Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires that certain states and local governmental units within those states receive preclearance from the Attorney General before they alter any election procedures. Section 5 is limited to states (and the local districts within those states) that Congress determined used impermissible voting procedures designed to exclude black voters in 1972. In 2006 Congress reauthorized the VRA for another 25 years, keeping the 1972 base-line.

Of course, this raises grave constitutional questions by imposing substantial burden and interference on local governments. For example, the utility district at issue in this case wasn't created until 1987. There has never been any indication that it discriminated on the basis of race in its board elections. And yet, because it is located in Texas--a covered jurisdiction--it must go hat in hand to the Attorney General every time it wants to alter an election procedure. There is a great deal of evidence that AGs make demands on covered districts for political reasons and not just to ensure that elections are proper.

By 8-1 vote, the Supreme Court today declined to overturn section 5 (PDF). The Court avoided the constitutional questions entirely and ruled instead that certain local districts can make use of a "bailout" statute. Under the statute--which the Courts had previously interpreted to mean something entirely different--local districts can bailout of the preclearance requirement if they can convince a three judge panel that they aren't a bunch of racists. The bailout provision simply replaces the intrusion by the AG with intrusion by federal judges. Since 1982 when the bailout statute was added, only 17 covered jurisdictions out of 12,000 have managed to bailout.

The only judge to vote to overturn section 5 was Justice Thomas. He writes that the other justices are impermissibly dodging the constitutional issue. And then he gets to the meat:

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Lots of Twitter reports about the overwhelming police presence on the streets of Tehran today. While the atmosphere is being described as "intimidating" that hasn't stopped people from trying to assemble.

Riot police attacked hundreds of demonstrators with tear gas and fired live bullets in the air to disperse a rally in central Tehran Monday, carrying out a threat by the country's most powerful security force to crush any further opposition protests over the disputed presidential election.

Witnesses said helicopters hovered overhead as about 200 protesters gathered at Haft-e-Tir Square. But hundreds of anti-riot police quickly put an end to the demonstration and prevented any gathering, even small groups, at the scene.

At the subway station at Haft-e-Tir, the witnesses said police did not allow anyone to stand still, asking them to keep on walking and separating people who were walked together. The witnesses asked not to be identified for fear of government reprisals.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is whining about the fact people are noticing the moral bankruptcy of their position(s) and worse, the piss poor strategic thinking behind it (negotiations uber alles) and has sent out a list of supportive quotes. Even NBC's Chuck Todd notes how hackish it is.

If you are wondering about how frustrated the White House is about the coverage of the criticism some Republicans are leveling against the president, then check this out. The press office sent around the following list of supportive quotes overheard on the Sunday Shows. It was a, well, very campaigny thing to do, reminiscent of the post-debate "what they're saying" emails campaign reporters would regularly get from all of the presidential campaigns.

Memo to the White House...you are in the big boy chairs now. It's not all about "winning the media war", it's about setting national policy.

Andrew Sullivan on the other hand can be counted on to wet himself with excitement over every statement from...sigh...Obama. Naturally he beclowns himself in the process (safe link).

German Chancellor Merkel gets it.

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(Bumped since it came over late last night, more on developments in Iran shortly)

But they aren't sure if the 3 million extra votes really matter given how much of a landslide Ahmadinejad won by.

Iran's Guardian Council has suggested that the number of votes collected in 50 cities surpass the number of people eligible to cast ballot in those areas.

..."Statistics provided by the candidates, who claim more than 100% of those eligible have cast their ballot in 80-170 cities are not accurate -- the incident has happened in only 50 cities," Kadkhodaei said.

The spokesman, however, said that although the vote tally affected by such an irregularity could be over 3 million and the council could, at the request of the candidates, re-count the affected ballot boxes, "it has yet to be determined whether the possible change in the tally is decisive in the election results," reported Khabaronline.

The link goes to The Corner but the story is from Iran's official English language media outlet. Either someone in the opposition runs the outlet or the regime thinks this shit will sell and calm everyone down.

This would be comical if it didn't have such tragic consequences.

Seriously this kind of shit is enough to make even the most hackish of Chicago pols blush. Speaking of which, has anyone heard from President Soft Serve lately?

More [Gabe]: This is what I was talking about yesterday when I wrote that it's become much more difficult for the typical Iranian to pretend that they're in a free state. Many thuggish regimes rely on the appearance of elections and they punish harshly those who suggest that the elections are anything other than fair--for example, Saddam Hussein's Iraq and L'il Kim's North Korea. The Guardian Council has always maintained that the elections are fair in Iran.

Yesterday's admission of election fraud is going to hit them harder than they expect. One of Mousavi's demands has been for a re-vote. With the Council admitting that the vote was pretty much shit, it's going to be harder to refuse. More than that, a generation of Iranians is never going to trust the word of the Council again.

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Rumor is that this is a smart military blog, but I don't count myself as one of the smart military sorts.

So maybe the smart ones in the crowd can explain to me the strategic genius in the following:

The top U.S. general in Afghanistan will soon formally order U.S. and NATO forces to break away from fights with militants hiding in Afghan houses so the battles do not kill civilians, a U.S. official said Monday...

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who took command of international forces in Afghanistan this month, has said his measure of effectiveness will be the "number of Afghans shielded from violence," and not the number of militants killed.

The enemy prefers to hide among the citizenry, attack from that relative safety, and then, sans any sort of uniform, melt back into that soft protection.

Now, I get that there is an imperative to keep collateral damage to a minimum. However, constraining our troops from firing on the enemy under the rule that no civilian be killed creates an impossible situation given the tendency of the enemy to be creative with the word "civilian".

These non-uniformed enemy combatants, found dead in the ruins of the houses and schools they were firing from, are often counted among the civilian dead to create outrage. (Not so much among the locals, as in the international media.)

This is not only a recipe for ambush, but for ambush that the new General orders must not be responded to with fire unless no other option remains:

McChrystal will issue orders within days saying troops may attack insurgents hiding in Afghan houses if the U.S. or NATO forces are in imminent danger and must return fire, said U.S. military spokesman Rear Adm. Greg Smith.

"But if there is a compound they're taking fire from and they can remove themselves from the area safely, without any undue danger to the forces, then that's the option they should take," Smith said. "Because in these compounds we know there are often civilians kept captive by the Taliban."

If we are not allowed to kill the enemy anymore, why are we even on the battlefield?

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I have been waiting all day for someone to post a happy FatherÂ’s Day message or as it is referred to in Seattle, the non diverse institutionalized patriarchal society day. I finally realized that becoming a father typically requires a certain physical action with a real life female and well, come on, for most of you morons, just not an option.

Well Happy Father's Day anyway and below the fold is an absolute true real life feel good FatherÂ’s Day story.
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(Well, weÂ’ve got the lawyers part covered anyway)

In Astoria, OR, a Portland attorney recently tried out a novel excuse while defending himself against a speeding ticket: The car was speeding, not him.

”But Akin said he had no idea his BMW 535xi was going 76 mph in a 55 mph zone because of its handling characteristics. Akin buttressed his arguments with a PowerPoint presentation and testimony from a mechanic.”

In other legal news, sometimes fate delivers us a near perfect metaphor. Or simile. Or something.

”JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. -- A southern Indiana lawyer said he's embarrassed and has apologized for being found asleep headfirst in a neighbor's trash can after a night of drinking. Larry Wilder admits he made a mistake, but he was not charged with a crime, Louisville television station WLKY reported. Wilder said it all started Tuesday night when a client sent a limousine for him to come to Louisville's Jeff Ruby's Steakhouse. Wilder said he had about four drinks and his memory ends there, until a Jeffersonville police officer woke him up in his neighbor's garbage can. "I don't know that I was intoxicated that morning," he said. "All I know is I woke up and got in the house."

And havenÂ’t we all been there before?

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:35 PM | Comments (5)
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Are Zombie Movies a liberal parable?

While everyone is focused on what’s happening in Iran, I thought we should take a moment and look at the second most pressing issue of our time – the undead.

This week Paul Waldman of The American Prospect has an interesting article where he covers the history and recent popularity of zombie movies and then asks whether the zombie genre is fundamentally liberal or conservative. His conclusion is that z-movies are in fact liberal parables reflecting the value of progressive ideals. Now let me first say that Waldman has clearly done his research on zombies and is familiar with all major works in the canon. He even unearths some interesting nuggets of zombie lore – the first true zombie movie was White Zombie (1932) starring Bela Lugosi and the first movie of the Nazi-zombie subgenre actually appeared in 1943 when we were, uh, still fighting actual living Nazis.

So Waldman knows his stuff. However his argument that zombie movies reflect progressive ideals doesnÂ’t really make sense. He admits that fighting off zombies requires lots of guns which seems to be an argument for the Second Amendment, and also in most Z-movies the government is ineffectual or just plain absent leaving people to their own devices which again is a generally conservative view. However he notes that in a zombie-apocalypse capitalism breaks down with people taking whatever they need from hardware and gun stores, malls, etc. In addition the key to survival is usually diverse people coming together in the progressive ideals of common cause and collective action. Hence he claims zombie movies are really a liberal genre.
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Finally - A president for Palin Steele. more...

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It takes a while. First the protesters advance slowly, throwing rocks. The security forces throw rocks back.

Stay with it. Ultimately the security forces turn and run.

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