Butthole Bandits 7 and a throwback to Jim Crowe

[Major Robert Dump]

As a fan of fine music and cinematography, I decided to partake in the fine arts upon passing the XXX Barn south of San Antonio. I had heard rave reviews about the long-awaited release of Butthole Bandits 7: the music, the acting, the continuation of open ended plot lines, character development.

I entered the store and located my copy. I went to the counter to check out, and upon announcing "49.99" the clerk also asked to see an ID.

I was agast. An ID? This is art, something that should be shared and enjoyed by all. This was America. And this guy was asking me for an ID in order to purchase Butthole Bandits 7? I had purchased Butthole Bandits 1, 4 and 6 without showing an ID. Yet this guy -- this white tea partier in his Cure t-shirt and face piercings and Stalin tatoos -- wanted me to produce an ID?

It finally hit me, after all these years of being insensitive. What a throwback to Jim Crowe laws! Think of all the immigrants, think of all the so-poor-I-am-melting-people, think of all those senior citizens... they won't even be able to open a bank account, or get a drivers license, or buy alcohol, or wire money to their prostitute-turned-wife in the Philippines, or get a cell phone service plan, or buy a car, or buy tobacco, or rent an apartment, or rent a movie, or get a credit card, or get into a bar, or get utilities turned on, or get an Albertsons Savings Club Card, or buy a copy of Butthole Bandits 7 -- because they do not have an $20 ID. Why, there must be like 7 people in the whole state of Texas who are just absolutely screwed, and we aren't going to throw out all common sense and allow the obvious to transpire?? And in an election year, no less.

This country makes me sick.

[Montmorency]

upon announcing "49.99"

You can't keep an industry afloat singlehandedly.

[Greyblades]

I'm too tired to think of some witty way of saying this, so I'll just say it; 'You still pay for your porn? What an idiot.'

[PanzerJaeger]

I'm going to make a guess that this is a critique of the liberal outcry over voter fraud laws enacted by Republican legislators across the country after the 2010 elections that require voters to show IDs. If so, what a masterful delivery. Good show!

[Major Robert Dump]

Why would you ever think that? No state EVER in the history of the USA has a program to help poor people get IDs, and no city anywhere EVER has a transit system to get people to the tag agency to get their ID, and no really, really, really poor person anywhere EVER has had enough free time due to being unemployed to make the trek to the tag agency to get their ID. Why, those whopping 5 people that were produced to explain they cannot get an ID because they cannot get their birth certificates are totally worth turning a blind eye to voter fraud that is TOTALLY NOT happening, because people NEVER EVER commit fraud anywhere ever when it benefits them financially, not with disability, not with insurance, not with stealing cable

I do not know where you get these accusations from PJ, this was but merely a story of a lonely guy shopping for anal sex movies (shhhh, don't tell Vuk or Xaihou)

[Strike For The South]

When I come home we are getting drunk

[Whacker]

You can't keep an industry afloat singlehandedly.

Zen yu rakk skirr and disciprin!

[Major Robert Dump]

I was actually hoping for some Lefties to explain to me, without laughing, how this law is a massive attack on the poor, the minorities and the elderly.

So far, in the states where the law has gone forward, I hear three types of SOB stories:

#1: I am too poor to buy an ID/ get to the ID place. I am too busy being unemployed to walk there.

I find this incredibly hard to believe, all the "free ID programs" for the poor notwithstanding.

#2: Due to some bad clerical error on the part of the government, or unavoidable instances (like a courthouse fire that destroyed birth records) there are rare occasions when this is the case. Truly unfortunate and there should be an alternate means of getting this info, although I find it RICH that these people have never bothered with this until the voting ID thing came about, which leads me to

#3: I have never had an ID, have never needed the documents, etc etc. This is the one I am reading the most. In other words, you have managed to fly under the radar for the last 20 years. And now you actually have to go file applications and stand in line like the rest of us. My sympathy is lost here. I cannot for the life of me feel sorry for someone who has lived in this country for 20 years and never had an ID. This person has obviously gone to GREAT PAINS to not get an ID, as she would only be able to pay in cash, would have no credit, would have to have utilities in someone elses name, would have to rent in someone elses name, would have to have someone else buy her booze and her smokes and pick up her prescriptions.

So basically, I feel sorry for group number two.

Now how many people is that really? And even if we include 1 and 3 how many people really?

I recall a Texas group that said it would alienate 400,000 potential voters in Texas. Turns out, that list also had George W Bush and several Texas legislators on it. So, a bad list. Back to square one.


If the left really wants to make an impact, instead of using a bogus Jim Crowe Poll Tax argument, they should take a page from the Libertarians and basically say that voting is a natural right in our country and we should not have to show ID. I would be willing to listen to that argument.

But instead, we get something that -- to me at least -- looks like a group of people who know fraud is occurring and will do anything to keep it that way. The argument that we have not exposed any fraud is bogus, as we quite frankly do not look for and have poor methods of stopping it. Just because I have not given any speeding tickets in my neighborhood does not mean that no one speeds. People will commit fraud wherever fraud can be committed for financial or personal reasons. A presidential/Senate/House race -- and more so state and local -- has an impact on peoples pocket books, both real and percieved.

We see what groups like Acorn are capable of. We see what police are capable of. We know that there are people who will justify the means by the end, hence the Chic Fil A thread and FRC, so whats a little lie here and there to get your guy in office?

I tend to vote Democratic. And while I would like to sit back and say that fraud is okay as long as it benefits my guy, it's not okay, and it always comes full circle. If one side does it both will do it. Patriot Act, cough cough.

So yeah, completely obvious what the Democrats are doing here.

And their reasoning and accusations of institutional racism is no less than shameful

[Ironside]

I was actually hoping for some Lefties to explain to me, without laughing, how this law is a massive attack on the poor, the minorities and the elderly.

US issue. Yes I find it as stupid as you do, but in the US you got enough of persecution complex and "total withdrawal from an oppressive state" for someone to drive it as an issue.

To compare, if you're over 18 and have a residential adress, then you can vote here. The'll send you a paper that says where your designated voting spot is (the closest one). If voting somewhere else, then you'll need to bring that paper, so they can phone in and check you off the list. ID required since 2006 (or that someone with ID confirms that you are you).

[HoreTore]

US issue. Yes I find it as stupid as you do, but in the US you got enough of persecution complex and "total withdrawal from an oppressive state" for someone to drive it as an issue.

To compare, if you're over 18 and have a residential adress, then you can vote here. The'll send you a paper that says where your designated voting spot is (the closest one). If voting somewhere else, then you'll need to bring that paper, so they can phone in and check you off the list. ID required since 2006 (or that someone with ID confirms that you are you).

I see Sweden still has their bogus elections.... Lrn2vote, Ironside.

Identifying yourself with an ID is a complete non-issue. Of course you should have to identify yourself when voting. What is this really, Iraq under Saddam? And while we're at it, everyone should also be given a social security number at birth and kept in state records from the moment you shoot out of mommy. You shiuld of course also be required to have an ID. I find it hard to believe that someone living in the west in 2012 is capable of not owning a drivers license, passport, bank card, etc. Have you by any chance moved to Burkina Faso, MRD?

And a final question; can anyone tell me how this is a left/right issue? Isn't this a sane/loonie issue?

[Strike For The South]

Its called a conflict of interest. Even a whiff of foul play should be scrutinized.

Shades of Diebold, i swear.

You know who also had a conflict of interest?
The founding fathers
Boom

[Major Robert Dump]

That chick does not make 20/hour... You have to be lying. :-(

She makes 20 an hour.

[CrossLOPER]

49.99

I admire your commitment to the cause.

[Greyblades]

I admire your commitment to the cause.

Again, Who the heck pays for porn anymore?

[Lemur]

I wish the voting machines would just hurry up and tell us who won.

Diebold, then one of the primary manufacturers of voting machines, had left the 40,000 files that made up its Global Election Management System (GEMS) on a publicly accessible website, entirely unprotected. Diebold was never able to explain how its proprietary tabulation program ended up in such an exposed position. Harris downloaded the files, and programmers worldwide pounced, probing the code for weaknesses. [...]

GEMS turned out to be a vote rigger’s dream. According to Harris’s analysis, it could be hacked, remotely or on-site, using any off-the-shelf version of Microsoft Access, and password protection was missing for supervisor functions. Not only could multiple users gain access to the system after only one had logged in, but unencrypted audit logs allowed any trace of vote rigging to be wiped from the record.

The public unmasking of GEMS by an average citizen (who was not a programmer herself) served as a belated wake-up call to the world’s leading computer-security experts, who finally turned their attention to America’s most widely used voting systems. Damning reports have since been issued by researchers from Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Rice, and Stanford Universities, the Brennan Center for Justice, and the Government Accountability Office (none of them institutions hospitable to “tinfoil hat” conspiracy theorists).

[Tellos Athenaios]

Microsoft Access??



Never was the phrase "nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure" more appropriate.

[drone]

Don't forget, Diebold makes ATMs, so they should know how to secure these machines properly.

[Lemur]

Well thank goodness there are Tea Party groups ready to monitor elections and keep things ... uh ... nevermind ...

Yesterday we reported that True the Vote was attempting to place observers at precincts in Central Ohio, focusing on African American districts. We also noted that there might be some problems with the forms they submitted to the Franklin County Board of Elections (FCBOE).

The FCBOE met today and determined that True the Vote had likely falsified the forms submitted for general election observers. The new observer forms, filed over the past few days by True the Vote representative (and Hilliard Tea Party Member) Jan Loar, used candidate signatures copied from a previous set of forms filed in early October

All but one (Scott Rupert, an independent for U.S. Senate) of the six candidates whose names appeared on the original form had withdrawn permission to use their signatures prior to the submission of today’s forms. During the BOE meeting Candidate Terri Jamison spoke up to say her name was “forged” on the latest round of forms.

The form for appointing observers reads ‘election falsification is a 5th degree felony’.

[Lemur]

As I have posted elsewhere, now is the time to talk seriously about voter ID and reforming/abolishing e-voting. Now. Not leading up to a national election.

If anyone in power makes an honest gesture toward vote reform now, I will be impressed.

Before? Not so much.

[Lemur]

An apt graphic:

[Papewaio]

So vote with your money seems to be the way to go.

[lars573]

Makes me so glad that when I vote it's on a piece of paper, that by law I'm required to put into the box myself.

[Lemur]

Florida, online absentee ballot requests, a primary election: What could possibly go wrong?

An attempt to illegally obtain absentee ballots in Florida last year is the first known case in the U.S. of a cyberattack against an online election system, according to computer scientists and lawyers working to safeguard voting security.

The case involved more than 2,500 “phantom requests” for absentee ballots, apparently sent to the Miami-Dade County elections website using a computer program, according to a grand jury report on problems in the Aug. 14 primary election. It is not clear whether the bogus requests were an attempt to influence a specific race, test the system or simply interfere with the voting. Because of the enormous number of requests – and the fact that most were sent from a small number of computer IP addresses in Ireland, England, India and other overseas locations – software used by the county flagged them and elections workers rejected them.

Computer experts say the case exposes the danger of putting states’ voting systems online – whether that’s allowing voters to register or actually vote. [...]

The primary election in Miami-Dade County in August 2012 involved state and local races along with U.S. Senate and congressional contests (see a sample ballot here). The Miami Herald, which first reported the irregularities, said the fraudulent requests for ballots targeted Democratic voters in the 26th Congressional District and Republicans in Florida House districts 103 and 112. None of the races’ outcomes could have been altered by that number of phantom ballots, the Herald said.

Overseas “anonymizers” -- proxy servers that make Internet activity untraceable -- kept the originating computers’ location secret and prevented law enforcement from figuring out who was responsible, according to the grand jury report, issued in December. The state attorney’s office closed the case in January without identifying a suspect.

[HoreTore]

Is there any good reason at all for a single election to be done in a zillion different ways?

Why on earth isn't the US election process standardized yet? How is that so hard to do?

[Lemur]

Virginia man pleads guilty to forging Newt Gingrich primary signatures

A Virginia man pleaded guilty to charges that he forged primary campaign ballots for Newt Gingrich during the 2012 Republican primary, to ensure that Gingrich got on the state’s ballot.

WVIR-TV reports:

In December of 2011 Newt Gingrich needed 10,000 signatures to get his name on the Virginia presidential primary ballot. Adam Ward, 28, collected more than 11,000 signatures according to prosecutors. More than 4,000 signatures could not be verified by investigators.

Tuesday night, Ward pleaded guilty to 36 counts of voter fraud and perjury in Augusta Circuit Court.

[Papewaio]

Shouldn't that be 7k charges.

I know this sounds weird to some but in a republic or a democracy surely vote fraud should be treated equivalent of perjury.

Perjury is lying to one branch of government. Voter fraud is lying to another. Why the soft touch?

[a completely inoffensive name]

The saddest thing about the whole thing is that no rational man would have done such a thing unless he genuinely thought that Newt Gingrich had a legitimate chance of being president in the first place.

[rvg]

Why on earth isn't the US election process standardized yet? How is that so hard to do?

Doesn't need to be. It's adequately functional as is.

[Sir Moody]

Doesn't need to be. It's adequately functional as is.

define "adequately functional" as it seems to me you have a number of massive flaws which potentially could be (and probably are) being exploited...

[rvg]

"adequately functional" as in people get elected and nobody has any reason to suspect foul play.