The GOP's favorite slime-slinger, Michael Brodkorb, recently proclaimed in his usual breathless manner that Secretary of State Mark Ritchie was somehow "hiding" information about the upcoming caucuses here in Minnesota. Given the hyperventilating that Mr. Brodkorb's been doing about Mark Ritchie, I wanted to check out whether the information about caucuses was indeed hidden on the site.
I went to the Secretary of State home page, and right there on the top was a link entitled "Voting and Election Information" link, complete with a little illustration of a button that said "vote." So I clicked it and lo and behold at the very top of the list of links that came up was one for "Caucus information." This link led me to this document, providing accurate dates, how to contact parties to determine locations, frequently asked questions, even a handy-dandy list of definitions and terms.
This - shockingly enough - didn't strike me as "hiding" anything, so I tried to post a comment on Mr. Brodkorb's post explaining that the information was far from "hidden." The fact that the comment was not allowed does speak volumes about Mr. B's penchant for never letting the facts get in the way of a pretend outrage, especially when it comes to Mark Ritchie.
Now, unlike elections in the State of Minnesota, precinct caucuses are not administered by any governmental unit. They are set up, funded, administered, and conducted by the political parties, not the Secretary of State or any of the county elections administrators. So our outraged friend purposely gets lost on the website of the people not running the caucuses, can't find the thing he's hoping to not find, treats this as some startling revelation, proclaims his incorrect conclusion, and then deletes comments that point out that he's again wrong on a simple fact.
Michael, you'll find in life that those who want to be lost often are.
Update: Charlie really does his homework on this one. And he repudiates his own name-calling, unlike me.
Further update: Having gone back to the SoS website and following the simple instructions in the comment he wouldn't post, Mr. B now finds the information and proclaims loudly that he, Brodkorb caused Secretary of State Ritchie to post the caucus information!
Judge Easterbrook of the Seventh Circuit wrote this week a legal opinion upholding a finding of fraud against the purveyors of the“Gold Deluxe” Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet and explored that old logical fallacy: post hoc ergo propter hoc to analyze the claims of the charlatans who sold the junk bracelets. Recognizing that merely because one thing happens after another does not mean the second thing is caused by the first thing, the wise judge described it this way: "the 'testimonial' of someone who keeps elephants off the streets of a large city by snapping his fingers is the basis of a joke rather than proof of cause and effect."
Mr. Brodkob's eventual location of the caucus information after he roared his outrage falls squarely into the "joke" category, not the "cause and effect" category.
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