George R.R. Martin Writes About Politics Exactly The Way You’d Expect Him To (And The Morning Links)
I’m not linking to George R.R. Martin’s recent Blogspot post, about the upcoming election and his disdain for a certain group of people, to make a political statement. I am linking to George R.R. Martin’s recent Blogspot post because I love the sentence, “They are oligarchs and racists clad in the skins of dead elephants,” says Tyrion to no one while making love to Shae. In other news: WHEN IS GAME OF THRONES COMING BACK? (Via)
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20 Greatest Non-Sporting Moments Of The 2012 London Olympics Immortalized In GIF Form — (Uproxx)
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8 Husband-Wife TV Arguments That Stung As Much As Your Own Parents Fighting — (Pajiba)
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Paul Ryan’s Surprising Take On Jon Stewart — (Huffington Post)
11 Time Traveler Urban Legends That Pretty Much Debunk Themselves — (Mental Floss)
The Headlines of The Gotham Gazette During The Dark Knight Rises — (Unreality Mag)
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The first Twitter Olympics: By the numbers — (The Week)
Nothing Will Make You Hungrier Than This Amazing Five Guys Review — (HyperVocal)
Fun with Korean Language Class: ‘Do You Want Coke, or Cock?’ — (Bro Bible)
How White People Listen To Indian Music — (The High Definite)
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That was put rather… “eloquently” I must say.
George R.R. Martin is entirely qualified to write about the Republican idea that there’s rampant voter fraud that will be solved by voter ID laws.
Because, just like dragons and direwolves, it’s entirely a figment of fevered imaginations.
You obviously don’t live in Memphis, because it’s reality there. The Fords (Harold Ford, Jr., John Ford, Olphelia Ford…those Fords) made their fortune in Memphis with funeral homes. When voter rolls were checked, there were a lot of the Ford’s “customers” apparently voting from the grave. There was also evidence of flat out voter fraud in the Memphis/Shelby County area. This, among other issues, was the genesis of the Tennessee Voter ID law and it’s a good thing. I’d really like to not have my vote cancelled by someone that died two years ago.
Care to offer some evidence for that? Because everything I’ve read about the Tennessee law says otherwise:
News21, a part of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education focused on investigative reporting, analyzed 2,608 alleged election-fraud cases, going back to 2000, mined from thousands of public records requests, in all 50 states. …
In all, they found just 10 cases of voter impersonation, or, “one out of about every 15 million prospective voters” during that time.”
In Tennessee, the study turned up 14 total cases of reported fraud since 2000, none of which were cases of voter impersonation.
Sorry, but a grand total of zero cases of voter impersonation doesn’t really sound like proof of it really happening to me.
And at the same time the voter ID law there “solves” an imaginary problem, it also hurts some very real people:
[wonkette.com]
Ah, wait, I found the charge you’re talking about — complaints that there were two votes cast from dead people. Voter ID doesn’t really address that, does it?
Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, state officials passed a law to require voter ID in order to stop what they claimed was a rampant wave of voter impersonation. When it went to court, they had to admit (1) they actually hadn’t had ANY instances of voter impersonation verified in the state and (2) the law wouldn’t really solve the problem either. Meanwhile, one of the GOP leaders in the state bragged that voter ID “would allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.”
Whether it’s one instance, five, ten, a thousand, it’s still voter fraud that strips a legitimate vote from someone else. Voter fraud has occurred, and if the left actually believed in the sanctity of the right to vote that they’re using to attack voter ID laws, then they shouldn’t be OK with, “Yeah, voter fraud occurs, but it’s not as bad as the repuglicons would lead you to believe!!!” So a little fraud is OK for one of the greatest rights we as Americans have?
State issued IDs are free in Tennessee. All they cost is a little time and effort to go get one. And the democrats could use those buses they swing by retirement homes and neighborhood social clubs to take people to the polls to vote to actually take them to get a free ID if they are truly concerned about it.
Right, the Democrats just need to spend an extra amount of time, money and coordination to be sure that their voters get to the polls. Clearly, the Republicans have the purest of motives here.
As that Wonkette piece noted, there are proven cases now in which the elderly tried to go get those IDs and were turned away because they didn’t still have their original birth certificate from the 1910s.
Voting is our most important right. And if you think it’s worth throwing away the right for literally hundreds of thousands of Americans just because there were two allegations of dead people voting (and seriously, you can provide the proof of convictions here anytime), then I’d suggest you have your priorities a little backward.
Voter ID laws are about the Republicans gaming the system so that fewer Democratic voters make it to the polls. They’ve admitted as much. Moreover, the bulk of evidence of voter fraud comes in absentee ballots, where there is obviously no requirement to show ID. And yet Republicans — whom you insist are just about protecting the God-given right to vote, pure and simple — have not done anything to protect the sanctity of that vote. Why? Because people who vote by absentee ballots tend to vote Republican.
John Fund, the former Wall Street Journal columnist who has been promoting voter ID laws for years, admitted Tuesday that some Republicans focus on voter ID laws which restrict in-person voting over laws which could limit absentee voting because the GOP has a perceived electoral advantage when it comes to voting by mail.
“Absentee vote ballot fraud is the tool of choice amongst fraudsters,” Fund told a group of bloggers munching on Chick-Fil-A at the conservative Heritage Foundation on Tuesday. “Everytime you see a truly massive, coordinated effort at voter fraud, it usually relies in part on absentee voter fraud.”
Fund said that many voter ID laws “take some provisions to curb absentee ballot fraud,” with a few exceptions. But he confessed that Democrats had a point when they say that Republicans focus on voter ID because of a potential electoral advantage.
“I think it is a fair argument of some liberals that there are some people who emphasize the voter ID part more than the absentee ballot part because supposedly Republicans like absentee ballots more and they don’t want to restrict that,” Fund said.
[tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com]
Less political commentary, more Winds of Winter.
Agreed.
I heard it took him four days to write that blog post.
That was after his first post in the series was written in 1987 on a BBS.
Having caught up on the books, I seriously have no idea how people were able to wait in the time between book one’s release and now.
“Having caught up on the books, I seriously have no idea how people were able to wait in the time between book one’s release and now.”
Nevermind people who are only watching the show and are waiting for THAT to keep moving along the story, without reading spoilerish books. But for all we know, the show could have already caught up by the time Martin gets around to the sixth book.
I’m more interested in when GRRM’s next book is coming out.
And yet, out of the “100,000′s of voters that will be disenfranchised in Tennessee alone,” it really wasn’t that big of a deal. And for the handful that it was a deal, there are safeguards in place to protect their vote.
[goo.gl]
I think Voter ID laws are a good thing. You don’t. You probably wouldn’t like the shoes I’m wearing today either (but they’re oh so comfortable). Having different opinions is what makes this country as great as it. What’s that old maxim? If two people always have the same opinion about something, one of them is not needed.
Damnit! I thought this post was in Otto Man’s and my thread. Sorry.
I agree that differing opinions are great. And I think we need to ensure that as many people get to express their opinion as possible.
Republicans apparently feel differently. Under the smokescreen of massive voter fraud (see, for instance, the epic bullshit spread about ACORN), they have restricted access to the ballot and, moreover, severely reduced the window in which votes can be cast, doing away with early voting and/or limiting the hours for voting to 9am-5pm so working people get screwed. That is restricting the franchise, not empowering it.
And yeah, they didn’t have many problems in the primary elections. They never do. But if these laws stay in place, it’ll be chaos in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and countless other states. It’s going to be a repeat of Florida 2000 all over again.
Of course, for the people pushing these laws, that’s entirely the point, right?
Republican officials and pundits have admitted they’re doing this to gain a political edge. I’m not sure why you feel the need to cover for them when they’re proudly owning up to it.
Otto Man, both Republicans and Democrats play the exact same games. The differences between the parties, as far as they exist, are policy-driven. For every 96-year old woman who couldn’t find her birth certificate there’s an illegal immigrant voting with the full backing of the Democrats.
[www.cnn.com]
Squabbler: Hey, let’s agree to disagree.
Otto Man: Not until you acknowledge what I’ve read in Wonkette and TPM, two sources that are perfect for converting a conservative!
I’ll just leave this here.
[www.washingtonpost.com]
All this hysterical political hyperbole and ad hominem attacks make so much more sense after having read The Righteous Mind.
For political junkies, it’s rarely about ideas. More often than not, it’s about blind tribalism.
I’ve been reading A Song of Ice and Fire since 1999. I’ve read the first three a dozen times, the fourth one at least 5, and the latest one twice. I’ve also read his Dunk and Egg novellas, Dreamsongs, and Sandkings. Nevertheless, he blocked all future comments from me two years ago for debating other commenters on his post about the Affordable Care Act. I mean, he didn’t do it after one comment; it wasn’t a complete purging of all of his conservative fans. But I spent three years commenting daily on a Daily Kos sister site and was not only NOT banned, but a trusted user. Point is, I’m not a troll.
I’m amazed at this cognitive dissonance achieved by a clearly brilliant man. I’m a huge fan of the guy. When it comes to the world (and politics) of Westeros, GRRM is a man of ideas, but when it comes to the good old US of A, he is absolutely a blind tribalist, and guilty of exactly what you just described.
That really sucks. But creative genius usually comes with a side of mania, just like the Targaryens.
At least the guy is just being a jerk about politics instead of destroying his mind with cocaine or going Polanski on little girls, right?
I don’t know what people expect. What’s to stop anyone from voting in different or multiple districts, states, etc. if they don’t have to show some sort of ID? It’s not a Republican “scheme”, it’s common fucking sense. I’ve had to show my license at every poll in CT since I was 18. Not a big deal.
It is absolute stupidity to say that the requirement to present ID to vote is voter suppression. If that is true, almost EVERY DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD is practicing voter suppression.
If you are too lazy and worthless to have a state-issued ID (which is required to do anything important like getting a job or driving a car), then internalizing your opinion into our democracy come election day is likely to make problems worse.
Democrats always depend on the votes of lazy morons. Its why places like California and Illinois are going the way of Greece. Thanks but no thanks.