This is your Weekend Open Thread. Talk about whatever you want. Have a happy election week!
Creepy — but perhaps less overtly political than advertised.
Weekend Open Thread: The Children of the Future Would Like to Sing You a Song
– November 1, 2012Posted in: Fresh Juice
Special to Matt Coker (whose Probolsky-themed story about Larry Agran seems to have gone missing from the OC Weekly website):
mcoker. Better beige and mauve than what apparently flashes in the brains of many of your stablemates. But moving on….
Is there something that might be called an “Agran political machine”? I would think so — but that’s not really the point. Here, I’ll spell it out for you.
I suspect, in fact, that there might well be MORE than one grouping that could be called an “Agran Machine.”. One would consist of those whom Agran directs and controls (consisting of longtime ideological supporters, campaign workers, consultants, and such); he’s morally and ethically responsible for their plans and foreseeable acts.
Another might consist of people Not under Agran’s direction and control — such as, I’m guessing, Probolsky & Co, (Agran may know what they’re doing, or he may be able to figure it out, but that does not confer moral or ethical responsibility upon him — which is PRETTY MUCH REQUIRED if one is going to accuse him of being “Evil” and “Stealing Another Election.)
Bad things may indeed be going on here — although actually nothing looks like it would warrant terms like “stealing an election,” which I like to reserve for things like, oh, STEALING AN ELECTION. But those bad (or bad-ish) things seem to be done by Probolsky & Co. of the Not Actually Agran Machine — which is Not Actually Agran — rather than by the Actual Agran Machine for which he can be held responsible.
Of course, maybe Agran is indeed Darth Larry and has a second identity in which he controls the Not Actually Agran Machine! It’s theoretically possible! And, as journalists of a sort, you could investigate that and try to prove that the Not Actuallys are Actually Agran’s.
But, you haven’t done that, and the election is upon us, and Moxley’s making the charges anyway — and that’s a Big Dry Clump of Fail.
By the way: how many former members of that Agran machine are there? I ask because I’m sort of itching to compare that number to the number of votes that I expect to get in the primary — so that we can bet on it. I’d tell you that latter number, but I don’t want to scare you off. Come on, Coker — that was a brilliant insult, don’t abandon it now!
greg,
i thought that you and i were the children of the future
You’re supposed to watch the video twice, willie, for it to hypnotize you and turn you into a Democratic operative for the next 3-1/2 days. The good news is: leftover Halloween candy!
I’ve been reading that voter turnout is going to be low for this election.
Many of the people who see themselves as Democrats are pissed off that the current president gave trillions of dollars to the Wall Street 1 percentor’s and failed to give them (the 99%) their free car, free house, free food, free money, the free ride that they voted for when they picked socialism.
There are lots of polls out there, cook. Go to a site like fivethirtyeight.com (through the New Yotk Times) and read them. Then you will be better informed.
Sounds like there is a need for pollster watchers to make sure they are not intimidating the people they be talking to.
Like I said, with the pollster saying Obama is going to win, then there is no reason for the democrat voters to even vote. Correct?
You’re using “democrat” as an adjective, so the proper word would be “Democratic.” I leave you to figure out the rest on your own.
yes cook go to the ny times mslsd the hot air huffington post , and the daily kooks ,, and you will be better informed on how to be a mental case ..
and what leads you to believe that i am not already a democratic operative. my dead relatives in chicago have already voted for you at least seventeen times
Yes — but did they sign the back of the envelope?
some guy at the registrars office does that for me
ROV
We anticipate numerous election observers during this election. Remember they have a right to be in the polling place as long as they do not disrupt election operations. Refer to page 12 of your manual.
………..
Should be a very interesting election day, maybe even one for the books like in 1988 when the republicans sent in guards to the inner city to intimidate voters, now it’s the democrats turn to send in (fake) poll watchers to intimidate voters and poll workers.
Of course we will need to wait until the day after to see what happens.
“(Fake) poll watchers to intimidate voters”?
That’s reprehensible, cook. I head a speech from John Smith of Common Cause on this on Thursday; their instructions are to, when they see the nauseatingly named “Election Integrity Project” people intimidating voters and poll workers, call on reinforcements to contact the ROV office directly. Period.
I don’t expect there will be much, if any, problems in the OC, with referrance to poll watchers.
You may want to pass along to the poll watches that they should bring their own chair if they want a place to sit while they observe.
Some places, like fire stations, will require poll watcher to observe from the outside only.
I looked at the web site for “Election Integrity Project” and the web site for “common Cause”. Both are almost idential, and neither have any authority at the polling sites.
So cry “Wolf” all you like, but beware if you cry wolf at a polling site, you will be kicked out and reported.
or when the black panthers where set up at booths with a stick in their hands
Scott Moxley wrote this about me today:
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2012/11/greg_diamond_state_assembly_la.php
In case they don’t print my response — posted there and e-mailed to him — here it is:
Scott,
I demand that you, or the OC Weekly, or its corporate owners, retract the knowingly false and otherwise defamatory misstatements of fact in the article that you published about me today. You are entitled to your absurd opinions about me; you are not entitled to lie about me or my actions.
Of those lies, the most important at the moment (with the election approaching) is your statement that “Diamond then incredibly declared in his blog that Norby–who was never charged with any crime–had ‘forcibly . . . kneed his newly pregnant wife in the stomach.’”
No, I didn’t. As you note, I don’t know that that happened; I only heard it from sources whom I consider to be credible and whom had spoken to people in a position to know. I found it highly disturbing, though — I hope that I don’t have to explain why — and not a “private” matter at all.
What did I do? I was informed of three leads towards evidence: (1) the presence of the deliveryman who had called the police after witnessing some interaction between the Norbys, (2) the alleged presence of photos showing bruising of Martha Norby’s abdomen, that had allegedly been taken when the went into the police station to file a report in her husband’s absence the following day, and (3) that the FPD, directed by then-Chief Sellers, had agreed to hush up the report, although one allusion to the photos made it into a report by Andrew Goodrich.
Did I publish the rumors then? No. I turned in a public records report — at a time that it seemed to me anyone who had knowledge of or access to the file or photos might be willing to provide it. That request was denied — and I dropped it. It would have stayed dropped — but the Norby-promoting FFFF blog supposedly did a public records request that found my public records request — yeah, that’s what “Mr. Peabody” on that blog said — and publicized it, claiming that I was just fishing for dirt on Norby. I wanted to explain myself at the time, but then decided not to do it.
Then months later, you decided to publish the story about how I was fishing into another man’s marriage — as if the right to beat one’s wife is a matter that should not be of broader public concern. At that point, I decided that I had to publish the story. In that story, I did not seek to address what Norby did, but what I had been credibly informed that Norby had done, simply to explain why I had — not publicly accused him of anything — but simply turned in a public records request.
Your statement that I accused him of doing this thing, rather than that I had explained that my having been told that he had done this thing led me to take a step that an investigative journalist might reasonably take and try to find out, is false and defamatory. You should retract it immediately.
Your behavior is similar to that of Norby himself, which I describe in a story here — http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2012/11/dedicated-husband-chris-norby-puts-out-the-most-shameful-mailer-of-the-year/ — in which he falsely accused the Quirk-Silva campaign of attacking him and his family, without explaining what they had supposedly done, when they had in fact issued no such attack on him. Apparently he thinks that being accused of domestic violence helps him. With journalists like you around, Scott, who are either credulous or bought, maybe he’s right about that.
I’ll mention one other thing that you should retract: you state that I presented a “disingenuously embellished tale about being hired by acclaimed law firm Jones Day.” That is false, and you either do or should know that it’s false. Notably, when you quote me, you don’t present your quotes in context. It’s a bad journalistic practice — but I guess that’s appropriate, as you’ve become a bad journalist.
Greg Diamond
I just got into Chicago and saw all the satellite trucks already set up at McCormick Place for the Obama victory party.
We’re expecting rain here on Tuesday which should keep the Republicans at home.
We are still setting up polling stations at the cemeteries, though. It makes it more convenient for the dead people to vote.
should be nice tears of rain after nobama loses tuseday
Can I get you a hanky ?
I hope that you don’t cry for four more years. If you do, go over to Willis’s blog where you can be with the other whiners.
Oc ballats VBM out……………….792,524 (47 percent)
Returned and counted…………….427,371 (54 percent)
.
Repub’s …………………..………..189,452 (44 percent)
Demo’s …………………………….115,966 (27 percent)
Except for a few offices in Santa Ana, Anaheim, Irvine, it looks like another rout.
With the lost of so many liberal demo precincts in the North East, Dewey may just beat Truman after all.