Voter Suppression Upheld in PA.: SHAMEFUL

Not much time for a detailed comment, except to say the Judge's decision in Pennsylvania Commonwealth court to uphold a law that admittedly could disenfranchise 9% of the state's electorate, to address an essentially nonexistent "problem," and the Minority Leader of the legislative body publicly admitted that the motivation of the law was political, i.e., to skew the election in that state for partisan purposes, is just breathtaking. I used to say the Republicans wanted to turn the clock back to McKinley, having gone so far right that merely obliterating the New Deal wasn't enough for them, they had to do away with the Progressive Era reforms as well. Now, it seems, they want to go all the way back to the era of the backlash against Reconstruction, of the 1870s and 80s, when Rightist judges were upholding things like poll taxes and literacy tests for voting.

This is truly shameful. It makes me wonder, and not for the first time, if we really are witnessing the death of the American Republic.