11 Comments

That counter is perverse, in that it assigns most of the credit to a bill to its weakest, most reluctant supporters. Pshaw! I say.

Most of the Ayes in both chambers for both the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights, in every vote (for cloture, for passage, for the conference report) were Democrats. And the thing about Democrats voting in favor at higher rates than Republicans after you control for region also applies to the Civil Rights Act. Zero Republican votes were required to pass the Voting Rights Act in the House - an overall majority of votes were Democratic Ayes.

The Guardian also pointed out that <a href="http:\/\/voteview.com\/blog\/\?p=525" target="_blank">VoteView's ideological/regional data</a> show that while region was the strongest predictor of voting position for those two Acts, party affiliation didn't even come in second as a predictor - liberal/conservative ideology did. Which brings us back to the fact that today's Republican party is not 1964's - the leftmost, median and mean Republicans are all much further right today than they were back then. The shedding of Dixiecrats also means that the reverse is even more true - the rightmost, median and mean Democrat is hugely further left today than in 1964. Let's not forget, Strom Thurmond vigorously opposed the Civil Rights Act <em>as a Democrat</em>, but by the time the Voting Rights Act was getting passed he'd already started leading the reddening of the South.

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THAT is beautiful!

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My favorite part of the "Fox and Friends" parodies on SNL are always the corrections, even if I have to watch them in slow motion because they scroll by at 770 mph. Too bad the real Fox News will never run that many corrections.

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Can't the old fks who watch and believe this a-hole just hurry up and die already so he can be replaced by...uh, ah forget it.

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I thought I saw pigs flying on the way to work this morning but I just figured it was the usual flashbacks or the shrooms kicking in.

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<a href="http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/humor\/issuecartoons\/2013\/09\/02\/cartoons_20130826#slide=1" target="_blank">Relevant</a>

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Bill O’Reilly never lies. Also: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

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Somebody's worried about his legacy....

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The problem with Butt Monkeys is that they always return to their birthplace to spawn, much like salmon.

Be wary, Rebecca, in 5-7 years... Don't want a whole troop of lil' butt monkeys.

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I, for one, have never seen Bill O'Reilly and Brigitte Neilsen together in a room.

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The Guardian had a nice little piece this week in which they pointed out that if you control for region, you find that Democrats from Union states voted for the VRA at higher rates than Republicans from Union states; and similarly, Democrats from Confederate states voted for the VRA at higher rates than Republicans from Confederate states.

Add that to the fact the Civil and Voting Rights Acts were driven through by a Democratic President, a Democratic Senate Majority Leader, and a Democratic House Speaker, <em>and</em> of course the fact that as a direct consequence of Democratic leadership's embrace of the acts that Southern party loyalty flip-flopped from Dixiecrat to ruby-red Republican, and the claim that civil rights were a Republican legacy isn't just irrelevant to the modern day, it's historically untrue in every regard.

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