Of the many states who have this year pushed head first into the controversial ground of voter ID laws, Pennsylvania has — either by accident or intent — been fairly transparent about the fact that the law really isn’t about preventing in-person voter fraud.
Last month, the Pennsylvania House Majority Leader — a Republican — said of his legislature’s law: “Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”
But ahead of a trial over the law beginning today, state officials have made it abundantly clear: They’re not aware of any instances of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania, nor do they believe November’s elections would be at risk of in-person voter fraud without the law.
What does that leave? 750,000 registered Pennsylvania voters at risk of not being able to cast a ballot because of something the state admits isn’t even a problem.
Any doubt what this is about?
The American hurdler Forrest Smithson competed with a Bible in hand during the 1908 London Olympics to protest having to race on a Sunday.
We’re under two weeks now until Curiosity makes its Aug. 6 Martian landing. Carl Franzen previews the mission, which begins with a pretty spectacular landing sequence.
Charlie Crist: “Including as many Americans as possible in our electoral process is the spirit of our country. It is why we have expanded rights to women and minorities but never legislated them away, and why we have lowered the voting age but never raised it. Cynical efforts at voter suppression are driven by an un-American desire to exclude as many people and silence as many voices as possible.”
Voter suppression is as close as you get in democratic politics to mortal sin. And it’s going to be one of the prime features of the 2012 election. It is shameful, cynical and frankly disgusting.
Ari Fleischer: “[Obama’s] right that the system isn’t fair, but not because the top 1% pay too little. It is because they pay too much.”
It’s looking more and more improbable that Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr really confided to Mitt Romney that he was pining for Mitt to get into the White House and use his business know-how to set America back on the straight and narrow.
TPM Reader BK checks in with this report from down under …
Here is a bit of background from an Australian on Bob Carr, the Australian Foreign Minister. First and foremost, Carr is a serious public intellectual and policy wonk. He is the author of several very nerdy books (including one, “My Reading Life” about books he has read). He is a strong supporter of the arts. He agrees with the prevailing science on global warming and has a long record on environmental issues. Second, in policy terms, Carr is is well to the left of both Romney and Obama.
John McCain’s trusted campaign hand Steve Schmidt was on Meet the Press Sunday, so it’s no surprise that the conversation turned to the question of what’s in Mitt Romney’s tax returns. Schmidt said they reveal Romney’s an “extremely wealthy man” but that the returns themselves “do not look anything like the average American.”
“There was nothing that was disqualifying,” Schmidt said. “That pick in 2008 was not about any deficiency with Mitt Romney. It was a political decision that we made in a very bad political circumstance.” Read More
It’s treacherous for a US presidential candidate to travel overseas — lots of opportunities for mis-chosen words and getting drawn into other countries’ domestic politics. With Mitt Romney about to leave on his big trip abroad he may already have had his first big foreign stumble. At a GOP fundraiser in San Francisco last night, Romney said that Australia’s foreign minister had warned him that foreign leaders see the US in decline and — at least in Romney’s telling — was hoping for Romney-like policies to make things right. Read More