Animal Pictures! January 19, 2015January 18, 2015 Today’s a holiday so, technically, you deserve respite. But I did threaten you with “animal pictures Monday” and who am I not to follow through on a threat? Have you seen Selma? I keep thinking, as we celebrate Reverend King’s birthday, that the monumental struggle it recounts — with all the hatred and beatings and murders — culminated in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . . . and that a 5-4 majority of the Bush Supreme Court recently gutted that Act.* Shameful, really. But with power and wealth generally come the desire for more. Making it harder for black people to vote (because they vote overwhelmingly against the party focused on aiding the wealthy while cutting things like drug treatment programs, as Jeb did) is just one more means to that end. And now: ANIMALS! Each of us Earthlings just doing what it takes to get by. Five minutes. I love this. *I call it the Bush Supreme Court because three of the five votes to gut the Voting Rights Act came from Bush appointees and the other two, from Reagan/Bush appointees. If Jeb should win the Presidency, he might well have a chance to replace liberal Justices Ginsberg and Breyer with two more Bush conservatives. (And Scalia and Kennedy, who will be 80, with two 50-year-olds.) Which is one of the reasons I keep badgering my affluent friends for support.