Glad That Whole Racism Thing Is Over

That is, according to Justice Roberts. 

Here's a visual of the impact of the VRA:

Buried deep in Roberts' opinion, on page 15, is this remarkable chart comparing voter registration numbers from 1965 to 2004. The influence of the VRA in increasing black registration percentages appears extraordinary and undeniable.

But that's all history, racism is dead and over with. And Paula Deen is allowed to use the N-word with no repercussions. It's not like she's a racist or anything.

YES YES YES

Gay marriage ruling: Supreme Court finds DOMA unconstitutional

I know we have a ways to go for the full equality for our LGBT citizens but I am celebrating this victory.

Reading List June 26, 2013

Who needs those pesky worker protections anyway? There's little focus on this but it certainly makes work life that much harder now, especially in Right To Work states (HA!).

From the Better Late Than Never Department:
This is a huge load off of my mind. I was so worried about the sexual assault epidemic in the military but apparently, it's not so bad and it's easily explained.

This is the reality of the SCOTUS decision on voter registration. I first voted in 1992 in my college town of Rome, GA. Fast forward a decade (plus)  and this certainly would have been my story.

#IStandWithWendy What an amazing act of courage! And what an amazing display of asshattery for the Texas Legislature to try to sneak #SB5 through after midnight. Of course Texas has been trying to turn back the clock for years... to 1850.

And speaking of screwing American workers, let's look at Hostess to see how it's done.

• Unionized Hostess workers made major concessions, taking pay and benefits cuts. That money was supposed to be reinvested into the company. It wasn't.
• As the company was struggling, its CEO pay skyrocketed, and as it was going into bankruptcy, Hostess pushed to give $1.75 million in bonuses to top executives.
• Hostess claimed it had to close plants because workers went on strike, but in fact, the company was already planning to close nine bakeries and wasn't telling which ones.
• Hostess stole its workers' pension money to fund itself and still went bankrupt.
• And, as Media Matters points out, "while the AP story claims that "workers" are blaming the company's woes on mismanagement and a failure to adapt to evolving consumer tastes, this has actually been the opinion of informed and objective third parties."

Reading List June 14, 2013*

*The Better Late than Never Edition

Obama’s Pen May Shape Scope of Marriage Ruling
Keeping my fingers crossed that SCOTUS overturns the misnamed Defence of Marriage Act.

If the jus­tices do strike it down, they will sweep aside a law that has for years pro­hib­it­ed gay cou­ples from re­ceiv­ing a vast ar­ray of fed­eral bene­fits that mar­ried cou­ples take for grant­ed. But whether gay cou­ples ac­tu­al­ly get those bene­fits would de­pend on where they live — and how vig­or­ous­ly Pres­i­dent Oba­ma seeks to change the le­gal lan­guage that de­ter­mines whether a cou­ple is mar­ried in the eyes of the fed­eral gov­ern­ment.

Is Interracial Marriage Still Scandalous?
I still have hope interracial marriage will be entirely unremarkable some day.

Supreme Court Upholds DNA Swabbing of People Under Arrest

Supreme Court upholds DNA swabbing of people under arrest

And here I thought my WTH? moment happened earlier in the day! 

The ruling was 5-4 with conservative Justice Antoin Scalia joining liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

The five justices in the majority ruled that DNA sampling, after an arrest “for a serious offense” and when officers “bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody,” does not violate the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches. 

Under those specifications, the court said, “taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”

While DNA testing may not be deemed an unreasonable search, there is no definition of a "serious offense". What exactly is a "serious offense"? Speeding? Jaywalking? Kicking puppies? Driving while Black? Occupy Wall Street? Protesting?