NYT And Voting Rights



Opinion/Editorial


 

 

  Now the New York Times this morning wants to get involved (poking it's nose) in the rights of voting. Funny I find this amusing since they believe in socialism so much and tout liberalism at every turn.
  This mornings lead OPED is entitled "The Future of Voting Rights" according to their warped view of things. It begins "When five justices of the Supreme Court disabled the Voting Rights Act last Tuesday, they left it to Congress to find a new formula to restore one of the great landmarks of equality and once again protect the nation’s most fundamental democratic right. That is unlikely for the moment given Congressional dysfunction, as the justices certainly knew, but it is hardly impossible in the months and years to come. What is needed now is a new coalition — as loud and as angry as the voices of 1965 — to demand that Republican lawmakers join Democrats in restoring fairness to the election system. Discrimination at the ballot box continues and is growing.
  I would love to see what the NYT interpretation of restoring fairness to the election system would be but I have an idea already.
  It rambles on "It comes in more forms than it did a half-century ago, but it is no less pernicious. Instead of literacy tests, we now have rigid identification requirements. Instead of poll taxes, we now have bans on early voting, cutbacks in the number of urban precincts, and groups that descend on minority districts to comb the registration rolls for spelling errors.

These measures, largely undertaken to reduce Democratic votes in the Obama period, have a direct impact on minority voters in dozens of states. But they also affect the poor of all races, older people, students and legal immigrants, increasing the need for expanded legislation.

  Rigid requirements Yes NYT so we have less voter fraud this is being more than fair.

They can't stay away from the race game.And this ridiculous conspiratorial point from the NYT "These measures, largely undertaken to reduce Democratic votes in the Obama period."

Here is the last part of the whining "Fortunately, the court did not throw out Section 5 of the act, which allows the Justice Department to invalidate discriminatory voting practices, but it got rid of the formula that determined where the department could act. That leaves Congress and the Justice Department several ways to restore the government’s jurisdiction. The department can still use Section 3 of the act to get states or cities back into its jurisdiction, allowing it to judge election changes. To do so, though, it must show clear intent of racial discrimination, which is easy to hide. Congress should revise that section to allow coverage when a state makes a voting change with a disparate racial impact, not just discriminatory intent.       

Section 2 of the act also gives the department or private citizens the right to sue any local or state government for an improper election practice. These kinds of legal actions, though expensive and difficult, are likely to become the principal tool for enforcing voting rights, and the department needs to gear up to fight many more of them.

The day after the court’s decision, in fact, a group of black and Hispanic Texas residents filed a Section 2 lawsuit in Corpus Christi to stop the state’s revived voter ID law. Texas was one of five states that triumphantly used the Supreme Court’s decision to move ahead on ID requirements that had previously been blocked. Congress has the power to make these suits easier to file — one way, for example, would be to allow plaintiffs to show that a practice diminishes minority voting rights, a standard in the now-paralyzed Section 5.

Congress can still make Section 5 usable again with new rules for inclusion. For example, it could require pre-clearance for any state found to have violated a federal election law in the last few years, which would include most of the Southern states along with many others. At a minimum, all states and localities should be required to disclose on the Internet any voting change, allowing citizens and Washington a chance to raise concerns.

The most fundamental change Congress could make would be a law declaring a universal right to vote that could not be infringed by any level of government. The Voting Rights Act was aimed at combating discrimination “on account of race or color,” which was the urgent problem of the time. Discrimination has now broadened to encompass more groups of different kinds, and it is time for a broader law, especially given the Supreme Court’s clear intent to dismantle all racial protections.

That is not just a liberal fantasy, either. It was encouraging last week to hear several House Republicans, including the majority leader, Eric Cantor, say they were interested in restoring protections to voting. One of them, James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, put the challenge well: “This is going to take time and will require members from both sides of the aisle to put partisan politics aside and ensure Americans’ most sacred right is protected.”
  Once again needless hyperbull from the liberal mouth piece of this country.
    

 

 

 

 

Budget Blame Game From NYT

Opinion/Editorial

 

 

  They still don't get it and they never ever will these self righteous idiots at the New York Times especially their holier than thou editorial board on how to build an economy or even how to recover from a bad economy which of course the people with their political warped views helped to cause.
  This mornings lead OPED shows this to be true "Extreme Budget Cuts of 2014" well we will see what extreme is to the NYT I have no doubt that we already know.
  It begins "The most shameful achievement of the House Republican majority has been the elimination of $1.5 trillion in discretionary spending through 2022, which has already held back the economy from substantial growth and done real damage to people and communities that depend on government dollars. The widespread pain caused by this year’s sequester is the best-known aspect of these cuts, but caps that will continue to limit virtually every program for nine more years will also be extremely harmful.Republicans, though, still aren’t satisfied, and are continuing their campaign to radically reshape Washington’s relationship to the country. The 2014 spending bills now emerging from the House Appropriations Committee are worse than in any previous year and would make some programs and departments unrecognizable."
  The NYT still buys into the BS about how Government $pending spurs the economy. To quote the NYT "The 2014 spending bills now emerging from the House Appropriations Committee are worse than in any previous year and would make some programs and departments unrecognizable." It would be unrecognizable because it would cut Government spending this is the correct way to go.
  More waste of time "The spending limits imposed by Republicans in the Budget Control Act of 2011 will be different in the upcoming fiscal year. The arbitrary, across-the-board cuts of the sequester will come to an end for most discretionary spending (the kind that has to be renewed each year), but the severe overall limits on each department’s budget will get worse as total discretionary spending declines by 2 percent. The difference in 2014 is that lawmakers can reallocate money within departments as they see fit, within the limits, and won’t be confined by the sequester rules.

House Republicans, of course, have decided to exceed the caps for their favorite programs. They want to give the Pentagon a 5.4 percent increase — $26 billion it doesn’t need — along with a 3.3 percent raise to Homeland Security. To pay for that, and still shrink the budget, they are demanding severe cuts from spending bills for which they have little use: nearly 19 percent out of the labor, health and education bill; 15 percent from the financial services oversight bill; 14 percent from the interior and environment bill; and 11 percent from the energy and water bill.

Those percentages, just to be clear, represent cuts below this year’s already ruinous sequester levels. The effect is visible in several of the bills that have emerged from the Appropriations Committee:

TRANSPORTATION AND HUD The overall level is cut by 9 percent, or $4.4 billion, below the 2013 sequester. That means Community Development Block Grants are cut by 45 percent to $1.6 billion, well below the $2.7 billion put in place when President Gerald Ford created the program in 1974. Amtrak would be cut by a third, as would the HOME Investment program, which creates affordable housing.

ENERGY AND WATER Spending on renewable energy programs would be cut nearly in half to $1 billion. But somehow an extra $450 million was found for further development of coal, natural gas, oil and other fossil fuels.

AGRICULTURE The bill cuts $120 million needed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to enforce the Dodd-Frank financial oversight law.

Even more severe cuts are likely when the environment and education bills are released in the coming weeks.The Senate, though, has taken a very different approach. Rather than perpetuate the unnecessary austerity of the spending caps, the Senate budget would raise an additional $1 trillion by eliminating various tax breaks for the rich and for corporations, while still cutting an equal amount of spending in areas that are not vital. But Republicans in both chambers have ignored all entreaties from the White House and the Senate to sit down and negotiate.       

The White House, urging compromise, has threatened to veto any Republican spending bill outside of a negotiated budget agreement that increases vital investments. The House, apparently, would rather drag the country through yet another budget showdown.

  I think the NYT has discretionary spending confused with too much Government spending but wait they don't understand the fact of too much Government or too much Government $pending.

NYT Wants Government To Regulate Waste Plants

Opinion/Editorial


 

 

  Of all things now the New York Times wants the federal government to regulate chemical (waste/dung) plants. More and more BS pun intended BIGGER GOVERNMENT influence in our lives.

  This mornings lead OPED shows this to be the case "A Failure to Police Chemical Plants" is the title.

  It begins "The deadly explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Tex., in April has highlighted glaring shortcomings in federal and state regulation of facilities that produce, store and use toxic chemicals.The casualties in Texas — 14 killed and nearly 200 injured — were shocking, but the fact is that chemical disasters imperil millions of Americans who live and work close to industrial plants in dense cities and sprawling suburbs. Last November, the Congressional Research Service identified 2,560 facilities that could each put more than 10,000 people at risk in the event of an accident. Last year, 1,270 people died in more than 30,000 chemical spills and accidents. The Texas catastrophe showed that federal regulators have been far too lax in their oversight of ammonium nitrate, the fertilizer at the center of this explosion. The West Fertilizer Company stored 540,000 pounds of the stuff at its plant in 2012 (it is unclear how much it had in April). In spite of the potential risks posed by the fertilizer, plants are allowed to keep it near residential areas. Plants with large quantities are required to tell the Department of Homeland Security how they keep the material secure, but the West plant did not bother to do so. More broadly, the explosion is a reminder that the Obama administration has failed to uphold a promise the president made as a candidate in 2008 to require the industry to switch to safer chemicals and processes wherever feasible. The Environmental Protection Agency could compel plants to switch their materials and methods by invoking the general duty clause of the Clean Air Act, which calls on them to prevent accidental release of dangerous chemicals and to minimize the consequences of such releases.Wow they actually went after Obama for a change LOL!

 And the NYT actually gives Bush credit for something OMG! is the earth shifting LOL."Many environmental groups and Christine Todd Whitman, an E.P.A. administrator during George W. Bush’s first term, have lobbied for such a change. But the agency has not required the switch to safer technology, under pressure from the industry, which argues that such a mandate would be costly and cumbersome.

  But as always is the case with the NYT they have to revert back to the liberal game of race and victimization "The health risk is particularly great for the poor and racial minorities, who are more likely to live in communities near facilities using hazardous materials. Much of this is the result of racial politics that put dangerous plants in segregated and poor neighborhoods where land is cheap. Restrictive zoning laws and subtler forms of discrimination can also make it hard for the poor and members of minority groups to move to nicer neighborhoods. A study published in the American Journal of Sociology in 2010 found that black and Hispanic families tended to live in areas with more industrial pollution than whites — even with similar levels of education and income.

 No how about where governments build housing for those on welfare and those who can't get off their asses to save their lives.

  It goes on "For example, more than 40,000 people live in a three-mile radius around a Citgo oil refinery in Corpus Christi, Tex., which uses a host of flammable and toxic chemicals, including butane and hydrogen fluoride. This population has an estimated per capita income of $12,700, and nearly 90 percent of those people are Hispanic or black, according to an analysis of E.P.A. and census data by an alliance of environmental groups known as the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters. By contrast, the State of Texas has an average per capita income of about $25,500, and about 50 percent of its population is Hispanic or black.

Similar disparities exist around the country in places like Detroit and northern New Jersey, and they have persisted for decades in spite of the increased awareness of environmental injustice since the 1980s, when several important studies documented the problem in detail.

In 2009, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would have required the riskiest plants to switch to safer technology, but the Senate did not adopt the legislation. Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey introduced a similar bill in January, but it is unlikely to advance given the partisan gridlock in Washington.

Some chemical companies have voluntarily adopted safer materials and methods. In 2009, Clorox said it would switch its seven bleach plants from lethal chlorine gas to a safer process that uses “high-strength bleach” as a raw material. Such efforts are welcome, but policy makers cannot wait for the industry to move to safer technologies on its own. It is critical for the E.P.A. to take action under the power it already has.

  The NYT can't get away from the race card. Many of the aforementioned Hispanics are probably Mexican immigrants (some legal and but for the most part an educated guess mostly ILLEGAL) well since its Texas a little common sense here go back home then and get off welfare.