Friday links! Conspiracy theories edition

Free

Between global warming and Fetty Wap, it sure seems like we have a lot of problems lately. But what if our problems were conspiracies? Wouldn’t it be easier to address things like income inequality or adult-sized Batman t-shirts if they were not, in fact, problematic consequences of flawed systems, but rather stuff people were secretly doing to us? Or stuff lizards were secretly doing to us? We can’t know until we pit MacGyver against Nancy Drew, but I’m pretty sure it’s easier to stop a conspiracy than to solve a problem. Today is Friday, and I’d rather be up against the Rothschilds than structural conflicts of liberal democracy. Won’t you theorize with me?

Continue reading

Friday links! Comeuppance edition

White supremacist Craig Cobb, who recently learned he is 14% black

White supremacist Craig Cobb, who recently learned he is 14% black

“Virtue is its own reward,” says the man who does not want to reward you for anything. It’s the consolation prize of aphorisms, implying not even that things will get better later, but that you should be more grateful for the injustice underway now. No wonder virtue is unpopular. Stupidity, on the other hand—along with arrogance, bigotry and old-fashioned bossiness—is going like hotcakes. Fortunately, the converse of our old saw is true: stupidity is its own punishment. Today is Friday, and those who deny the facts on the ground inevitably will be corrected. It happens to all of us. Won’t you enjoy your comeuppance with me?

Continue reading

Florida GOP chair says voting laws meant to reduce turnout

Two snakes fight each other.

In an interview with the Palm Beach Post, former Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer said that laws his party introduced in the name of combating voter fraud were actually designed to reduce voter turnout. Also, Dracula has a startling admission about the blood drive he organized at your office. We all kind of new that ID laws and limitations on early voting were actuarially engineered to give Republicans an advantage; the clue was that only Republicans proposed them. But after months of pious declarations about fraud and the integrity of the system, it’s nice to hear Greer admit it. Quote:

The Republican Party, the strategists, the consultants, they firmly believe that early voting is bad for Republican Party candidates. It’s done for one reason and one reason only…They never came in to see me and tell me we had a fraud issue. It’s all a marketing ploy.

But God never opens a door without sending a mean dog to run around your living room. Complicating details after the jump.

Continue reading

Friday links! Rich pleasures edition

It is tempting to believe that as our society becomes more crass and hedonistic, the sophisticated pleasures evaporate. How can we enjoy the incisive psychology of The Cherry Orchard when our brains have been honed to Barely Legal 6? It’s tempting to think that the game of inches that was 20th-century culture will be lost on a society that measures value in millions, but that’s just declinism talking. In fact, the mass stupefaction of American society provides us with rich pleasures, the way Oedipus having a marital dispute with his mom provided the ancient Greeks with irony. And we don’t even have to go to the theater. Today’s links offer plenty of schadenfreude and a healthy dose of rueful surprise, and they’re all constituted of at least 50% real life. Won’t you succumb to embittered satisfaction with me?

Continue reading

Study says voter ID laws could disenfranchise 10 million Latinos

A fake voter

Good news for anti-fraud crusaders and racists, both of whom happen to be Republicans: a study by the Advancement Project estimates that new voter ID laws could prevent as many as 10 million legitimate Latino voters from casting ballots in the November election. If you hate primary sources and, paradoxically, second sources, Fox Latino has you covered. Meanwhile, judges heard closing arguments yesterday regarding a South Carolina law that would require voters to show one of five forms of voter ID at the polls.

Continue reading