Stuff to Read

If you don’t read anything else this weekend, make it Ari Berman, “The GOP War on Voting” at Rolling Stone.

As the nation gears up for the 2012 presidential election, Republican officials have launched an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008. Just as Dixiecrats once used poll taxes and literacy tests to bar black Southerners from voting, a new crop of GOP governors and state legislators has passed a series of seemingly disconnected measures that could prevent millions of students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly from casting ballots.

“What has happened this year is the most significant setback to voting rights in this country in a century,” says Judith Browne-Dianis, who monitors barriers to voting as co-director of the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization based in Washington, D.C. […]

All told, a dozen states have approved new obstacles to voting….Taken together, such measures could significantly dampen the Democratic turnout next year — perhaps enough to shift the outcome in favor of the GOP.

Also at Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi, “GOP Hearts End-Time Insanity.”

Is Rick Perry a mass murderer? Alex Pareene looks at Rick Perry’s questionable executions. See also “Cameron Todd Willingham Execution: Rick Perry’s Role Deserves Scrutiny” by Jason Linkins.