B-I-N-G-Oh Hell No

Attention Alabama Republican Party:  You have officially lost the "But we're not racists!" contest.

A federal judge accused two state Republicans, called by federal prosecutors in a massive Alabama corruption case, of cooperating with the feds because of their “ulterior motives rooted in naked political ambition and pure racial bias.”

State Sen. Scott Beason and former Rep. Benjamin Lewis, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson wrote, “lack credibility for two reasons.”

“First, their motive for cooperating with F.B.I. investigators was not to clean up corruption but to increase Republican political fortunes by reducing African-American voter turnout. Second, they lack credibility because the record establishes their purposeful, racist intent,” Thompson wrote.

Oh but ladies and gentlemen, it gets even more awesome.

Beason, Lewis, and their political allies sought to defeat SB380 partly because they believed the absence of the referendum on the ballot would lower African-American voter turnout during the 2010 elections. One of the government’s recordings captured Beason and Lewis discussing political strategy with other influential Republican legislative allies. A confederate warned: “Just keep in mind if [a pro-gambling] bill passes and we have a referendum in November, every black in this state will be bused to the polls. And that ain’t gonna help.

Now let's keep in mind a massive number of federal charges on this corruption case were tossed out by a federal jury over the summer. The DoJ went after the remaining charges that were deadlocked with a new trial scheduled for this month.  But I never honestly thought I would see this level of brutal honesty by any federal judge on the issue of the relentless GOP efforts to disenfranchise Democratic voters.  Even though the decision is just an order allowing the racial aspects of their testimony into the record of the new case (the DoJ argued that race was irrelevant to the actual corruption charges) for anyone to publicly admit like this that this is what the GOP is doing to people is so refreshing it's almost stunning.

And yes folks, Republicans understand that if they can keep minorities from voting, they win.  It always was that simple.