Claims a New Jersey voter cast a ballot after moving to Maryland.  Voter claims they were at firefighting school.

EDITORIAL: Holder ill serves his ‘people’

“Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. played the race card in congressional testimony on Tuesday, referring to blacks as his ‘people’ while neglecting the rest of Americans.”

Full editorial.

This Baltimore Sun Op Ed responds to Maryland’s catastrophic violation of Federal law, in particular, motor voter Section 7.  The op ed prescribes a draconian solution to a problem with an obvious alternative remedy.  It states:

“Fortunately, the Maryland voter registration problem can be solved easily and in a way that saves money for state and local government: Make voter registration automatic. Build it into the routine of each bureaucracy, so that the information for every qualified customer of the MVA or a public assistance or disability services office automatically goes on the list of citizens eligible to vote.”

News flash – not everyone wants to be registered to vote, and that’s a good thing.  One of the benefits of living in a free country is that citizens are free to check out, tune out and disengage from politics if that floats their boat.  Given how many opportunities people have to register to vote, by mail, at the DMV, at any number of government offices, if someone says no often enough, no means no.  There are actually people in this country who refuse to vote on principle.  Though I suspect there might not be much overlap between the “getting welfare faction” and the “refuse to vote faction,” the freedom to stay unengaged is as important as the freedom to get engaged.

Plus, don’t let on to the “beneficiaries” about all the direct mail that will choke your mailbox once you register to vote.  Or the phone calls.  Or the push polls.  The knocks on the door when you are trying to watch a college football game.  The literature cluttering your porch when you have an armful of groceries.  Like most things, freedom is the solution to this problem, as long as Maryland follows federal Motor Voter law.

Of course since mandatory automatic registration of welfare recipients is such a bad idea, Maryland will probably pass it through their legislature by next Tuesday as they tend to do with other bad ideas.

Lite blogging Thursday.  I will be speaking at the Penn State University School of Law at 1:15 at the State College campus room 112.  I am told it will be simulcast at the Carlisle campus in room 106.  Topic: Voting Rights, Black Panthers and Lawlessness.

“Eric Holder’s People” for full story.

“The attorney general defends the Justice Department’s mishandling of the New Black Panther voter intimidation case in racial terms at the same time he says race had nothing to do with it.”

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.