Former Vice President Dick Cheney is probably going to hell for his role in the Iraq War, Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) said while speaking at a Young Americans for Liberty conference in Raleigh, N.C.

"Congress will not hold anyone to blame," Jones said. " "Lyndon Johnson's probably rotting in hell right now because of the Vietnam War — and he probably needs to move over for Dick Cheney."

The remark drew applause from the audience, while Jones went on to praise Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) for helping him understand the role of the constitution and Congress when deciding whether to go to war. (Young Americans for Liberty stemmed from Paul's 2008 presidential campaign.)

Jones himself voted in favor of the war in 2003, but has expressed regret about the decision and become a vocal critic.

"Too many times in Washington nobody apologizes, especially when you send young men and women to die," he said. "We apologize if we get caught by the police driving drunk, if we have an affair, then we apologize. But never does anyone apologize for buying into a lie to send men and women to die."

If Jones' name sounds familiar, it may be because of another initiative he'd taken up: changing the name of "french fries" to "freedom fries."

"On Tuesday, a group of more than 100 protesters shouting "Obama is a traitor" temporarily shut down the official bus service that ferries around delegates at the Democratic National Convention. The protesters, some of whom were lying down in the street, were surrounded by Charlotte police, who used their bicycles to build a barrier around the group..." Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola (host of TYT University and Common Room) break it down on The Young Turks.

The President of United Auto Workers local 5285, Ricky McDowell, said that organized labor supports President Barack Obama because he saved their jobs.

“With the help of President Obama saving the Big Three, with the stimulus money, it saved the GM and Chrysler brothers and sisters. So without the support of the international union from Detroit, and if we had let Chrysler and Chevrolet and GM go down, there wouldn’t be a Big Three, there wouldn’t be an international union,” he told PBS during a Labor Day parade in Charlotte, North Carolina. “So he did save our jobs.”

Several hundred union members, drummers and step teams marched in the parade while chanting pro-union and pro-Obama slogans, hoping to draw attention to the fact that North Carolina is the nation’s least unionized state.

The Democratic National Convention is being held in Charlotte this year, beginning Tuesday, September 4th, and UAW president Bob King and AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka are both scheduled to speakers.

Nearly 1,000 people marched through Charlotte's business district on Sunday, two days before the start of the Democratic National Convention in that city in protest of the influence of corporate money in politics. The crowd railed against the bailouts that big businesses received in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and carried signs that read, "Banks got bailed out. We got sold out." The marchers planned to pass by Bank of America's corporate headquarters and a Wells Fargo office. Many of the activists said they were there to protest other concerns like the government's inaction on climate change and the human rights abuses. At least two people were arrested, Charlotte police said.

One protester, 23-year-old Anna Marie Wright, was arrested for violating a law by wearing a mask, according to police. Wright was arrested at 2:25 p.m. At the time of the arrest, she had a knife, police said.

Chris Stevens, 32, was also arrested for disorderly conduct, assault on a government official and resisting arrest in the 200 block of South College street. Stevens was drunk, CMPD police chief Rodney Monroe told reporter Dianne Gallagher, and was not part of the March on Wall Street South.

Another protester was transported by Medic to a local hospital, according to The Charlotte Observer. Authorities have not said why the protester was taken to the hospital.

The protest march was peaceful, but plenty of police on hand, you know, "just in case."

Voting Rights Act: The State of Section 5

by Suevon Lee ProPublica, Aug. 30, 2012,

Aug. 30: This post has been updated.

A single provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been playing a key role on the election front this year. Section 5 has blocked photo voter-ID laws, prohibited reduced early-voting periods in parts of Florida and just Tuesday barred new redistricting maps in Texas.

It's the reason South Carolina is in federal court this week to try to convince a three-judge panel its photo voter-ID law will not disenfranchise minorities. It's the reason that Texas went to trial on the same issue last month — and on Thursday, lost.

Not surprisingly, then, Section 5 is increasingly the target of attack by those who say it is outdated, discriminatory against Southern states and unconstitutional.

Under the provision, certain states and localities with a history of anti-minority election practices must obtain federal approval or "preclearance" before making changes to voting laws. In present day, that requirement is burdensome, "needlessly aggressive" and based on outdated coverage criteria, two petitions filed in July with the U.S. Supreme Court argue.

Section 5 applies to nine states — Texas, South Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia and Alaska — and currently to parts of Florida, California, New York, North Carolina, South Dakota, Michigan and New Hampshire. The original coverage formula looked at whether states imposed unfair devices like literacy tests in November 1964, whether less than 50 percent of the voting-age population was registered to vote as of that date, or if less than 50 percent of eligible voters voted in the November 1964 presidential election. In 1975, the formula expanded to include jurisdictions that provided election materials only in English when members of a language minority made up more than 5 percent of voting-age citizens.

Momentum is building at the highest levels to narrow or even eliminate this provision. In a 2009 majority opinion to a Section 5 challenge from Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 in Texas, U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that preclearance and the coverage formula "raise serious constitutional questions," though the justices didn't settle them at the time. In January, in a separate concurrence to the judgment in the Texas redistricting case, Justice Clarence Thomas stated that Section 5 is unconstitutional (for more on how that case reached the Supreme Court, see our previous explainer).

Continue reading »

Mitt Romney is going to have some unwanted company on his upcoming bus tour across several swing states.

The Democratic National Committee announced on Thursday that it will stage its own four-day bus tour alongside the Romney campaign’s trip through Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio. The tour, called “Romney Economics: The Middle Class Under the Bus Tour,” will begin on Friday with a news conference in Alexandria, Virginia.

Organizers said they will highlight Mitt Romney’s record of failure as Governor of Massachusetts, the lack of support small businesses received from Governor Romney’s Administration and Romney’s proposed tax hike on middle-class families to pay for massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. The DNC’s latest tour represents a reprise of the successful tour by the same name that the DNC conducted in June to respond to Mitt Romney’s tour at the time, which included stops in NH, PA, OH, IA, WI and MI.

“Throughout Mitt Romney’s career, middle-class families have frequently found themselves thrown under the bus as a result of his failed record and top-down economic policies,” the committee said in a news release. "When Romney was Governor of Massachusetts, the number of business start-ups fell by 10 percent and hit its lowest point during his last year in office. Massachusetts ranked 47th out of 50 in job creation, and Romney hiked taxes and fees by $750 million a year in addition to saddling the Commonwealth with the highest debt per person in the country."

The committee further stated that "Policies Mitt Romney has embraced as a candidate would only further erode middle-class security. Mitt Romney would hike taxes on the middle class to pay for massive tax cuts for wealthy Americans like Romney. Independent economists found that Romney’s plan would raise taxes on the average middle-class family with children by $2,000 in order to give hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires."

They also hammered Romney for favoring a tax plan that benefits millionaires and billionaires like himself while raising taxes on the middle class, as he continues to refuse to release more of his own tax returns. The DNC tour organizers insist that "Americans have a right to learn more about why Romney had a Swiss Bank Account, how low a tax rate he has paid and if he even paid taxes at all some years, and what his finances looked like while he was outsourcing jobs, offshoring his own money and laying off workers in the private sector."

Speakers on the tour include Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the committee, Ed Rendell, a former Pennsylvania governor and Chet Culver, a former governor of Iowa. Two state representatives from Massachusetts will speak at the opening news conference: Kathi-Anne Reinstein and David Linsky, both long-serving Democrats.

The Romney campaign announced its bus tour earlier this week, leading to speculation on what the itinerary might say about his pick for vice president. The final stop is in Ohio, the home state of the rumored front-runner, Senator Rob Portman.

The side of the committee’s bus features tire tracks over the words “Middle Class” and the slogan: “Romney Economics: Outsourcing, Offshoring, Out of Touch.”

[Language may not be suitable for work]

This is your Moment of Clarity #150: An impressive number of gay hating Church services have come to light recently. ...And most seem to be in North Carolina. What the hell is going on down there??

[more at LeeCamp.net]

This is your Moment of Clarity #149: In North Carolina they passed a law forbidding climate science. In Michigan they barred representatives from speaking the word "vagina." Can they make thinking about reality illegal? [More at LeeCamp.net]