Helen of Thomas, the face that launched a thousand quips!
Posted on 06/21/2006 8:00:06 PM PDT by HAL9000
DES MOINES, Iowa - An Iowa congressman apologized Wednesday for disparaging comments he made last week at the state Republican convention about a veteran White House correspondent.Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, was discussing the June 7 death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi on Saturday when he mentioned 85-year-old Helen Thomas, who has covered the White House for nearly 50 years and is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers.
"There probably are not 72 virgins in the hell he's at," King said about al-Zarqawi, in a recording transcribed by Radio Iowa. "And if there are, they probably all look like Helen Thomas."
~ snip ~
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Incumbent Rights Act
Why Congress loves racial gerrymanders.
Monday, June 12, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
We're not in the business of making predictions. But you can be fairly certain that the coming debate over updating the Voting Rights Act will sidestep what's really at stake, which isn't the right to vote but rather the power of politicians to pick their voters through gerrymandering.
Unless Republican backbones miraculously stiffen, expect the expiring penalty provisions of the Voting Rights Act to be renewed this year for another quarter-century, and expect it to happen with huge bipartisan majorities pretending that this draconian infringement of federalist principles is still necessary in 2006.
Partly this is because it's an election year and the issue lends itself to demagoguery. The Voting Rights Act was crafted by Congress in 1965 to address black disenfranchisement in the Jim Crow South, and the circumstances that made federal intervention appropriate 40 years ago still occupy the memories of many Americans today.
Congress could reassure Americans that the most important provisions of the Voting Rights Act--the bans on poll taxes and literacy tests and grandfather clauses--are permanently enshrined in law and thus not in need of renewal. But the political reality is that an embattled GOP Congress has no interest in allowing Democrats to use opposition to something called the Voting Rights Act against Republican candidates in November.
There's another, even more cynical, reason so many in Congress favor renewal, and it has to do with the Section 5, or "preclearance," provision of the law. Under Section 5, Deep South states and a few others must get permission from the federal government before making any changes to their voting practices. By any measure today, from voter registration and participation rates to the success of minority candidates, the intervention has served the nation well. But having accomplished its goals, this provision of the Voting Rights Act is now being abused by political incumbents.
Section 5 requirements stipulate that new redistricting plans can never reduce the number of minority voting districts. And the politicians have used this as an excuse to create Congressional districts that have nothing to do with geographic integrity and only serve their party's election prospects. When Republicans are re-drawing the Congressional maps, they heavily concentrate minority voters into safe Democratic districts, which has the effect of creating even more safe Republican districts.
When Democrats are in control, they also try to divvy up these minority voting areas, albeit somewhat differently. Their goal is to maintain enough of a core black population in certain seats to satisfy the Section 5 requirement. But Democrats also want to spread enough other black voters around predominantly white neighborhoods in hopes that white liberals can also continue to get elected.
Thus has a law intended to protect minority voting rights been transformed into a tool for creating safe Congressional seats--and all the problems that come with entrenched political incumbents who are primarily concerned with the demands of their special interest patrons.
Renewal legislation was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee last month, 33-1, with Republican Steve King of Iowa as the lone, brave holdout. House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner is currently leaning on his Senate counterpart, Arlen Specter, to do the same. Everyone, including the White House, wants this off the table as soon as possible.
Some Republicans are taking comfort in the belief that the Section 5 provision may be unconstitutional at the end of the day. And it's certainly true that the Supreme Court hinted as much in decisions like Shaw v. Reno (1993), which held that a "reapportionment plan that includes in one district individuals who belong to the same race, but who are otherwise widely separated by geographical and political boundaries, and who have little in common with another but the color of their skins, bears an uncomfortable resemblance to political apartheid."
Ten years later, in Georgia v. Ashcroft, the High Court said, "the Voting Rights Act, as properly interpreted, should encourage the transition to a society where race no longer matters." The reauthorization would do the opposite. If Congress and the President are counting on the Supreme Court--which now has a Texas redistricting case before it--to spare them from the job of clarifying this matter, they should recall that such a strategy didn't work out so well in the case of McCain-Feingold's campaign finance reform.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008505
Apparently a sufficient number of other folks don't as well, or King wouldn't be apologizing.
You'd obviously have to ask him that sink. Maybe he believes people should be able to speak, write and understand the English language, or otherwise show some level of competence, to be able to vote. Would you deny the Dims co-opted a Pubbie initiative by creating a new class of victims?
Enough booze to drink her pretty would kill an average man and most drunks.
Representative Peter King from Long Island, sponsor of the controversial immigrant criminalization bill HR 4437, has lead an effort in Congress to block renewal of the language assistance provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Fifty-six members of the U.S. House recently signed a letter circulated by King of New York and Steve King of Iowa urging House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin (the other lead sponsor of HR 4437), to fight against the renewal of Section 203. The letter argues (in pdf format) that multilingual ballots "divide our country, increase the risk of voter error and fraud, and burden local taxpayers." The letter cites a November 2005 Los Angeles Times article that reported Los Angeles County had spent more than $2.1 million to provide interpreters and multi-language ballots for the 2004 election and it states that in 1996, one county in California had to spend $30,000 on Spanish ballots when only one resident requested Spanish materials.
The representatives also wrote that "federal law protects the right of all citizens to bring an interpreter into the voting booth with them if they have difficulty understanding a ballot written in English." According to King and others, that practice is "the right approach." Glenn Magpantay, staff attorney with AALDEF believes the financial argument against the multilingual provisions of the voting rights act is just a smokescreen. “It’s basically just a misguided nativist argument,” states Magpantay. “This provision allows more Americans to vote.” AALDEF is actually advocating for various measures to make it even easier to get language assistance at the polls.
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/voting/20060421/17/1826
There's your answer. He thought the bill stunk.
But you like it, I take it.
Lord, forgive me and be with the starving pygmies in New Guinea.
My head spins at your strange bedfellows, EV.
A quick read of that one indicates a working knowledge of just what the VRA has turned in to. The Dims of course are masters of victimology.
He probably apologized out of a deathly fear that Helen Thomas would show up at his door one night saying, "Mr. King, I'm not a virgin; and I can prove it."
They lost. Sensenbrenner, and the majority of other Republicans, voted for renewal. And Sensenbrenner noted that bilingual ballots weren't for illegals, but for legal citizens of the United States.
Helen of Thomas, the face that launched a thousand quips!
'Helen also told a audience (at MIT I believe) that everyday she wakes up and asks herself, "Who do I hate today?"'
Doc,
I think we all know that the first thing most middle easterners, and their spawn, think as they wake up in the morning is "I hate the Jooze."
My mind boggles at your continuing hatred for conservatives, and your Carvillian efforts to smear them.
He made a crack about Helen Thomas. So what.
Steve King is one of the ablest legislators in Washington, DC, and he isn't afraid to take on liberals, ever.
We need a few hundred more like him.
Ask Congressman King. He's the one apologizing.
Sinkspur never uses water, he pees on your neck and tries to tell you it's raining.
It is always honorable to be out of step with sinkspud.
It gets him attention being a contrarian.
Yeah, because the majority of Republicans in Congress are pansies. God forbid that anyone should ever call them a racist, even with no grounds at all, like you just did to Steve King.
Of course he is. He's a classy guy. Unlike you.
Actually, rock, for you, I pee on your neck and it's pee.
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