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Politico reports that the Iowa GOP is taking no chances:
Threats to disrupt the Iowa Republican caucuses next week have prompted state GOP officials to move the vote tabulation to an “undisclosed location,” POLITICO has learned.
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The state party has not yet told the campaigns exactly where the returns will be added up, only that it will be off-site from the Iowa GOP’s Des Moines headquarters. The 2008 caucus results were tabulated at the state party offices, which sit just a few blocks from the state capitol…
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Iowa GOP Chair Matt Strawn wouldn’t comment on the plan to move the vote-counting except to say they’re increasing security measures.
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“The Iowa GOP is taking additional safeguards to ensure the Caucus results are tabulated and reported to the public in an accurate and timely manner,” Strawn said. “We are not commenting on specific security procedures.”
What’s on the specific security agenda for this evening?
Veritas
Good. The OWS thugs and Paultards (if they don’t win) want to disrupt the process from what I hear.
jo6pac
“We are not commenting on specific security procedures.”
Why vote just give it to the highest bidder and move on. It’s not like they will really count them and if they do think Enron accounting
Martin
Security? It’s 75 here and sunny. Sitting on the patio, doors wide open, dog chasing a ball. That’s about all the security I can tolerate on a day like this, with 80 degrees on the agenda for most of the next week.
Mom is bewildered why Iowa would caucus for Paul. She’s completely bewildered why Mittens and Huntster aren’t splitting every poll 50/50. She won’t be home for the caucus and seems secretly happy to not have to deal with it. The GOP may be losing another one.
EvolutionaryDesign
And the thread is killed immediately. New world record!
srv
Squatters lose in attempt to take over house.
Y’all better watch your summer homes before some 99%’er is in your base.
Palli
Are they doing this as a blind on the advice of a certain Kenneth Blackwell (former Ohio Sec. of State a la Nov.2004)?
Satanicpanic
besides the media no one even cares what a bunch of fundie idiots in Idiots in Iowa think enough to want to disrupt it
butler
@Veritas:
You poor fool. Can’t you see that’s exactly the kind of rumor which would be floated to distract folks from the real crooks: The Saucer People!
Or maybe it was the Reverse Vampires.
FlipYrWhig
I’m pretty sure Ron Paul is a Gabby Hayes character.
Dr. Dave
I’m specifically celebrating my improved financial security because I just found out that the 2.5 k$ catalytic converter that needed to be replaced was covered by the last day of its warranty today. Time for a martini and then to prepare what I hope will be an awesome curry using the leftover end of our Christmas Day beef tenderloin. Let’s hear it for having the week off from school!
Cris (without an H)
The GOP: distrusting government secrecy, except when they don’t.
Gex
I am going to secure some good smoke, some good wine, and a good dinner with my lady friend and another friend. Take the good times where you can get ’em!
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
Shut up. I got stuck having to work this week. Stupid executive decided we shouldn’t get our bonus vacation days this year. Feh.
marianne19
Love the NH primary cartoon–I live there and got polled twice today. I told #1 I was for Bachmann and just told #2 I was voting for Ron Paul. Bleep them if they can”t take a joke.
Agenda for the evening is football.
WaterGirl
@Dr. Dave:
That’s great news. Apparently someone has been living right!
lamh35
speakin’ of assholes:
Ron Paul Downplays Newsletters : Only ‘Eight To Ten Sentences’ Were Offensive
Oh, well, since it’s just a couple of sentences….oh wait from the link:
Yutsano
I never knew telling people I can’t do jack squat for them could be so fun…
Bonus: we’re so overstaffed tomorrow they begged us to take time off. I obliged. Another four day weekend!!! Yay ebil gubmint work!
Ben Cisco
I’m going to secure my grandnephew LittleMan into his rack and then secure some racktime for myself. He has lifted my mood greatly over the last two days, but he literally has two speeds – warp 9.9 and full stop.
__
Full stop doesn’t get used much, apparently.
Ken
More and more, I’m feeling that the GOP will soon find out the problem with telling your base that they don’t have to accept the outcome of elections if they don’t like them.
Mustang Bobby
My agenda is getting used to my new cell phone that replaced a six-year-old flip phone that was beginning to show its age. This is my first phone with a QWERTY keyboard so now I can text. I never really needed it, but it came with it.
My first text, to my tech-savy brother who has been after me for years to upgrade, was “What hath God wrought?”
Phylllis
@Dr. Dave: We have a nice little chunk of our rib roast left–I’m tempted to do homemade roast beef hash.
dr. luba
@Mnemosyne: “Shut up. I got stuck having to work this week. Stupid executive decided we shouldn’t get our bonus vacation days this year. Feh.”
I’ve never had the option of paid time off at the holidays, or a bonus. Silly me for having gone into medicine.
And, before anyone suggests it, no, I’m not one of the highly paid docs. Or even moderately well paid docs. Or docs with benefits. I think I’m doing something wrong…….
Martin
@butler: Party headquarters is in Des Moines, Iowa. Look at the soil around Des Moines, Butler. You can’t build on it; you can’t grow anything in it. The government says it’s due to poor farming. But I know what’s really going on, Butler. I know it’s the queers. They’re in it with the aliens. They’re building landing strips for gay Martians, I swear to God. Of course they need to take these security measures – we can’t have gay Martians choosing the GOP candidate.
Roger Moore
My guess is that they aren’t actually changing the place where they’re going to count the votes, just the time. They’re counting them today, and 99% are going to Mitt Romney. This way they’ll be ready to announce the numbers the moment the caucuses are over.
lamh35
Wanker of the Day: Robert Reich
by BooMan
Serious question, what the hell kinda hold does the Clinton have on these Clintonista? Damn Hilary keeps saying this ain’t happening, so who’s still feeding this line? My money’s on the “big dawg” and the “raging Cajun”.
Cacti
If the vote counting at an “undisclosed location” doesn’t yield the desired result, maybe SCOTUS can weigh in and declare a winner.
lamh35
@lamh35:
Speaking of the “raging Cajun”, Carville is quoted in this NYT piece Bipartisan Agreement: Obama Isn’t Schmoozing
So one side says Obama is a Washington Insider, but the Washington insiders say Obama’s doesn’t seem to like them. Two different sides of Obama Derangement Syndrome??? Obama’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.
gbear
Damn, I was going to go stand outside the ballot counting hall screaming “Shut It Down!!” until they got all flustered and went home.
Xecky Gilchrist
What kind of idiot would threaten to disrupt the Iowa Redoublechin primary? It’s self-disrupting.
Cacti
@lamh35:
They’ll never forgive the “inadequate black man” for denying Hilly her patrician right to the White House.
FlipYrWhig
@lamh35: Carville et al do realize, I hope, that if Obama doesn’t like to have politicians around, that’s only going to make normal people like him more.
gogol's wife
@lamh35:
When I see the byline Helene Cooper I just walk on by.
FlipYrWhig
@lamh35: It’s kind of like Bonnie Prince Charlie. One day the real heir to the throne, the one who really knows the people, will come back, kick out the usurping interloper, and make everything better again.
The thing that I still can’t quite wrap my head around is the notion that Hillary Clinton would be key to reanimating progressive zeal for the Obama administration. I think Hillary got a raw deal from the blogosphere, but let’s stop kidding ourselves that she was The Real Liberal All Along. The real liberal is always the other guy, like how fans of a struggling team always long for the backup quarterback.
j
The “secret location” will be wherever Rove and Fox decide it will be. Probably Diebold HQ.
The fix is in and the lawsuits will follow.
I’m Jonesin’ on all the headlines that say “GOP IN DISARRAY!!” just like they always did whenever a DINO said something about a “fellow” Dem.
Not Gonna Happin’!
burnspbesq
Time for some basketball: first half of Harvard-BC on the iPad, and then into the car for the drive downtown for the Stanford-USC women’s game.
j
@Veritas: Stop listening to the voices in your head.
RossinDetroit
Security? My wife is out of town for 3 days. If I was 20 or 30 years younger this would be interesting. Instead it’s frustrating because the dog and I miss her company.
Guess I’ll just work late tonight and sleep in tomorrow.
ETA: for some reason I read this as a reference to Paranoia Agent, an excellent TV series by Satoshi Kon.
David in NY
@Phylllis:
I’d roast the beef just for the hash. Yum.
Baked mac and cheese for dinner here.
Mike E
@Ben Cisco:
They’re so adorable at that age…and exhausting. Like watching a gyroscope spin. I recommend lots of cookies!
House/petsitting two cats and a beagle mix. Red beans&rice, then netflix streaming.
David in NY
@RossinDetroit:
As amended, that’s how I recall it.
j
@Palli: YES!
lacp
@dr. luba: “Docs with benefits?” I thought porking your patients was considered unethical. Who knew?
ant
@srv:
what the fuck is a summer home?
lamh35
I know people like to hate on Al Sharpton especially since he got his MSNBC show, but Rev Al seems like one of the only Dems on tv who is willing and able to spar with Republicans on TV, unlike some others. Another thing Rev Al is def an Obama supporter, but most of all he is a Dem supporter and he gives as good as he gets. He doesn’t shy away from challenging GOP pols who appear on his show or his radio show.
Here he is on MJ with Rick Santorum.
Al Sharpton, Rick Santorum mix it up on TV
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70931.html#ixzz1hyK3nXZ0
butler
So I just got home and in my mailbox found this week’s copy of “The Economist” (I get it for free, and I didn’t realize at the time I was probably still overpaying). Anyway, there’s a cartoon on the front of “The Right Republican”, and a picture detailing how this mythical SuperGopper should have the various characteristics of well known Republicans. Examples: “Reagan’s Sunny Optimism”, “Lincoln’s Silver Tongue”, etc.
A lot of really laughable choices: “Arnie’s Muscle” and “Palin’s Cajones” were probably the worst of the bunch. Apparently Ike’s only redeeming quality was his war medals, not the fact that he was a relatively moderate, popular, halfway decent President. And why they just didn’t say “Lincoln” for the whole damn thing struck me as odd until I remembered this is now the party of the Old Confederacy and so that simply wouldn’t do.
But beyond all that, I noticed that one desired characteristic was named but not ascribed to any Republican, living, dead or imaginary: “A Compassionate Conservative Heart”.
I guess they figure it would be nice in theory, but they couldn’t even find one Republican to name as an example.
mdblanche
So will Dick Cheney be counting the votes?
Mark B.
Really, I try not to be cynical, but it sounds like a lot of words to say ‘the fix is in.’ Isn’t caucusing supposed to be somewhat chaotic and fluid? Unless you count the people right there, how the hell are you supposed to do it? Moving the tally off site seems to provide a lot of opportunities for monkey business.
ant
i bought a whole chicken that im soaking in buttermilk right now. ima bake it in the oven.
roasted carrots are gonna cook in der too. roasted carrots are really good.
then, ima make some rice. but ma honey dont really care much for rice, so ima jazz it up a lil bit. ima fry up some lil bits of onion, carrot, celery, garlic, and mushroom, and cook the rice in some broth that i made a while back otta that turkey carcass back after thanksgiving.
guess im sposed to fry the rice with some butter first like how you do the stuff otta the box. never done that before.
should be pretty good.
j
@dr. luba: I worked at a place that gave out “Christmas Bonus IOU” slips. The deal was that after their accountant figured out all the tax scams they could use, then MAYBE you would get some bucks in about May or June.
In practice though, they fired all the high bonus people in March.
I took it to the state labor board and a bunch of people who were fired years earlier got their “Christmas bonus” after the fact.
Ruckus
@ant:
what the fuck is a summer home?
In my case it’s the same one that I don’t own or live in the rest of the year.
Calouste
@ant:
It’s a bench in the park. The winter one is the one under the bridge.
burnspbesq
In case you’re curious as to what Lew Rockwell is up to these days.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/12/lew-rockwell-the-man-who-ran-ron-pauls-racist-scamming-newsletters-sends-me-a-fund-raising-email-this-morning.html
merrinc
@lamh35:
Say what? I love Al Sharpton. Always have, always will. The only reason I don’t watch his show is 1) apathy about husband’s control of the remote due to 2) general avoidance of tv. But now you’ve got me in the mood to see if I can find some online clips.
Maude
@gogol’s wife:
She copies down what anyone in the Clinton camp says and puts it in her articles.
HRC wants to be president. Why anyone thinks she gave up on that is beyond me.
srv
@ant:
You do know the proprietors own family is at their alt estate in South Carolina right now?
Am pretty sure Sarah, DougJ, Tim and Tom are pretty up there with the 1% crowd.
SiubhanDuinne
@lamh35:
I was pretty skeptical of Rev Al when he first started on MSNBC, but he has definitely grown on me. I don’t watch him all that often, so my data sample is pretty small, but he’s funny and smart and fearless. The MJ transcript with The Frothy One is excellent.
SiubhanDuinne
@ant:
Ima comin yo place fo dinna.
SiubhanDuinne
@mdblanche:
Vote counting in an Undisclosed Location? Ya think?
Southern Beale
Stupid Tennessee tourist arrested at NYC’s 9/11 memorial for carrying a loaded gun.
Dumbass.
Omnes Omnibus
@srv: Um, yeah. At least one of them is fictional and it is my impression that much of Sarah’s lavish lifestyle is based on freebies from her past.
MikeJ
@Omnes Omnibus: And we all know how rich people working in higher ed are.
Omnes Omnibus
@MikeJ: Well, I think DougJ is fictional and the rest are just DougJ trolling, so I guess it really isn’t an issue.
chopper
@FlipYrWhig:
Brown Reason to Live really was his best record.
psychobroad
@Mustang Bobby: That’s why I like you, Bobby. I think my mom would have liked you, and she didn’t like many people!
Comrade Mary
So Mark Bittman seems to be going beyond part-time vegetarianism (no meat until supper) to near-vegan (No Meat, No Dairy, No Problem)
I’ve been off wheat since September (except for a handful of Christmas treats: restrictions on social eating are what bother me the most). It’s a great hack because it cuts down on a lot of mindless, opportunistic eating, but I don’t know if I could be more restrictive than that.
Mnemosyne
@dr. luba:
Dude (or dudette, I can’t remember which), those vacation days would have been my “bonus.” We don’t get cash bonuses. I, especially, don’t get cash bonuses because I’m in the union.
When you make under $40K a year and have 10 days of vacation total for the year, getting 4 extra paid days at the holidays is A Very Big Deal. So, yeah, I’m feeling pretty screwed over right now.
Brandon
I am amazed that I got to the end of the thread without one mention of the infamous Brooks Brothers Riot. Contrary to Veritas, it seems Republicans have substantial experience in disrupting vote counting and while conducting the counting in a secret undisclosed location with Dick Cheney seems a bit extreme, it is not like they don’t have reason to be afraid of their own partisans.
Mnemosyne
@burnspbesq:
I read through DeLong’s Twitterstorm and now I think Cole needs to steal one of Dave Weigel’s lines for a new rotating tagline, or perhaps as a tag/category:
That dead horse ain’t gonna beat itself.
merrinc
@Brandon:
Nope. gbear at #28
lol
If Paul gets the nomination, I think the best course of action is to simply mail Paul’s newsletter out to independent voters without any commentary, signature and all.
Ian
@Martin:
You hear the voices too!
Pat In Massachusetts
I’m so sick of hearing about Iowa because at the end of the day none of it matters.
The media likes to report on it for the simple fact that it is EASY to report on and they are aware that it DOES NOT MATTER how sloppy their work is because their reporting will be forgotten five minutes after it is read or heard. When it comes to things that really matter like say the Bradley Manning hearings we see very little reporting on it because the outcome of that story WILL have serious consequences for some, and profoundly effect every citizen of this country whether they realize it or not. For that reason, the media is disgustingly silent.
Funny, that.
Knowing that states are suffering right now with revenue shortfalls, I hope this circus in Iowa at least fattens the state’s revenues that will help all the citizens of Iowa. Wishful thinking, I know, but if one stops hoping there is really not too much left to go on.
TenguPhule
One can always hope that the super secret location will involve a leaking gas line and some none too careful smokers.
Pest control at its finest.
Rome Again
This has Romney written all over it.