The Internet? Bah. Won’t amount to much of anything.
Did Rush Limbaugh commit voter fraud?
Results from the Washington Post’s marshmallow peeps diorama contest. My favorite: Number 31.
See, we need the PATRIOT Act to fight terrorism. Fears that it will be used to snoop on the private activities of Americans, or used to settle political grudges are silly and overblown. (End sarcasm). Look, I’m as happy to see Spitzer go down as anyone. But the more we’re learning about the way it happened, the more it stinks.
Make your own Jackson Pollock painting.
Another death after a jolt from a non-lethal taser.
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on Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 at 9:34 am by Radley Balko
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TheAgitator.com
Did Daily Kos commit voter fraud?
http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2008/01/criminal-invest.html
Not worth mentioning here?
In both cases, it sounds like partisan whining to me about two guys exercising their right to free speech. Damn, this place is going downhill fast.
But since Limbaugh is teh evi1, I hope prosecutors are able to use every technicality, loophole, and dirty trick in the law to send him to federal pound-’im-in-the-ass prison.
“The Internet? Bah. Won’t amount to much of anything. ”
That article is from 1995.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/106554/
About the time his book “Silicon Snake Oil” came out.
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~stoll/silicon_snake_oil.html
Voter fraud?
I don’t care for the idea of voting for the other party in order to influence the outcome in favor of your party, but it’s hardly fraud.
Or else every voter who voted for one party last year and a different one this year is ALSO committing voter fraud.
But then again, I bet that’s the goal.
The author implied that it’s as “basically illegal” to vote in a different party in Texas as it is in Ohio, which is simply untrue.
There is no party registration in Texas. Anyone is free to vote in either primary (but only in one).
Radley, I’m surprised you didn’t jump on this bit from the Rush Limbaugh story:
“they changed parties to vote for Clinton. One problem. That’s basically illegal.”
If KBCraig is right, and it’s not illegal, we should be all over the author for trying to “create” a stupid law. If KBCraig is wrong (which I doubt, but if he is), then that seems like the ultimate repudiation of anything resembling freedom. Illegal to vote for someone? Geez. What does Ohio think they are, Russia?
From what I gather, they’re trying to claim it’s illegal because the voters swore an “allegiance to the Democratic Party”. Who knows. Maybe that’s a good thing. Start holding people responsible for their oaths. Hmm….
“The Internet? Bah. Won’t amount to much of anything. ”
Heh.
Nice retrospective. Oh, all this anarchy out there! Unfiltered by the “experts”. How dangerous! People actually thinking for themselves!
Wonder if that guy is still that full of shit.
Heh.
Ohio has very specific laws about changing parties to vote in the primary while Texas and Michigan do not; what Kos and Limbaugh directed people to do in those two states, while sleazy, wasn’t illegal. But in Ohio it is. From the first few paragraphs it seems like the author is implying that the same goes for Texas, but in reading the whole thing the “crime” part is only about Ohio- think that’s just poorly written.
I don’t think it’s a great law- if I was a registered republican but decided that I liked Obama better than McCain and McCain better than Clinton, I might change parties to vote for Obama in the primary, but if Clinton won the dem nomination I’d vote for McCain in the general. I’d probably be violating the letter of the law although not the spirit. But I don’t think you could write the law so that it differentiated between someone who wanted to vote for the best person regardless of party versus someone trying to purposefully manipulate the “other” party’s primary for their own party’s gain.
On second thought …. First sentence: “After two decades online, I’m perplexed.” So he went online on the Internet in 1975? 5 years before the IBM PC? 8 years before ARPA went TCP/IP?
That guy is even more full of it. Tell me this is a bad joke.
I had no idea that ‘the awakening’ had been removed from Haines Point.
> In both cases, it sounds like partisan whining to me about two
> guys exercising their right to free speech. Damn, this place is
> going downhill fast.
What he ^^^ said. All dispassionate analysis appears to be flying straight out the window in a seeming desperate attempt to keep George Bush from, uh, being elected to a third term.
As if the permanent bureaucracy in Washington is going to change more than about 3% no matter who’s perched on top of the dungheap next.
(Were it not for the fact that I live here and would suffer the consequences, I would otherwise be eagerly desirous of everyone getting what they asked for — good and hard — from an Obama Presidency. I’d get to enjoy four straight years of saying “I told you so, but would you listen? Nooo…..”
You’re welcome to go comment elsewhere, Mike.
I think we’d all benefit if you did.
Someone has to keep this place straight.
I notice that your “insignificant” tag is still sitting there like the big, fat LIE that it is. (You know what I’m talking about.)
You cannot maintain a claim to integrity if you’re going to indulge in that sort of thing because you think it’s “necessary” to get some bastard out of political power.
– The whole country is shot through with this sort of ethical weaseling now, and it just won’t do.
People who complain loudest that a site is going downhill usually provide the most ballast.
Voter fraud?
That article smells like BS. First, the parties are private parties, not governed by laws (although some governmental laws apply to politicking, ‘natch). Secondly, I did exactly what was described in the article when I changed my party affiliation to Republican to support Ron Paul.
That article’s author has done everyone a disservice by not being more specific. Perhaps that’s the point?
It may be ‘illegal’ but the law itself is unconstitutional. So it’s a rather mute point. If the parties can require someone to swear a loyalty oath to vote can they not also require someone to vote a specific way in the general election?
Supreme Court would be hard pressed to uphold a loyalty oath for a party primary. Especially if state funds are used to host it.
Radley - Haven’t you written before about the ridiculousness (and possible illegality) of party allegiance pledges? It might have been someone else at Reason.
Regardless, I think they’re terrible, and for the same reasons that voir dire perjury traps are terrible. If it takes Rush Limbaugh to point that out, even if he harpoons your (and my) favorite Democratic candidate in the process, then so be it.
Waste93 - It’s a moo point. Like the thoughts of a cow… no one cares.
I hear that Radley only ever links to laws that he wants to marry and have kids with. On the Interweb, linking to something always means that you love it.
Actually, you’re both wrong.
The correct use is as follows: The point is moot.
Or did you just drop the t by accident, Matt?
Not that anyone cares. Just sayin’
Bronwyn - It’s an old joke. Moo, thoughts of a cow… get it?
I know… I grinned at it, even. Just feeling particularly annoying and pedantic this morning.
Please forgive me. I’ve been sniffing lavender oil for morning sickness, and I think it’s going to my head.