Voter suppression as a strategy can't last forever, says a GOP commentator

I missed this post-Election Day thought piece a couple of weeks ago. Among other details in its explanation of why the massive GOP victory earlier this month wasn't as massive, or a victory, as it seems, the author notes:

Vote suppression is working remarkably well, but that won’t last. Eventually Democrats will help people get the documentation they need to meet the ridiculous and confusing new requirements. The whole “voter integrity” sham may have given Republicans a one or maybe two-election boost in low-turnout races. Meanwhile [the GOP] kissed off minority votes for the foreseeable future.

(Emphasis added.) I noticed that in July, 2013, myself; but, you know, voice-wilderness-etc.:

You can roll back the business end of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and implement anti-voting measures right away, but it can't end well. The little old ladies with no driver licenses will die off. Those of us born before all the birth records were digitized or originated on the computer will get our acts together and get the right ID. And people my daughter's age, who were in the computer from the get-go, won't have a problem getting their voter ID. Requiring state-issued ID and then making it hard to obtain is not a sustainable strategy.

Amused to see there's a voice in the GOP wilderness on this nonsense as well.

Via Noz.

Solomon Jones has chosen his hill to die on

Philly.com columnist Solomon Jones has chosen his hill to die on, and that hill is named "Those Untrustworthy Sluts Who Dare to Accuse Bill Cosby, a Great Man Who Opened a Door for Me Years Ago, Are Cowardly."

The Bill Cosby I know is a generous man who advised me as I sought to write a book of family humor, introduced me to an editor at a national magazine, and did similar things for many others.

Translation: "He never slipped me a mickey in the rec room! So if he really did drug and rape 'several' women, why haven't they gone to the police? Huh? Huh? Answer me that!"

Every day, there are women who report being victimized by men.

These women -- women who have been hurt, assaulted, damaged and traumatized -- are often looking for nothing more than justice from the system and protection from their tormenters.

And every day, such women take the brave step of reporting what happened to them; not for personal gain, or for media notoriety, but because it is right.

You see, real crime victims, people who have been truly, legitimately, and forcibly raped, get up and dust themselves off and bravely go to the cops right away to see justice done.

I've asked if Jones feels the same way about victims of pedophile priests, but he's tossed the "I gotta go back to work" answer at a couple of other commenters so I imagine I'll get that response eventually myself.

Other writers have written better about why victims of rape and other sexual assaults don't try to press charges or file civil lawsuits, whether immediately or well after the statutes of limitations have run. Victim Barbara Bowman, for example, in asking why it took a male comic's stand-up routine to bring publicity to her accusations -- the title itself of her commentary answers the damn question. Too bad Solomon Jones hasn't read those pieces as part of his work research for this item.

Friday jukebox: Genesis live in 1973

Via openculture.

Who is the Amistad Law Project on the Mumia Abu-Jamal lawsuit?

I'm pretty sure that the website for the Amistad Law Project, a "West Philadelphia-based public interest law center" founded last month, does not meet the standards of the Pennsylvania Rules for Professional Conduct.

The lawyers do not give their complete names, so you can't look them up to see if they have professional malpractice insurance or find out if there's been any disciplinary history against them. You can't even see if they're, you know, actual lawyers licensed in Pennsylvania since they give just their first names. But, hey, at least Ashley, who also goes by the name of Kris, lets you know what their preferred gender pronoun is.

Fortunately, the ALP's attorneys are co-counsel on Mumia Abu-Jamal's lawsuit to halt the anti-First Amendment "Revictimization Relief Act" that Governor Corbett signed into law in October. I say fortunately, because the lawsuit paperwork includes the ALP's attorneys' full names and Pennsylvania Bar ID numbers.

You shouldn't have to go spelunking to find out your lawyer's full name and status to practice in Pennsylvania. The Revictimization Relief Act is stupid law, and it's unconstitutional on its face; but the attorneys who are fighting it should be acting like real attorneys. Anyway, my temp gig at a local legal services nonprofit is up, so I have a little bit of time on my hands today. I did the spelunking for you! ALP's attorneys are:

Ashley Kristin Henderson, attorney ID number 313492, admitted 28 November 2012

Deneekie Kaleel Grant, attorney ID number 314220, admitted 28 November 2012

Neither of the attorneys carries professional liability insurance. To be clear, Pennsylvania licensure rules do not include a requirement that an attorney carry professional liability insurance. (A legal malpractice plaintiff's attorney I know would argue vigorously that it is unethical, though legal, to practice without such insurance.) But if you do carry insurance, then you have to carry a minimum amount. And if you don't carry insurance, then you have to disclose that fact to your client and to the licensure authority. Now, you can tell the authority one of two things. You can say, "I don't carry insurance, but I do have clients and thus possible liability issues." Or you can say, "I don't carry insurance, but that's OK because I don't take clients." The ALP lawyers have gone this second route. It doesn't look factual to me, because they're signed onto the lawsuit as counsel, not as amicus.

But in any event, I wish them all the luck in the world on this lawsuit. As I say, it's a very bad law, and the lawsuit looks competently drafted (PDF). Onward and upward!

Unsustainable temp job

I am running on adrenaline and coffee all week at this terrible temp job, leaving me exhausted and cranky evenings and weekends. This nonsense would have been a lot easier 20 years ago. Just 2 more weeks. Good thing the paycheck will be too miserly to miss.

Coffee, then Scotch whisky

Had a cup of coffee at 6:15 p.m. so that I'd make it through a 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. meeting. Now at 10:30 p.m. I'm relaxing with a weegenerous dram of one of Scotland's finest single-malts so that I can get some reasonable number of hours of sleep tonight before heading back to the temp gig up the street tomorrow.

My time management was just fine today; it's the consciousness management that I don't think I've handled so well. Though I must say, a huge advantage of starting at 9:00 a.m. at an office that's a brisk 12-minute walk from home is that I can get quite a few chores done in the morning before I have to leave the house. Laundry ahoy!

Tell you what, the complete shitshow that is the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will not be helping me get to sleep tonight (PDF).

More news than I need, less work than I need

I got nothin' on the news of the last six-plus months that other people haven't spoken about more completely, eloquently, bitingly, or dissentingly. (I'm liking Raw Story and the BBC lately; I feel actively dumber whenever I look at CNN nowadays.) Spring and summer kept me busy, just like everyone else, I'm sure. This autumn has found me temping in the legal department of a local non-profit organization.

All I'll say on that is that all happy non-profits are alike; every unhappy non-profit is unhappy in its own way.

I've worked very closely with some half-dozen non-profits over the years, whether as employee, long-term volunteer, or board member. To a one, they all had some kind of dysfunction. Even in one that didn't appear to have a dysfunction, there was a serious flaw: the strong, smart, and talented executive director, who worked well with everyone and brought in tons of cash, didn't have a realistic succession plan. So even though work was always very on-mission and more often than not successful, and even though the coffers were full and employees fairly paid, what will happen when the E.D. is no longer in place, either by plan or after a sudden, unexpected (and hopefully not tragic) departure?

To be clear and to keep my current workplace anonymous, this is not the pattern in the organization where I'm working right now. In fact, this office is far more dysfunctional, and in more serious ways. I say as non-profit governance expert.

Anyhow, the temp gig will wrap up sometime next month, leaving my dance card open for another organization that needs a Monday morning quarterback in the salt mines, to mix metaphors. Excelsior.

Clinic protestor gone

H/T to journalist acquaintance Tara Murtha -- a "frequent flyer" anti-choice protestor at the clinic where I used to escort patients passed away at the end of last month.

Philip Seymour Hoffman's options

Addiction is awful. I have my own issues or baggage or whatever you want to call it, and I lost a few years in a relationship with someone who was "leaving Las Vegas"; but since I'm not addicted I'm sure I can't fully understand what's going on with someone who has a monkey on their back.

And I'm a civil libertarian. We get just one trip through life, and personally I don't like to spend too much of it disengaged from what's going on around me. I definitely try to avoid risks that will make my trip shorter. But it's not up to me to keep someone else from spending their trip chemically disengaged from the horror of knowing that the end of this trip is oblivion. If it helps you to deal with that horror, then by all means, smoke, drink, snort, chew, pop, shoot. Do what you gotta do; drugging the horror away is certainly an option. Other options include therapy, detox, rehab, or, if your resources are limited, sweating it out.

Absolutely: using is an option. And I think risk reduction is a better idea for public and individual health than prohibition. However, once you have a kid, the option to use goes away.

And if you're an Academy Award-winning actor with three pre-teen kids, then it's even less of an option because your other options include some of the best therapy, detox, and rehab solutions that money can buy.

I don't know what was going on in Philip Seymour Hoffman's present or past. I've thought a lot about addiction before, though it's been just over 5 years since the end of my relationship with an alcoholic. Since I don't know Hoffman and his family, and since I write from a perceived position of safe pseudonymity, my initial reaction to the news of his overdose death was a visceral, "Fuck Philip Seymour Hoffman. You don't get to do that when you have kids."

It's a harsh, insensitive thing to say. Maybe it comes from not a little bit of envy, as well. If I had Academy Award-winning money, I could maybe hire me some childcare and go on a stupendous bender every once in a while, or get better therapy, or, you know, turn my thermostat up in the winter. But mostly it comes from my heart, breaking for three pre-teen children whose father completely failed in his duty to put their needs above his.

North Korea is fascinating -- fascinating enough not to visit

North Korea fascinates me, though I'm not sure what intrigues me most. The government run by a family, in the best medieval dynastic tradition, perhaps -- who needs "The Tudors" or Richard III when the Kim family and their circle recreate the drama for real in the 21st century? I mean, dating someone in the higher echelons of a Western government can lead to scandal, political downfall, a tell-all book, and decades of being a comedian's punchline. But in North Korea, sleeping with the wrong person can put you on the wrong side of a firing squad ten years later.

Or maybe what fascinates me is the completely subjugated and brainwashed public, who wear compulsory jewelry while the army appropriates food from shopkeepers, and people starve while the government stages elaborate anniversary celebrations.

Or perhaps it's the brutal treatment of imprisoned criminals and political enemies, or reported methods of execution that are so extreme that news agencies that should know better take a "release the hounds!" execution story at face value for days.

Yet while I find North Korea fascinating to contemplate, in the abstract, from my desk or sofa, I can't imagine ever going there. Not as a journalist, not as a missionary or tourist, and for the love of christ certainly not as a returning veteran of the Korean War, which North Korea considers still an active, ongoing war. And I'm reminded that I've discussed this kind of thing before. There are places in the world that Americans just shouldn't go to. This is a shame, and the problem lies squarely at the feet of our government and its policies, actions, and failures of diplomacy with these places. Or, with North Korea, it's not solely the fault of the U.S., because the dynamic on the Korean Peninsula is a few hundred years in the making and there's a huge country next door that's had more than a little bit to do with the current situation. But the bottom line is that you can't always get what you want, even if you're an American.

Or Dennis Rodman. I don't understand why he's gone to North Korea and sung "Happy Birthday" to Kim Jong Un. I don't understand how he can blind himself to North Korea's reality -- recognizing, of course, that we in the West aren't getting all of it, and, again, some of us were easily fooled by the death-by-dogs story. I don't know if he sees himself as a bona fide door-opening, curtain-drawing cultural ambassador; or if he's not fully aware of conditions in North Korea for dissidents, the rural hungry, and so on; or if he is fully aware, doesn't care, and is having fun being treated like a king; or if he's simply clueless. I'm not sure which situation I'd like it to be.