Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Best. Ayn Rand. Parody. Ever.
If you've never read Atlas Shrugged, you should go read it right now, just so that you can enjoy this parody.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Are conservatives divorced from reality?
This is a trick question. Here's conservative blogger John Hinderaker:
Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn't raise his standards, he will exceed Bush's total before he is inaugurated.Har-de-har-har.
Saturday, November 08, 2008
My experience poll-watching Pennsylvania
On Monday, the night before the election, I drove to Pennsylvania to volunteer as an election observer (EO) for the Obama campaign. The job of an EO is to monitor a polling site and make sure that nothing happens that could disenfranchise voters. EO's are typically lawyers, but are not registered to vote at the polling site and typically are not experts in state election law. The lawyers more expert in state law are stationed at a central location, called the Boiler Room, where they field phone calls from the EOs, can answer more difficult questions, and if necessary can call for help (such as the local police, the Board of Elections, or the governor).
An EO looks out for any problem that could potentially disenfranchise voters, such as broken voting machines, excessively long lines, voter intimidation, etc. Vote suppression historically has taken a variety of forms. In some cases, a party can suppress voting by under-allocating resources to wards that are expected to vote predominantly for the other party. In some cases, the election official can slow down voting and disenfranchise voters by challenging voters excessively, or by imposing illegal restrictions on voting. For example, in Pennsylvania a voter is not required to produce an ID unless he has never voted in that ward before.
I picked up my credential at the Obama campaign office in Allentown, PA. The office was bustling. By coincidence, my uncle was volunteering in that office. That evening he was interviewed by a local news reporter. The reporter told him that she had been to the McCain office and that it was busier than the Obama office.
I was assigned to a polling site in Bethlehem, PA, at the Concordia Lutheran Church on W. 4th St. The polling site covered two wards, the 16th and 17th. Each polling site has a Judge of Elections (JoE), two minor officials to check in voters, etc., and two Official Poll Watchers (OPWs), one from each party. Because there were two wards at this site, there were two JoEs, Irma and Roger. The only people allowed into the polling places are the voters and the officials.
Polling opens at 7:00am in Pennsylvania. The campaign told us to arrive by 6:30, and I got there around 6:15. A few people started to line up at about 6:30. The JoE's came out and started setting up signs to direct voters, a little table, etc.. A second EO arrived, named Kush, who by coincidence was a junior associate at Baker & McKenzie in New York where I used to work. Kush brought a big box of donuts with him for the voters and us. He had a friend with him who was a journalist from England. Shortly thereafter a third EO showed up, an older lawyer from Piermont in New York.
We busied ourselves for the next few hours monitoring the line, assisting voters in determining which line they should be on, and helping the elderly out of their cars. The line never got longer than about twenty minutes at most, which to us seemed long (the Boiler Room told us to call if the line got longer than 20 minutes, which I did).
Around 9:30 two people showed up with some bottles of water and a few sandwiches. I could see that the sandwiches were wrapped in cellophane with little Republican elephant stickers. They strolled right into the polling place and presumably gave the swag to the judges. They then left the polling place and were not seen again. I thought to myself, this is the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats in a nutshell. We were there for two and a half hours, helping people to vote in a non-partisan fashion. The Republicans were there for five minutes, entered the polling place (illegally), bribed the judges and then left.
Around 10:30 or so the line had died down to the point where the lawyers outnumbered the voters. I decided to drive down to the Dunkin Donuts to buy a big box of coffee. On the way back I noticed a long line at another polling place. When I got back to the church there was a line manager from the Obama campaign there (named Bob). The line manager goes from polling site to polling site checking to see if there are any problems. I told him that there seemed to be a long line at the other site, and suggested that I transfer to there. I could have just picked up and left, but the campaign had been very meticulous about assigning me to THIS polling place, and I was loath to just leave on my own authority. Bob made some calls and got "permission" for me to move.
When I arrived at the other polling place, there was a line with hundreds of people, about two and a half hours long at worst. The site was a room in the corner of an old age home called Litzenberger House. There were several volunteers there, none of them lawyers. Most of the voters on the line were students from Lehigh University who had just been registered to vote in Bethelehem. The Obama campaign was busing students back and forth from the college to vote. Reports were that the Republican JoE was challenging every student voter's right to vote at that site, disenfranchising voters and slowing down the line. For the next few hours we walked up and down the line, encouraging people to stay on line and explaining to them why there was a delay and what we were doing to try and relieve it.
Bob showed up at the site and made some phone calls. A short while later two gentlemen arrived at the site who clearly were in a position of authority. One of them, Ken, strode purposefully into the polling site. Ken turned out to be an official from the Board of Elections. When he emerged he told us that the judge actually wasn't challenging voters improperly, but that the delay was caused by an unbelievably slow poll worker checking in names. We took steps to try and relieve the wait, splitting up the line in order to reduce the burden on the slow pollworker.
The steps we took to speed things up helped a bit, but the lines were still very long, on the order of one to two hours. The polling site was crawling with a rotating team of Obama volunteers but I was the only lawyer. There was a team of young women from Sarah Lawrence, who knew my nephew Sam, who is a senior there. We busied ourselves in keeping the voters informed of what was going on, keeping them entertained (the Obama campaign arranged for musicians to come and play) and fed (the campaign had twenty pizzas delivered and we distributed water and snacks). I spent a good deal of time calling the Board of Elections on behalf of individual voters who were unsure of whether they were registered or where they were required to vote. The Board of Elections, although apparently very harried, was extremely helpful and went the extra mile to identify voters, many of whose names were misspelled so it took some time to find them. In some cases there were Hispanic voters, some of whom were elderly, but most voters were students from Lehigh.
There was not much in the way of serious trouble. We had a flurry of excitement when it was reported to me that the Republican pollwatcher was complaining that there were Obama campaign workers in the polling place. It turned out that the JoE had pressed the Obama campaign workers into service to handle the large crowd. I spoke briefly to the Republican pollwatcher - he was the only angry person I spoke to all day. I assured him that there were no Obama people in the polling place but if there were I would take care of it. I got hold of one of the Obama people who had been pressed into service, and it was then that she told me that there were in fact several Obama people working in the polling place at the request of the JoE. I instructed her to get the JoE to acknowledge that he had pressed the Obama campaign workers into service, in the presence of the Republican pollwatcher so that he would know there was no funny business. The problem was apparently solved and the rest of the day passed more or less without incident. I spent the time helping individual voters, calling the Board of Elections, and answering questions. One voter from another ward reported that their polling place was closed, which was not true, but we arranged to have an Obama volunteer stationed there to help people find the entrance.
The remainder of the day passed mostly without incident. We kept the voters fed and entertained. Late in the afternoon I got a phone call from the Boiler Room. They asked me to move over to the Litzenberger House because there was a long line. I laughed and told them I had been there for 6 hours. They said "So you've been pretty busy."
As the end of the voting day approached, the Obama campaign workers were closely monitoring voting reports and as favorable results came in people started getting increasingly giddy. At a few minutes to 8:00 one Obama volunteer yelled out "Obama!". A more senior campaign worker told him to shut up, as the polls had not yet closed and it was important that campaign volunteers not be seen as trying to improperly influence the vote. Doing so is not illegal however, as Pennsylvania allows electioneering as close as ten feet to the polling place.
One amusing piece of misinformation filtered down to us. Some McCain apparatchik had apparently said on TV that the Pennsylvania polls had been all wrong and that McCain was going to win Pennsylvania in a landslide. Spreading misinformation until the very end.
Under Pennsylvania law anyone on line when the polls close (at 8:00) must be permitted to vote no matter how long the line is and no matter how long the polls have to stay open. As 8:00 approached we were repeatedly warned that we had to make sure that no one on line at 8:00 was turned away. However, by the time 8:00 rolled around the line was (to our surprise) much shorter. The JoE did the right thing, which is to get at the end of the line to ensure that everyone in front of him got to vote, and that no one who arrived after 8:00 was permitted to vote.
In the course of my day in Bethlehem, I saw hundreds of Obama volunteers, and two McCain volunteers. The Obama volunteers were scrupulously non-partisan. Their only activity was to help people vote. Except for the over-enthusiastic campaign worker referred to above, I did not witness a single incident of partisan conduct at all. I helped one person whose voting card showed him to be a registered Republican, but I helped him anyway and I have no idea who he voted for. I believe that the fact that Obama workers were out in force helping people in a non-partisan way to vote, while McCain people were nowhere to be seen, was not lost on the voters, regardless of whether they voted for McCain or Obama. This, I'm sure, was being played out all over the country. I believe that the Republican party is going to pay a heavy, unforeseen price for their attempts at voter suppression, By forcing Democratic volunteers to help protect people's right to vote, the Republicans are showing voters that it is the Democrats, not the Republicans, who have the voters' best interests at heart.
An EO looks out for any problem that could potentially disenfranchise voters, such as broken voting machines, excessively long lines, voter intimidation, etc. Vote suppression historically has taken a variety of forms. In some cases, a party can suppress voting by under-allocating resources to wards that are expected to vote predominantly for the other party. In some cases, the election official can slow down voting and disenfranchise voters by challenging voters excessively, or by imposing illegal restrictions on voting. For example, in Pennsylvania a voter is not required to produce an ID unless he has never voted in that ward before.
I picked up my credential at the Obama campaign office in Allentown, PA. The office was bustling. By coincidence, my uncle was volunteering in that office. That evening he was interviewed by a local news reporter. The reporter told him that she had been to the McCain office and that it was busier than the Obama office.
I was assigned to a polling site in Bethlehem, PA, at the Concordia Lutheran Church on W. 4th St. The polling site covered two wards, the 16th and 17th. Each polling site has a Judge of Elections (JoE), two minor officials to check in voters, etc., and two Official Poll Watchers (OPWs), one from each party. Because there were two wards at this site, there were two JoEs, Irma and Roger. The only people allowed into the polling places are the voters and the officials.
Polling opens at 7:00am in Pennsylvania. The campaign told us to arrive by 6:30, and I got there around 6:15. A few people started to line up at about 6:30. The JoE's came out and started setting up signs to direct voters, a little table, etc.. A second EO arrived, named Kush, who by coincidence was a junior associate at Baker & McKenzie in New York where I used to work. Kush brought a big box of donuts with him for the voters and us. He had a friend with him who was a journalist from England. Shortly thereafter a third EO showed up, an older lawyer from Piermont in New York.
We busied ourselves for the next few hours monitoring the line, assisting voters in determining which line they should be on, and helping the elderly out of their cars. The line never got longer than about twenty minutes at most, which to us seemed long (the Boiler Room told us to call if the line got longer than 20 minutes, which I did).
Around 9:30 two people showed up with some bottles of water and a few sandwiches. I could see that the sandwiches were wrapped in cellophane with little Republican elephant stickers. They strolled right into the polling place and presumably gave the swag to the judges. They then left the polling place and were not seen again. I thought to myself, this is the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats in a nutshell. We were there for two and a half hours, helping people to vote in a non-partisan fashion. The Republicans were there for five minutes, entered the polling place (illegally), bribed the judges and then left.
Around 10:30 or so the line had died down to the point where the lawyers outnumbered the voters. I decided to drive down to the Dunkin Donuts to buy a big box of coffee. On the way back I noticed a long line at another polling place. When I got back to the church there was a line manager from the Obama campaign there (named Bob). The line manager goes from polling site to polling site checking to see if there are any problems. I told him that there seemed to be a long line at the other site, and suggested that I transfer to there. I could have just picked up and left, but the campaign had been very meticulous about assigning me to THIS polling place, and I was loath to just leave on my own authority. Bob made some calls and got "permission" for me to move.
When I arrived at the other polling place, there was a line with hundreds of people, about two and a half hours long at worst. The site was a room in the corner of an old age home called Litzenberger House. There were several volunteers there, none of them lawyers. Most of the voters on the line were students from Lehigh University who had just been registered to vote in Bethelehem. The Obama campaign was busing students back and forth from the college to vote. Reports were that the Republican JoE was challenging every student voter's right to vote at that site, disenfranchising voters and slowing down the line. For the next few hours we walked up and down the line, encouraging people to stay on line and explaining to them why there was a delay and what we were doing to try and relieve it.
Bob showed up at the site and made some phone calls. A short while later two gentlemen arrived at the site who clearly were in a position of authority. One of them, Ken, strode purposefully into the polling site. Ken turned out to be an official from the Board of Elections. When he emerged he told us that the judge actually wasn't challenging voters improperly, but that the delay was caused by an unbelievably slow poll worker checking in names. We took steps to try and relieve the wait, splitting up the line in order to reduce the burden on the slow pollworker.
The steps we took to speed things up helped a bit, but the lines were still very long, on the order of one to two hours. The polling site was crawling with a rotating team of Obama volunteers but I was the only lawyer. There was a team of young women from Sarah Lawrence, who knew my nephew Sam, who is a senior there. We busied ourselves in keeping the voters informed of what was going on, keeping them entertained (the Obama campaign arranged for musicians to come and play) and fed (the campaign had twenty pizzas delivered and we distributed water and snacks). I spent a good deal of time calling the Board of Elections on behalf of individual voters who were unsure of whether they were registered or where they were required to vote. The Board of Elections, although apparently very harried, was extremely helpful and went the extra mile to identify voters, many of whose names were misspelled so it took some time to find them. In some cases there were Hispanic voters, some of whom were elderly, but most voters were students from Lehigh.
There was not much in the way of serious trouble. We had a flurry of excitement when it was reported to me that the Republican pollwatcher was complaining that there were Obama campaign workers in the polling place. It turned out that the JoE had pressed the Obama campaign workers into service to handle the large crowd. I spoke briefly to the Republican pollwatcher - he was the only angry person I spoke to all day. I assured him that there were no Obama people in the polling place but if there were I would take care of it. I got hold of one of the Obama people who had been pressed into service, and it was then that she told me that there were in fact several Obama people working in the polling place at the request of the JoE. I instructed her to get the JoE to acknowledge that he had pressed the Obama campaign workers into service, in the presence of the Republican pollwatcher so that he would know there was no funny business. The problem was apparently solved and the rest of the day passed more or less without incident. I spent the time helping individual voters, calling the Board of Elections, and answering questions. One voter from another ward reported that their polling place was closed, which was not true, but we arranged to have an Obama volunteer stationed there to help people find the entrance.
The remainder of the day passed mostly without incident. We kept the voters fed and entertained. Late in the afternoon I got a phone call from the Boiler Room. They asked me to move over to the Litzenberger House because there was a long line. I laughed and told them I had been there for 6 hours. They said "So you've been pretty busy."
As the end of the voting day approached, the Obama campaign workers were closely monitoring voting reports and as favorable results came in people started getting increasingly giddy. At a few minutes to 8:00 one Obama volunteer yelled out "Obama!". A more senior campaign worker told him to shut up, as the polls had not yet closed and it was important that campaign volunteers not be seen as trying to improperly influence the vote. Doing so is not illegal however, as Pennsylvania allows electioneering as close as ten feet to the polling place.
One amusing piece of misinformation filtered down to us. Some McCain apparatchik had apparently said on TV that the Pennsylvania polls had been all wrong and that McCain was going to win Pennsylvania in a landslide. Spreading misinformation until the very end.
Under Pennsylvania law anyone on line when the polls close (at 8:00) must be permitted to vote no matter how long the line is and no matter how long the polls have to stay open. As 8:00 approached we were repeatedly warned that we had to make sure that no one on line at 8:00 was turned away. However, by the time 8:00 rolled around the line was (to our surprise) much shorter. The JoE did the right thing, which is to get at the end of the line to ensure that everyone in front of him got to vote, and that no one who arrived after 8:00 was permitted to vote.
In the course of my day in Bethlehem, I saw hundreds of Obama volunteers, and two McCain volunteers. The Obama volunteers were scrupulously non-partisan. Their only activity was to help people vote. Except for the over-enthusiastic campaign worker referred to above, I did not witness a single incident of partisan conduct at all. I helped one person whose voting card showed him to be a registered Republican, but I helped him anyway and I have no idea who he voted for. I believe that the fact that Obama workers were out in force helping people in a non-partisan way to vote, while McCain people were nowhere to be seen, was not lost on the voters, regardless of whether they voted for McCain or Obama. This, I'm sure, was being played out all over the country. I believe that the Republican party is going to pay a heavy, unforeseen price for their attempts at voter suppression, By forcing Democratic volunteers to help protect people's right to vote, the Republicans are showing voters that it is the Democrats, not the Republicans, who have the voters' best interests at heart.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Joe Scarborough is a schmuck, cont'd
Predictably, now that Obama has been elected, conservative media personalities that for years have been carrying water for the Bush administration have all of a sudden discovered their inner muckraker. This morning on Regular Joe's daily propaganda broadcast, Scarborough opined that the press has to do their jobs and be tough on Obama, just like they have with Bush.
Apparently, Joe forgot about the time he accused NJ high school students of "slandering the commander in chief at a time of war" because they held a mock war crimes trial. Or the time he claimed that "all Republicans are winners" during the Bush torture scandal. Numerous other examples abound.
Apparently, Joe forgot about the time he accused NJ high school students of "slandering the commander in chief at a time of war" because they held a mock war crimes trial. Or the time he claimed that "all Republicans are winners" during the Bush torture scandal. Numerous other examples abound.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Sunday, November 02, 2008
The New York Post soldiers on
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Victoria Jackson, SNL alumna, speaks on Obama
Remember Victoria Jackson? She was the Saturday Night Live cast member who was always cast as a ditz. Well, apparently it was type-casting. This is what she had to say about Obama:
I don’t want a political label, but Obama bears traits that resemble the anti- Christ and I’m scared to death that un- educated people will ignorantly vote him into office.I'm sorry, my irony meter just burst into flames. Gotta go.
Joe Scarborough is a schmuck
I'm sorry, but I've just been watching Morning Joe, and I can't escape the conclusion that Joe Scarborough is a schmuck. Every word out of his mouth is dripping with sarcasm and nastiness against Obama. And Scarbotrough is considered a moderate!
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