Empower the nonproductive segments

Matthew Vadum, profoundly interested in "voter fraud" declared:

Registering them [the poor and welfare recipients] to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country — which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote. (emphasis added along the way)

Eli of Firedoglake notes:

So let me see if I have this right: Helping millions of poor people to vote for someone they hope might occasionally represent their interests is “antisocial and un-American,” but a tiny minority of ridiculously wealthy people and corporations spending gobs of money to put the government securely in their pocket is “free speech”?

Of course, we won’t mention that most of the poor are “nonproductive” because none of the politicians who slid into office on avalanches of corporate money give a damn about creating jobs. Or that obscene wealth does not necessarily equate to productivity. Or that “productivity” is not actually a requirement for voting eligibility in the first place.

Still, I’ll give Vadum credit for coming out and saying that he just doesn’t want poor people to vote. Usually the right pretends that they’re terribly concerned about the imaginary threat of voter fraud, in much the same way that they’re terribly concerned about the sanctity of marriage, the lives of unborn babies, the threat of terrorism, and the morale of our troops.

The only thing un-American about poor people voting is that it doesn’t give them a voice, even when their candidates win.

Cindy and Mike Jacobs claim that Hurricane Irene is punishment for New York permitting gay marriage and that true Christians (meaning, like them) can control the weather.

A commenter, quoting cartoonist Lee Judge, wrote something that makes a nice response:

(1) When homosexuals get AIDS, it’s punishment from God.
(2) When the sexually active get herpes, it’s punishment from God.
(3) And when John Ashcroft gets gallstone pancreatitis, it’s gallstone pancreatitis.