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As States Rush to Restrict Voting Rights, Justice Ginsburg Says I Told You So Elspeth Reeve 19 hours ago In the month since the Supreme Court struck down the pre-clearance formula of the Voting Rights Act, Texas, Florida and North Carolina are working on rules designed to make it harder to vote. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the dissent in Shelby County v. Holder, is not surprised. "I didn't want to be right, but sadly I am," she told the Associated Press' Mark Sherman. When the Shelby verdict was handed down the day after a less-sweeping decision on affirmative action, The New York Times' Linda Greenhouse postulated that Ginsburg, who dissented in both, was expressing regret for signing on with a 2009 decision in which Chief Justice John Roberts expressed great skepticism about the VRA's Section 5 — "things have changed in the South" — but did not strike it down. "Why did the liberal justices sign on to the Northwest Austin opinion in 2009? Clearly, it was the price of the compromise to buy the Voting Rights Act a little more time," Greenhouse writes. In her interview with the Associated Press, Ginsburg indicates that's what happened. "I think in the first voting rights case, there was a strong impetus to come down with a unanimous decision with the thought that maybe Congress would do something about it before we had to deal with it again... But I suppose with the benefit of hindsight, I might have taken a different view." Congress did not act then. It looks unlikely Congress will act now. Here's what the states are doing to take advantage of that. North Carolina On Thursday night, North Carolina's legislature passed a voter ID bill that now goes to Gov. Pat McCrory's desk for signature. It's a set of changes to its voting laws that, Mother Jones' Kevin Drum writes, are "astonishing" in their scope: Require voter ID at polling places. Reduce the early voting period from 17 days to 10 days. Prohibit counties from extending poll hours by one hour on Election Day even in extraordinary circumstances, such as in response to long lines. (Those in line at closing time would still be allowed to vote.) Eliminate pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds, who currently can register to vote before they turn 18. Outlaw paid voter registration drives. Eliminate straight-ticket voting. Eliminate provisional voting if someone shows up at the wrong precinct. Allow any registered voter of a county to challenge the eligibility of a voter rather than just a voter of the precinct in which the suspect voter is registered. One amendment that failed? Allowing people without a photo ID to cast a ballot if they could meet the requirements for mail-in absentee ballots, WRAL explains. Democratic voters tend to use early voting, while Republican voters tend to use absentee voting. A Justice Department lawsuit to stop the new law is possible, The Washington Post reports. Florida On Wednesday, a federal court dismissed a lawsuit that said a purge of voter rolls in Florida would have to be pre-cleared by the Justice Department under the VRA. Since the pre-clearance formula has been found unconstitutional, the lawsuit is moot. Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner said in court filings the state would resume the purge, the Associated Press reports, lifting a five-month-old stay that blocked the state from giving the names of people it suspected weren't citizens to county election officials. Last year, some of the names listed for removal were citizens. But now the state says its list will be accurate because it can access a national immigration database, the Associated Press reports. Florida Reps. Ted Deutch and Alcee Hastings asked Gov. Rick Scott to stop the purge on Thursday. Texas Immediately after the Shelby County v. Holder decision, Texas announced it would go though with a voter ID law that was passed in 2011 but blocked by the Justice Department. The law requires a state-issued ID to vote (notably, a concealed-carry permit counts.) As The Atlantic Wire's Philip Bump noted, the state's research showed that Latinos were less likely to have such an ID, so the law would keep more Latinos from voting than non-Latinos. On Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the Justice Department would ask a federal court in Texas to require the state to get pre-clearance for new voting laws. Holder also said the department would support a lawsuit by Texas Democrats that challenges the state's redistricting plan. We should have seen this coming, the Supreme Court justice says. "The notion that because the Voting Rights Act had been so tremendously effective we had to stop it didn't make any sense to me," Ginsburg says. "And one really could have predicted what was going to happen." http://news.yahoo.com/states-rush-restrict-voting-rights-justice-ginsburg-says-162252733.html

Bishop Desmond Tutu, today, in Cape Town, on gay rights: I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this. I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place. I am as passionate about this campaign as I ever was about apartheid. For me, it is at the same level.

A lady asked Dr. Franklin "Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy." "A republic" replied the Doctor "if you can keep it." Researchers uncover little-known internment camp NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS 4 hours ago Kooskia, Idaho Deep in the mountains of northern Idaho, miles from the nearest town, lies evidence of a little-known portion of a shameful chapter of American history. There are no buildings, signs or markers to indicate what happened at the site 70 years ago, but researchers sifting through the dirt have found broken porcelain, old medicine bottles and lost artwork identifying the location of the first internment camp where the U.S. government used people of Japanese ancestry as a workforce during World War II. Today, a team of researchers from the University of Idaho wants to make sure the Kooskia Internment Camp isn't forgotten to history. "We want people to know what happened, and make sure we don't repeat the past," said anthropology professor Stacey Camp, who is leading the research. It's an important mission, said Charlene Mano-Shen of the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience in Seattle. Mano-Shen said her grandfather was forced into a camp near Missoula, Mont., during WWII, and some of the nation's responses to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 evoked memories of the Japanese internments. Muslims, she said Thursday, "have been put on FBI lists and detained in the same way my grandfather was." After the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the nation into the second world war, about 120,000 people of Japanese heritage who lived on the West Coast were sent to internment camps. Nearly two-thirds were American citizens, and many were children. In many cases, people lost everything they had worked for in the U.S. and were sent to prison camps in remote locations with harsh climates. Research such as the archaeological work underway at Kooskia (KOO'-ski) is vital to remembering what happened, said Janis Wong, director of communications for the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. People need to be able "to physically see and visit the actual camp locations," Wong said. Giant sites where thousands of people were held — such as Manzanar in California, Heart Mountain in Wyoming and Minidoka in Idaho — are well-known. But Camp said even many local residents knew little about the tiny Kooskia camp, which operated from 1943 to the end of the war and held more than 250 detainees about 30 miles east of its namesake small town, and about 150 miles southeast of Spokane, Wash. The camp was the first place where the government used detainees as a labor crew, putting them into service doing road work on U.S. Highway 12, through the area's rugged mountains. This image provided by the University of Idaho shows the Kooskia Internment Camp during World War II … "They built that highway," Camp said of the road that links Lewiston, Idaho, and Missoula, Mont. Men from other camps volunteered to come to Kooskia because they wanted to stay busy and make a little money by working on the highway, Camp said. As a result, the population was all male, and mostly made up of more recent immigrants from Japan who were not U.S. citizens, she said. Workers could earn about $50 to $60 a month for their labor, said Priscilla Wegars of Moscow, Idaho, who has written books about the Kooskia camp. Kooskia was one of several camps operated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service that also received people of Japanese ancestry rounded up from Latin American countries, mostly Peru, Camp said. But it was so small and so remote that it never achieved the notoriety of the massive camps that held about 10,000 people each. "I'm aware of it, but I don't know that much about it," said Frank Kitamoto, president of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Memorial Committee, based in Puget Sound, Wash., which works to maintain awareness of the camps. After the war the camp was dismantled and largely forgotten. Using money from a series of grants, Camp in 2010 started the first archaeological work at the site. Some artifacts, such as broken china and buttons, were scattered on top of the ground, she said. "To find stuff on the surface that has not been looted is rare," she said. Camp figures her work at the site could last another decade. Her team wants to create an accurate picture of the life of a detainee. She also wants to put signs up to show people where the internment camp was located. Artifacts found so far include Japanese porcelain trinkets, dental tools and gambling pieces, she said. They have also found works of art created by internees. "While it was a horrible experience, the people who lived in these camps resisted in interesting ways," she said. "People in the camps figured out creative ways to get through this period of time." "They tried to make this place home," she said. http://news.yahoo.com/researchers-uncover-little-known-internment-camp-170350272.html

Democratic establishment unmasked: prime defenders of NSA bulk spying NYT: "The Obama administration made common cause with the House Republican leadership" Glenn Greenwald guardian.co.uk, Thursday 25 July 2013 05.09 EDT One of the most vocal supporters of the Obama White House's position on yesterday's NSA debate: GOP Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images One of the worst myths Democratic partisans love to tell themselves - and everyone else - is that the GOP refuses to support President Obama no matter what he does. Like its close cousin - the massively deceitful inside-DC grievance that the two parties refuse to cooperate on anything - it's hard to overstate how false this Democratic myth is. When it comes to foreign policy, war, assassinations, drones, surveillance, secrecy, and civil liberties, President Obama's most stalwart, enthusiastic defenders are often found among the most radical precincts of the Republican Party. The rabidly pro-war and anti-Muslim GOP former Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Peter King, has repeatedly lavished Obama with all sorts of praise and support for his policies in those areas. The Obama White House frequently needs, and receives, large amounts of GOP Congressional support to have its measures enacted or bills its dislikes defeated. The Obama DOJ often prevails before the US Supreme Court solely because the Roberts/Scalia/Thomas faction adopts its view while the Ginsburg/Sotomayor/Breyer faction rejects it (as happened in February when the Court, by a 5-4 ruling, dismissed a lawsuit brought by Amnesty and the ACLU which argued that the NSA's domestic warrantless eavesdropping activities violate the Fourth Amendment; the Roberts/Scalia wing accepted the Obama DOJ's argument that the plaintiffs lack standing to sue because the NSA successfully conceals the identity of which Americans are subjected to the surveillance). As Wired put it at the time about that NSA ruling: The 5-4 decision by Justice Samuel Alito was a clear victory for the President Barack Obama administration, which like its predecessor, argued that government wiretapping laws cannot be challenged in court." The extraordinary events that took place in the House of Representatives yesterday are perhaps the most vivid illustration yet of this dynamic, and it independently reveals several other important trends. The House voted on an amendment sponsored by Justin Amash, the young Michigan lawyer elected in 2010 as a Tea Party candidate, and co-sponsored by John Conyers, the 24-term senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. The amendment was simple. It would de-fund one single NSA program: the agency's bulk collection of the telephone records of all Americans that we first revealed in this space, back on June 6. It accomplished this "by requiring the FISA court under Sec. 215 [of the Patriot Act] to order the production of records that pertain only to a person under investigation". The amendment yesterday was defeated. But it lost by only 12 votes: 205-217. Given that the amendment sought to de-fund a major domestic surveillance program of the NSA, the very close vote was nothing short of shocking. In fact, in the post-9/11 world, amendments like this, which directly challenge the Surveillance and National Security States, almost never get votes at all. That the GOP House Leadership was forced to allow it to reach the floor was a sign of how much things have changed over the last seven weeks. More significant than the closeness of the vote was its breakdown. A majority of House Democrats supported the Amash/Conyers amendment, while a majority of Republicans voted against it: The full roll call vote is here. House Speaker John Boehner saved the Obama White House by voting against it and ensuring that his top leadership whipped against it. As the New York Times put it in its account of yesterday's vote: Conservative Republicans leery of what they see as Obama administration abuses of power teamed up with liberal Democrats long opposed to intrusive intelligence programs. The Obama administration made common cause with the House Republican leadership to try to block it. In reality, the fate of the amendment was sealed when the Obama White House on Monday night announced its vehement opposition to it, and then sent NSA officials to the House to scare members that barring the NSA from collecting all phone records of all Americans would Help The Terrorists™. Using Orwellian language so extreme as to be darkly hilarious, this was the first line of the White House's statement opposing the amendment: "In light of the recent unauthorized disclosures, the President has said that he welcomes a debate about how best to simultaneously safeguard both our national security and the privacy of our citizens" (i.e.: we welcome the debate that has been exclusively enabled by that vile traitor, the same debate we've spent years trying to prevent with rampant abuse of our secrecy powers that has kept even the most basic facts about our spying activities concealed from the American people). The White House then condemned Amash/Conyers this way: "This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process." What a multi-level masterpiece of Orwellian political deceit that sentence is. The highly surgical Amash/Conyers amendment - which would eliminate a single, specific NSA program of indiscriminate domestic spying - is a "blunt approach", but the Obama NSA's bulk, indiscriminate collection of all Americans' telephone records is not a "blunt approach". Even worse: Amash/Conyers - a House bill debated in public and then voted on in public - is not an "open or deliberative process", as opposed to the Obama administration's secret spying activities and the secret court that blesses its secret interpretations of law, which is "open and deliberative". That anyone can write a statement like the one that came from the Obama White House without dying of shame, or giggles, is impressive. Even more notable than the Obama White House's defense of the NSA's bulk domestic spying was the behavior of the House Democratic leadership. Not only did they all vote against de-funding the NSA bulk domestic spying program - that includes liberal icon House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who voted to protect the NSA's program - but Pelosi's deputy, Steny Hoyer, whipped against the bill by channeling the warped language and mentality of Dick Cheney. This is the language the Democratic leadership circulated when telling their members to reject Amash/Conyers: "2) Amash/Conyers/Mulvaney/Polis/Massie Amendment – Bars the NSA and other agencies from using Section 215 of the Patriot Act (as codified by Section 501 of FISA) to collect records, including telephone call records, that pertain to persons who may be in communication with terrorist groups but are not already subject to an investigation under Section 215." Remember when Democrats used to object so earnestly when Dick Cheney would scream "The Terrorists!" every time someone tried to rein in the National Security State just a bit and so modestly protect basic civil liberties? How well they have learned: now, a bill to ban the government from collecting the telephone records of all Americans, while expressly allowing it to collect the records of anyone for whom there is evidence of wrongdoing, is - in the language of the House Democratic Leadership - a bill to Protect The Terrorists. None of this should be surprising. Remember: this is the same Nancy Pelosi who spent years during the Bush administration pretending to be a vehement opponent of the illegal Bush NSA warrantless eavesdropping program after it was revealed by the New York Times, even though (just as was true of the Bush torture program) she was secretly briefed on it many years earlier when it was first implemented. At the end of June, we published the top secret draft report by the Inspector General's office of the NSA that was required to provide a comprehensive history of the NSA warrantless eavesdropping program secretly ordered by Bush in late 2001. That report included this passage: "Within the first 30 days of the Program, over 190 people were cleared into the Program. This number included Senators Robert Graham and Richard Shelby, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Counsel to the Vice President David Addington, and Presidential Assistant I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby." So the history of Democratic leaders such as Nancy Pelosi isn't one of opposition to mass NSA spying when Bush was in office, only to change positions now that Obama is. The history is of pretend opposition - of deceiving their supporters by feigning opposition - while actually supporting it. But the most notable aspect of yesterday's events was the debate on the House floor. The most vocal defenders of the Obama White House's position were Rep. Mike Rogers, the very hawkish GOP Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and GOP Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. Echoing the Democratic House leadership, Bachmann repeatedly warned that NSA bulk spying was necessary to stop "Islamic jihadists", and she attacked Republicans who supported de-funding for rendering the nation vulnerable to The Terrorists. Meanwhile, Amash led the debate against the NSA program and repeatedly assigned time to many of the House's most iconic liberals to condemn in the harshest terms the NSA program defended by the Obama White House. Conyers repeatedly stood to denounce the NSA program as illegal, unconstitutional and extremist. Manhattan's Jerry Nadler said that "no administration should be permitted to operate beyond the law, as they've been doing". Newly elected Democrat Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, an Iraq War combat veteran considered a rising star in her party, said that she could not in good conscience take a single dollar from taxpayers to fund programs that infringe on exactly those constitutional rights our troops (such as herself) have risked their lives for; she told me after the vote, by Twitter direct message, that the "battle [was] lost today but war not over. We will continue to press on this issue." In between these denunciations of the Obama NSA from House liberals, some of the most conservative members of the House stood to read from the Fourth Amendment. Perhaps the most amazing moment came when GOP Rep. James Sensenbrenner - the prime author of the Patriot Act back in 2001 and a long-time defender of War on Terror policies under both Bush and Obama - stood up to say that the NSA's domestic bulk spying far exceeds the bounds of the law he wrote as well as his belief in the proper limits of domestic surveillance, and announced his support for Amash/Conyers. Sensenbrenner was then joined in voting to de-fund the NSA program by House liberals such as Barbara Lee, Rush Holt, James Clyburn, Nydia Velázquez, Alan Grayson, and Keith Ellison. Meanwhile, in the Senate, Democrat Ron Wyden continues to invoke unusually harsh language to condemn what the NSA is doing under Obama. Here is some of what he said in a speech this week at the Center for American Progress, as reported by the Hill: Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on Tuesday urged the United States to revamp its surveillance laws and practices, warning that the country will 'live to regret it' if it fails to do so. "'If we do not seize this unique moment in our constitutional history to reform our surveillance laws and practices, we will all live to regret it . . . The combination of increasingly advanced technology with a breakdown in the checks and balances that limit government action could lead us to a surveillance state that cannot be reversed,' he added. . . . "The government has essentially kept people in the dark about their broad interpretations of the law, he said. Wyden tells constituents there are two Patriot Acts: One they read online at home and 'the secret interpretation of the law that the government is actually relying upon.' "'If Americans are not able to learn how their government is interpreting and executing the law then we have effectively eliminated the most important bulwark of our democracy," he said. . . . "'This means that the government's authority to collect information on law-abiding American citizens is essentially limitless', he said." Wyden's full speech - in which he makes clear that it is solely the disclosures of the last seven weeks that have enabled this debate and brought about a massive shift in public opinion - is remarkable and can be read here. That's a senior Democrat and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee sounding exactly like Edward Snowden - and the ACLU - in denouncing the abuses of the American Surveillance State. Meanwhile, as soon as the House vote was over, Rep. Rush Holt, a long-time Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, introduced "The Surveillance State Repeal Act" that would repeal the legislative foundation for this massive spying, including the once-and-now-again-controversial Patriot Act, which the Obama administration in 2011 successfully had renewed without a single reform (after Democrat Harry Reid accused opponents of its reform-free renewal of endangering the Nation to The Terrorists). To say that there is a major sea change underway - not just in terms of surveillance policy but broader issues of secrecy, trust in national security institutions, and civil liberties - is to state the obvious. But perhaps the most significant and enduring change will be the erosion of the trite, tired prism of partisan simplicity through which American politics has been understood over the last decade. What one sees in this debate is not Democrat v. Republican or left v. right. One sees authoritarianism v. individualism, fealty to The National Security State v. a belief in the need to constrain and check it, insider Washington loyalty v. outsider independence. That's why the only defenders of the NSA at this point are the decaying establishment leadership of both political parties whose allegiance is to the sprawling permanent power faction in Washington and the private industry that owns and controls it. They're aligned against long-time liberals, the new breed of small government conservatives, the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, many of their own members, and increasingly the American people, who have grown tired of, and immune to, the relentless fear-mongering. The sooner the myth of "intractable partisan warfare" is dispelled, the better. The establishment leadership of the two parties collaborate on far more than they fight. That is a basic truth that needs to be understood. As John Boehner joined with Nancy Peolsi, as Eric Cantor whipped support for the Obama White House, as Michele Bachmann and Peter King stood with Steny Hoyer to attack NSA critics as Terrorist-Lovers, yesterday was a significant step toward accomplishing that. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/25/democratic-establishment-nsa

No question, it's easier to hold onto a principle when we're feeling secure than it is when we're afraid. But just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not worth preserving our core values. As the Japanese became our allies after World War II, we began to regret that we had ignored our principles, even as we were fighting to protect them. No one was proud of what we did to our Japanese citizens and, fortunately, we were able to avoid doing the same thing to our Muslim citizens after September 11th. But we had to make a conscious effort to keep away from that cliff and some folks did drift pretty near the edge. We had plenty of worried Muslim citizens a decade ago, and I'm sure there are still some who keep looking over their shoulders. We should take some pride, I think, that we resisted a repeat of the actions we took seven decades ago. Although there's no doubt that we did some significant ethnic profiling after September 11th, and are still doing some today. During the past decade, the New York police department took some heat for mounting cameras near mosques and infiltrating them. But at least, when it became known, there was a public debate, and a renewed agreement that we didn't want a repeat of what we did to our Japanese citizens. One thing that occurs to me now is that, in order to keep such ethnic profiling at bay today, the NSA has devised a workaround that involves profiling everybody. Seventy years ago, we couldn't keep everyone under surveillance, so we rounded up our Japanese citizens and put them inside barbed wire. Ten years ago, strategically placed cameras let us keep many of our Muslim citizens under close watch where they lived and worshipped. Now, to avoid that kind of scrutiny again, and since the technology allows it, our government has decided, in secret, to put everyone under some level of surveillance. As the technology matures, I expect we'll all be under closer watch. And, as our government becomes more and more committed to secrecy, the opportunities for debate will be closed off one by one. At least we don't have armed guards surrounding us. Not every day anyway.

For hitoall, for sure!

now all we'all need is a good ole' country farm boi to fuck and life would be good!

One thing that troubles me is that my already wispy hopes for a midterm Democratic resurgence in the House are getting downright gossamer. Fortunately, my Representative supported the Amash-Conyers amendment. A couple weeks ago, he hosted Nancy Pelosi at a fundraiser in a fairly well-to-do enclave that probably hasn't hasn't seen a protest in decades. It did this time. The progressives were out in full force, demonstrating against Pelosi who has been vocal in her support of the NSA and who was one of the "no" votes. I'd have been there too, had I known about it. Me!! Who's been one of her most vocal supporters! I'm glad I'm not in her District, as I don't see a way I could check her box, you should pardon the expression. The last thing the Democrats need to do, by my lights anyway, is to drive off any of their most loyal supporters in 2014. And here they are, finding a way.

Usually just a splash of eau de toilette, though never right after shaving.

I think you know what I'll say, but to roll it out: The new NC laws are pernicious because they will have the effect of making it more difficult for citizens to vote. You recall how Ervin opened the Watergate hearings: What they were seeking to steal was not the jewels, money or other property of American citizens, but something much more valuable -- their most precious heritage, the right to vote in a free election. That of course is exactly what is going on here. The practical effect of these new rules will be to narrow enfranchisement. If you think that is a good thing for democracy, then huzzah. But the cost/benefit arguments, I think, need to be pretty compelling indeed to justify fixing problems that are either nonexistent, or of minimal burden compared with the disenfranchising cost of the fix. For example the curtailment of early voting and of extended polling hours. Likewise the new voter ID law, purportedly needed to guard against voter fraud. What fraud? Well, here in NC: In 2012, nearly 7 million ballots were cast in the general and two primary elections. Of those 6,947,317 ballots, the state Board of Elections said 121 alleged cases of voter fraud were referred to the appropriate district attorney's office. That means of the nearly 7 million votes cast, voter fraud accounted for 0.00174 percent of the ballots. Looking back at the 2010 election cycle -- which was not a presidential year -- 3.79 million ballots were cast and only 28 cases of voter fraud were turned over to the appropriate DA's office. So in 2010, voter fraud accounted for 0.000738 percent of ballots cast. http://www.wncn.com/story/22934120/widespread-voter-fraud-not-an-issue-in-nc-data-shows Your comparison is to the ID required to buy beer. If voter fraud were remotely as popular as underage drinking, you might have a point. Even so, I wonder if consumer access to controlled substances merits quite the same level of protection as the right to vote. Besides the basic antagonism toward the democratic process of any disenfranchising measure, there is the blatant dishonesty in this Republican legislature and governor using these fig leaves to enact measures crafted specifically to suppress Democratic voter participation. Nothing new here, but it reeks nonetheless.

I have a bottle of very special fragrance called, "Always Shunned". It is especially bottled for and sold by Pepe Le Pew. I realize some take this subject more seriously than I do and I have no intention of having any undesirable odor but soap and water + very little else seem to be mostly sufficient. My old coach said never put anything on your hair but water. Which is sort of the same as what I do now. Take at least one shower a day and use a good but not scented deodorant and go from there. I have indeed been around men who smelled good or who were good smelling. But, I never was sexually attracted by that primarily. Just not smelling bad seems a reasonable step in the right direction. No offense to anyone intended. Best regards, RA1

Well it actually is a bit difficult to vote them out if you cannot get into the poll to vote. Much of the state has already been gerrymandered to favor the republicans. Just look to Pennsylvannia for proof of that. I think ditto for Ohio if I remember correctly. For many of the working poor, every cent does count. Normally these state ID's are not issued without a charge. To obtain a State ID, when do they have time get one? And if the person does not drive, it might entail some long bus rides. The repubs are counting on these voters to have a WTF moment and just give up. It is just easier to let it slide. It takes a lot to motivate a great part of the electorate to go to the polls on election day. Or even to know where their poll is and if it has moved. One only has to remember the long lines in Florida in 2000, to realize how important all of this should be to a great many more people.

Respected the US Constitution, same as today. ( Did I pass? )

If they catch the bastards I hope they sentence them to a year of community service scrubbing out port-a-potties.

Young Voters on Climate Deniers: ‘Ignorant, Out of Touch, Crazy’ By Salvatore Cardoni | Takepart.com 17 hours ago Takepart.com Say what you will about us millennials—we’re a wilting bouquet of narcissistic, socialistic, overeducated, underemployed, tatted-up hipsters who still live at home—but, from this day forward, don’t you dare say we’re climate change deniers. A strong majority (66 percent!) of young independent voters, ages 18 to 34, accept as dogma that man and his dirty deeds are causing, and will continue to cause, climate change—this according to a study conducted by a bipartisan pair of political strategy groups for the League of Conservation Voters. “As a Republican party strategist I believe that Republican candidates, Republican elected officials, need to find ways to demonstrate tolerance and understanding of what a young generation of voters need to see occurring,” said Greg Strimple of GS Strategy, to The Guardian. Climate Progress has a nice breakdown of the study’s broad strokes: —Among those unfavorable to the president, 56 percent still supported him taking action on climate change. —79 percent said they were more likely to vote for a candidate who supported taking action on climate change; 73 percent they were less likely to vote for someone who opposed climate action plans like the president’s. —It wasn’t just Democratic respondents who thought climate change deniers were out of touch: 74 percent of Independents and 53 percent of Republicans used the words “ignorant, out of touch, or crazy” to describe deniers. —Only 26 percent bought the argument that action on climate change would kill jobs, while 65 percent said they thought taking action on climate change would create jobs. So this is wonderful news, right? Maybe, maybe. Battle-scarred by lost climate fights of yore—the 2009 defeat of Waxman-Markey still stings—I’m cynical about these kinds of studies. And not just because of the notion that “people will tell pollsters anything to get off the phone.” We millennials, we like to think we’re cool and hip, part of the in crowd, and that we’re at least sitting at the cool kids’ table. And so when a pollster calls us and asks us questions about being against climate change—it means we’d have to be against settled science, against saving ourselves and our future, which means we’d have to side with eight shades of crazy. But we’re not stupid. We know climate change is real—that it isn’t, as some deniers have said with a straight face, caused by dinosaur flatulence and rain dances. All that said, I worry if, when polled, these young Americans simply decided to sit at the cool table? That they didn’t want to admit they’re against climate change, and that they’re for insanity. Will young voters actually make climate change the deciding issue when picking a candidate? Will young Republicans ever actually cross the aisle to vote for a Democrat because their candidate is firmly anti-science? Will young, self-identified Democrats in coal-loving, Blue Dog districts actually vote for a green, progressive candidate in the primary? Come the 2014 midterm elections, will any of these young voters actually vote the way they told a pollster they would in July 2013? Stay tuned. http://news.yahoo.com/young-voters-climate-deniers-ignorant-touch-crazy-184303009.html

Photo below are the backups for Papa Fran and the Disciples. Already dressed up in their tres gay, petite yarmulkes and matching, tied-in-front, Japanese-inspired obis The gound-skimming tails being oh so gay-chic. Photo taken in front of the Hotel Guanabara Palace right around the corner from Clube New Meio Mundo. I think they were preparing to do an audition number for Meimo Dos Brilhos and audition as her new bunch of Lolitos. But I would like to know if anyone told them that will need to dancing in only their matching hot pink thongs? So, traffic totally sucked yesterday. The metro was closed down. All traffic, buses, private cars and taxis were prohibited from using the new tunnel that runs to Ave. Princess Isabel. Had to transit via Figueredo & Siqueira. Papa Fran walked the stations on the beach in the wind and rain among the children of mostily South Amierca, although I did see a group of kids on Praca XV under the banner of Ireland. But mainly lots and lots of Chilean, Urugaian and Paraguian flags. I felt like doing a few stanzas of "We Are The World" and then like Lazarus, join hands and start swaying, then like a Pepsi commerical, have Michael Jackson arise from the Dead and molest more than a few of them.

That's why I even wear a Lobster bib when giving a blowjob....

Here in Brasil, you cannot wear enough. I have read they last longer when you combine two different scents. #1)Vetiver - Guerlain #2 Issey Miyake #3)Aqua di Parma - Italy #4)Marc Jacobs #5)Gucci For Men People remark the most about Issey Miyake and Marc Jacobs. Me, I like the Aqua di Parma and Vetiver. But you know, whatever works getting them to nuzzle this fragile, aging bag of bones and sagging skin.

Today in Centro, right near the corner of Rua Graca Aranha and Rua Mexico, I met two really cute, younger padres-in-training. Garret from Chicago and David from LA. They were helping out at the Vivo Visitor's Center on the beach but yesterday they were working and no chance to see Frannie. Cuties and quite thin. They could convert me to Catholicisim. All they would need to do is overpower me with their fire and brimstone. And for Hito, a couple of pairs of come-fuck-me heels, certainly. Not sure how many are going to show up for the Sunday Mass given by Frannie, but they are going to need more Holy Wafers than exist in Vanuatu, Fiji and Bali combined. Transubtantiation times 1 million. I spied a bunch of cuties from Lithuania, blond, blue-eyed and built who are staying on the island. Does it constitute rape if you tell them that you are just taking them to a higher level in their connection with The Lord? Or something like that. He had beautiful runners legs with a soft coating of blond down. A high and tight butt crack and pert hard nipples poking through his t-shirt and a knowing padre/minder/wrangler who saw me oggling his jail bait and indicated that he knew what I was thinking as I eyed blondie and three others no quite as spectacular. It was like a Bel Ami festival in the flesh. Oh well, my schoolboy from Recreio makes a return visit for the night. I shouldn't be too unhappy.

I thought those guys were gathering for a Weight Watchers Meeting!

Yep. Ditto Goncalense for someone from Sao Goncalo. Caixiense for Duque de Caxias. Second and third largest cities in the metropolitan region.