Christine O’Donnell Would Not Approve
I was in a rollicking good mood today, y’all. I took half the day off; I got my hair did; and after running around to various purported postal service locations to pick up a package containing the keys to my friend’s pad in D.C. (at this point, I can’t really say that privatizing the postal service would necessarily be a bad idea, considering that few people who work at the damn post office seem to know their asses from their elbows–maybe I will join the Tea Par–oh, who am I kidding…), I am ready to crack open a beer and get fired up for the Rally to Restore Sanity. I must say, for some reason every time I go to type “Rally to Restore Sanity” I end up typing and deleting “Rally to Restore Insanity.” Maybe that’s my election season pessimism shining through. Who knows. I’ll tell you what, though: I am looking forward to flying out of LAX about as much as a Mexican looks forward to traveling to Arizona or Nevada, which is exactly not at all.
In any (non-extinction level) event, if any of you Juicers are planning on attending the rally, and want to know where you can find me, just activate your ABL brain chip.
What?
Brain chip?
What brain chip? I didn’t say anything about a brain chip.
Moving on…
My rollicking good mood just came to a screeching halt. Why? Well, because of this fuckery, obvs:
A bunch of Tea Party asshats (who are so not racist and so not violent; and just because there are a few eleventy-three asshats doesn’t mean they are all asshats; and why on earth does everybody keep picking on them?) have taken voter fraud to that ‘notha level:
The fliers were placed on the windshields of vehicles at and near the Sunnyside Early Voting location and tell voters not to voter straight Democrat, according to Texas Democrats and local news reports.
“Republicans are trying to trick us!” the flier reads. “When you vote straight ticket Democrat, it is actually voting for Republicans and your vote doesn’t count. We are urging everyone to VOTE for BILL WHITE. A VOTE for BILL WHITE is a VOTE for the ENTIRE DEMOCRATIC ticket. We have fought too hard to let Republicans use voting machines to deny us our basic rights. We must guard the change and NOT VOTE STRAIGHT TICKET DEMOCRAT!”
General Counsel for the Texas Democratic Party, Chad W. Dunn called it “a coordinated effort between the Tea Party and Houston Republicans to intimidate and misinform voters,” and “a deliberate attempt to misinform voters is the last ditch effort by the Republican Party that trying to win votes from a public that is skeptical of their failed policies in Texas.”
Houston City Council Member Jolanda Jones said, “It bothers me they’re coming up with shenanigans, lying to people anonymously. Show your face.”
Shenanigans and chicanery and skullduggery, oh my!
And yes, listen to Jolanda: Show your face. So I can punch it.
Seriously, y’all, thank Biebus for the internets. These kind of tactics have been employed to suppress the minority vote since… well… since minorities were given the right to vote (notice the use of the word “given”; hell, black folks had to be “given” 2/5 of their personhood so we could be considered whole people, and the Teatards seem to want to take my 2/5 away. To that I say, BITE ME. You can keep what you can bite off my body and be warned, that while you’re trying, I will be trying like hell to stomp on your neck!) The difference is that now, when the shit goes down, people on the internets are ready. They have studied their Cypress Hill handbook. When the shit goes down, you better be ready. You can’t be getting ready, or thinking about getting ready. You can’t have a “Readiness Plan.” YOU HAVE TO BE READY.
So, if you know any black folks in the Houston area, call ’em up! Tell ’em not to be deterred by these crazy fools! Also, too, tell them it might be time to riot. Zoot suit or sans zoot suit, I don’t care.
(No, no, don’t riot. Leave the riots to us black folks in LA. We know how to do it properly.)
Ailuridae
Wait a second … you’re black? I thought that was Levenson. Too many front pagers for me to keep track of.
Warren Terra
Ms. Jones is being unAmerican here – it is now a matter of Constitutional Law that no such disclosure is required. Just ask John Roberts et al – or if you want to go straight to the source, just ask Ginni Thomas.
General Stuck
Dems are fighting back with their own shenanigans. Normally, I would frown on our side adopting somewhat similar countermeasures for all the voter suppression bullshit the wingnuts have wrought over the decades, but this is war imo, and turn about is fair play. Though wingers squeal like stuck pigs when the tables are turned.
Po little wingers, getting all legalese faux poutrage.
elf
Also too, if I am not mistaken, the campaign manager for Christine O’Donnell goes by the name of
Matt Moran.
Which in my book is just tooo perfect.
MikeJ
@General Stuck: There’s absolutely nothing wrong with mailing asking people to vote. There’s nothing remotely shenanigan-ish about it.
Linda Featheringill
If the Republicans have their tsunami locked down, why are they bothering with this kind of nonsense?
freelancer
Attention Tea Party Activists!
The Post Office is trying to trick you. If you want your Gold that you’ve bought from Goldline to be protected, you need to have it properly weighed! The Post Offices scales are NOT accurate, your House Scales are NOT accurate. For safe keeping and protection of our Patriotic Net Worth, I am starting a service whereby I will accurately provide you with a measurement of the value of your gold, and I will return it to you via FedEx disguised as inexpensive Lead fishing weights absolutely free. Also, you can double your investment, for just a few dollars more, by sending me $100, and I will ship you a thousand year old scientific procedure for turning the lead lining of your disguised Gold, into MORE GOLD! You can’t lose!
General Stuck
@MikeJ:
But reportedly the dem group included a line that failure to return it would cause them to lose their ability to vote.
It the claim wingnuts are making about losing their ability to vote is true, then I would call it a shenanigan. If not, just another wingnut lie, and I would agree it is perfectly proper.
El Cid
@elf: Why is the famed Australian chef trying to get Christine O’Donnell elected?
The Dangerman
Indeed, LA has refined it to enough of an art that there is the now the triathlon of rioting (shoot, loot, and scoot).
gbear
Has anyone ever tried to market the line ‘Don’t Pork with New York’?
SiubhanDuinne
Texas messing with itself? Is that like the Hill Country grabbin the Panhandle and going sweet and slow? (or fast and frenzied, as preferred).
freelancer
@gbear:
Too Jewish, er, or Not Jewish enough?
gbear
@freelancer: I was thinking of pork more as a verb than a noun.
machine
Believe me, Jolanda Jones is not someone you’d want to take seriously. She’s the Quanell X of our city council.
Litlebritdifrnt
There is an ad at the top of this blog that says
“democrats are scared” mefinks that democrats are scared to the extent that they are going to give the house to the Repubs to get something done. Go ahead. Do it. Get something done. With a fully functioning fillubuster on the other side. Teabaggers turning on you in 3, 2, 1…..
stuckinred
I was a 16 year old kid living in Inglewood during Watts. I’m not saying people were not justified in what they did but I’m not exactly sure who got hurt the most?
Warren Terra
Oh, and speaking of shenanigans:
WWE to hand out free WWE merchandise at polling places across Connecticut on Election Day.
On the other hand, if this is legal, I’d recommend a “Draft Ben And Jerry” petition … if only they still owned the company.
The Moar You Know
If I were black, I’d be running, not walking, to get the fuck out of Texas.
And I would have done it decades ago.
And on a related but slightly different note, I see stories like this and I forget that I’m living in the 21st century. Does this happen to any of you? I mean, Christ, this kind of shit is more like 1910 than 2010, amirite?
stuckinred
I just got “The Warmth of Other Suns” and can’t wait to read it.
Xoebe
This flyer…words elude me. Did somebody think that people would blame Bill White for this? Did they think people would mark Bill White and leave the rest of the ballot blank?
I’d be pretty insulted if I were a Houston Democrat.
SectarianSofa
Wonderful. Well, i’ll be voting straight ticket Dem in texas tomorrow. God but I’m sick of these stupid fucks.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
ABL – your schtick is a little weak. Is the bravado serious or a poor attempt at humor? Either way, you need to step up your game to get on par with most of the other front pagers here…
Library Grape
i totally missed the missive that added 25 new authors here at BJ. i’m not sure i get ABL’s style.
Dee Loralei
@freelancer: I love ABL, but I think I love the way you think too. Damn can we go Mormon and all get married?
Rachel Maddow and that adorable Richard Engle just announced that the DOD report on soldiers views of relaxing DADT is the majority of them say no big deal, or a minor problem. So maybe it will get repealed if Jim DeMint and Coburn don’t filibuster the DOD and Wars budget.
So good news to our LBGT friends.
Southern Beale
I’m sorry, I don’t know what the black folk in Texas are like but if they are anything like the black folk in Tennessee they have been FUCKED WITH for generations and are not dumb enough to fall for some ignorant white conservitard’s asshattery like this.
I mean Jesus Christ. Every dang election here in Tennessee we have some conservative bullshitter who thinks it’s so cute to paper the senior citizen housing tower in the black neighborhoods with something like this. AS IF anyone is that dumb. AS IF someone wouldn’t know to call the NAACP to verify ANY kind of information they got.
Don’t fuck with people who have been fucked with for generations. They are NOT.THAT.DUMB.
MeDrewNotYou
How stupid do they think black people are?
Seriously, WTF? Maybe this plays in to the lazy blacks thing and they figure they can’t be bothered to fill out an entire ballot.
Fuck them with a barbed wire dick. Vote suppression really pisses me off. All the shit Republicans do is bad enough, but what they pull to disenfranchise and confuse minorities sets me off like nothing else.
SectarianSofa
@The Moar You Know:
So you live in texas but aren’t black?
Not that I don’t understand the paternalistic impulse, but if you’re not black and in texas… You know there are more than a coupla neighborhoods in tejas right?
Perfect Tommy
Republicans pulled a stunt similar to this in Prince Georges County Maryland in 2006 when Michael Steele was on the ballot as Lt Governor to Bob Ehrlich.
They distributed sample ballots at polling places listing Ehrlich/Steele as Dems.
WaPo
MeDrewNotYou
@MeDrewNotYou: Also too, I read somewhere (I have a feeling it was an Anne Laurie post, but I’m not sure at all) about some libertarian pissing and moaning about blacks and women getting the vote. Apparently it was a horrible setback for freedom and America because they are two groups least likely to support libertarian ideas. Although it was so outrageous it was funny, I have no doubt that there are an awful lot on the right that would love to make sure only the ‘right’ people could vote, where ‘right’ consists pretty much of people like me, ie straight white males.
Rekster
Where are all of those GOP Voter Fraud Lawyers when we need them? Where is Michele Malkin and all the Faux newsers? Someone needs to investigate this Voter Fraud in Texas.
Oh, wait, I guess this would not count since it is not Dem’s causing the Fraud.
Southern Beale
In other race news from Houston, the Republican Party wants black folk to know that “GOP is the new black.”
Left Coast Tom
@The Moar You Know:
Funny you should mention that…upon seeing that flyer here I suddenly thought I was in the late 1800s and it came from the deep south (OK, I was right on the latter part).
Note…
The last GOP Assembly Speaker here in CA, Curt Pringles, I mean Pringle, was from Orange County, and that was in the mid-1990s. I assume he was chosen because of his having settled out of court claims over illegal voter suppression in the late 1980s, except I guess the brown people in question were Hispanic. I wonder if the rest of the country is living the GOP’s ‘live for today for we die tomorrow’ gambit in California, circa 1994. And if so, I hope Nancy Pelosi’s talking with Willie Brown, just in case (the GOP spent a year trying to get the Speakership after winning the election because Willie Brown kept picking off people the True Believers had pissed off)
Warren Terra
@Library Grape:
And @Gordon, The Big Express Engine, to boot
1) Cole announced on Wednesday that he’d be posting less for the next few days, and said that two (hardly 25) new people (ABL and Tom Levenson) would be “making appearances”. I know nothing about the permanence of their tenure here, nor even of how long they wish to remain.
2) Who the heck asked you, anyway? I don’t recognize either of your handles as being those of regular commenters, and even if you were – it’s Not. Your. Blog. You are welcome to read as much or as little of it as you like, and to enjoy or not to do so as you please. And please pick on the posts of any commenter or front pager you choose to – but please, do it substantively, do it with something to say. I for one could care less about your general feelings of dissatisfaction with a few posts from one of the front-pagers.
Angry Black Lady
@Library Grape: @Gordon, The Big Express Engine: you’ll have to read my blog to get my style, if you choose. i’ve been writing this way for years (well, one of me has.) it’s not a “schtick” i have assumed in order to impress you people. but, your concerns have been duly noted. john will be back soon and you can skip my posts in the meantime.
Felonious Wench
Gawd, this Houstonian finds it hilarious they tried to pull this in Sunnyside. Oldest black district in Houston, chock full of those satanic community organizers. Strong, strong community. The thought of this crap working there is racist in itself. That’s Barbara Jordan’s community.
I’m hoping they hit one of the wards next. Maybe 5th. They’ll be on the wrong end of a good old fashioned ass-whipping, if they don’t get shot. Or better yet, go yell about illegal immigration in The East Houston barrios. I’d pay to see that.
I love my city.
Oh, and you’re all welcome for our latest Texas comedy routine, courtesy of the local Tea Party. I’m sure I’ll be reaching for my baseball bat and tequila often over the next 5 days.
Violet
This issue is getting a fair amount of news coverage. I have confidence that black Houstonians will recognize it for the idiocy and attempt at intimidation that it is and just go ahead and vote the way they were going to vote.
It’s an incredibly lame attempt to influence voting. Does this group really think black Houstonians are this stupid?
Carnacki
ABL, are you married? Because I think I’m in love.
Warren Terra
@Violet:
I suspect that what this group (assuming it is a group, and not just one asshole) knows about black folks could be written in large print on one side of an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper, while leaving room for a few pictures. A piece of paper signed by the “Black Democratic Trust Of Texas”.
Uloborus
Before we go any further, please add me to the list of requests for your hand in marriage. Your rhetorical style sets my entire collection of maidenly hearts aflutter. It’s just so much fun to read.
Angry Black Lady
@Uloborus: @Carnacki: thank you, i do appreciate it! i’m single as all get out. so is my “schtick.”
Honus
I like your style ABL, and I got good education for a hilljack.
You should leave LA early and stop here in Hookville tomorrow afternoon. We found out tuesday Obama’s coming to rally for Tom Perriello and we’re all real happy and excited.
General Stuck
@Angry Black Lady:
We’ve spent months around here arguing about every thread whether Obama is as bad or worse than Bush, to the point I wondered why I spent the time on this blog I do. I like your style and pinache you bring. And the semi warped sense of humor. To hell with the naysayers. You can’t please everyone, so might as well please yourself, though I do hope Cole can stand the excitement.
gbear
Are you single in the John Cole “I don’t even want to see you if I visit your city” way, or do you play well with others?
Calouste
@Warren Terra:
Whoever did it is surely not thinking that black Houstonians are smarter than themselves, which sets the ceiling rather low. Stupid people typically have problems grasping that other people could be smarter (and it this specific case that is amplified by it being “other” people).
Martin
@General Stuck:
Cole was bitching the other day about the high price of stand mixers. I’m not sure he can stand the excitement of a rainy day any more.
Wag
You can’t please everyone, so might as well please yourself, though I do hope
ColeChristine O’Connell can stand the excitement.Fixed
Art
Forget y’all. This is my first true exposure to Angry Black Lady, and I love her!
Her blog is now bookmarked, and I will visit it again and again. I haven’t laughed this hard to a Balloon Juice post in quite awhile. She’s gold.
And for those of you that care: yesterday was an awesome day. I signed a contract to teach, I got another spinal pain block (and it is kicking ass on my pain), and I canceled my reservations to the annual corporate meeting of my wife’s employer.
The Mrs. and I are on the rocks, and that is bad. But now I don’t have to go kiss corporate ass and pretend everything is fine, I can stay at home and do what I was meant to do: take care of the kids.
The kids are happy they aren’t being farmed out, we don’t have to kennel the dog and both cats, and I don’t have to kiss the ass of my wife’s boss who’s management style is straight out of the 1980’s.
I think I love Angry Black Lady.
WOO-HOO!
Origuy
@Felonious Wench:
I watched the Nixon impeachment hearings every day when I was a kid. Barbara Jordan was awesome.
Jman
Not sure that Christine O’Donnell Would Not Approve of messing around. http://gawker.com/5674353
bigfatdrunk
Dearest ABL,
I straight-up want to make sweet love to you.
Hugs,
bfd
PS: I’m a white Jew. Wanna see?
Dee Loralei
@Calouste: And doesn’t the article pretty explicitly state that they put the fliers on cars at the early voting place in the neighborhood? (Okay, I checked, it says polling place.) But if the cars are at the polling place doesn’t that mean the drivers of the cars are already inside the polling place and find the fliers after they have already voted? I mean it would in the early polling places I’ve been too. But if they are just on the cars at what will be a polling place on Tuesday that means a bunch of school teachers or church workers are getting basically flyer spammed . Seems to me very few people live,work, or vote in the exact same place. Unless it’s a community center or maybe the rec room of an apartment complex, this is probably even stupider on second look than it is on the first.
Most of the polling places I’ve been in for election day voting and early voting have been churches, schools, libraries or community centers. So, if these vote suppression efforts are at some place that is now an early voting sight, then they are doing it wrong, by putting the fliers on empty cars in the parking lot or nearby streets. And if they are spackling car windows in say an election day voting place then they are ticking off a bunch of folks who work at that place, but vote elsewhere because they live elsewhere.
Anyway, that’s what I thought when I read about this earlier. The Republicans inability to think beyond “winning the day” was showing, because the entire thing seems poorly thought out.
And does anyone think the Republicans are pushing the only vote for Bill White thing because they think Gov GoodHair has it in the bag, but their Congressional or Mayoral candidates don’t?
General Stuck
@Martin:
I hear ya
Angry Black Lady
I mistakenly omitted the link source. It has been fixed!
@gbear: Depends on your definition of “others.” I watched all 6 seasons of Lost, just so you know! if you come at me with a fake beard, i’m stomping first and asking for an apology later.
@General Stuck: semi-warped is putting it kindly. thank you!
@Wag: @Wag: @bigfatdrunk and anyone else that i missed: thank you. i appreciate the support. it’s a bigger playing field over here and it’ll
take some getting used totake some time to bend everyone to my will.VTY,
ABL
Uloborus
@General Stuck:
He’s right. The blog is MOSTLY middle-left, but BJ has its fans all over the left and far too many right wing trolls who want some BJ action. And even the people who agree with you may roll out some fascinating facts to add perspective to a story or may have come around to spend the evening screaming insults at any random person they don’t like.
What I’m saying is, there’s a lot of variety here and you’ll get a few jackass hecklers. Don’t take it personally. A lot of people here just love a good fight and don’t even mean it. (I’m not one of them, but there’s no shortage)
asiangrrlMN
Huh. I’m very confused. Don’t vote straight Dem. Vote Bill White. Yet, a vote for Bill White is a straight Dem vote. We’ve worked too hard to get fooled into voting straight Dem (as Democrats). Really? This is the best they could fucking do?
Dee Loralei
@asiangrrlMN: Thank you, that was one of my problems with the damn thing, it was just beyond stupid and not at all really well thought out. My other problems are in #52 above.
AxelFoley
::looks at the fliers::
Wow, shouldn’t bullshit like this be illegal?
MeDrewNotYou
@AxelFoley: Even if it is/was, I imagine it would be a huge pain in the ass to track down the real perps. And maybe they just mean that Bill White is an awful Dem, so a vote for him is equivalent to a vote for a Repub. (Although, in this case, all the BS about the straight ticket is evidence runs contrary to a charitable interpretation.)
asiangrrlMN
@Dee Loralei: Yeah. I was kinda riffing on your post. I just don’t get it.
@AxelFoley: One would think and hope.
gbear
@Angry Black Lady:
My beard is real but I don’t know ‘Lost’ from found. I cancelled my cable and quit watching TV about 15 years ago.
morzer
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine:
Dear Gordon, just a simple request for your next visit:
Before opening mouth, engage brain, remove foot, and then shut the fuck up.
Cordially yours.
morzer
@Angry Black Lady:
Angry Black Lady, out of massive admiration, and because you deserve much more than a single, boring conventional marriage, I propose that we get married twice.
hamletta
@Southern Beale: Exactly. Their racism trips them up! They’re so ignorant about the black community in their midst that they assume they’re all morons with 3rd grade educations and double-digit IQs.
Joseph Nobles
Oh, dang. I voted Straight Democratic. And paging through, it seemed like every vote was for a Democratic candidate. I guess it wasn’t.
Oooh, I had fun at the poll. Lady was there handing out brochures for Steve Broden, Eddie Bernice Johnson’s opponent. I tried to just avoid her, but she called out, “Would you like some information on Steve Broden?”
I responded that I had all the information on Steve Broden I needed. I left it at that, but Broden had been endorsed by Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and the Dallas Morning News before October 21. That’s when the good Reverend told us all that if conservatives didn’t win in November, violent means of getting their way were definitely on the table.
So I walked on. But the lady called out again: “Do you want some information on Eddie Bernice Johnson?” Well, I didn’t need any. I already knew about the scholarship mess she’s in, slipping cash to her grandkids and not really all that sorry about it. That’s bad, I’ll admit.
But Stephen Broden is CRAZY. He’s an unrepentant wingnut. Better a little graft than one more insane person joining in the Steve King Hate Hour on the floor of the House.
So I just hollered, “I know all about her, she’s my representative, and I love her!” And kept on walking. Heaven forbid she find out I’m a gay atheist democratic socialist. She might have run screaming.
Oh, man, missed my chance.
Paul in KY
ABL, you’re the shit :-)
I hope the brothers can catch whomever is putting out the flyers & have them ‘fall down some stairs’ or something like that.
Library Grape
@Angry Black Lady: sorry, i did miss john’s post that he was going to be away. i didn’t mean to be critical – the posting style is so different than what I typically read here that I thought someone was having us on (especially after reading the methane post, which relied on information that was roundly debunked). sorry to be a bother.