Discussion for article #228804
More stories like this please. Something serious to dicsuss. This is an important story that ran at salon.com yesterday
27 Likes
Posner is something all too rare in the US today, a thinking conservative.
If the authorities in a state feel the need to require ID, then why not issue them free of charge when people register/
25 Likes
For those that have been paying attention these are nothing new.
2 Likes
"As there is no evidence that voter-impersonation fraud is a problem, how can the fact that a legislature says itās a problem turn it into one? If the Wisconsin legislature says witches are a problem, shall Wisconsin courts be permitted to conduct witch trials?"
Bingo! Itās satisfying to hear this from a Judge.
39 Likes
Iām starting to love this judge. From an article by Brad Friedman at Salon yesterday:
āAnd remember, once again, this is written by Richard Posner, the conservative Republican icon of a federal appellate court judge ā the judge who wrote the opinion on behalf of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals approving of the first such Photo ID law in the country in 2008, the very case that rightwingers from Texas to Wisconsin now cite over and over (almost always incorrectly) in support of similar such laws ā now, clearly admitting that he got the entire thing wrong.ā
Since he was the one that came up with the decision in favor of the constitutionality of Voter ID laws in the first place, renouncing it as a wholly partisan effort on the part of one party against another, namely the Republicans against eligible voters on the left is truly remarkable these days. He has taken a bold and courageous stance to speak the truth about these voter suppression laws.
28 Likes
Unfortunately, this will not stop the vanSpanovskys of the nation from their well-funded goal of subverting democracy. They will simply put the same toxic tea in a different bottle.
5 Likes
Richard Posner:
Some of the āevidenceā of voter-impersonation fraud is downright goofy, if not paranoid, such as the nonexistent buses that according to the āTrue the Voteā movement transport foreigners and reservation Indians to polling places.
Republicans arenāt gonna like that, given the current GOP platform:
Drug-Carrying Black Gay Hispanic Anchor-Baby ISIS Terrorists With Ebola (And Canteloupes the Size of Calves!) are streaming across the Mexican border in buses to vote Democrat, take your Guns, impose Sharia law, impregnate your daughters with aborted fetuses, spread the Global Warming Hoax, institute Liberal Nazification, and force straight American Heartlanders to gay marry each other!
And the only way you can stop it is to: vote Republican, cut taxes, cut funding for the CDC, cut funding for climate science, privatize Social Security, deregulate Koch Industies, arm conservatives, shoot lieberals, repeal Obamacare, make women undergo invasive ultrasound procedures, force poor people to work longer for lower pay because itās their own damn fault, and require all voters to show picture ID!
29 Likes
I loved that too. Very satisfying. Dayum!!
4 Likes
How about a link to Posnerās decent? Surely itās online somewhere?
1 Like
I am sorry, but Richard Posner is not a conservative. He became conservative on economic questions and was adopted by conservatives in light of that. But he came in as liberal, and heās going out as liberal. Nothing wrong with that. Just try dealing with the reality, OK?
Some things bear repeating. Especially when it comes to systemic oppression.
1 Like
Damn! A conservative judge that got ethical all of a sudden.
Fox airheads talking sense occasionally.
End times MUST be near.
2 Likes
His qualms of conscience are a little late, no?
4 Likes
Amazing how that seems to happen a lot.
Maybe the check didnāt clear?
5 Likes
This is a dissent, does it matter for those who are being denied the right to vote now? By the way, isnāt Posner the Judge who surmised that psychopaths shouldnāt be convicted of heinous crimes if they made great contributions to the economy, such as an inventor or super genius CEO?
Iām just trying to figure out, what was he thinking in the first place when he was in favor of the statutes? Now all of a sudden, he sees them for what they really were. This kind of turn is not 180, but 360.
Uhā¦if you make a 360 degree turn, you end up facing the same way you started at. Which in this analogy would mean Posner would support voter ID laws.
3 Likes
or the lease on the vacation home fell through. I guess I am a skeptic, but I am not ready to suddenly call this judge a hero. Did none of these concerns trouble him when he supported those questionable laws initially?
2 Likes
It all boils down to āItās bullshit,ā which is what many of us in the reality-based community have been saying forever. But good on you for catching up, Judge.
5 Likes