Author Archives: J Christian Adams

“Group under fire for McConnell tweets also faces FEC questions”

When it rains, it pours.  The super PAC under fire for posting racist tweets about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s wife failed to disclose its December fundraising numbers and received a warning notice from the Federal Election Commission. Progress Kentucky, which was formed in December to oppose McConnell, received a letter from the FEC Feb. 19 asking for the super PAC to disclose its donors and expenditures.

Link at Politico.

Intimidation Time: Mother Jones’ Foggy Time Warp

The left wing media campaign to intimidate the Justices of the Supreme Court regarding the Shelby case has commenced.  Mother Jones deploys the familiar tactic of personalization and too clever twists of the truth.  The piece “Chief Justice Roberts’ Long War Against the Voting Rights Act” conjures up the ghost of Strom Thurmond.  But it does so by glossing over the difference between 1965 and 1982, and trying to put Roberts in league with the 1965 version of Strom Thurmond:

“Shelby County offers Roberts an opportunity to complete a mission he began three decades ago. When the chief justice was a young lawyer, in 1981, Southern legislators hoped an ascendant conservative movement could pressure Reagan into opposing an extension of the VRA. In June of that year, Reagan wrote a letter to Attorney General William French Smith requesting an “assessment” of the law. “I am sensitive to the controversy which has attached itself to some of the Act’s provisions, in particular those provisions which impose burdens unequally upon different parts of the nation,” Reagan wrote. “But I am sensitive also to the fact that the spirit of the Act marks this nation’s commitment to full equality for all Americans, regardless of race, color, or national origin.” Reagan didn’t go as far as former segregationist and then-Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) by opposing the Voting Rights Act in its entirety, but his administration fought efforts to strengthen the law.”

There’s just one problem with bringing up Thurmond’s ghost: he voted for the 1982 Amendments to the Voting Rights Act.  But you’d hardly know it from the piece. 


When Thurmond voted for the 1982 amendments at issue in the Mother Jones piece, and particularly as it relates to young John Roberts (note that 1965 Thurmond parachutes into the discussion of 1982), Thurmond said he had “concerns” about the bill — and had long been vocal about it only applying to Southern states — but said “I must take into account the common perception that a vote against the bill indicates opposition to the right to vote.”  See the book Strom by Jack Bass and Marilyn Thompson, page 297, 194.


This is standard fare from the author of the piece.  Another lie is here.  Whether or not “racism” exists has relevance to Shelby only to the moronic or those that would incite them, and if it did, the whole country should be covered by Section 5.

Facts are sometimes convenient, sometimes not, and as in this case, sometimes helpful when only half right.

“Progress Kentucky should seek preclearance from DOJ for tweets”

WSJ: The attack on Mrs. McConnell, who in public goes by her maiden name of
Elaine Chao, took place on Twitter. The station quotes a Progress
Kentucky tweet dated Feb. 14: “This woman has the ear of (Sen.
McConnell)—she’s his wife. May explain why your job moved to China!”
That was followed by a link
to what WFPL describes as “a website run by conspiracy theorist and
radio host Jeff Rense, alleging Chao, who was born in Taiwan,
discriminated against American workers during her tenure.” Chao served
as labor secretary from 2001 through 2009.

…Shawn Reilly, Progress Kentucky’s executive director, acknowledged the problem, telling Bailey in a follow-up report
that the tweet “included an inappropriate comment on [Chao’s]
ethnicity.” He added: “We apologize to the secretary for that
unnecessary comment and have deleted the tweets in question. In
addition, we have put a review process in place to ensure tweets and
other social media communications from Progress Kentucky are reviewed
and approved prior to posting.” Maybe they should seek preclearance from
the Justice Department.

A “Substantial Amount” of Closed Doors and Despair

Today, Justice Kennedy asked the Solicitor General how many people in the DOJ Voting Section work on Section 5 reviews.  The Solicitor General would not answer with precision, but rather said “a substantial amount.”

After the troops of Voting Section staff returned to their offices after attending the Shelby arguments today, ELC learns that a “substantial amount” of doors inside the Voting Section are now closed.  We also hear that there is a substantial amount of despair and pessimism about the prospects of Section 5.  It looks like a substantial amount of idle time may characterize Summer 2013 at the Voting Section. 

Zack Roth’s Twice Inaccurate Story on the Voting Rights Act at MSNBC

Zack Roth has this story at MSNBC on the Voting Rights Act, and it is riddled with inaccuracies.   (Read about his earlier racialist attack on the lawyer for Shelby County.)

First, the most obvious one:

In at least some cases, the courts disagree. The Justice Department last year used Section 5 to block a photo ID law in South Carolina and an effort to reduce early voting days in Florida, moves that were upheld by the courts. Studies have shown that African-Americans are more likely than whites to lack a photo ID, and to take advantage of early voting, including during “Souls to the Polls” drives that often are held after church services on the Sunday before the election.

Someone get Zack an editor that subscribes to a newspaper.  The court in the South Carolina voter ID did NOT concur with the Justice Department.  To write otherwise is either a lazy oversight or an outright lie.  Both options speak volumes about MSNBC.

Then there is the second subtle inaccuracy:

Photo ID laws, I think, are color-blind,” said Sensenbrenner. “There is not the overwhelming evidence that, for example, voter ID or early voting discriminate on a race-based matter.”

Of course the 2006 revisions of Section 5 by the Republican Congress no longer require “overwhelming evidence” that a law discriminates before it can be objected to by DOJ.  In fact, it doesn’t require any evidence that a law discriminate.  It actually shifts the burden onto the state to prove the absence of evidence that a law discriminates.  The government need not produce “overwhelming” evidence; the state must prove there is no evidence.  Get it?  Naturally, Roth made no effort to present the law accurately.