SCOTUS To Hear Case That May Redefine ‘One Person, One Vote’ — UPDATED

Tierney Sneed at TPM:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday opted to hear arguments in a case that could redefine "one person, one vote" -- one of the bedrock principles of modern voting rights law. The case could change how electoral districts are drawn across the country, revamping who comprises electoral districts and reshaping the idea of who is ultimately "represented" by elected officials.

The case, Evenwel v. Abbott, originated in Texas and is being spearheaded by a conservative legal group. Legal experts tell TPM that the impact of the case could be far-reaching, especially for Latinos and residents of urban districts.

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I do not understand how the conservative Justices on SCOTUS, operating in response to politically conservative legal entities like the self-proclaimed "Project on Fair Representation" (yeah, right), believe they can get away with this bullshit indefinitely without provoking a rebellion by people defending the Guarantee Clause of Article IV of the US Constitution. Please read about the Guarantee Clause, then read the above linked article about what the PoFR is appealing to SCOTUS to have imposed on all the states, a procedure that would change the redistricting rules in most of the states and render the phrase "One Person, One Vote" practically meaningless, in a fashion that might guarantee each state, not a (small-r) republican form of government as assumed for at least 50 years based on several prior Court rulings, but in fact a (cap-R) Republican form of government, which is clearly the goal of PoFR.

People who are poor, or Black or Hispanic, or are forcibly redistricted in ways that geographically concentrate their cohort so as to dilute the power of their votes, already have a hard enough time exercising any actual power by casting their votes. These days, most of the people affected by tweaking redistricting are those who tend to vote for Democrats. If the Court rules in this case in favor of the PoFR position, those poor/Black/Hispanic/etc. people are going to be fucked at the polls even worse than they already are, and thus so will be the Democratic Party.

And the Roberts Cadre, the Gang of Five, will have another weapon to join with Citizens United etc. to assure that elections can be bent to their own political liking.

Kuffner

Seriously: how long will it be before the actual majority of Americans, who are mostly not racially white, not male, not young and not wealthy, tire of having their expressed political will deliberately thwarted, and take to the streets? Do the Supremes really think they have enough police lined up to enforce a Republican [sic] government forcibly installed against the will of the popular majority?

Time will tell. Not a very pleasant time, and probably a rather painful tell...

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UPDATE: a bit more detail from Kuffner, who is arguably, and certainly IMHO, the definitive Texas blogger.

Obama Admin War On Journalism Continues: Barrett Brown Faces Over 100 Years In Charges

Can you spell "overreach," children? Here's yellowsnapdragon at FDL:

In case you haven’t heard, journalist Barrett Brown is facing over 100 years in jail for alleged crimes relating to his investigation into the world of private intelligence contractors for the US government.

Forty-five years of that potential maximum jail sentence is for copying and pasting a link into a chat room. Along with valuable emails exposing the machinations inside the lair of private spies in the service of government, the link Barrett Brown posted also included private credit card information stored on contractor’s servers.

By contrast, LulzSec hacker Jeremy Hammond, accused of actually stealing the files from Stratfor (aided by government informer Sabu), faces only 10 years.

Government overreach on the charges against Brown apparently isn’t enough. In a motion filed August 7, the prosecution requested that the Judge order restrictions against parties contacting the media. The government is seeking a Gag Order to prevent Barrett Brown from speaking with reporters.

,,,

Please read the rest of ysd's post. It is sobering to contemplate what our government is doing to journalists to punish them for doing their jobs.

Telling a journalist not to talk to people is like telling a truck driver not to use the highway system. And charging anyone with a 45-year offense for copy-pasting a single link... "copy-pasting" presumably means the link was already on the web somewhere... sounds like something that would have happened in the various countries whose government we were privileged to call totalitarian, back before the "world's greatest democracy" (heh) started doing the same shit.

A word to Obama and company: jailing, intimidating, assaulting, "disappearing," and killing journalists are things only dictators do. Is that what you are now? How soon before you start jailing bloggers... including Democrats critical of your administration's suppression of the mainstream press and media?