Election Day Live: Obama Called Winner, Big Night for Drug Reform

An hour after polls opened Tuesday morning, the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Office mistakenly placed hundreds — possibly thousands — of automatic calls to voters instructing them that they had until 7 p.m. Wednesday to vote.

But that is wrong. Polls close at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Any ballots turned in after that time won't be accepted.

The piece is in keeping with the long history of lying, huckstering and rube-smacking by the right-wing direct-mail detailed by Nixonland author Rick Perlstein in an  article called "The Long Con," in the latest issue of the Baffler. 

 

If you want to read the whole of the Newsmax interview with Koch, who rarely grants an audience to journalists, you have to pony up a subscription to Newsmax magazine, where you can also read the latest on the restoration of your sexy sexiness through testosterone pills and thrill to exciting tales of robot dogs being used by the Marines. Plus, of course, lots of dire predictions about the future of America at the hands of Barack Obama.

 

In the e-mail, Koch is quoted parroting the old John Birch Society claim that government spending on social programs will ultimately lead to a hyper inflationary depression that never seems to happen. (Near-depressions brought on by extreme deregulation and warmongering -- and headed off by a black president -- are not covered by Newsmax.) From the Newsmax Election Day e-mail:

One of the richest men in America, Koch is executive vice president of Koch Industries and co-founder with his brother Charles of the powerful political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, which has played a major role in present-day American politics. 

[...]

In this election year, Americans for Prosperity has raised an estimated $150 million and unleashed a barrage of television ads and a high-tech voter mobilization drive in key battleground states. And Koch has personally hosted a fundraiser for Romney at his home on Long Island.

[...]

Koch fears that inflation could be on the horizon.

“The Federal Reserve is creating money to buy these Treasury bonds, and if that policy continues for too long, we’re going to start to see inflation.

“We can have runaway inflation at some point in time,” which will drive up the interest rate on the national debt to perhaps 9 percent. “That’s absolutely unsustainable,” he added.

Koch and his organization have become a lightning rod this political year. President Obama, for example, called Koch and his brother “secretive oil billionaires.”

But Koch is not about to back down.

“What bothers me about [Obama] is that he seems to be anti-business,” Koch told Newsmax. “Business provides 3 out of every 4 jobs in our economy, and gosh, does he attack business just relentlessly.”