voter intimidation: a pox on both houses

Some Republicans apparently engaged in unsavory, unethical strong-arm tactics, according to Wikipedia (you'll have to pardon the grammar in the following run-on):

In Pontiac, Michigan, local Democrats cited reports of voter harassment and intimidation by Republicans over questioning legally-cast ballots with election workers repeatedly having had to ask them to step aside. A clerk called police for help. [Source]

Meanwhile, Democrat activists have sent around a creepy, threatening, Orwellian flyer according to Malcolm and many others:

We will be reviewing the Kings County official voting records after the upcoming elections to determine whether you joined your neighbors who voted in 2014. If you do not vote this year, we will be interested to hear why not. (emphasis added)

As an Australian colleague of mine used to say back during my Sookmyung days: "They're all dirty bastards." Only too true.

Will the new wave of dirty bastards do any better than the current one? Well, one can always hope. The conservatives bring their own baggage to the show, so we're guaranteed to see grown men tripping over their own dicks now and again. But if the now-dominant GOP succeeds in rolling back absurdities like Obamacare, in promoting energy independence, in diminishing the role of government in citizens' affairs, and in returning a measure of respectability to American foreign policy (reorienting us toward the countries who truly are our allies), then I'll declare that a good start. But as I said before, I'm really not hopeful.


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