Source: Other Words
Ted Cruz (above) and McConnell are demanding that the Court’s partisan Republican justices gut America’s landmark Voting Rights Act
Photo by mark reinstein/Shutterstock
In February, Texas Senator Ted Cruz ran off to a luxury resort in sunny Cancún, Mexico during the deep freeze that devastated millions of his constituents.
But I wasn’t mad that Ted fled. What upset me was that the government let him back into our country.
Cruz is, after all, the self-aggrandizing ego that arrogantly and illegally tried to cancel the ballots of millions of voters in last year’s presidential election. Then he helped dupe a crowd of Trumpeteers into storming our nation’s Capitol in a violent and silly attempt to seize control of our government by force.
Now the wannabe autocrat is demanding that the Supreme Court suppress the people’s democratic will.
He’s teamed up with the sour old corporate plutocrat, Mitch McConnell, to back a ploy by Arizona Republicans to disenfranchise Latino, Indigenous, and Black voters.
Cruz and McConnell are demanding that the Court’s partisan Republican justices gut America’s landmark Voting Rights Act, which prohibits states from altering election rules to give minority voters less opportunity to participate in the political process than Anglos.
Arizona’s Republican lawmakers had passed a nasty provision declaring that any ballot cast in the wrong precinct, no matter how valid, must be tossed in the trash, rather than merely allocating it to the voter’s correct precinct. This almost entirely affects people of color, with whom GOP election officials play nefarious games — frequently moving their voting places, often at the last minute with little notice.
Instead of pushing their party to try winning these peoples’ votes, Ted and Mitch simply want to eliminate them. They’ve asked the Court to nullify the bothersome Voting Rights Act so their party can freely lock out minority voters.
The greatest threat to our democracy is not a violent mob, but a legalistic coup by thugs like Ted Cruz.
Jim Hightower has been described as that rarest of species: "A visionary with horse sense and a leader with a sense of humor." Today, Hightower is one of the most respected "outside Washington" leaders in the United States. Author, radio commentator and host, public speaker and political sparkplug, this Texan has spent more than two decades battling Washington and Wall Street on behalf of consumers, children, working families, environmentalists, small business and just-plain-folks. Right out of college, Hightower went to work as a legislative aide to Texas Senator Ralph Yarborough, a tireless liberal/populist stalwart in a cranky, often conservative state. In the early 1970s he headed up the Agribusiness Accountability Project, writing several books and testifying to Congress about the human costs of corporate profiteering and the value of sustainable, healthy, cooperative farming. From 1977 to 1979, he edited the Texas Observer, a thorn in the side of Texas Neanderthal politicians and a hotbed of first-rate journalism. In 1982, Hightower was elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner and then re-elected in 1986. The statewide post gave him a chance to fight for the kinds of policy and regulatory initiatives on behalf of family farmers and consumers he had long advocated. It also gave him visibility in national political circles, where Hightower became a prominent supporter of the Rainbow insurgencies within the Democratic Party in the 1984 and 1988 elections. In 1997 Hightower released a new book, There`s Nothing In The Middle Of The Road But Yellow Stripes And Dead Armadillos. Hightower continues to produce his highly popular radio commentaries and to speak to groups across the country. His newest venture is a monthly action-newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown, which will provide his unique populist insights into the shenanigans of Washington and Wall Street -- offering subscribers timely information, arguments and language to use in battling the forces of ignorance and arrogance. HIGHTOWER RADIO: Live from the Chat & Chew, a radio call-in show, debuted Labor Day, 1996, and continues to be a success with over 70 affiliates nationwide. This show includes a live audience, musicians, guests, and callers with a progressive populist perspective unheard anywhere else on the airwaves. Updates and more details about Hightower and his projects can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.jimhightower.com.
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