Steve Cooper Posts

As Mike Elk points out in his latest article, top Democratic officials are sometimes reluctant to speak openly about their stance on unions. Such is not the case, however, with Elizabeth Warren, a universally loved party favorite.

Last night, after Chris Christie’s misleading keynote, Warren rebutted the New Jersey Governor’s suggestion that policies like those conservatives advocate for today had something to do with the prosperity the nation experienced following the Great Depression.

On the contrary, Warren insists, progressive values buoyed that slow climb back to national richesse:

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie gave a speech tonight at the Republican National Convention about the Greatest Generation.

And then about 30 years ago, our country moved in a different direction. New leadership attacked wages. They attacked pensions. They attacked health care. They attacked unions. And now we find ourselves in a very different world from the one our parents and grandparents built. We are now in a world in which the rich skim more off the top in taxes and special deals, and they leave less and less for our schools, for roads and bridges, for medical and scientific research — less to build a future.

Look. We don’t write about abortion on this blog. I have to start off by putting that out there. This blog has a sharp focus on issues concerning labor, unions, corporate malfeasance, and the general welfare of the American working class vis-a-vis the workplace. We don’t often stray from that mission. There are so many reputable sources of information on womens’ rights, reproductive rights, abortion rights and every invaluable topic in between that we’re more of the opinion, hey, “let people do what they’re good at, and we’ll stay in our lane.”

But this video of Paul Ryan indirectly referring to rape as a “method of conception” is just beyond the pale. It nauseating. It’s abhorrent. It’s inherently evil. So it must be posted as far and wide as possible, all mission statements aside.

There is no side on the issue of rape. There is no party and there are no opinions. Rape means rape. Just like no means no.

Originally spotted by Paul Slansky.

An interesting report made some noise online this week by showing that most Republicans planning to vote for Mitt Romney are doing so against their own interests. The report and corresponding map — “Romney Economic Plan Hurts Red States, Helps Wealthy Urbanites, While Obama Boosts Rural Areas” — allows readers to see exactly whose economic plan is better for their hometown and region:

According to a new analysis of tax and census data, Mitt Romney’s economic plan is heavily tilted towards big cities, but tough on the rural areas that comprise the GOP’s base. Barack Obama’s economic proposals lean the other way, offering little to wealthy urbanites while delivering broad tax savings to the middle and lower class Americans spread across the South and Midwest.

In the world of The Onion, nothing is sacred, not even early century death tolls caused by hard labor.

In this hilarious and depressing look back in time, the Internet’s most “no he didn’t” website tackles the opening of the 1914 Panama Canal, lamenting that it “went over budget by 10,000 dead laborers.”

Now’s your chance to LOL.

It also suggests that lessons were learned from the mismanagement of resources resulting in better performance on future construction projects such as the Hoover Dam which came in on budget… with 1,000,000 dead laborers.

Though they’re joking, The Onion has their history right here: The Hoover Dam was one of the early examples of a successful Project Labor Agreement (PLA).

I don’t know if it’s the rock piano that enters early on or the look on people’s faces, but this quick-hitting video recap of the Workers Stand for America rally got my red, white and blue juices flowing.

Be the first among your friends to see it and share it.

For footage of the event in its entirety, visit the WS4A website.

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty recently met with the nation’s top business and policy leaders at his sixth annual policy retreat. Attendees expressed an interest in lowering the wages of Canadian workers by implementing U.S. based policies (yay, us!) such as “Right-to-Work” legislation.

According to notes obtained by The Globe and Mail, raising the retirement age, lowering pay for public service workers, and allowing two-tier health care were also on the agenda. The Conservative-led government has already begun to chip away at workers’ wages over the past year.

Much like in Wisconsin, the jobs of lower level public employees are in particular danger:

The memo indicates calls were made for junior public servants to be paid less. “Reduce public service wages (not in higher ranks, but those in the lower ranks such as administrative and clerical staff as they earn more than their private-sector counterparts) and reduce the overall size of the public service.”

Over the past year, the Conservative government has made several policy moves that unions said will drive down wages. Among them, Canadian companies will be allowed to bring in temporary foreign workers more quickly and to pay them 15 per cent less than the average wage for their jobs. Also, changes to Canada’s employment insurance rules will mean that Canadians who fall into a new category of “frequent” EI users will be expected to take any available work after six weeks on EI, even if it pays up to 30 per cent less than their previous job.

Lowering the wages of workers by limiting the power of unions? Oh yeah, that’s on the agenda, too. Documents show that business leaders want to see policies based on the United States’ “Right-to-Work” obsession:

Labour issues surface in several discussion categories, with the general view that Canadian workers are overpriced. “Need to address wage differentials in labor market among countries; we are losing jobs to other countries,” the memo reads. “Right to Work legislation should be pondered as it creates inequities in productivity; US example was provided.”

In response to the documents, Andrew Jackson, chief economist for the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), described how Canada’s economic problem is not high wages:

The reality is that the pay of most workers has stagnated in real terms over the past 30 years as the profit share of GDP has increased at the expense of wages, and as wages have become much more unequal with more and more of the total wage and salary bill going to the top 1 per cent made up mainly of senior executives. As the OECD recently reported, since 1990, 6 per cent of total national income has been shifted from wages to profits and the pay of the top 1 per cent combined.

The view that wages are “too high” boils down to saying that workers have no right to share in rising national income, all of which should go to profits and senior managers. That is, to say the least, a curious basis on which to sell the proposition that workers have any kind of stake in our current economic arrangements.

According to a lawsuit filed in Palm Beach County, Wells Fargo allegedly fired an employee to avoid paying medical costs for his daughter, a cancer patient.

Three days prior to an important surgery, the company terminated Yovany Gonzalez, a securities broker, after questioning his wife about the cost of their daughter Macenzie’s medical care. She died seven months later.

The official reasoning given by Wells Fargo for his termination was that Gonzalez had falsified his time records and had “stolen from the company.”

Wells Fargo on the other hand, claims Gonzalez was fired due to allegedly falsifying his time records. His supervisor has since defended Gonzalez, saying it was fine that he could not remember his exact hours. His schedule had been varied since Mackenzie was diagnosed with cancer in December of 2008, as her father began working from other locations to accommodate her treatment schedule.

Surgery was eventually paid for by charitable donations. Gonzalez’s lawyer, Jack Scarola, called Wells Fargo’s decision “a case of heart versus pocketbook.”

The little girl’s surgery at Sloan Kettering was eventually paid for through charitable donations, Scarola said.

“But know that Memorial Sloan-Kettering would never, ever abandon a child who needs our care.”

The lawsuit also alleges that Wells Fargo waited too long to give Gonzalez information on continuing his insurance. The Huffington Post points out that the company was still on the hook for costs because of COBRA.

While you are entitled to extend your employer health insurance coverage under the COBRA law if you lose your job, as long as you pay the full premium, it took more than 90 days for Wells Fargo to send Gonzalez information about how to extend his health insurance policy under COBRA, said paralegal Walter Stein, who is helping represent Gonzalez.

Though he has since gained employment at Chase Bank, Gonzalez makes less money because Chase will not allow him to sell securities due to the reasons surrounding his termination.

This lawsuit paints Wells Fargo in horrible light, as a company placing profit before people:

“This was a loss of an innocent child’s life,” Jack Scarola, Gonzalez’s lawyer, told The Huffington Post. “There were [some] Wells Fargo employees who not only lacked compassion but seemed to have been motivated by entirely improper concerns about finances.”

If you’re active in the labor community online, chances are you’ve seen the name Randy Bryce. But that’s not just because he has been pounding the electronic (and real world!) pavement in pursuit of Wisconsin’s 62nd District Assembly seat for the past few months. In fact, it’s just the opposite. His long-standing commitment to workers’ rights and the spreading of all things pro-fairness on Facebook has created the environment for him to run for elected office. He has literally built a following broad enough through activism to warrant a seat in the statehouse.

This pro-active approach has landed Bryce endorsements from Democracy for America, the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, the Racine AFL-CIO, IBEW 430, SMWIA Local 18, and don’t-call-it-ironically, the American Mustache Institute.

After all, Bryce’s Twitter handle is @IronStache.

Bryce was the founder and treasurer of the petition to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. He has been embraced by progressives the state over including, most recently, the well-loved Overpass Light Brigade.

Bryce has made it clear that, despite being a union ironworker, his concern is more broad than just union rights:

The primary reason Randy Bryce is running for the state Assembly is because he believes working people are not represented in Madison.

“And not just union employees,” he said, “but all residents who felt like they had to take to the streets because they just weren’t being heard.”

Tomorrow, when 20% of Wisconsinites are expected to hit the polls, they’ll have a chance to inch toward getting that voice back.

Historically, American music was shaped by the the people’s narrative. From Woody Guthrie to Bruce Springsteen, singers and songwriters told the stories and shared the concerns of working men and women for the better part of a century. In honor of their efforts, We Party Patriots has started the Solidarity Soundtrack, accessible via Pinterest.

We will be updating the archive and would appreciate input on what you would like to hear via our Facebook page, Twitter feed, or directly on Pinterest.

While many performers who embody the worker’s message have gone on to achieve fame and monetary success, their roots still come through in song. Take Bruce Springsteen, who after 4 decades of success is still being labeled as a “$200 million poor boy from New Jersey.” Last year, speaking to reporters about his new album, “Wrecking Ball,” Springsteen talked about how his upbringing in a working class house still fuels his music.

“The deepest motivation comes out of the house that I grew up in and the circumstances that were set up there, which is mirrored around the United States with the level of unemployment we have right now,” he told European reporters in an intimate discussion about his new album, “Wrecking Ball.”

Perhaps no American singer has better represented the working man than the “Dust Bowl Troubadour” himself, Woody Guthrie. Born in Oklahoma, Guthrie, who would have turned 100 in July, said it best when speaking of folk music and the power it can have on the listener:

A folk song is what’s wrong and how to fix it or it could be

who’s carrying a gun and where the peace is.

Then there’s the sixth verse of “This Land is Your Land,” Guthrie’s view of America in 1940. It’s eerily similar to the America in which working men and women live today. In Guthrie there is an eternal hope that, despite our failures as a nation, we still have the opportunity to make it better. That opportunity comes at a cost, but to forfeit it is equal to surrender.

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;

Is this land made for you and me?

Check out the rest of our SOLIDARITY SOUNDTRACK on Pinterest.

In the continuing, uphill battle against employee misclassification — or “classification fraud” — the IRS has announced a new program, the Voluntary Classification Settlement Program (VCSP), which would allow employers to reclassify independent contractors as employees for future tax periods. In exchange, the liability for past payroll obligations will be cut to 10 percent of the employment tax liability that may have been due on compensation paid to the workers for the most recent tax year.

Last year, 45,000 members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) walked out after Verizon demanded billions in concessions despite high profits. With no new contract in place, history is likely to repeat itself come Friday if the telecommunications goliath continues to impose unfair terms in its “final offer.”

With 12 months of stalled negotiations since the strike, many believe Verizon is willing to hold out in an attempt to break the union. According to Labor Notes:

“It’s cut and dried that they want to break us,” said Billy Gallagher, a CWA negotiator. Within a couple of weeks after the strike last year, he said, the company “went back to stripping 50 years of contract language.”

At stake for workers is not only cuts to their health care benefits and pensions but a proposed deregulation of standards governing Verizon’s ability to “contract out” work. If Verizon is allowed to do so it could be the end of the (land)line for 45,000 union workers. As we suggested last month, Verizon is purposefully trying to kill off its DSL service in order to get rid of the union workers in its landline division.

“We’re ready to go out and fight if we have to,” said Al Russo, vice president of CWA Local 1101 in New York. He said that in order to outsource more jobs, Verizon wants to implement “call sharing,” meaning that the company could direct incoming sales and service calls anywhere, including contractors. “We couldn’t even find out where the work is,” said Russo.

Concurrent with the contract drama, Verizon is attempting to seal a deal with four major cable providers to sell each others services. The fate of the deal is currently in the hands of federal regulators. Union workers are calling on the FCC and the Department of Justice to stop the deal claiming that it would create a monopoly.

The negotiations between the IBEW/CWA and Verizon went to mediation two weeks ago. No deal was reached:

“For the past ten days, the parties have been engaged in continuous negotiations under the auspices of myself and Director of Mediation Services John Pinto. The negotiations have been constructive and progress has been made, but significant key issues remain to be resolved.”

The negotiations took place after the release of Verizon’s quarterly earnings.

The negotiations come in the wake of Verizon’s second quarter earnings report, where the company announced profits of $1.8 billion. The article also cited union concerns that the carrier’s top five executives were paid $258 million over the last five years. The union brouhaha also comes as the carrier’s wireless arm attempts to work a marketing agreement with cable companies to bundle wireless phone with cable’s wireline packages. This, the unions have said, would effectively kill Verizon’s competitive FiOS broadband video service and cause the layoffs of FiOS workers. The unions have opposed the marketing agreement.

While progress is being alleged, worker representatives are calling the company’s current offer “completely horrendous.” With profits high and the proposed deal likely to make competition low it is rather ostentatious for Verizon to demand such cuts.

New hires would have no pension, just a 401(k) plan, while many current workers would have their pensions frozen. On health care, “it’s not really about premiums,” Gallagher said. “It’s about gutting the medical plan and making it so expensive many won’t use it.”

The company would also take away some sick days, cut disability benefits in half, and even eliminate a death benefit.

If workers walkout on Friday, the Verizon ordeal could become one of the most buzzed about issues at this weekend’s Workers Stand for America rally where the IBEW will be well-represented.

After a decade of legwork, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has entered into its first labor contract, agreeing to be represented in collective bargaining situations by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). Currently the largest federal employee union, AFGE represents 625,000 workers.

“For 10 long years AFGE has fought hard so that Transportation Security Officers would have collective bargaining rights. We have often looked back and wondered why it was taking so long,” said AFGE National President John Gage. “Today we begin to look forward.”

The collective bargaining agreement will allow those who protect our airports to better their wages and conditions, according to a press release from AFGE:

“This collective bargaining agreement will better the working lives of 45,000 hard-working, dedicated employees, and that’s a fantastic feeling,” AFGE TSA Council 100 President Kim Kraynak-Lambert said. “TSOs come to work every day in the face of intense public and congressional scrutiny and, to the best of their ability, protect this nation from terrorist attacks. Now we can look forward to new rights and new working conditions, and a chance to form a true labor-management partnership. And, contrary to some of the misinformation circulating about TSA, an agreement will not adversely affect security – security related matters were strictly excluded from negotiations. In fact, this agreement will strengthen our ability to carry out TSA’s vital mission of protecting the American people.”

“What this contract will do is provide for increased uniformity on fair treatment and the other issues important to employees across the nation’s airports,” Gage added. “Both parties believe the agreement will also provide much needed schedule flexibility. Improvements in working conditions will also benefit both TSA and the officers by fostering a family-friendly workplace where the employees have greater job satisfaction and feel supported in performing their important security work.”

Before being finalized, the entire TSA workforce will have the opportunity to ratify the CBA. The process is likely to be completed this Fall.

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made good on his promise to sue the city’s legislative branch in order to halt two wage laws from going in effect for private sector security guards, janitors, and service employees that work at companies which receive government subsidies.

The legal action comes after the court upheld the New York City Council’s override of the Mayor’s wage bill vetoes. The Mayor’s lawsuits are based in his belief that only state and federal governments have jurisdiction to set minimum wages. City Council speaker Christine Quinn says she is confident that the laws will stand up to any legal challenge.

“It is disappointing that the mayor has chosen to challenge these laws rather than enforce them,” she wrote. “The Council stands by this legislation, and we look forward to proving our case in court.”

The living wage bill would boost workers minimum earnings to $11.50 an hour, or $10 with benefits at companies which receive at least $1 million in city subsidies. A second, prevailing wage bill would raise wages for workers at 41 buildings that receive city tax breaks. Their wages would be determined by city Comptroller John Liu using a prevailing wage scale.

Mayor Bloomberg has said that the bills discourage companies from doing business in the city and that they encroach on his sole right to set the terms of real estate deals involving the city. Bloomberg’s vehement, misguided effort to fight for lower wages ignores the most important aspect of the equation: the men and women who live and work in New York.

In Pennsylvania’s Penn-Delco school district, located in Southeastern Pennsylvania approximately 15 miles southwest of Philadelphia, a victory was scored for workers when a resolution proposed by State Rep. Warren Kampf that would allow exemptions from the prevailing wage on construction projects with over $10,000 in state funding was voted down by a 6-2 margin. While the resolution was debated, supporters argued it provided tax relief to working families while detractors noted it would lower wages for area workers.

A less welcome result to a similar proposal, however, came from heavily Republican Eaton County, Michigan where an anti-prevailing wage bill landed a 12-3 victory with (hold on to your hats…) the three Democrats on the Board of Commissioners voting against. Democrat Glenn Fremman III had strong words for the bill saying the Democrats were “not big on the plantation mentality.”

Republicans suggest the prevailing wage was too costly.

Interestingly, when Democrats held the majority on the Eaton County Board of Commissioners, the prevailing wage requirements were framed as good for the community. Democrat Linda Keefe, chair of the board’s ways and means commission in 2008 when the newly-reversed policies went into effect, notes that just four years ago the board argued workers being paid poverty wages would be a drain on social services.

Round and round, round we go.

In Cumberland County, New Jersey, unemployment rates among some construction trades still hover around 40 percent. As many union workers make hard decisions about their family budgets while waiting for work to come to their area, the local government is turning a blind eye to their hardships by bypassing state laws which mandate Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) on state-funded projects.

This negligence has allowed out-of-state contractors to bid on the Vine Street School Project in Bridgeton. Traditionally, the use of out-of-state contractors on such projects has led to prevailing wages being ignored and out-of-state workers being brought in, thus undercutting the community-benefiting aspects of local workers doing local work.

In an op-ed appearing in the Daily Journal, James Kehoe of the Southern NJ Building and Construction Trades Council condemns the board saying, “their boneheaded position defies logic.” Kehoe suggests the board pretended to allow the council to have input into the decision-making process:

To add insult to injury, the freeholder board asked the Southern New Jersey Building Trades Council to draft a proposed resolution to hire only skilled labor from within Cumberland County. We complied, but even that got shot down. It seems the deal was already done before a single vote was taken.

PLAs traditionally mandate wage standards, hiring of minorities and women, and attention to the growth of apprenticeship programs to prepare future generations of workers. Despite this, Kehoe says, the baord has decided that low-road partisanship is more important than the needs of its constituency:

Non-union labor are notorious for using unskilled illegal immigrants or shipping in workers from other parts of the country who aren’t familiar with our communities or pay property taxes or rent here. They too often refuse to pay their workers prevailing wage, lack proper insurance, and put their workers into dangerous or challenging work environments they just aren’t prepared for.

It is simply unacceptable that an elected governing body could turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the many skilled union men and women who are out of work and actually reside in Cumberland County.

According to a new poll, Americans believe the government should be doing all it can to rebuild our nation’s manufacturing base, regardless of party affiliation.

It’s true. It’s an electronic national holiday. Or, at least, let’s make it one!

Above is the graphic the Teamsters are sharing. Below, well, it’s my union card. And some pins and stickers I collected this year from Building Trades locals.

Solidarity!

Jack Gilchrist, pretend person.

According to an article in the New Hampshire Union-Leader, Jack Gilchrist, the star of the Mitt Romney ad (below) demonizing President Obama for his “you didn’t build this company” blunder, received $1 million in government loans that positively affected his business. The fact that Gilchrist’s company was helped by government loans clearly undermines this low-blow on Obama.

After the NHUL story broke the New York Times called Gilchrist “one of those Ayn Rand-styled individualists who don’t actually need all of the things that many others rely on government for. Except that it turns out he’s not.”

On Monday, The New Hampshire Union-Leader reported that Mr. Gilchrist had received a lot of government help over the years: $800,000 in tax-exempt bonds from the state of New Hampshire, a nearly $500,000 loan guaranteed by the Small Business Administration, federally financed trade adjustment assistance and even nearly $90,000 in military contracts since 2008.

“I’m not stupid, I’m not going to say ‘no.’ Shame on me if I didn’t use what’s available. As a matter of fact, right now, I’m driving on a road.”

The Obama not-so-gaffe is clearly taken out of context. It also apparently mirrors a speech given by Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren in which she explains the debt crisis that drove her to the national progressive forefront. In the speech, Warren claims that nobody got rich on their own and that it took public services paid for by taxpayers to allow the business to grow. Obama seemed to be making the same point, although he worded it in a way that, taken out of context, doesn’t portray the same message. The full message of the President’s Speech, which can be viewed here, goes as follows:

If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, ‘Wow, it must be because I was just so smart.’ There are a lot of smart people out there. ‘It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.’ Lemme tell you something: there are a lot of hard working people out there.”

“If you are successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that’s allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that: somebody else made that happen. The Internet did not get invented on its own.”

Yet Romney didn’t see the subtle difference and turned the sentence “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that” into the Barack attack du July. But the man Romney chose to deliver that message isn’t a true believer in the cold, hard, conservative line, as it turns out.

According to The Plum Line‘s Greg Sargent — who interviewed Gilchrist — the on-camera anti-government actor does believe in some form of government stimulus spending in the real world:

I asked Gilchrist himself — a personable guy who seemed to enjoy bantering with someone he disagreed with — whether he thinks federal spending is good for the economy. He allowed that spending on roads and bridges does, in fact, create jobs, and said he supports federal spending on at least maintaining them.

“If we’re going to spend money on roads and bridges, certainly keeping them in good condition is prudent, and it’s certainly putting people to work,” Gilchrist said. “Obviously if people are fixing things, then they’re working.”

And obviously if your business is growing because of government loans you aren’t building it entirely by yourself. Nor should you.

This message not intended for people who actually WORK at the school.

In June, the Texas A&M University System announced it would outsource 1,647 jobs from its building maintenance, landscaping and dining services to North Carolina-based Compass Group USA. The university believes it will gain $260 million in revenue to “recruit, pay, and retain faculty and researchers.” The move has left the support staff feeling jilted, despite the fact that most will keep their jobs.

“Texas A&M has one of the finest business schools in the country, and yet we can’t figure out how to in-house save money out of our department,” said Walter Draper, an assistant custodial supervisor and one of the outsourcing plan’s many detractors.

The privatization of positions brings an unknown future. Many are worried about their retirements as the years they work for Compass Group will not count towards their current plans. At universities around the country, the benefits and guarantees that come from being employed by a public university are what make the job. This blatant, anti-worker move also means these workers will need to resign and reapply:

They have been told that their jobs, after they undergo a reapplication process and pending a background check, are guaranteed for at least two years with comparable benefits and the same salary. That includes a 4 percent raise to offset the difference between the benefits that A&M and Compass Group provide.

One worker, who asked to not be named by The Texas Tribune out of fear for repercussions, put it more simply:

“What we’re being told is you can take it or leave it,”

Local businesses are also worried about what the University’s change in direction will mean for them. Many local vendors have yet to hear from Compass Group, leaving the future of their biggest contracts up in the air.

In the past, A&M has relied on nearby companies like Slovacek Sausage, Scarmardo Produce, Ruffino Meats and a Mrs. Baird’s Bread distributor to supply its kitchens. But none of those companies have been told whether that relationship will continue after the transfer.

Sarah Hada, a spokeswoman for Compass Group, said all current food providers would be reviewed as part of the transition. “There is a process where potential vendors can apply to become an approved vendor,” Ms. Hada said. “But strict standards must be met.”

Privatization has a way of not quite working out as promised. Frequently, this is because those making the promises know full well they do not intend to keep them in the first place. Texas A&M’s President, R. Bowen Loftin, has said that the accommodations for the affected workers were a key component to negotiations.

“They really deserve to be treated well, because they have treated us well. Change is always difficult. Human nature is to embrace stability and reject change. But those who embrace change and make it work for them have been the most successful.

Everybody hold on to your hats/jobs. There’s change a’comin’…

People who follows the Voter ID issue closely — and particularly those who oppose it vehemently — understand the way in which such laws suppress the voting ability of certain demographics. Within the framework of electoral politics, the Voter ID conversation often focuses on the interest of Republicans in limiting the vote of populations most likely to swing Democrat. This is, of course, the case, but the truly nauseating aspect of the issue centers on the racial and class-based impact. The fact that minorities and the poor — who appear disproportionately and adversely affected by Voter ID laws — happen to vote predominantly Democrat is an afterthought, an inconsequential byproduct even, when compared to the civil and human rights violations associated with voter suppression.

So, for us — the understanders — the inclination to do a victory lap is strong when someone admits or confirms how horrible Voter ID is. The problem is, you don’t exactly celebrate someone or some group of people coming out as racist. It’s just…uncool.

That said, let’s friggin’ belt this one from the the rooftops: Florida’s disgraced former GOP chairman says the party had meetings about “keeping blacks from voting”:

In a 630-page deposition recorded over two days in late May, Greer, who is on trial for corruption charges, unloaded a litany of charges against the “whack-a-do, right-wing crazies” in his party, including the effort to suppress the black vote.

The comments, if true (he is facing felony corruption charges and has an interest in scorning his party), would confirm what critics have long suspected. Florida Gov. Rick Scott is currently facing inquiries from the Justice Department and pressure from civil rights groups over his purging of voter rolls in the state, an effort that critics say has disproportionately targeted minorities and other Democratic voters. One group suing the state claims up to 87 percent of the voters purged from the rolls so far have been people of color, though other estimates place that number far lower.

Not much else to say, other than #SIFUABS.

Read Salon‘s complete piece HERE.