There’s Stubborn… And Then There’s Savannah Stubborn

by | Jan 11, 2024 | Asset Forfeiture, Big Government, History, Military | 147 comments

I first met Jim Dotson in the fall of 1990.  If the phrase “larger than life” ever applied to anyone, Jim was a candidate: a bear of a man, he had served as a Marine in Korea before attending Clemson on the G.I. Bill and playing on the football team (this was the pre-platoon days, so Jim played both offensive and defensive line for sixty minutes each fall Saturday).  He had prodigious appetites in both food and whiskey, and was prone to tell the most outlandish tall tales – including one that he related to me about his family – or so I thought at the time.  But damned if I didn’t do a little research, and, well… here we go.

 

In early 1942 the War Department found itself thrust into a two front global conflict, and had to rapidly ramp up manpower, materiel, and training bases.  To that last end, the Department contracted with the city of Savannah, Georgia to take over Chatham Airfield as a heavy bomber training base (the Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force is located nearby for that very reason).  The Department then started buying up land west of the airfield to construct an additional runway.  That’s where they ran into a problem.

 

The Dotson family had moved into the area west of Savannah not long after General Oglethorpe had founded the Colony of Georgia, back when the region was known as Cherokee Hills.  As pioneer families were wont to do at the time, they had a family cemetery on their land.

 

When the Department began negotiations to buy the Dotson acreage, that became a sticking point.  Over the generations, around a hundred different kinfolk had been buried in the cemetery, and the Dotsons were unwilling to have so many graves plowed over just so the Army Air Force could have more room for some kids to learn how to take off and land in B-17s.

Eventually they came to an agreement.  The Department carefully exhumed the remains from each grave and moved them to a newly-purchased extended family plot in Bonaventure Cemetery, where prominent Savannah families have been put to rest for centuries (the cemetery was also the home of “Bird Girl,” made famous from the cover of John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil).

 

But the family was adamant that the patriarch of the clan and his wife, Richard and Catherine Dotson, were not to be disturbed.  The government tried several different tactics to cajole, bribe, or threaten the family with Eminent Domain, but the Dotsons got Savannah Stubborn and stuck to their guns.  So the War Department reinforced the graves and built their airfield extension around them, and agreed to that they (or whoever ran the airfield after the war was over) would care for the graves in perpetuity.

To this day, the graves are part of Runway 10 / 28, the 9,350 foot runway that services what is now Savannah / Hilton Head International Airport.

Jim Dotson passed away in 2016, but I’ll never forget him, nor the “you’ve got to be kidding me” story that turned out to be true.

About The Author

Shpip

Shpip

Florida Man, amphibian enthusiast with a reptile dysfunction. Founder and CEO of Vlad Țepeș Tree Service.

147 Comments

  1. Sean

    That’s cool.

  2. Dr. Fronkensteen

    They were smart to leave the grave markings when they kept the bodies.

  3. The Late P Brooks

    Good story.

  4. R C Dean

    I’m just surprised that the gravesites happened to be in the middle of the new runway. The odds against that are pretty steep.

  5. ron73440

    Very interesting tale, it would be hard to believe if some guy told you it.

    Did you find out it was true while you still knew him?

    • Shpip

      I was taking my father-in-law back to his house in Jacksonville just after Christmas when he related the story to me again (the guy’s eighty-six — he doesn’t have any new stories). Only this time, I decided to do a little research on my own to check the veracity of the tale. To be honest, I thought that big Jim Dotson had been pulling my leg for thirty years.

  6. Urthona

    Interesting

  7. db

    Wow

      • R.J.

        Oh, that is great. And so true. It is why I left.
        Notice I did not say the “R” word. No drinking at work.

      • Suthenboy

        me too, that and the way they treated Sloopy. That was really the last straw for me. No more money, no more clicks and no more weighing in.
        This place is a Godsend.

      • R C Dean

        “The simplest combination of these facts is that Reason exists not to serve a libertarian audience, but for a donor class to push their preferred stories onto libertarians. This donor class is substantially more culturally progressive, egalitarian, globalist, and neoliberal than the libertarian base.”

        Yeah, spot on. I think we had an inkling of that well before the Great Migration.

      • rhywun

        Dayum.

        Well said.

      • Lackadaisical

        That’s a damn good post, for Twitter.

    • Urthona

      Also not true. Saw several other candidates criticizing Trump this week.

      • Urthona

        Admittedly, Christie was a “one issue” candidate who only criticized Trump.

    • Suthenboy

      I do finally understand why Trump is so hated and feared. The naked cowardice and hypocrisy is a wonder to behold. On the surface opposition to him looks like pure lunacy but it is easy for me to see now that evil is the motivating factor.

      • Urthona

        I dislike him mainly because I suspect it’s going to be the 4th time in a row he’s handed the Democrats political power with his ineptitude.

        I’m not quite sure how opposition to him is “pure lunacy”, also. Pointlessly locking down the country and incurring inflationary-causing debt is just the tip of the iceberg.

        I think the biggest thing he did during his presidency which he was most energetic about was developing the vaccine. Which is ironic since most conservatives hate it.

      • R.J.

        Yes. If you are going to oppose Trump, do it on his record. Christie did no such thing, he was just singing the old “Anyone but Trump” song. It is very easy to show how he was just an old-school democrat who absolutely started lock downs and the damn vaccine, and also at one point talked about jailing gun owners / taking away guns, who followed the advice of the CIA/FBI even after they fucked him hard. Indeed, he even supports building a new structure for the FBI in Washington. They need vacant offices, not more space and people.

        Sad thing is, he is still less of an asshole than Biden. And I am tired of having to choose between a shit sandwich and a giant douche. Jorgensen convinced me that the libertarians had lost their mind.

      • Urthona

        Yes.

        Christie also got a resurgence because of Trump. I don’t remember exactly where the falling out comes from, because it’s all so… lame.

      • R.J.

        Tiresome is the word. Very tiresome. Nobody has any new ideas. It’s always the same shit now, for close to 60 years. Just a complete degradation of creative thought, steamrollered by progressives. They have robbed the world of God knows what at this point. Definitely flying cars and vodka that doesn’t taste like window-cleaner fluid. And possibly talking cats.

      • Suthenboy

        Talking cats? Are you fuckin’ crazy? They will take over the world and we will all be enslaved to produce fish flavored treats and kibble. Imagine spending your life endlessly producing baskets of warm laundry fresh out of the dryer.

      • R.J.

        “Imagine spending your life endlessly producing baskets of warm laundry fresh out of the dryer.”

        I already do that. If that became the only thing I had to do, I would be good with it.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Indeed, he even supports building a new structure for the FBI in Washington.

        All part of his plan to get the FBI to leave him alone, or something.

      • Suthenboy

        Occasionally I hear someone say something reasonable like this, but rarely.
        When I hear ‘hand the dems power through ineptitude’ I am left wondering “What the hell are supposed to do? Elect democrats?” As it is they are waging full-out war on us and tearing the country apart.

      • Urthona

        No. I’m sure I’ll have to vote for Trump again in the next election.

        What I mean is I think he’s way toxic to a large percentage of the public and even his endorsement seems to cost Republican candidates.

        Republicans would be smart to replace him after 3 failed elections to a really weak democrat party, but Republicans are not smart.

      • Suthenboy

        “I’ll have to vote for Trump again…” < My position exactly.
        What I really want has nothing to do with any candidate. What I really want is for this govt, which I no longer consider legitimate to be cut down to about 1/10th of it's current size and have it's nuts cut. They are not doing their job, have not kept the deal we made and are so far out of their lane they cant even see it with binoculars.
        I dont know how to go about doing that.

      • R C Dean

        This government can’t be cut down to size, etc. What you want (me, too, BTW) will require replacing this government with an entirely new one.

        DC delenda est.

      • Fourscore

        Not to worry, Mama Economics doesn’t care a thing about political parties.

        One day we’ll sit around saying “Why didn’t I see it coming?” The truth is we can see it coming but we can’t judge the distance.

      • Suthenboy

        4×20, I dunno about gauging range, I think it is more of a whistling past the grave yard situation.

      • R C Dean

        “I’m not quite sure how opposition to him is “pure lunacy”, also.”

        Depends on why. Policy, the botched COVID response in particular? Sure. Mean tweets/Russian collusion/insurrection/ muh democracy? You can fuck right off.

      • Suthenboy

        But RC, he is worse than Hitler. I hear he plans to assassinate his political opposition if elected.

      • Urthona

        Not just botched the covid response. Actually tried to prevent states from reopening (which he’s now overtly lying about).

        But…

        — Signed a spending bill incurring record debt and inflation
        — Actually approved ridiculous spending bills every single year
        — unilterally adeed more gun control with the most ridiculous reasoning
        — lied about leaving Afghanistan (did nothing to end it in fact… Biden had to accomplish this),
        — lied about the border and the border wall (accomplished nothing there… )t
        — failed to “repeal or replace” Obamacare (did nothing… showed his supposed leadership skills were nada)

        That’s just top of my head stuff.

        Trump was mostly a lazy president who was most energized when it came to his vaccine program and covid tackling. And ironically, most Republicans hated what he did there.

        I really think a second Trump presidency would be more of the same nothingburger, but my biggest concern is I don’t think a second Trump presidency will actually happen.

      • Fourscore

        My biggest concern is that a Trump presidency will happen. The concern is actually tied with a Biden second presidency.

        Where’s Bill the Cat when we need him?

      • R.J.

        Yes. I will take a nothingburger any day over continued leftist insanity, driven wild by a second win.

  8. R.J.

    I love it. These are the stories that make America great.

  9. Suthenboy

    Speaking of TOS, some ten or so. years ago I commented there directly at Gillespie, in a nutshell: “Dont you want to leave some kind of legacy? Dont you want to be remembered as one of the few, smart, brave ones? Keep saying shit like this and after you are gone you will be forgotten. in 100 years no one will remember you or care. Just another hack in the dustbin of history.Grow a pair, stand up and say what needs to be said.”
    Knowing what I know now he probably laughed and thought ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’
    Remember the old ‘cocktail party’ jokes we used to make? It aint no fuckin’ joke.

    • Raven Nation

      I think Gillespie’s rediscovered some of his more libertarian views since he relinquished his specific editorial roles and became one of their “editors-at-large.”

      • Suthenboy

        Too little, too late.

  10. The Late P Brooks

    In case you were wondering if TOS is still shitty:

    I inadvertently clicked on a reason story a little while ago. Yahoo news, maybe. It was about how Desantis violated that “Soros-affiliated reform prosecutor’s” First Amendment rights by canning him for saying he would refuse to enforce laws he disagreed with. You know, that oppressive anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-crime stuff.

    • Urthona

      That’s a bizarre argument , and they’re way wrong.

      I think the state having to fund the Israel-hating student clubs is a more interesting dispute they covered, although try and see if the state of California has to fund an anti-immigrant student group at Berkley or something. I think the state does indeed have power not to fund certain student groups, but it’s definitely a more interesting argument.

      • Suthenboy

        They dont have the power to fund or not fund ANY student groups.

      • Urthona

        In theory.

        Try to start a KKK student chapter at UT Austin, though, and let’s see.

    • Rebel Scum

      Reason is against things that are in the purview of the Governor?

      • Suthenboy

        Things that run counter to the progressive agenda. Face it, they were always a bunch of closet commies.

    • Urthona

      It’s always fun when the masks slips just a little.

      • rhywun

        The thing is… they are open and upfront about all their wacko positions – and nothing else ever happens.

        It’s infuriating.

    • UnCivilServant

      My compromise position – we only count Citizens for districting, all ilegals are deported, and the people who aided and abetted their entry prosecuted for sedition and treason. This is a one-time amnesty where they are permitted to leave with their lives. Any returning illegals who have been deported before are to be shot.

      • Suthenboy

        Try sneaking into Thailand…or any number of other countries.

      • UnCivilServant

        I don’t speak Thai. I barely speak English.

      • Suthenboy

        They speak a language you learn very quickly. The border is razor wire and machine gun towers. You dont get a first chance…they just shoot you on sight.

      • Rebel Scum

        I’d like to subscribe to your newsletter.

        are to be shot

        Basically my border solution at this point. You have to dissuade those that are invading. And you have to deport the ones here.

      • R C Dean

        I’m with you 100% until the “shooting returning illegals” part. If they surrender peacefully when arrested, they can do, say, 5 years hard labor. If they don’t surrender peacefully, shoot ‘em.

    • Nephilium

      Would you say that illegal immigrants are 2/5ths or 4/5ths of a citizen?

      • juris imprudent

        2/5ths – then you can them to a slave and get a whole.

    • The Other Kevin

      I’m on this soapbox now: The Dems are asking their constituents to suck it up and suffer so the Dems can cement long-term power. Of course that also means this suffering is here to stay, and with the influx of illegals those constituents’ votes will no longer count. And people are so dumb they can’t see this coming.

      • Fourscore

        The voters have to careful about their wishes.

        Teenagers, car keys and whiskey.

      • rhywun

        They just tossed a bunch of school kids out of the classrooms in favor of illegals, on top of so many other recent actions that make it clear who the Dems really work for. I guess we will soon find out just how far they have to go in order to piss off the average voter.

  11. The Late P Brooks

    Republicans would be smart to replace him after 3 failed elections to a really weak democrat party, but Republicans are not smart.

    The “problem” with that is the “identify as Republican” voters seem to want him, even if the party panjandrums don’t.

    • Urthona

      Couldn’t disagree more with that one.

      Trump is the establishment guy and all the establishment people have circled their wagons around him. Same for the media and no other conservative candidate even gets any coverage.

      The chair of the RNC was also hand picked by Trump.

      • Q Continuum

        If I were cynical, I’d say it’s because the Uniparty establishment needs a boogeyman as a rationale to ram through a bunch of illegal shit and set a bunch of Banana Republic precedents for dealing with “rogue” politicians. Also, they know that Biden can and will beat him in a rematch.

        Oh wait, I am that cynical.

      • Raven Nation

        Is this the Republican establishment? I ask because it seems to me the warmonger establishment is fond of Nikki Haley.

      • R C Dean

        Yeah, not sure about Trump being the establishment darling who they have circled the wagons to protect. I think at least a sizable, perhaps the controlling, faction of the national GOP leadership hates him and wants him gone By Any Means Necessary.

      • Urthona

        Without question a majority now, but the “warhawk” Republicans don’t I’m sure.

        In all other respects, Trump is exactly an establishment Republican though. If not even more squishy and moderate.

    • creech

      More than a few problems were caused by the defeat of two GOP senators in Georgia, laid at the feet of Mr. Trump.
      The TDS rages on and the media feeds the flames. Today’s editorial page consisted of an Arian cartoon with Trump saying the Civil War “could have been negotiated,” and Lincoln saying Trump was “an idiot. ” Forget about history, with Lincoln being perfectly happy to negotiate keeping slavery if Confederate states were willing to rejoin the Union. Then there was the E.J.Dionne column saying political violence and right wing extremism by GOP was going to make Biden’s campaign easy by running on the centerpiece of “saving our Democracy.” Of course, the only violence and extremism noted was something that happened three years ago. Further down the page, we are treated to columnist Cal Thomas cleverly stating the race in 2024 will be between the evil of two lessers (one guess who the evil one is): evil because J6 was a rebellion against an established government. He then praised Biden’s Valley Forge speech, noting that Washington’s insurrection was “better than others.”

      • Rebel Scum

        Trump saying the Civil War “could have been negotiated,”

        I would agree but the Republican Party of the time was deadly serious about it’s economic policies. So no negotiation was to be had as Lincoln could not have a free trade republic on his border.

      • The Other Kevin

        Ron Paul always said the North could have bought every slave and set them free, and still save money and of course all those lives.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    Tiresome is the word. Very tiresome. Nobody has any new ideas. It’s always the same shit now, for close to 60 years.

    People (left and right) are attracted to government because they want to govern. Nobody ever ran for office so he could leave me the fuck alone.

    • Urthona

      Ha. Why do we need ideas? It’s government. Best not let them have any ideas.

      • R.J.

        Yeah. the main idea would be to cut the scope and spending of the government by 75% in a few months. Should be very easy. Absolutely nobody near the levers of power would ever promote that.

        I started thinking about it, there have been some good papers shared here recently. The one about how taxation has totally stifled value creation in the country since the 1960s was a great one.
        Think of the major inventions since 1960. The only ones that took off and made a change in our lives happened because they grew too fast to be regulated out of existence. Excessive government intrusion into our everyday lives crushes everything. We are only a step or two up the ladder from North Korea. When you look at their pictures of 1950s cars and buildings, taken on 1988 in North Korea you may laugh. Imagine if someone from an unregulated society came to see us. We would look like stupid cavemen to them.

      • UnCivilServant

        Or, depending upon their culture, they could be coming from a factionally-riven shithole.

        Curb your utopian tendencies.

      • R C Dean

        “Think of the major inventions since 1960.”

        Of course the big one is information technology. Which is used about 80% (or more?) for paperwork and entertainment. Compare the advances in the sixty years since 1960 to the sixty years before 1960 and the contrast is shocking.

        Which is why the singularity won’t happen. It’s based on a rising asymptotal curve in innovation, and we have largely plateaued.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Even the benefits of information technology is throttled without people really understanding how. One example is in my industry we have reporting requirements that are triggered by anything over $2500.00 by government fiat. This number hasn’t changed in over 25 years of inflation. We can keep up because of the advance of computers. But we would have more productivity if that trigger were say to be doubled and use the computers to speed up reporting requirements we would have more overhead to do things other than compliance.

    • creech

      Plenty of Libertarians have run for office so they could leave you “the fuck alone.” The pitiful results speak for how willing the American public is to have that happen.

      • Shpip

        “The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.”

        — Tone Loc or somebody

      • R C Dean

        Especially since the leftists read “universal” to include “anyone who happens to be inside our borders on Election Day”.

      • Q Continuum

        “anyone who can mail in a ballot from anywhere in the world during Election Month”

        FIFY.

      • rhywun

        Pulse – and existence – optional.

      • Q Continuum

        I’ve thought this for years. At the very least, you should have skin in the game in some capacity. Eg: if on welfare or some other direct assistance program, you are ineligible to vote until you get off that program.

        I’m open to many other tests but direct, universal democracy suck fat donkey balls and should not be countenanced.

      • Fourscore

        My proposal is paying income tax, i.e. being in the productive part of society

  13. The Late P Brooks

    What I really want has nothing to do with any candidate. What I really want is for this govt, which I no longer consider legitimate to be cut down to about 1/10th of it’s current size and have it’s nuts cut.

    Meanwhile, last week’s employment report showed about half of new jobs were either directly or indirectly tied to government.

  14. Q Continuum

    Over-Under on how long it takes the SPLC to classify the ADL as a “right-wing hate group”?

    • Suthenboy

      have we been classified as such? No? We have to try harder.

    • R C Dean

      Why would they do that? The ADL is pretty solidly leftist, as far as I can tell.

      • grrizzly

        It looks like there’s some confusion over here. The majority of the Democratic Party is as fanatically pro-Israel as the GOP. Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer have always been and very much still are unwavering supporters of Israel. Nobody calls them “right-wing.”

  15. The Late P Brooks

    Trump is the establishment guy and all the establishment people have circled their wagons around him. Same for the media and no other conservative candidate even gets any coverage.

    My opinion (for what that’s worth) is the Party Elite would drop him like a hot rock if they thought they could get away with it. But who can take his place? Nobody in the current crop of stiffs can get near him. I suspect the boys in the back room would love to have Mizz Dick Cheney in Drag as their candidate, so things could return to business as usual.

    I am an indifferent amateur Kremlinologist, so what do I know?

    • Urthona

      I think Desantis would do way better in the general election than Trump, but overcoming 35% of the Republican base’s loyalty to Trump in the primary will be near impossible now.

      I think Trump’s running will cost the Republican party the next election.

      • Urthona

        * but I would love to be wrong about that.

      • Urthona

        On the other hand, *any* Republican seemed to do better on swing state polls (until very recently) than Trump.

        And I wonder if the recent statistical uptick there is real.

        Trump’s dodging anything at all that’s not a fluff interview is a shrewd tactic he learned from Biden and maybe it’s working out for him. But how do they hide how unappealing he is to most people once the general election starts?

      • R.J.

        I think the same tactic. Let Biden hang himself with his problems. Trump can just smile and wave. If he shuts up and sits down, he would have a substantial chance at winning. Sad but true.

      • Sean

        I think Trump’s running voting fraud, broken pipes, and mail in ballots will cost the Republican party the next election.

      • Urthona

        Trump, in fact, signed a law to make those things easier.

        Trump is mostly a sore loser, but yes whatever things happened last presidential election will also happen this time.

      • R C Dean

        Nothing has been fixed in most states. Definitely not AZ, where the anti-Trump Repubs who control the party refused to do any election reform, thus guaranteeing that they will never win another meaningful statewide election. All the Maricopa County fraud is now baked in, especially with a Dem governor, AG, and SecState.

      • Q Continuum

        “the anti-Trump Repubs who control the party refused to do any election reform, thus guaranteeing that they will never win another meaningful statewide election”

        Exactly what happened here in CO as I explained yesterday. Of course, that was back in the 2012-ish timeframe before Trump when the COGOP wasn’t completely irrelevant; their reasoning then was probably a mixture of “the Denver Post will say mean things if we don’t go along with this!” and “we’re not like *those* kind of Republicans, we can be bipartisan! And besides, what’s the worst that can happen with universal mail-in ballots? Large scale election fraud can’t happen here!”

      • The Gunslinger

        Vote by mail is a fixture in Michigan now. It’s why I’ve said I’m not going to bother with voting anymore. The entire process is a fraud. If they manage to not put Trump on the ballot I might change my mind and go vote and write in his name as a weak/meaningless protest.

      • Rebel Scum

        All the Maricopa County fraud is now baked in

        That grinds my gears. I’m going to guess that Kari Lake* doesn’t stand a chance to win the Senate race and there will be obvious shenanigans that will go uninvestigated/prosecuted.

        *If she was president she would be Babe-raham Lincoln.

      • Nephilium

        Ohio tightened things up, and now we’re no longer a swing state. I call that a win-win.

      • Urthona

        And Florida

      • Urthona

        The other day I went looking to research something or other about mail-in voting laws.

        Google returned me nothing but results about how Trump’s (and other Republican’s) claim that mail-in balloting was insecure were totally false.

      • The Gunslinger

        Google is broken. Search results are completely bought and paid for. I used to (10 years ago or so) be able to Google an old part number and get very obscure results from old manuals. The same searches now return unrelated and sponsored links.

      • rhywun

        Yup, it’s complete garbage now. Very difficult to get any actually relevant results for anything even slightly obscure.

        Like, I tell it ignore a certain word – and it doesn’t. Their own query syntax is completely broken.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Like, I tell it ignore a certain word – and it doesn’t. Their own query syntax is completely broken.

        But AI is gonna take over the world!

        /derpsters

      • R.J.

        Sure could. I guess I need to lay in a supply of bourbon no matter what. No good will come of this.

      • Drake

        You may be right, but…

        Taking Trump off the ballot or otherwise screwing him out of the nomination with underhanded methods will backfire spectacularly. The Republican base will leave the party and or skip the election. Whoever jumps in the fill the void will be viewed as a fink and never forgiven.

        Just the way it is. But the stupid fake opposition party is too stupid not to do it.

      • Q Continuum

        I stand by my original statement, made many times: humans are trash.

  16. kinnath

    Only an hour to clear the driveway today. Back to normal.

    Of course, we are getting another 4 to 8 inches of tomorrow.

    • R.J.

      Heh. You’ll enjoy tonight’s Snowpocalypse movie then. “The Snow Creature.”

      • kinnath

        The good news is the snow has bee wet, so it doesn’t drift. The bad news is the snow is wet so it’s hard to move, and it packs down into ice really, really easily.

      • Nephilium

        I’d rather deal with drifts than the wet heavy snow.

        Of course, I now live outside the snow belt, so it’s not like we get lots of snow over here anyways.

    • Shpip

      Of course, we are getting another 4 to 8 inches of tomorrow.

      I told the wife to expect four to eight inches tomorrow. She says she’ll have a headache.

      • Fourscore

        If I told my wife that she’d think I was back to drinking.

      • R C Dean

        “Why, is the guy coming to fix the cable?”

      • Mojeaux

        That’s not 8 inches.

      • Shpip

        It is if I do it twice.

        (NARRATOR: Shpip is way too old to do it twice)

  17. kinnath

    Thanks for the cool story.

  18. Rebel Scum

    Clearly this judge is a threat to Democracy.

    A Wisconsin judge ruled Monday that state law does not allow the use of mobile absentee voting sites, siding with Republicans who had challenged the city of Racine’s use of a voting van that traveled around the city in 2022.

    Republicans opposed the use of the van, the only one of its kind in Wisconsin, saying its use was against the law, increased the chances of voter fraud and was used to bolster Democratic turnout.

    Racine officials, the Democratic National Committee and the Milwaukee-based voting advocacy group Black Leaders Organizing for Communities refuted those claims and defended the legality of the van, saying there was no specific prohibition against it.

    Interesting argument. By “interesting” I mean bullshit.

    • R C Dean

      Sounds to me like a polling place that doesn’t meet any of the requirements for such.

      • R.J.

        The article was really trying to stress it was “the only van in the village.” This means there were hundreds.

      • Q Continuum

        Y’know those giant apartment complexes that exist in inner-ring suburbs of big cities? Well, after we started doing universal mail-in ballots (bEsT iDeA eVuR!!1!!1!) there were anecdotal reports of people going through the trash cans by the mail boxes picking out any ballots that were thrown away by apathetic residents. I’m sure we can rest easy that they were only doing that to make sure those ballots were properly disposed of.

        NB: I want to make clear that I don’t really give a shit if that kind of nonsense benefits one side or the other, the mere existence of such a practice is a farce and makes a mockery of our elections. Even more infuriating are the denials of the obvious-to-a-six-year-old fact that it’s NOT secure and makes cheating MUCH easier.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        ^^ this.

        I’m actually not against mobile voting precincts. However, they should be held to every bit as high of a standard as a stationary one, with mandatory observers, and should come with a complete ban on absentee ballots.

  19. Gender Traitor

    Great story, but given the source, I was really expecting a narrowed-gaze-worthy pun at the end. ::starts humming “My Little Runaway”::

    • Rebel Scum

      I don’t think Swiss would let that fly.

      • Gender Traitor

        Would he consider it a grave offense?

      • Shpip

        I was just trying to tell the plane unvarnished truth.

        I did think of adding a joke where, every time a 737 landed, Richard would feel the vibration and yell “Catherine, what are you doing over there?”

      • The Other Kevin

        I’m sure he could have landed any number of those jokes.

    • UnCivilServant

      The proportions look off

      /judging solely on appearances

  20. Rebel Scum

    How nice of you.

    The Biden administration carved out paid administrative leave to encourage federal bureaucrats and other employees—seen as a loyal Democrat constituency—to volunteer as poll workers.

    The administration also requires federal agencies to grant four hours of leave for voting to employees, according to records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

    I don’t get paid leave to vote. But now I get to pay federal parasites employees so they can vote against my interests and help Dems cheat in elections. Fun.

    • Urthona

      So fucking lame.

      The mandarins get stronger.

  21. Raven Nation

    Shpip: perhaps you could be the one to clear up Wikipedia’s misunderstanding?

    “Some 3,680 feet (1,120 m) from the west end of Runway 10 (the main east–west runway) are two concrete grave markers. A runway extension project placed the runway through a small family plot and the graves of the airport property’s two original owners. Because the family did not want to remove and relocate the graves, the markers were placed on the asphalt runway…

    …Runway 10 is thought to be the only airport runway in the United States with marked gravestones in it. Federal law generally prohibits the moving of a grave without the permission of the next of kin. In this case, two graves of the Dotson Family, the earliest grave dating backed to 1857, were encountered during the construction of the runway. Since the next of kin could not be located, the graves were left undisturbed. Two additional graves are located off the runway surface.”

    • Shpip

      Weird that two conflicting paragraphs each cite this article.

  22. Rebel Scum

    I suppose BCGs and trigger assemblies are privileges as well.

    State Representatives My-Linh Thai and Liz Berry, both Democrats, introduced House Bill 2238. Under the auspices of public safety, claiming access to ammunition is the cause of violence and not their soft-on-crime policies that go easy on criminals (including those who use guns in their crimes), the bill imposes an 11% sales and use tax on ammunition statewide. This would be an additional tax on top of the sales tax and any other tax that may levied when purchasing ammunition. The city of Seattle, for example, imposes a per-round tax.

    But the bill also reclassified ammunition, claiming you do not have a right to purchase them as a consumer. Instead, it’s labeled a “privilege.” The legislation creates a new section in pre-existing law that reads, “A use tax is levied on every person in this state for the privilege of using ammunition as a consumer at the rate of 11% of the selling price.”

    • Sean

      Fucking commies.

    • Bobarian LMD

      I had to rob the bank! How else could I afford the ammo?

  23. Ted S.

    Somebody in the AM Links thread asked about an (((explanation))) for that synagogue tunnel.

    There’s a longish Twitter thread here that as far as I can tell (being a goy) does a good job.

    • rhywun

      That was me but I don’t twit so I don’t get threads.