My grandmother was politically active her entire adult life. In 1925 she married my grandfather who was a Union organizer in the north-east. He started organizing unions in New York, and ultimately was responsible for organizing Unions in: Delaware, Maryland, Virgina, West Virginia and Kentucky.
My grandparents were catholic and had 5 kids, so when my grandfather would travel to organize Unions my grandmother raised the kids alone. She often told me stories about how fearful she was that my grandfather would get hurt. Her biggest fear, during those days, was that he would be killed by anti-union forces and she would never be told he was dead -- she would just never see him again.
At that time, it was extremely dangerous to be a Union organizer. Every story she told me about his travels ended the same way, "kid, you don't know how happy I was to see Leo walking down the street coming home."
She always called us "kid." Even when we became young adults, she always called us "kid."
From the time I was born through 1968, when my grandfather died, my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins came to our house every Sunday after church (we had a 1000 acre farm). My grandmother never dated nor re-married, she adored my grandfather (he was good looking, funny, very kind and treated her like a queen.)
My grandparents would tell us the wild stories about my grandfather's life as a Union organizer and they would always turn the topic to politics. My grandmother would turn to us kids and say, "Kid, you always have to vote, you never know when someone will get elected who will try to take your vote away."
I would usually nod my head in agreement with her wishing I could roll my eyes at her. At that time, I thought how silly she sounded and how impossible it would be for someone to take away the voting rights of people who had a Constitutional right to vote.
She died in 1983, but she said that same thing to us so often that I can remember thinking, "She's crazy, no elected politician would ever want to take away someone's right to vote." I thought, even those who fought for their right to vote were finally granted their right to vote way before I was born ... so ... "silly her" I thought.
She was not crazy, she was not silly, she was right and I was wrong.
2012 is proving to be the year where the Republican party is doing everything in their power to take away the voting rights of: women, men, students, the elderly, the handicap and many other groups. The Republican effort to eliminate the Constitutional right to vote will also affect Republicans and Tea Party people -- what will the Tea Party do when their members are told they cannot vote due to the Republicans they put in office?
The Republicans who are taking away American Citizens voting rights are as un-American, un-Patriotic as you can get. In fact, I will go a step further and say, the Republicans allowing the Republican party to take away the, what was once, the Constitutional voting rights of American citizens are Traitors to America.
Oh, and one more thing, that Republican Judge in Pennsylvania, Judge Robert Simpson, is also a Traitor to America and should be disbarred and thrown off the bench.
Yesterday Jim Cramer, who has a National TV show and over a half a million Twitter followers tweeted that his father, a Vet, would not be able to vote under current PA laws because he is old, does not drive and has no birth certificate. Thanks to Cramer's fame and fortune, and thanks to the fact that the Republicans in PA did not want Cramer to blast them on National TV (during his show) the Republicans in PA swooped in and made sure Cramer's dad had a ID to vote ... good for him. Now, what about the 750,000 PA American citizens being predicted to be disenfranchised? They are screwed because they have no Lobby and no National TV show.
I am hoping that the PA Supreme Court does the right thing and wads that BS Anti-American PA Bill in the garbage where it belongs. The PA Supreme Court hears the case tomorrow.
Good luck America --- given these Republican elected-throwbacks America is going to need all the luck and positive energy it can muster.