(The Root) -- If ever there were a reason to be grateful that the Voting Rights Act is still in effect, it's the shenanigans that have been taking place in Virginia's Republican-controlled state Senate. What GOP legislators have been trying to do there gives wacko racist reactionaries a bad name. If the most important provision in the act, which targets states that historically discriminated, were to beinvalidated -- as may happen this summer as a result of a case that will be argued before the Supreme Court in February -- these rascals would have a far better chance of getting away with their dastardly deeds.Even the timing of the stunt underscores the extent to which Virginia Republicans cannot be trusted. They picked Jan. 21 -- which happened to be not only the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday but also the date of Barack Obama's second inaugural -- to ram through a redistricting plan that would guaranteeGOP control of the 40-member body.It's no coincidence that the vote was taken while Henry Marsh, one of the state's five black senators, was in Washington for the inaugural ceremony. His absence gave the Republicans a temporary 20-19 majority in the evenly divided upper house of the legislature, and they took full advantage of it.Hang on; this gets complicated. The new map would abolish the seat held by a white Democrat and replace it with a new majority-black district on the state's south side. That sounds good, but it's really another case of political three-card monte. The feat would be accomplished by consolidating black voters (who, as in other states, are mostly Democratic) into the new district, leaving more concentrated, predominantly white GOP voting blocs in other jurisdictions.
we need to help anyway we can the Pres. has that alliance being part in any way you can is that much closer to ending the reighn of terror by the house repubicans. "YES WE CAN!".
The end result, according to an analysis by respected political blogger Ben Trippett, would be the creation of a new 27-13 Republican state Senate majority. That, combined with the GOP's big advantage in the heavily gerrymandered House of Delegates, would allow Republicans to override any veto that a future Democratic governor of Virginia might issue.
can't help but wonder, if we have that many people that vote right wing, do they ever consider what they are doing is cheating other Americans and if they are not rich themselves? should they be counted and called Amrican?
