TV story here.

Houston Chron with more details.

“Political Pandering at DOJ”  Here.

Some PJTV interviews.  Catherine Engelbrecht.    Joe Miller.   Senator Norm Coleman.  John Fund.  Mine. 

Florida has reversed the rules imposed by ex-Governor Charlie Crist that made it easier for felons to restore their voting rights.  Governor Scott has reversed them and has not sent them to the Justice Department for preclearance under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.  The NAACP and the Advancement Project are demanding he do so.

This is one submission some in the DOJ might not want to see either.  A preclearance will anger friends.  An objection will infuriate everyone else.

Here.

Listen here.   PTSD.  Tears.   New Black Panthers.  John Culberson.  OPR concludes, according to NPR, that neither “Bush nor Obama lawyers did anything wrong.” 

Ohio Voter ID is a “solution in search of a problem” in this Columbus Dispatch piece.

Voter ID was a “solution in search of a problem” in a number of other states also.  They include Tennessee, Wisconsin, Texas, Colorado, Mississippi and Minnesota.

Ruth Colker, the author of the Op-Ed, is the “Heck-Faust Memorial Chair in Constitutional Law at the Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law.”   She is also, according to her website, “a nationally recognized expert in constitutional law, disability discrimination, feminist theory and gay rights.”

A portion of her article: “When I raised this issue at the hearing and suggested that college students are often busy and might not have the time to make a special trip merely for the purpose of getting a state ID to vote, some Republican members of the committee smirked and scoffed at the notion that college students are busy.”   Basing opposition to voter ID on the idea that the public will consider college kids too busy to get an ID is an argument best left in back in the ivory tower.  The GOP members of the committee, half of whom have advanced degrees, spent plenty of time absorbing what really happens on campus.

Colker adds: “As a university professor, this was the low point of the hearing for me. These state legislators seem out-of-touch with the rising costs of a college education and the need for many students to balance work and school while being dependent on public transportation.”   

Someone needs to send better talking points to Ohio State, and quick. 

The deep divide between the American people versus the media and their content providers in academia provides yet another example why the old media models are dying.   Nowhere is this more obvious than with the overwhelming public support for photo voter identification requirements compared with the media blitzkrieg against it.  Reporters who are quick to swallow the hook offered up by places like the Brennan Center and Tova Wang at Demos should think twice before throwing their newspapers in front of a wave of public support for the policy.  This is what is causing outlets like McClatchy to flirt with bankruptcy.  A Wall Street Journal poll found that 81 percent of Americans support photo identification requirements.  Other polls consistently back up this finding.  The numbers transcend race, income and education.  These are huge numbers.  So how do you explain the daily drumbeat of media accounts adopting the wildly unpopular storyline that voter id is a bad thing?  Either the newspaper writers are content to antagonize the sensibilities of their readers – a dangerous business model – or are gullible enough to accept the organized spin of a few activist groups and their fellow travelers in academia, or both.  Here is a sample of today’s organized efforts against Voter ID, and the overwhelming support of the American people:

Voter ID a waste of time and money. The “money” part of the argument is a recent invention from the voter fraud deniers spin factory.

We don’t need voter exclusion act.

A short history of poll taxes to voter ID.

Disenfranchising the poor and religious.

One Voter ID critic results in TV news story.

Across country, GOP pushes voter ID! – (maybe they read the polls).

Restrictive Voter ID bills advance.

Solve the real problems!

Voter ID is actually voter “suppression”!!

Voter ID bill raises flags!!!

Local taxpayers may bear the cost of voter ID.

Voter ID comes in Texas at too high a cost.  – complete with this falsehood: “Federal law states you can’t deny the person the right to vote,” said Ramirez.

Voter ID in North Carolina too costly.

Voter ID in North Carolina too costly, says a tv station that got the same talking points.

Voter ID in Minnesota too costly, says a tv station that got the same talking points, with the name of the state replaced.

Alas, here is a measured sensible viewpoint, at odds with the spin from the well funded organized opponents of the measures. 

Bryan Preston has this report on Day One of the True the Vote National Summit in Houston including an amusing story of a TPM Muckraker “reporter” trying to con his way into the event by hook or crook.  Senator Norm Coleman provided fascinating details how a lead on election night turned into a loss.

Warner Todd Huston also covers Day One of the Summit here at Chicagonow.com.

Tonight at the True the Vote National Summit, Senator Norm Coleman spoke, as did Hans von Spakovsky and Anita Moncrief.  The summit is sold out with people from 27 states.  Great to see Stewart Mayper and everyone from Texas working so hard.