that came, slowly, from a careful,
sticky-sweet voice of measured outrage. Twenty three words that were the
only words left for the only question left to be asked and answered:
"At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be
recognized over her male colleagues in the room?"
In the first case, Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act — the
portion of the 1996 law that defined “marriage” and “spouse” as
referring only to opposite-sex married couples — was struck down by the
court as unconstitutional.
In the other case, the court dismissed the appeal in the challenge to
California’s Proposition 8 marriage amendment, leaving in place the
initial 2010 trial-court decision striking down the state amendment as
unconstitutional.
This means that the two same-sex couples who sued California officials will be allowed to marry.
The court did not address whether states can ban same-sex couples from
marrying. Including California, 13 states allow for marriage equality.
One of the key questions is how the federal government will address the
relationships of same-sex couples who are married and live in a state
with marriage equality and then move to a state that does not recognize
their marriage. Although some federal laws count a couple as married if
the marriage was valid in the “place of celebration” — in other words,
if the marriage was valid in the state where the couple wed — other laws
and policies determine the treatment based on whether the marriage is
valid in the “place of residence".
Oh my goodness...I love
Plinko!!!
“When we realized it was the 30th anniversary of Plinko, we wanted to do
something special,” says executive producer Mike Richards. “And [host]
Drew [Carey] and I have always wanted to do an all-Plinko show. This
seemed like the perfect opportunity to keep trotting it out.” To sweeten
the experience, the studio audience was kept unaware that it was an
all-Plinko episode.
