Last week, the County Clerk and a candidate for re-election in my county, Ellis County, Kansas, stopped me to tell me that my yard sign for her opponent in the primary, Dottie Staab, at my office west of the courthouse, would have to be taken down, because it "is too close to the courthouse". Having had a lifelong interest in the law, I knew that there must be a law somewhere that she might be relying on, so I looked it up...

It took me a while, but I finally figured out what the spate of ill-spoken Presidential supporters remind me of.

You know the ones I am talking about: Linda Olson, Clinton Coordinator who sent false emails about Obama’s religious faith; Samantha Powers, volunteer Obama supporter who called Hillary a monster; Judy Rose, Clinton campaign worker who forwarded false emails about Obama’s Muslimism; Maxim Thorne, Obama supporter who sent an email about Clinton sex scandals; Bill Shaheen, Clinton supporter who made public comments about Obama’s drug use; Geraldine Ferraro,... oh, well, you know.

As I have watched these poor souls thrust themselves to the fore, saying their piece, twisting in agony while the offended campaign calls for their head to roll, then getting the word from their candidate to resign, it reminded me of something else we have been watching with incomprehension recently...

This weekend I received an email from a friend who I think really believed he was sending me information that was important. It was a forward of two emails, one attacking Hillary Clinton by including a “table” of taxes, comparing the supposed taxes of various levels of income under Clinton (Bill, of course) and under Bush (Dubya, that is). It will come as no surprise that the comparison was not favorable to Clinton, showing nearly double the amount of tax for a single person under $30K income and for a couple making $60K. It gave the source as taxfoundation.org. Very powerful. Very simple demonstration of what will happen to the lower income groups if Obama or Clinton get elected.

Very false, too. A check of the site in the email shows that the Tax Foundation itself disavows the email. It says:

Recently an incorrect comparison of income taxes under Presidents Clinton and Bush has been making the rounds of the internet, showing up in forwarded e-mails and on numerous blogs and message boards.

Winston Churchill said that a lie will be halfway around the world before truth gets it pants on, and that was before the Internets! Now, the lies get disseminated so quickly and so far that it seems impossible to combat the right wing’s tactics. The wingnuts have learned well the lesson of terrorism and the utility of fear.

Reading recent news stories about the Republicans proposing that everybody has to show photo identification because some wily Mexican illegal immigrant might vote reminds me of Alex Schmidt.

Alex was in his late 80s when I started practicing law and he liked to come to visit me and I liked to have him visit.

He and his brother had walked out of Russia, literally, trekking more than 1,500 miles from the Volga region to the Black Sea, where they took passage on a tramp steamer to the Port of Baltimore, USA. Alex was 13 and his brother was 15. They eventually made their way to Ellis County.

Alex took the advice of the elders who told him not to become a citizen because he could then be drafted to serve in the Great War, which was in its final stages.