| I had open, and lost, an article in my browser from the other day in which Ruth Johnson, who said that she is compelled to include on ballot applications a question asking voters again whether they are U.S. citizens because of widespread electoral fraud perpetrated by Canadians (as near as anyone can tell), said that the real Chicken Littles are the people who say there was confusion at the polls over her question. That would include the documented couple of dozen people who didn't get ballots over the question (including also nearly Rich Robinson of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network). In response to that, as noted here, Stephen Henderson had perhaps the most eloquent shut-down sentence of this year's election season by suggesting that she stop turning a non-problem into a constitutional crisis, a crisis that has now dragged in the city of Detroit. The story is now familiar. Detroit city clerk Janice Winfrey will remove her citizenship question from local ballots, which means that voters in Macomb and Washtenaw counties and the city of Detroit will have easier access to the ballot than the rest of us. Good on them, by the way. The other day, I saw the dumbest response yet from a conservative on anything. These are people who, keep in mind, have howled about Obamacare because they feel there is no clear constitutional authority granted the federal government to regulate national trade in health care insurance, and are mad as hell that the feds would think to set national lightbulb efficiency standards because Thomas Jefferson never foresaw a day when such a thing might become necessary. This person, and I'm guessing this is now a thing among conservatives, asked why it's such a problem to tick off just a little, bitty box on their ballot application. As Robinson noted on primary day, when he called to ask under what statutory authority he was deprived his Constitutional right to the franchise by a local government official, he couldn't be given one, which led him to conclude that the question is illegal. The punchline is that this is your Rule of Law Party that impeached Bill Clinton for lying about a blowjob. |
