The real illusion of voter fraud

By Dan Brooks in Department of Irony? 2 Comments

The pleasingly-named Hans von Spakovsky

Let’s say you lived in an exceptionally honest town where theft was almost unheard of. After years of almost zero larceny, the Honestburg Police Department announced that a massive crime wave had struck the city. Thieves were thick, according to the HPD, and so the cops went house to house confiscating stolen property. Occasionally they would take the television some old lady had for decades, but they returned it to her eventually and, besides, such mistakes are inevitable when battling a crime wave of this scale. So a question: does Honestburg have a theft problem now? On a completely unrelated note, the Ohio Voter Project filed a complaint with the Hamilton County Board of elections alleging that Theresa Sharp was fraudulently registered at the house where she has been living for 30 years.

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Friday links! Fantasy of decline edition

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 3 Comments

Why would they keep trying to cross that aqueduct?

We’ve talked about it before, but it is critically important that you not fall into declinism. The fantasy that American empire has reached its sunset is both conceited and self-fulfilling. We won a war against Nazis during the Great Depression; probably we can get past having too many fat kids and needing to invent a kind of transportation other than the car. The only way we wouldn’t is if we all decided we were at the end of civilization and nothing we did like, matters. That’s how things stop working, and we can choose not to quit. Still, when you imagine the collapse of society into a Hobbesian war of all against all, it is kind of satisfying. The disintegration of Delta airlines, Lil’ Kim having to make the transition to actual whore—these are bitterly comforting ideas. It’s Friday, and our link roundup is split between images of decline and comforting reminders of who will suffer most of it happens. Don’t give in to declinism, though. Maybe just indulge it a little as you imagine Lena Dunham struggling to grow turnips.

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Regarding Ann Romney, Olympic horse owner

By Dan Brooks in Existential Dilemmas 5 Comments

John Carlos and Tommie Smith give the black power salute at the 1968 Olympics, humiliating their owners.

Michelle Obama has those arms, but Ann Romney is kind of an Olympian. She owns a dressage horse, Rafalca, who will compete in the 2012 Summer Games in London alongside trainer Jan Ebeling. Over at the New Yorker, Amy Davidson asks whether that means we have to cheer for Ann Romney at the Olympics. We definitely have to cheer Rafalca, because what—am I to root for some Russian horse instead? But the question of whether that equals cheering for Ann Romney is less clear. Eberling is the one who actually rides Rafalca, putting Romney at another degree of remove from even being the person who sits on top of the actual competitor. It’s a tricky way to be an Olympian, as Mitt Romney has acknowledged. “She’s the athlete,” he told Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation. “But in this case, it’s not her personally.” Oh.

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Pleasingly-named billionaire Koch brothers fund Tea Party

By Dan Brooks in Tea Party 2 Comments

Charles Koch, photographed here with the things he does not own

Here are just two of the many fun quotes in Jane Meyer’s New Yorker article about David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who founded Americans For Prosperity, support a network of conservative think tanks dedicated to libertarian causes, and have been instrumental in creating and sustaining the Tea Party movement:

They’re smart. This right-wing, redneck stuff works for them. They see this as a way to get things done without getting dirty themselves.

The problem with the whole libertarian movement is that it’s been all chiefs and no Indians. There haven’t been any actual people, like voters, who give a crap about it. So the problem for the Kochs has been trying to create a movement.

The first is from a previous advisor to the Kochs and one of the many sources in Meyer’s story that go unnamed. The second is from Bruce Bartlett, formerly of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a think tank the Kochs funded. If you lack the time or patience to read Meyer’s mind-blowing but also 10,000-word story on these men—whose combined income is exceeded in America only by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet—you should know two things. One, the Fifth Avenue apartment mentioned in the opening section now belongs to one of my former clients, and I used to tutor there twice a week. Two, you can get the gist of Meyer’s article by reading Frank Rich’s column from Sunday.

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