Who Cares who Alison Lundergan Grimes Voted For?

Bitchy Mitchy McConnell tells a lot of lies. A LOT of lies. But a very subtle and sneaky one jumped out at this humble blogger during the lone debate with his Democratic challenger: he said Americans have no right to a secret ballot:

Grimes stuck to her days-long refusal to say if she voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. She insisted that if she answered the question, it would “compromise a constitutional right” to cast a secret ballot.

McConnell quickly scoffed at that. “There’s no sacred right to not announce how you voted,” he said, seated next to Grimes for an hour-long debate hosted by KET, the state’s public television station.

There is indeed no explicit Constitutional right to a secret ballot: because Boards of Election need to track voters and ballots to prevent fraud. But that’s the only place where your right to voting privacy is limited.

But old Jerkle the Turtle goes a step further: not only does he not think you have a right to privacy in the voting booth, he thinks you can be forced to reveal your votes if any old yahoo asks you. This is some truly, scarily insidious, authoritarian, big-government s*** here, folks: “Republicans” think they can force you to tell them how you voted, and that you have no right to privacy.

It’s of a piece with GOP philosophy: they hates them some Fourth Amendment. Repubs think the government should be able to wiretap you, arrest you, torture you, dictate your medical care, and monitor your sex life. So voting rights are likewise non-starters for Big Brother Motherf***ers like McConnell and the rest of his party. Once again, Gentle Reader: Repubs think you have no right to privacy.

We should all of us applaud Ms. Grimes’ strong stand on privacy, and support her right to not say for whom she voted. This seems obvious, but even some Democrats are saying she should tell us all how she voted. Poppy-f***ing-cock. She has the same privacy rights as the rest of us, and we should all have her back on this issue – because we all are in the same boat. Want to be forced to tell your boss how you voted, or your parents, or a “news” organization? This writer does not, and you shouldn’t have to, either.

This election isn’t just about candidates, folks: it’s about our freedom from Big Government Repubs and their NSA-Patriot Act-Morals Police-Brute Squad vision of America. We all need to vote against any candidate who would take away our rights, and support any candidate who supports our rights.

Your humble correspondent doesn’t give a single turd from a tufted titmouse’s ass how Ms. Grimes voted. It’s her right to keep it private, and good on her for asserting that right.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Supreme Court “Republicans” are helping to Steal another Election.

Ohio’s stinking “Republican” Secretary of State John (“Yes, the kind that pays for whores”) Husted has finally hit the US Supreme Court jackpot: the five partisan Wingnuts thereon are helping “Republicans” steal yet another election:

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The nation’s highest court on Monday granted an emergency plea from state officials to block a lower court’s order expanding statewide early voting days and times.

The court issued its order without an opinion or explanation, noting the court’s liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Kagan would not have granted the stay. Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy voted to grant the stay.

Ohio’s disastrous 2004 election shows the state cannot operate an election on only one day, argued attorneys for the ACLU. In papers filed in Supreme Court on Saturday, they said early voting, including Sunday “Souls to the Polls” events, have become woven into the fabric of Ohio’s democratic process.

“That election [in 2004] resulted in waiting times to vote that stretched into the day after Election Day and failed to provide meaningful access to the ballot for tens of thousands of Ohio voters,” they wrote. “Ohio thus comes to court with dirty hands.”

And the Repubs amongst the Supremes, who illegally installed an illegitimate occupant (Bush the Lesser) to the office of the Presidency, have even dirtier hands. Hands they now proudly display, filth and bloodstains plain to see.

All pretense of legitimacy is now gone, and the Roberts Court has fully revealed its true intent: the permanent takeover of our government by their ideological “soul” mates and paymasters in the GOP. Surprised? You shouldn’t be.

The Teapubbies announced their intention to do so back in the 1970’s. In the Powell Memo, they laid out their plan to seize control of the media, the economy, and the government. Click the link and read it.

The only way, and by that I mean the ONLY F***ING WAY to save this country from the tender mercies of the Rightish Inquisition is for the rest of us to VOTE in this election. Vote against every Elephant on every ballot in every race. Take back the House and keep the Senate.

That way, some actual jurists can be placed on the Supreme Court, replacing the corrupt partisan Repub motherf***ers who just f***ed tens of thousands of us out of our right to vote.

Vote, vote, vote. Take all your friends and family too. Vote while you still can.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

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

The government is not, repeat NOT scared of your guns. Here’s proof.

The arms industry makes a pretty penny by scaring us into thinking that the Eeeeeevil Government is gonna take away our firearms. Indeed, they and their pet politicos would have us believe that our guns are the only thing stopping said evil gummint from imposing some sort of Satanic tyranny. This is fertilizer of the finest, and here is how we know it’s bulls***:

Go look for active legislative, judicial, or executive actions that seek to take away our right to keep and bear arms (RKBA for short). No rumors, no CT, no crap you heard at the bar or barbershop, we are talking actual government actions to violate our Second Amendment rights. You found nothing, right? Neither did I.

Now look for government actions to limit or take away your right to VOTE. You found a helluva lot, right? Yeah, me too.

It’s not your bullets that the government fears, Gentle Reader: it’s your BALLOTS. Were they scared of our guns, they’d be trying to take them away, and they aren’t. Pretty clear, isn’t it?

Want to scare your elected “representatives”? Get on out and vote, and show them who’s boss.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky (proud gun owner AND voter)

No, The American Public Cannot Make Anything They Want Legal or Illegal

Contrary to much crap being spewed about these days, we do not live on a nation where the majority can do whatever-the-hell we want whenever the mood strikes us. Yes, we hear people bellow “the American people have the power to decide about (fill in the blank here – gays, guns, gynecology, or another Flavor of The Month) and the Gummint and the Courts had better not get in our way”, but they are pretty often full of fertilizer.

Our nation’s laws are based upon a Constitution (as are those of the states), and any law that is enacted must, repeat must be in compliance with said Constitution. Period. End of friggin’ story.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky mentions this because he has noticed lots of confusion around the notion of who can make law, and what sorts of laws can be made. From Southern states trying to reintroduce Jim Crow, to Justice Roberts quaking with fear about public opinion on “gay marriage”, to various religious and political demagogues whipping the ignorant into frenzy after frenzy, these zeebs would have you believe that we can overturn or rewrite established precedent just with a loud shriek of our collective larynxes.

Nope, it doesn’t work that way. And thank God for such small mercies. People can’t just take a vote and then go put chains on black folk, or take away women’s rights to vote, or make it legal to barbecue illegal immigrants, or any of the other crazy-assed ideas one hears in the chaotic and nonsensical noise bomb that we call our national discourse. We cannot. do. that. s***.

So nut up, you “Justices” and Jurists; grow some, you “Distinguished Gentlemen and Gentlewomen” who are supposed to be running the country based on our votes and laws. And most importantly, we citizens have to pay attention, show some spine, and not let ourselves be jerked around by con artists and snake-oil salesmen peddling lies disguised as laws.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

As You Head To The Polls Today

Remember these three things:

Number A: it is legal for politicians, news organizations, and advertisers to lie to us. And they take full advantage of that right.

Letter 2: vote a paper ballot. It is just as easy, less annoying, and ensures that your vote can be recounted if need be.

Thirdly: watch out for those scumbuckets, elected and otherwise, who would deny us access to the polls to exercise our Constitutional rights. Husted in Ohio, Scott in Florida, and their compatriots elsewhere are trying to suppress turnout so as to more easily rig elections. Stand up for your rights, and don’t let them steal your vote!

Mr. Blunt and Cranky