Hot-tempered comedian Lewis Black has never been shy when it comes to taking on controversial topics, and his latest crusade has paired the foul-mouthed performer with the American Civil Liberties Union in an attempt to “F@&* Voter Suppression,” particularly through requiring voters to have IDs with their picture on them.
In a fake “photo shoot” with Dale Ho, director of the ACLU's voting rights program, Black declares: “Elected officials shouldn't get to choose who gets to choose elected officials! Look, people marched and fought and died for the right to vote, and they wanna legislate away that sacrifice to stay in power? Not on my watch, baby!”
The video begins with a woman telling Ho and Black to “give me a minute. I'm gonna get the camera set up.”
Ho then tells Black: “Thanks a lot for agreeing to be our celebrity ambassador on voting rights, Lewis. We'll try to make this photo shoot as painless as possible.“
“No photo shoot is painless, but I'm happy to help,” Black responds. “It's important. I mean, who is denying people (cough, cough, cough) the right to vote?”
“You'd be surprised,” the ACLU official replies. “We're fighting people trying to suppress voting all over the country, like North Carolina. They slashed a week off early voting. That affects over two million people.”
The woman tells them: “If I could just get you guys to look at the lens.”
Instead, Black asks: “Why stop people from voting early?”
“Well, early voting makes it easier to vote, and that can decide an election,” Ho states. He then reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out “a picture that I carry around with me everywhere I go in case I get the chance to talk about early voting.”
After seeing the photograph of a long line of people waiting to register to vote, Black asked: “What the hell is that, is it Black Friday? I mean, you'd think that the people of Florida would want their voters to like, you know, vote? What's next, a poll tax?”
“Well … ,” Ho begins before Black cuts him off by declaring: “Oh, no f@&*ing way!”
The photographer again states: “If I could just have you look into the lens.”
“Voter IDs like they tried to implement in Wisconsin cost money,” Ho lectured. “It essentially is a poll tax, and look at what they made Wiscosinites do just to get one of these ID cards.”
Pointing to an elaborate chart, he continued: “This is an actual document from the state of Wisconsin, which is supposed to show how easy it is to get an ID.”
Black grumbled:
Elected officials shouldn't get to choose who gets to choose elected officials! Look, people marched and fought and died for the right to vote, and they wanna legislate away that sacrifice to stay in power? Not on my watch, baby!
The photographer tries once again to get the attention of Black and Ho by meekly stating: “Uh, if I could, um...”
“Take the picture!” Black demands.
Responding to the comedian's “ridiculous rant,” the staff at the Twitchy.com website noted: “Requiring ID to vote means the end of America as it was founded, or so this ridiculously over-the-top video would have you believe.”
Along with watching the video, interested people can read and sign on to an open letter written by the volatile comedian that declares:
To all politicians who’ve ever tried to block access to voting: What the hell is the matter with you people?! You need to get your head on straight.
The cornerstone of this great country is the right to vote -- and you should be fighting to make sure that every citizen who can vote, does! But instead, you’re creating obstacles for voters? Well, that makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? … F@&* that!
“Your power comes from our votes,” Black continued. “It’s time you started fighting voter discrimination instead of passing laws that disenfranchise more and more people in this country.”
“We won’t let you keep getting away with it,” he added. “So get off your a**es and do the right thing. Love, Lewis Black.”
Tweeter @RBPundit countered Black's comments by stating that “making sure people are who they say they are isn’t voter suppression. It’s voter fraud suppression.”
@bullimusmasimus joined the discussion by noting that this program is “Another example of white Dems assuming the worst about minority voters.”
As NewsBusters reported last February, many would-be participants in the Moral March in Raleigh, North Carolina, were turned away because organizers ironically required them to have -- you guessed it -- a photo ID.
Perhaps the ACLU and liberals like Lewis Black should devote more time, money and energy into helping members of Democratic constituent groups actually get photo identification instead of trying to get the government to “F@&* Voter IDs” for them.
