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MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry had a few words for old Fat Tony after the remarks he made during this week's Supreme Court hearing on the Voting Rights Act -- Voting is no ‘racial entitlement,’ Justice Scalia:

Dear Justice Scalia,

It’s me, Melissa.

By now, we know you well enough that there’s not much you can say or do that would come as a surprise. We can set our watches by your decisions that, predictably, will be in alignment with the Court’s most radically conservative reasoning. We know that unlike your friend Justice Clarence Thomas, who has a permanent mute button on, you will always voice an opinion, and it will be heavily influenced by your political agenda..

But even given all of that, what you had to say during Wednesday’s oral arguments still came as a genuine shock.

Commenting on Congress’s nearly unanimous re-authorization of the Voting Rights Act in 2006, you said, “I don’t think that’s attributable to the fact that it is so much clearer now that we need this. I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement.”

You went on to say, “I am fairly confident it will be re-enacted in perpetuity…unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution…It’s a concern that this is not the kind of a question you can leave to Congress.”

Racial entitlement? Not a question you can leave to Congress? Even for you, Justice Scalia, this is a particularly willful misreading of the Constitution you claim to adore.

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Civil Rights era leader and icon Rep. John Lewis gave one of the more powerful speeches at the Democratic National Convention this Thursday evening which moved many of the convention goers to tears and I've got to admit, myself as well. It is truly tragic that we're still having to fight these battles and that the Republicans are trying to take us backwards.

h/t Pam Spaulding for the transcript:

I first came to this city in 1961, the year Barack Obama was born. I was one of the 13 original “Freedom Riders.” We were on a bus ride from Washington to New Orleans trying to test a recent Supreme Court ruling that banned racial discrimination on buses crossing state lines and in the stations that served them. Here in Charlotte, a young African-American rider got off the bus and tried to get a shoe shine in a so-called white waiting room. He was arrested and taken to jail.

On that same day, we continued on to Rock Hill, South Carolina, about 25 miles. From here, when my seatmate, Albert Bigelow, and I tried to enter a white waiting room, we were met by an angry mob that beat us and left us lying in a pool of blood. Some police officers came up and asked us whether we wanted to press charges. We said, “No, we come in peace, love and nonviolence.” We said our struggle was not against individuals, but against unjust laws and customs. Our goal was true freedom for every American.

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After the Obama campaign filed their lawsuit in Ohio, which Mitt Romney subsequently went out and lied about, claiming that they were trying to disenfranchise military voters, which they're not, as Karoli explained here, wingnut Rep. Allen West took to his Facebook page to attack the President as well and throw some more flames about whether he deserves the title of "Commander in Chief."

As a retired Army officer I am appalled at the Obama administration’s actions to bring a lawsuit against the State of Ohio for the early voting privileges it extends to our Men and Women serving in uniform. To have the Commander in Chief make our US Servicemen and Women the target of a political attack to benefit his reelection actions is reprehensible. The voting privilege extended to these Warriors who represent the best among us should not be a part of the collective vision of this inept President who is more concerned about his reelection than sequestration. As a Combat Veteran, for this President to unleash his campaign cronies against our Military is unconscionable….how dare this President compare the service, sacrifice, and commitment of those who Guard our liberties not as special and seek to compare them to everyone else. Barack Obama is undeserving of the title Commander-in-Chief.

Quite astounding coming from this man: Allen West (R-FL) Brags about Torturing Iraqi Policeman. Yeah, that's who I want to hear from when it comes to judging whether President Obama deserves his title or not. Spare me.

For her part, Greta Van Susteren did at least press West about why he thought it was alright to disenfranchise all of those other Ohio voters and he did not have a good answer. His response was basically that they go "above and beyond" what everyone else in the state is doing, therefore they should have extra time to vote.

How about those veterans West? You think they deserve the same amount of time to vote as those currently serving? I don't know what it's going to take to get some meaningful, national laws protecting everyone's rights, making the availability of early voting mandatory everywhere and getting rid of these rigged voting machines, but we're long past due for all of it.

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Top Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod on Sunday called out Fox News host Chris Wallace after he repeated a claim made by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney that President Barack Obama was trying to block military voters in Ohio.

In a statement last week, Romney accused Obama of launching a lawsuit to strip military voters of early voting rights in Ohio -- a claim that both USA Today and the Obama campaign have said is false.

"Your campaign is suing the state of Ohio for giving members of the military extra time to vote early, to the Monday before the election while other voters are going to have only until Friday," Wallace told Axelrod on Sunday. "You don't think that members of the military who are serving this country deserve special consideration to vote?"

"I absolutely do and the way you stated it and the way, frankly, Gov. Romney has stated it is completely false and misleading," Axelrod shot back. "What that lawsuit calls for is not to deprive the military of the right to vote on the final weekend of the campaign -- of course they should have that right. What that suit is about is whether the rest of Ohio should have the same right."

"And I think it's shameful that Gov. Romney would hide behind our servicemen and women to try and win a lawsuit to try and deprive other Ohioans of their right to vote," he added.

Ohio's Republican-controlled legislature last year enacted new voting restrictions that prevented most voters from casting early ballots after the Friday before the election. Members of the military, however, had their rights preserved, giving them until Monday to vote.

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It's so good to see that Pat Buchanan has the poor and possibly disenfranchised voters that the teabaggers want to see stripped of their voting rights at heart. Buchanan disagreed with Tea Party leader Justin Phillips’ position that only land owners ought to be allowed to vote, but only because it might affect rich people that rent as well. Buchanan also espoused civics tests to allow Americans to be allowed to vote, apparently ignoring the fact that his favorite teabagger, Sarah Palin, probably couldn’t pass them.

Someone tell me how this wasn’t just a cheap shot for ratings for Hardball knowing ahead of time that Buchanan would say something idiotic? He’s the crazy old grandpa on the set that they keep bringing back out there that keeps babbling racist and sexist nonsense that hasn’t been acceptable dinner conversations for the better portion of America for twenty years or so. David Corn did some good push back here but why MSNBC thinks they need to keep their closet, or not so closeted racist, Sarah Palin fan-boy commenter Buchanan constantly on hand and ready to trot out on the set is beyond me.

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

The Tea Partiers have famously said they want to take their country back, but no one thought they meant back in time, until now.

A small group of conservatives are clamoring right now to change the country`s voting rights. Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips recently said that the right to vote should be limited to property owners.

Here he is on his own radio program.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

JUDSON PHILLIPS, FOUNDER, TEA PARTY NATION: The founding fathers originally said they put certain restrictions on who got the right to vote. It wasn`t just you were just a citizen and you automatically got to vote.

Now, some of their restrictions were -- you know, you obviously would not think about today. But one of them was, you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because, if you`re -- if you`re a property owner, you actually have a vested stake in the community. And if you`re not a property owner, you know, I`m sorry, but they -- property owners have a little bit more of a vested stake in the community than non- property owners do.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Well, Pat Buchanan is an MSNBC political analyst. I`m not sure where he stands on property requirements for voting. David Corn is a Washington bureau chief for "Mother Jones" and a contributor writer to PoliticsDaily.com.

Pat, this is a throwback. I mean, there`s nothing in our founding documents, certainly not in the Constitution of the United States, requiring landownership before you have the franchise, or the suffrage, if you will.

(CROSSTALK)

PAT BUCHANAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, the right to vote, Chris, as you know, is restricted to the states.

MATTHEWS: Right.

BUCHANAN: They make the decision, and that`s why you needed a constitutional amendment to make sure African-Americans could vote and women could vote.

And I understand the principle behind it, but I`m afraid we`re pretty far beyond that. A lot of folks who are very wealthy and contribute to a community rent property, or they rent in places. A lot of retired people do.

I have thought that maybe it ought to be restricted to folks who pay taxes to the community, but can you really do that, when some young 18- year-old is not paying any taxes, but he is on some hill in Afghanistan?

I think you should leave it to the states. And I think the restrictions on the franchise, I don`t think any of them, realistically, are going to get through in any state.

MATTHEWS: Do you support, if you had the opportunity, a landowning requirement to vote? Do you support it in principle, if it could pass?

BUCHANAN: Well, no, I would not restrict it to that.

But the idea of owning property -- let me say this, Chris. I often thought when I was out in Saint Louis and I was renting, I don`t bother voting and stuff. I was having a good time. And the people that lived there and owned houses were really concerned about schools and about traffic and about -- and they really get concerned in the community.

And there`s no doubt, in that sense, they were a better citizen of the community than I was, and then I am right now, when I`m a property owner in McLean, as you are in Chevy Chase.

So, I think there`s an argument that can be made, but, as a practical matter, it ain`t going to happen.

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