Want to vote in South Florida? Better wear Depends.

That’s because if you have to pee during your six-plus-hour wait to cast a ballot, the bathrooms are verboten. Closed. Not available. No matter how long the line, or if you are elderly, or if the weather is crap (oh, you can’t do that either-no potties for you voter types).
From the article:

Instead, he received a written response announcing that the county would close all restrooms at polling places “to ensure that individuals with disabilities are not treated unfairly,” a January email stated. “[T]he Department’s policy is not to permit access to restrooms at polling sites on election days,” Assistant County Attorney Shanika Graves said in a Feb. 14 email.

This latest voter-suppression effort is, of course, designed to keep the elderly, minorities and working poor from casting their ballots: Democratic voters, in other words. The local Board of Election is pretending that this is a decision based on the rights of the disabled, which is a lie more transparent than a hooker’s blouse. No, it’s Miami-Dade county doing what it does best: rigging elections so that “Republicans” win.

If it’s any comfort to all those voters waiting in long lines to vote this year: no matter the state of the diapers they may have to wear in order to exercise their franchise, they will never be as full of s*** as the elected officials who concocted this, well, crappy idea.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Putin was not “emboldened by Obama”: he was inspired by Bush

Take a gander at that flock of sphincter birdies: they were paid political operatives sent to Florida to stage a fake riot at a Board of Election, thus helping steal the 2000 election for Gee Dubya Bush. The idea was; create a false impression of public outrage and dissent that the government “had to deal with right away”, thus allowing “extraordinary measures” to be taken to “preserve public order”. As we all know by now, that effort was a success, and the Bushistas robbed, pillaged, and murdered their way across the country and the Middle East for 8 interminable years of illegitimate government.

This year in Crimea, Vladimir Putin and his oligarch buddies followed the same model: they sent in faux “demonstrators” to create the impression of disorder, and so Russia just HAD TO send in troops to restore order and allow the oppressed locals the opportunity to shuffle off those dreaded shackles of Western Oppression, blahblahblahblahBLAHblahblah. (Guns were required in Ukraine because they, unlike we wimpy Americans, were unlikely to allow a bunch of corrupt billionaires to steal their entire nation. We rolled over and accepted it without a fight.)

Now in Eastern Ukraine, what was done in Crimea and Florida is being done again. The Russians are staging more fake riots and creating a “need” for “immediate intervention” yadayadayada. And any number of Right Wingnuts would have you believe this is being done because of Obama’s “weakness”.

Nonsense: a President who orders the invasion of sovereign countries to kill our enemies there (via drones and SEAL teams, mostly) is not a wimp. Obama is a hard-assed Chicago lawyer who would cut off your wedding tackle if need be, were you a threat to him. And we have ample proof of this. Ask the Taliban and various Al-Quaida groups: well, ask the surviving members, that is. He has killed a s***load of ’em, and never shed a tear.

No, if Putin needed guidance from an American Prexy, he got it from the Shrub. What Russia is doing in Eastern Europe is straight out of the “Republican” south Florida playbook.

It’s just as transparent, just about as illegal, and just as successful as it was in 2000.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Fullest Sack of S*** of The Week: Extremists in Denial

(The charmingly not cranky grandbaby and awesome daughter are in town, so the Bluntandcrankies will be running about tomorrow, thence the early post. Enjoy, agree, argue, take offense, whatever works for you. Just remember to be an American, and to love each other as best you can.)

Mr. Blunt and Cranky lugged a supertanker full o’ snark at certain members of the Loony Left this week, for being so insistent on having unattainable perfection that they wind up causing great harm by refusing to support the merely good. He did so (if he may say so himself, and he does; yes, he does) in a rude, caustic, bellicose and generally crappy tone. Not surprisingly, a fair few Loony Lefties took offense, and quite justifiably so. However, the obnoxious tone of the post did not render the point contained therein invalid.

As has been said before, this is not a blog that pulls punches or in any way pretends to be anything other than…well,  blunt and cranky. However, the tone and topic selection are neither random nor accidental, and the style is not something based on a whim or too much Scotch. In fact, the blog is deliberately written in a very specific manner and for a very specific purpose: to get the attention of people who are living in bubbles, stuck in ruts, or deep in denial.

The specific reality being denied this week is that sitting out an election fails to impact the outcome (yes, some people actually believe this) of said election. Or that voting third-party fails to impact the outcome of an election. Both of these mindsets are mind-bogglingly stupid. (We shall exclude those who accept that their votes impact the outcome: that is not stupid, in fact it is refreshingly honest and can lead to some awesomely fun debates.)

No one with at least a third-grade education would deny that failing to put quarters into a piggy bank has an effect on the amount of money in said piggy bank: nor would they deny that spending a quarter on candy instead of saving it has a like impact on the amount of money in said piggy bank. Indeed, if you tried to argue the point, most of us would be calling for the “nice young men in their clean white coats” to come and take you away (apologies to Jerry Samuels).

But change “quarter” and “piggy bank” to “vote” and “ballot box”, and a surprising number of people seem to think that basic math takes a holiday. If that is not loony; denial; stupid; or any of the other pejorative terms this blogger has flung across the ether of late, he’ll eat the back tires off your tractor after it has been driven through a sewage lagoon.

Every vote counts, the more so since many states are trying to suppress the votes of anyone to the left of the Teabaggers.  When votes are suppressed from one population (the elderly, the poor, the black, etc.) then our votes are even more important, because we have to make up the difference.  We can’t control the bought-and-paid-for courts, we can’t control the corrupt and crooked lawmakers and election officials, all we can do is get our arses to the polls, and drag our friends with us. Thus do we show solidarity and support for our fellow Americans who have had their voting rights stripped away: by using our own.

And to anyone who thinks that their vote does not matter, or that they can take an election off so as to make some sort of hifalutin point: less than 600 Gore votes in Florida would have changed the course of world history in 2000. Six-F***ing-Hundred votes out of Millions. If just that teeny tiny number of people had not been in denial (or smugly sitting on their high horses, or complacent, etc.), then we would likely have had no Iraq war, no 9/11, no deficit, no Patriot Act, and so on. A few hundred people understanding that one sometimes must choose the lesser of two evils, lest the worst of the two should triumph: understanding, and then acting against the greater evil. That is all we needed, and we did not get it.

Your vote DOES matter, and has an impact. Everyone’s vote DOES matter and has an impact. We must all nut up and admit that our votes (or non-votes) come with consequences: most especially, we have to admit it to ourselves.

Mr. B & C