Magazine October 29, 2012, Issue

Block the Vote

By Kevin D. Williamson

About Kevin D. Williamson

October 11, 2012 4:00 AM

Absentee ballots are an invitation to fraud

Just a few days before Florida’s October deadline for registering to vote in the 2012 presidential election, authorities in Tallahassee confirmed that the state’s Democratic party and two of its key allies — the New Majority Education Fund and the National Council of La Raza/Democracia USA — were the subject of a criminal investigation into fraudulent voter registrations. In one of life’s little ironies, the New Majority Education Fund has reconstituted itself as the National Open Ballot Project, with an apparently expansive interpretation of the word “open.”

The news from Florida includes the worst kind of bipartisanship: Earlier in the same …

In This Issue

Articles

Politics & Policy

‘He Lies!’ They Commanded

By Ramesh Ponnuru

An incumbent president is facing a tough challenge from a Massachusetts politician who is even richer than he is, just as in 2004. For most of the year, pollsters have ...

Politics & Policy

The European Campaign

By John O'Sullivan

Chris Matthews and Andrew Sullivan were not the only people to be scared witless by Obama’s disappointing performance, and Romney’s incisive one, in the first presidential debate. Over in Western ...

Politics & Policy

Open Your Heart, Mitt

By Henry Olsen

After the first debate, Mitt Romney pulled even with or slightly ahead of President Obama in the polls. The question now is whether he can close the deal. He can, ...

Politics & Policy

Truth UnPrompTed

By Rob Long

TelePrompTers, like many of the folks who rely on them, are deceptively simple. Two thin panes of grey glass are clipped into place in front of the promptee, and ...

Politics & Policy

The New Tax Myth

By George Gilder

Just in time for the 2012 election, a Congressional Research Service study has concluded, amid the usual waffles and syrup of caveats, that tax cuts retard economic growth — but ...

Politics & Policy

The Unions’ Last Stand?

By John Fund

Los Angeles — After the presidential election, the most consequential political contest in America this year is that over Proposition 32, a California ballot initiative that would curb union political ...

Politics & Policy

Block the Vote

By Kevin D. Williamson

Just a few days before Florida’s October deadline for registering to vote in the 2012 presidential election, authorities in Tallahassee confirmed that the state’s Democratic party and two of its ...

Politics & Policy

The Tyrants’ Historian

By David Pryce-Jones

People in all walks of life, but especially intellectuals, used to believe that the Soviet Union was a place of wonders. Eric Hobsbawm was an outstanding example of the type. ...

Features

Politics & Policy

That Obama Movie

By Jay Nordlinger

2016: Obama’s America opened on one screen in Houston. Then it went to four screens. There were lines outside the doors. Then the movie opened in Nashville, Anchorage, Kalispell (a town ...

Politics & Policy

Republics of Conscience

By Bradley C. S. Watson

In an appearance on Egyptian television in early 2012, Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lamented the fact that she operated “under a rather old constitution.” She told Egyptians that ...

Books, Arts & Manners

Politics & Policy

The Mormon Moses

By Jason Lee Steorts

If a magnetic, irritable, and occasionally horrifying Moses were the main character in a quite bloody western, watching it might be something like reading this new biography of Mormonism’s second ...

Politics & Policy

Living for the City

By Samuel Staley

If anyone wondered whether community organizing can be taken out of a man when he goes to Washington, Stanley Kurtz answers the question with a definitive “no” in this eminently ...

Politics & Policy

Under the Influence

By Ronald Radosh

In the 2008 campaign, the media, generally speaking, showed a remarkable lack of interest in some of the background of the man who ended up winning the presidency. In this ...

Politics & Policy

Grievance Class

By Robert VerBruggen

How does one critique an entire academic discipline? For many conservative writers, it’s as simple as listing the names and topics of typical courses or papers and then counting on the ...

Politics & Policy

Flawed Genius

By Ross Douthat

If Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master was awaited with breathless anticipation by legions of film critics — here, finally, was a new film from the auteur behind 2007’s near-masterpiece There ...

Politics & Policy

Ambiguous Hero

By Kyle Smith

There is something irresistibly conservative about Lawrence of Arabia. The film is almost Biblical in its morality and, as played by Peter O’Toole, T. E. Lawrence is very nearly the ...

Sections

Politics & Policy

Letters

By NR Staff

What Is Happening to the Middle Class? Scott Winship’s “What ‘Lost Decade’?” (October 1) opens by misstating one of the basic findings of “The Lost Decade of the Middle Class,” a ...

Politics & Policy

The Week

By NR Staff

‐ We don’t know why everyone is being so hard on Obama’s debate performance. He did fine. Carry on, Mr. President! ‐ Every famous political debate is coated with myth. Reagan ...

Excerpts from I Wish I Could Fly Away

By Rob Long

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Excerpts from I Wish I Could Fly Away: The Autobiography of Big Bird © HarperCollins 2012 From Chapter One: “Which Came First?” “ . . . and this,” the lawyer from the ...

Athwart

All the President’s Straw Men

By James Lileks

Reports say the new underground structure at the White House is finished, but no one knows what it’s for. A man-cave where the president can get away and have a ...

Politics & Policy

Poetry

By Len Krisak

THE BOOKS By now, the books have almost filled their shelves Like some slow love affair reaching its end, When little space is left for richer selves, And all have spent the last cent ...

The Volunteer Military

By Mark Steyn

If you seek an epitaph for America’s longest war, consider one bleak, pitiful sentence from an Associated Press report a few weeks ago: Kabul, Afghanistan (AP) – A newly recruited Afghan ...

Recommended

Biden Signs Executive Order Allowing the U.S. to Fund Global Abortions

Biden Signs Executive Order Allowing the U.S. to Fund Global Abortions

The policy was first instated by President Reagan to ensure that taxpayers would not be required to indirectly fund abortions in other countries.

Alexandra DeSanctis

The Absurd Criticism of Rand Paul’s Rachel Levine Questioning

The Absurd Criticism of Rand Paul’s Rachel Levine Questioning

How likely is it that this dangerous ideological agenda is about to get worse?

Madeleine Kearns

Exclusive: 48 Senators Promise to Oppose Any Bill that Funds Abortion

Exclusive: 48 Senators Promise to Oppose Any Bill that Funds Abortion

Pro-life lawmakers pledge to resist spending bills that don’t include the Hyde amendment.

Alexandra DeSanctis

Cruz: Actually, It Is Constitutional to Impeach and Convict a Former President

Cruz: Actually, It Is Constitutional to Impeach and Convict a Former President

Never mind how he voted.

What Happened to Officer Sicknick?

What Happened to Officer Sicknick?

Democratic impeachment managers have a duty to explain how Officer Sicknick died.

Andrew C. McCarthy

Minnesota Nasty

Minnesota Nasty

Minneapolis is a nice city no longer.

Kevin D. Williamson

The Latest

White House Declines to Release Virtual Visitor Logs

White House Declines to Release Virtual Visitor Logs

'He’s meeting with members of the Senate virtually today,' Psaki said. 'There, I’ve released it for you.'

New Orleans Archdiocese Asks Catholics to Avoid Johnson & Johnson COVID Vaccine

New Orleans Archdiocese Asks Catholics to Avoid Johnson & Johnson COVID Vaccine

The Vatican previously issued guidelines which said it was 'morally acceptable' for Catholics to receive shots that used the cells for research.

Brittany Bernstein

The Most Scandalous Provision of the $1.9T Biden Boondoggle

The Most Scandalous Provision of the $1.9T Biden Boondoggle

It would be difficult to devise a targeted giveaway more likely to inspire popular outrage.

NRPLUS Conference Call with Charlie Cooke and Michael Brendan Dougherty

NRPLUS Conference Call with Charlie Cooke and Michael Brendan Dougherty

Charlie Cooke and Michael Brendan Dougherty discuss cancel culture and what we can do to push back against the woke mob.

Teachers Union Head Taped Sending Child to In-Person Pre-School While Backing School Closures

Teachers Union Head Taped Sending Child to In-Person Pre-School While Backing School Closures

The Berkeley teachers union head has pushed for all staff to be vaccinated before reopening public schools.

Ousted <I>Times</I> Reporter Claims Editor Caved to Internal Pressure: 'You've Lost the Newsroom'

Ousted Times Reporter Claims Editor Caved to Internal Pressure: 'You've Lost the Newsroom'

‘People won’t work with you,’ Dean Baquet reportedly told him.

Tobias Hoonhout