Gawker 
Enter your username and password.
New York, 9:44 AM
Tue Nov 24
46 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip Your Editors:
tips@gawker.com
Tipline: 646-214-8138
Editor-in-Chief:
Gabriel Snyder | Email
West Coast Editor:
Richard Rushfield | Email
Contributing Editors:
Valleywag:
Ryan Tate | Email
Media:
Hamilton Nolan | Email
Politics:
Alex Pareene | Email
Investigations:
John Cook | Email
Entertainment:
Brian Moylan | Email
Nights:
Adrian Chen | Email
Azaria Jagger | Email
Ravi Somaiya | Email
Weekends:
Foster Kamer | Email
Video Editor:
Richard Blakeley | Email
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
02/27/09
02/27/09
If you make it its own state, then you have to make the Upper Peninsula of Michigan a state (Superior!) and those are some of the stupidest people on God's earth.
I'm going to come out with the conservatives on this one and say, just stick to the Constitution, lest you negate the truest criticism there can be of the Republican party after 8 years of shitting all over the document.
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
I ain't fleein' to no Vanilla Suburb.
I'll have The Funk.
02/27/09
I just don't buy that. Republicans have shown some pretty backwards ways of finding transparent arguments to cover some pretty obvious wink-nod racism. Dixiecrats did the same thing - after all, it's not racism, it's "Southern Tradition." Sort like the wink-nods of Sean Delonas' cartoons or the Confederate flag.
But this really is a constitutional thing. DC just isn't a state. We should make it one, though, or just assign its vote as half Maryland/half Virginia or SOMEthing. Hey, maybe 51-star flag sales could stim the ol' economy?
02/27/09
02/27/09
It isn't so much about "black people" per se ... but it is OBVIOUSLY about the fact that the majority of DC's population are liberal democrats. (But the fact that a majority of the the DC population are lower-income blacks probably has something to do with their voting proclivities.)
You think it's just a coincidence that only Republicans object to giving half a million motly liberal democrats a new representative in Congress? Really?
02/27/09
02/27/09
It's a clear-cut constitutional issue. I completely get the demographics comment, and I don't doubt that's driving some of this. But don't the obvious constitutional issues supercede that? We don't give Puerto Rico votes, and it's not because they're Conservative Hispanics - it's because they're a commonwealth.
People use transparent arguments to cover for racism all the time - the Confederate Flag debate is a perennial example. This is a bit different, don't you think? Though some of the same forces apply, no doubt.
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
Lifted from Wiki:
"Most residents do not pay federal income tax but pay federal payroll taxes (Social Security and Medicare), and Puerto Rico income taxes. But federal employees, or those who do business with the federal government, Puerto Rico-based corporations that intend to send funds to the U.S. and others also pay federal income taxes. Because the cutoff point for income taxation is lower than that of the U.S. IRS code, and because the per-capita income in Puerto Rico is much lower than the average per-capita income on the mainland, more Puerto Rico residents pay less income taxes to the local taxation authority than if the IRS code were applied to the island."
As we said in the beginning, no pay = no vote.
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
In reality, what's the chance a long-time DC resident gets the seat vs. a Democratic operative who moved to the district to work for a lobbying organization/law firm/non-profit/Senator?
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
Amend the constitution, make it a state, or let the surrounding states absorb the DC districts into their own (as has been done in the past). Or keep it status quo. The end.
"Warrantless wiretapping" and "undeclared wars" have nothing to do with this, so don't change the subject.
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
@Almostbanned: ""Warrantless wiretapping" and "undeclared wars" have nothing to do with this, so don't change the subject."
Of course it is relevant. You can't crap on the constitution sometimes and then when it comes to giving people a motherfucking VOTE, then be all like 'but the constitution!' *whine*
I agree it is unconstitutional. As Alex says above, there's some hiding behind that to deny a vote to half a million people. And it sucks because these same people let the constitution get shat on the last few years.
02/27/09
02/27/09
As far as the war goes, you can talk about that until you're blue in the face, because we've been involved with dozens of conflicts over the years, under the leadership of both parties, that technically haven't been 'declared' wars. And not once has anyone made a serious constitutional challenge to any of them in the end.
Anywho.... When DC was founded as our capital, it was never really intended to be a place where anyone actually LIVED full-time. You see, the founders envisioned citizen-politicians who would come to town a few months of the year, do the governments work, then return to their farms or jobs or businesses back home. So it was intentionally set up as a "phantom zone" to help discourage exactly the kind of permanent government we now have. It was also built on a malarial swamp for this reason as well. Now, reality being what it is, we have a half million people who do indeed live there full time and should have congressional representation. But the congress needs to do the required work to get them there, not just scream outrage that the situation exists and make insincere and unrealistic demands to score political points.
02/27/09
02/27/09
And thus began the ridiculous disenfranchisement of Washington, D.C., which meant that Washingtonians could not vote for President until 1961, and could not even elect their own mayor until 1973. Yes, before 1973, the Federal government governed the city without citizen input.
So now, the District of Columbia, a jurisdiction containing more people than Wyoming and North Dakota, may have the opportunity to have one-third the representation its official fellow states have (because, don't forget, the idea of giving D.C. two senators would be radical).
The saddest part about this? The vast majority of Americans are truly in the dark about how disenfranchised Washingtonians are. And, if they knew, the vast majority of Americans would support full voting rights.
This is all simply un-American at its core. Fake protests against the constitutionality of it all are thinly disguised plots against giving African-Americans more power, Democrats more power, or both.
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
02/27/09
they're mayor is hot, if that makes them feel any better.
01/08/09
01/07/09
01/07/09
That is all.
01/07/09
Gawker Media is wholly based on giving us a distraction from our lives. Just because we do it with more smirk doesn't take away that we are just as sad.
01/07/09
I mean, if there are any furries on Gawker, they've at least had the decency not to mention it. (Although, it would be cool if you could befriend a giant penis...)