The rabid rightwing General Assembly passed a law to allow expansion of charters, that would predictably encourage more segregation. The NAACP has threatened a lawsuit to block the charter law, as well as a voter ID requirement, which they believe is intended to suppress the black vote.
The NAACP is warning companies like Apple and Amazon not to locate in NC.
Read Jeff Bryant on the charter law. Racism. Segregation. The Old South is back.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The “Old-South” is back thanks to the Alt-Right Deep State.
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The Southern Strategy redux
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I voted yesterday in Virginia. I had to produce a government-issued photo ID. I cannot understand how this is a burden, and any possible impediment to my rights as a citizen to exercise my vote. I must produce ID to cash a check at my bank. I must produce ID to get on an airplane. I must produce ID to purchase alcoholic beverages (At least, I used to!)
Many states will provide a photo ID to a citizen for free.
How is this a burden to exercising the right to vote?
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Funny how the anti-gubmint one is arguing for gubmint-issued ID.
As for why this is difficult, for starters, the Secretary of State’s office where I live is open Monday to Friday 8:30 to 5:00; some branches have hours on Saturday mornings. What do you do if you work all of those hours?
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I am not anti-government. Here in Virginia, the state Dept of Motor vehicles is open Saturdays (at nearly all offices). If a person is working 6 days a week, he can get some time off, to get a driver’s license and/or a photo ID there.
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What a privileged life you have, Charles. I hope you’re grateful for it.
No, not all people working six (or seven) days a week can get time off. Hell, some people can’t even get time off for being sick or taking care of a sick kid. What makes you think they can get time off to get ID? Especially the kind of people who don’t have ID to begin with!
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OK, if a person cannot obtain a government issued photo ID, then how do you propose to ensure the integrity of the election process? Some people complained that the Russians were hacking into the computer systems, and manipulating the results.
If anyone can just stroll into the polling place, and not show any form of Identification, then how can the election staff, have any certainty that the person is who they say there are?
I once volunteered to serve as an election judge. (A great experience by the way). Part of my job was to check the identity of the voters, and ensure that they were registered properly.
So, explain it to me, with no requirement to show identity, how do we control the integrity of the election?
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First, Charles, you have to demonstrate a need to restrict voter access. Do you have documented evidence of voter fraud? While you were serving as an election judge, did you have any instances of identity fraud? Seems to me the system of voter registration works quite well. If you have actual evidence to the contrary, I’m all ears.
As for “da Russkies”, people have “said” they’ve done a lot of things lately. Again, evidence, please.
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Q First, Charles, you have to demonstrate a need to restrict voter access. Do you have documented evidence of voter fraud? While you were serving as an election judge, did you have any instances of identity fraud? Seems to me the system of voter registration works quite well. If you have actual evidence to the contrary, I’m all ears.
As for “da Russkies”, people have “said” they’ve done a lot of things lately. Again, evidence, please.
END Q
The need to restrict voter access is obvious. Voting is limited to citizens over the age of majority. There are millions of aliens in the USA, both legal and illegal. Again, I ask, how do you ensure that only citizens who are properly registered, vote, and how do you prevent aliens (legal and illegal) from voting?
I personally do not have documented evidence of voter fraud. But the possibility exists, and governments have the legal right to take necessary steps to ensure the integrity of elections, and to restrict voting to properly registered citizens.
When I served as an election judge, one of my duties was to check the ID of each citizen who wished to vote. I checked their ID card against the registration printout. Every ID card that I checked, appeared to be in good order.
We agree that the registration system mostly works well. There is no need to alter the registration system (at least here in Virginia). I am not expert on the other 49 states.
I have no evidence about Russian tampering or manipulation. I have heard the allegations that are currently in the media, that is all.
What I do not get, and what I wish someone would explain to me: Government requires people to show photo ID to obtain most government services. If you want food stamps (SNAP), you must show ID to prevent fraud. You must show ID to clear security, and board an airplane. You must show ID to check into a hospital. You must show ID to access a military base. And on and on.
Recipients of government benefits, must show ID in nearly all cases.
What is the burden of having to show ID, to vote? What is the civil rights issue? Do you have evidence that requiring a photo ID to vote, puts an undue burden on people, or possibly restricts their right to the franchise?
Some people want background checks in order to permit people to purchase firearms (Myself included). You must show ID to purchase a firearm, and to purchase ammunition.
Why the double standard?
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dienne77
I am with Charles on this one . But it can not be left up to the states . It is long past time for a Bio metric update-able National ID . To be used as a universal ID for everything from a library card to a License. and a Social Security Card.
Currently a person already needs a license to drive ;Identification to get on a plane ; Identification for employment ; and although you may think not you need identification for healthcare . So from a progressive stand point we should take the issue of voter disenfranchisement off of the table by making it Federal easily accessible . Couple it with Medicare for all .
The 4th Amendment is no longer relevant . We crossed that bridge a long time ago . If you are worried about it put a piece of tape over the camera in your TV. And wear a face mask and shades the next time you come to NYC.
PS my coma key is shot.
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@jwherman: Thanks for the upvote. Many conservatives and liberals agree about the need for tamper-proof national identity cards. Even ultra-liberal attorney Alan Dershowitz has advocated for this. see
The is no “right of anonymity”, and there never has been. Identity cards do not discriminate against any ethnic group, and there is virtually no possibility, that identity cards would unfairly restrict the right to vote.
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Dershowitz is a Trump supporter who appears often of FOX. He is not ultra liberal.
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I did not know that Dershowitz had “turned”. I used to watch him on the Buckley show (many years ago, I admit). He was certainly no conservative back then!
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BTW, I am religiously agnostic, but sometimes I really hope for reincarnation. I want to be there when you come back as a poor black guy.
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What makes you think that I not black already? I could be Hispanic or Cherokee, for all you know.
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Charles, every word you write comes across as grumpy white man. I don’t know why. It just does.
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That’s a good wish for the DeVos or Trump clan.
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LOL Charles.
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I do not wish to disclose my race. I always thought of myself as reasonably cheerful. I even tell a joke once in a while. I made this one up:
“Why do mermaids wear seashells?”
answer:
“Because the B-shells are too tight”.
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A brazier joke. With a pun. Awesome.
“Before the surge in [Koch brothers] spending, [conservative “philanthropy” “scholar” James Piereson] said, conservatives were seen as ‘cranks’ on America’s political fringe.”
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I just put up a quote (to moderation) and forgot to attribute it. It was from Jane Meyer’s Dark Money.
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dianeravitch
I am becoming a grumpy old man . I can’t log in with FB. Twitter and now Word Press puts me in moderation.
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One thing I recently learned, Joel, is that comments automatically go into moderation if they contain the word “Ch@rles” (I’m substituting the ampersand for the “a” here to avoid moderation).
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FLERP!
Thanks; I did notice that . But now neither FB nor Twitter even gets me logged in . Off topic ; Did you check out the NYT piece on the MTA I posted a while back . Pretty much told the story of good intentions and unintended consequences . The system spent a fortune to slow the trains to a crawl.
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dianeravitch
Now I never agree with Charles and i will save the vulgarity about Dershowitz . In 2013 Obama and the gang of 8 proposed a Biometric ID for employment along with an amnesty and a path to citizenship . I probably don’t agree with them on much either .
But it is not a stretch from employment to voting .
If you don’t drive ; never worked; travel on a plane; use credit cards ; go to a doctors office . You are not about to vote.
There is a progressive view that says a national ID takes a lot of negatives off the table . It has to be Federal though or the Slave States and we have more of them than in 1860; will abuse it.
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/01/friendly-future-national-id-card/
The semicolon is my new coma ; till I buy a new laptop. .
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The voter law in Ohio upheld by the Supreme Court said that if you don’t vote, you can be removed from the voter rolls.
How can it be just to remove a right if you haven’t exercised it recently?
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USA Today published a piece that includes information on who voted for Trump according to education level — giving credence to Trump’s quote, “I love the poorly educated.”
You have to scroll down to find the infographic on 2015 election exit polls – education.
http://college.usatoday.com/2016/11/09/how-we-voted-by-age-education-race-and-sexual-orientation/
And PolitiFact.com looked into this too.
Sabato said that “the higher the education level, the more likely [voters] are to vote Democratic.” Sabato bases his claim on 2008 exit polls showing this national trend. Several polls and analysis done on data from presidential elections dating back at least a decade support Sabato’s claim. …
“For many areas of the country, Sabato’s claim holds true. But in Georgia and the Deep South, the GOP is still firmly in control. We rate Sabato’s statement Mostly True.”
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I think it was Nate Silver who arrayed the nation’s election districts by educational attainment. Those with the largest proportion of college graduates voted for Hillary. Those with the fewest voted for Trump. Without exception.
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When I was looking for sources to use with my comment, I think I found that piece by Nate Silver.
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I think you can keep the old laptop if you want to and just buy a new keyboard you can plug into your old laptop and then use the new keyboard.
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Whatever party happens to be
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Q The voter law in Ohio upheld by the Supreme Court said that if you don’t vote, you can be removed from the voter rolls.
How can it be just to remove a right if you haven’t exercised it recently?
END Q
Nearly all states “purge” their voter rolls periodically. If a person does not vote at least once ever two (some states three) years, then your name is purged off the rolls.
This is necessary, to ensure that the rolls only carry “live” voters. People move, people die. If the rolls were never purged, then it opens up the possibility of “ghost” voting and “tombstone” voting.
My great-grandfather was a good citizen, and a good democrat. But he was a better democrat than he was a citizen. Although he died in 1927, in Grant county Kentucky, he voted for Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. You see there was voter fraud in Grant county, and many people who had already died, had their votes cast falsely!
And people who are purged off the voter rolls, have not had their right to vote revoked. They need only go to their county clerk and re-register. (Some states permit on-line registration, and some states permit registration at the polling place on election day)
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“The charter bill “spits on the legacy” of U.S. Supreme Court school desegregation decisions.”
The NAACP got it right. State laws promoting separate and unequal opportunities should never be allowed to stand. Racists are using charter laws to enhance and legitimize segregation. The NAACP knows that separate is never equal. Shame on Democrats and Republicans for working to perpetuate American racism. Sadly, I doubt the Supreme Court will intervene with Trump stooge Neil Gorsuch a member of the court.
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“Charter school supporters, along with one critic of how they’ve served his children, discussed charters’ academic performance, whether they contribute to segregation in education, and whether they’ve been held properly accountable at a House education committee hearing on Wednesday.”
They invited professional lobbyists on the “rah rah for charters!” side and then ONE poor parent who provided the only differing view.
It’s just crazy. It’s publicly-funded propaganda. They spent an entire workweek on this.
How did that poor parent draw the short straw and get drafted into giving a veneer of a “debate” to this thing?
When do you think the federal government will get around to doing some work for public schools? Next session? Next year? Sometime in the next decade?
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The big lie of “choice” in education is that it is the schools that do the choosing, not the students or family. This permits racism and segregation to flourish, and students are directed to where the “market” believes they belong. The under funded, under resourced public schools become the schools of last resort.
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Charters are part of Jim Crow 2.0 to be sure, but, as a related aside: Apple and Amazon, please stay out of California too, not because the NAACP is opposed to California laws as much as NC laws (although we Californians are plagued with more charters than anyone, so the NAACP should be) but because you stink, FANG companies. Remember what L.A. did to iPad marketing? Remember when California tried to tax Amazon purchases? “Please visit California. Then leave.”
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