Al Sharpton has 'long, significant' meeting with Obama, Holder on voting rights

Brett T. | 5:44 PM on July 29, 2013

@TheRevAl …you mean Democrat voter rights, right?

— JalopyJohnson (@ManOfReal) July 29, 2013

You might remember that President Obama used Saturday’s weekly address to reiterate the commitment he made earlier in the week in his speech at Knox College: “to spend every minute of every day doing everything in my power to make this economy work for working Americans again.” And he’ll get right on that, maybe starting tomorrow. Today was devoted to a long lunch date with Hillary Clinton and a meeting with Al Sharpton, Attorney General Eric Holder and dozens of others to discuss the Voting Rights Act.

My blog regarding meeting today with President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder about Voting Rights: http://t.co/TdvS4Njm3d

— Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) July 29, 2013

Sharpton found time to write a blog post about the meeting for the Huffington Post, and if his piece is an accurate representation, he and the president spent a lot of time talking about Fox News host Bill O’Reilly — the guy “turncoat mofo” Don Lemon dared to suggest had a point about black culture. O’Reilly’s criticisms are just a distraction, see.

The issues of gangster glorification, out-of-wedlock births, the Black family crisis and others are ones that I absolutely agree we must deal with, and I have unequivocally preached about them and others for years. But when they are being used as a distraction from dealing with the very real dilemmas of ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws, voting rights and an unbalanced criminal justice system, then I must call foul. Right-wingers and gullible co-conspirators who don’t want to see this country confront voter equality, and a just criminal court system will stop at nothing it seems to divert people’s attention from the challenges we face as a nation. Even as I write this, states are currently engaged in voter suppression tactics yet again by implementing draconian new voter ID laws, eliminating/reducing early voting days and much more.

Texas, Holder’s prime target for new legislation, was among the first to pass one of those “draconian” voter ID laws once the Supreme Court struck down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. In short, the state is giving out voter IDs for free at every driver’s license office in the state, and they’re good for six years. However, applicants must have documentation to verify their U.S. citizenship and identity — that must be the draconian part.