Senate Republicans Continue Assault On Voting Rights

This week, the Senate Republicans filibustered the John Lewis
Voting Rights Act and stopped it from being voted into law in the
Senate, even though there was a majority of 51 votes. A filibuster
is just, literally, talking a bill to death so that the Senate
cannot get on with its work. To close off that trick, to stop a
filibuster, you need 60 votes, and only one Republican, Lisa
Murkowski, crossed the line to vote for the bill. Now, understand,
the filibuster was specifically created by Southern Democrats after
the Civil War for one single purpose: to prevent voting rights
legislation and the protection of black people. In fact, one of the
only times it was ever used was in 1922 to block the passage of a
national law against lynching. So, until very recently, it’s been
used almost exclusively for one purpose, that is to block rights of
black people to vote. Now, it's been used lately by Republicans for
all kinds of things, but basically it's a Jim Crow tactic.