Sunday Clips

And While You're At It, Don't Talk Mexican In Front Of Me In The Wal-Mart Checkout Line Neither

Find the common thread in these three stories.

GOP on 2012 Vote: Block It, Don't Rock It:

In 2011, Republican Party of Florida “hard right-wing conservatives”in hammerlock control of the state added some wrinkles of their own to the mix, passing a new anti-voting rights law with an old purpose - suppressing the vote of those perceived as “oppositional”. The law shamelessly targets young/minority voters, Early Voting, and voter registration drives that the RPOF fears might help Democrats earn victories.

Dana Milbank, The birthers eat their own:

The people who brought you the Barack Obama birth-certificate hullabaloo now have a new target: Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a man often speculated to be the next Republican vice presidential nominee. While they’re at it, they also have Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana and perhaps a future presidential candidate, in their sights.

The good news for the birthers is that this suggests they were going after Obama, whose father was a Kenyan national, not because of the president’s political party. The bad news is that this supports the suspicion that they were going after Obama because of his race.

Alexander Stille, The Paradox of the New Elite:

It's a puzzle: one dispossessed group after another — blacks, women, Hispanics and gays — has been gradually accepted in the United States, granted equal rights and brought into the mainstream.

At the same time, in economic terms, the United States has gone from being a comparatively egalitarian society to one of the most unequal democracies in the world.

Other nations seem to face the same challenge: either inclusive, or economically just. Europe has maintained much more economic equality but is struggling greatly with inclusiveness and discrimination, and is far less open to minorities than is the United States.

European countries have done a better job of protecting workers’ salaries and rights but have been reluctant to extend the benefits of their generous welfare state to new immigrants who look and act differently from them. Could America’s lost enthusiasm for income redistribution and progressive taxation be in part a reaction to sharing resources with traditionally excluded groups?

Here, let me spell it out for ya.