Thanks to American Conservative Union chairman Al Cardenas, we now know why New Jersey Governor Chris Christie wasn’t invited to CPAC this year: he’s too sympathetic to disaster victims and poor people who need medical help: The Real Reason Why Chris Christie Wasn’t Invited to CPAC.

In other words, he’s not quite heartless enough.

Cardenas, whose group organizes the conference, wrote in an e-mail to National Journal that while CPAC was “proud” to invite Christie last year based on his record of balancing the budget and taking on teachers unions, Christie’s record over the past year is far less conservative.

“CPAC is like the all-star game for professional athletes; you get invited when you have had an outstanding year,” Cardenas said. “Hopefully he will have another all-star year in the future, at which time we will be happy to extend an invitation. This is a conservative conference, not a Republican Party event.”

Cardenas cited Christie’s decision to expand Medicaid under President Obama’s health care law and his support of a $60 billion aid package for Hurricane Sandy victims, which he argued was filled with wasteful spending.

“You get invited when you have had an outstanding year.” That must be why Mitt Romney was invited to speak.

(Note: Obama’s speech begins at about 40 minutes in, but there are some good moments before that.)

Here goes the Republican Party’s latest serious attempt to get rid of that troublesome Voting Rights Act that they’ve hated with a special vitriol ever since it was enacted: Voting Rights Act Takes a Beating in the Supreme Court.

The right wing justices are sounding a lot like right wing bloggers.

A question posed by Chief Justice John Roberts to the Obama administration’s lawyer defending the Voting Rights Act captured the tenor of the proceedings.

“Is it the government’s submission that citizens in the South are more racist than citizens not in the South?” Roberts asked.

Is he kidding?

I’ve spent a lot of time in the South, and while there are plenty of great non-racist people living there, to say that the South has no special problems with racism is absolutely beyond ludicrous.

This is what happens when conservatives get a chance to stack the Supreme Court with right wingers.

Antonin Scalia also got into the fray, sounding like a Free Republic commenter:

Justice Antonin Scalia attributed the continued congressional reauthorization to the “perpetuation of racial entitlement” and suggested that it will be renewed endlessly because members of Congress would never let it lapse for fear for political repercussions.

“I don’t think there is anything to be gained by any Senator to vote against continuation of this act,” Scalia said. “They are going to lose votes if they do not reenact the Voting Rights Act. Even the name of it is wonderful — the Voting Rights Act. Who is going to vote against that in the future?”

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