Full article here.  A portion:

“That’s a legitimate point of personal pride, but in his official capacity Holder owes his allegiance to the nation as a whole. If he approaches the job with the attitude that any group smaller than all Americans is “my people,” he is the wrong man for the position.”

More on the unfortunate “my people” misstep by Attorney General Holder. 

Washington Post:  “That, in the trade, is called an admission against interest.”

National Review.  A witness “will often make revealing admissions if he becomes flustered or angry. “

American Thinker. “That brought out the worst in Holder who then made Culberson’s case for him.”

The Blaze (with link to video and also Limbaugh comments)

The peculiar thing about the mistake is that some outlets actually viewed the comments as a good thing, as a sassy retort, oblivious the the damage such exclusionary attitudes would cause with a large segment of the American population who believe in fair play.

Members of the Project 21 black leadership network issue a statement after yesterday’s House Appropriations hearing with Attorney General Holder here.

Mississippi lawmakers are finalizing redistricting plans as discussed in this Gulflive.com story.

The story contains this mistake:

“They will then go to committees in each chamber, then to the full chambers, then to Gov. Haley Barbour. Moffatt said he expects the process to take no longer than a week, at which point — barring any glitches — the plan goes to the Justice Department for approval.”

The plan does not necessarily go to the Justice Department for approval.  Mississippi could, and should for the reasons discussed here, file the plan directly in the United States District Court. 

A Boston Herald story  recounts indictments from the 2000 redistricting in Massachusetts and this claim:  “Moran promised members of the New Democracy Coalition — a group committed to enforcing minority voting rights — over the weekend that he’ll keep at least a 40 percent minority voting bloc in the 8th Congressional District. The district is made up of the north part of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville and Chelsea.”  He says to do otherwise would violate the Voting Rights Act.

It’s hard to understand how Mr. Moran could be correct after Bartlett v. Strickland was decided requiring a rock solid fifty percent threshold to support a Section 2 vote dilution case, unless he thinks reducing BPOP = intentional discrimination.  Good luck.

This article in Town Talk repeats the common error that only the Department of Justice can approve redistricting plans under Section 5. 

“Lawmakers will be in hurry-up mode. Whatever they propose will have to survive the scrutiny of the U.S. Department of Justice, as required by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and be done in time to accommodate the primary and general elections later this year.”

If lawmakers want to increase the chances that the Louisiana will be approved, they should submit the plan directly to United States District Court for the reasons outlined in this article.

“Port Chester voting rights appeals to get lots of scrutiny.”

Here is a headline you don’t see often: Group tries to combat underage voting in Washington state.

The story notes that multiple underage people were improperly registered to vote:

“they found evidence of several individuals who, since 2006, were only 16-years-old when they registered. ‘We found dozens and dozens of illegal voters and underage voters, so clearly there is a problem here; We felt it was a violation of federal election law that says that Sam Reed has to maintain an accurate election data base.’  Even with the written policy in place now, Reitz says the ideas behind the early registration were bologna. ‘The secretary of state’s office literally argued that if we turn these underage applicants away, they will be so devastated and discouraged that they may never vote again.'”

What about the law?

That federal election law in question would be the Help America Vote Act and/or Section 8 of Motor Voter. Will the Department of Justice make any inquiry at all of how bad the problem was in Washington?  Will anyone quantify if any of these people voted?

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp will be testifying in Austin on the Texas Voter ID legislation. 

Perhaps he will share the success Georgia enjoyed by going to United States District Court with their citizenship verification procedures instead of relying on the Justice Department to preclear them.