Poor Mojo's Newswire

The new and wonderful conspiracy theory was hatched just one day prior to the time of this writing on 4chan’s /mu/ board. What’s now being called Mangum-Gate 2012 all began with a user called Ediie posting a normal photo of Jeff Mangum from his high school yearbook. For the uninitiated, Jeff Mangum was the lead vocalist, guitarist and, most central to the conspiracy, lyricist for the objectively great indie rock band Neutral Milk Hotel.[1] Some posts below the photo of Jeff Mangum, another user posted a picture of someone named Caroline Mangum. Alright, no problem, it’s his sister, right?[2] And this is when things get interesting. Another user posted a photo of this Caroline Mangum person next to the iconic photo of Anne Frank. They look somewhat similar. And a conspiracy was born! What does the most famous victim of the holocaust have to do with some indie rocker from Louisiana, besides that his sister sort of resembles her? A lot, in fact. Neutral Milk Hotel has two songs I’d go so far as to label “hits.” The oft-tattooed and beautifully melancholy “In An Aeroplane Over the Sea,” and “Holland 1945.” The latter song is, in no uncertain terms, about Anne Frank. It’s almost a love letter to her. At the very least it mourns Frank’s untimely death, directly referencing her passing mere weeks before the Nazi death camps were liberated by the allies in, when else, 1945.[3] Okay, so he’s got a song about her. Whatever. Later in this same thread, another user posted a photo of Mangum’s wife next to the Anne Frank/ Caroline Mangum diptych. Turns out Mangum’s wife also resembles the other two women. White females with dark hair and similar face shape? They must be the same person! And if they’re all the same person, that can only mean one thing. Jeff Mangum traveled back in time, saved Anne Frank, brought her to the future, grew up with her posing as his sister, and subsequently married her in his adulthood. It all makes perfect sense! . . .

True the Vote, which was founded in 2009 and is based in Houston, describes itself as a nonprofit organization, created “by citizens for citizens,” that aims to protect “the rights of legitimate voters, regardless of their political party.” Although the group has a spontaneous grassroots aura, it was founded by a local Tea Party activist, Catherine Engelbrecht, and from the start it has received guidance from intensely partisan election lawyers and political operatives, who have spent years stoking fear about election fraud. This cohort—which Roll Call has called the “voter fraud brain trust”—has filed lawsuits, released studies, testified before Congress, and written op-ed columns and books. Since 2011, the effort has spurred legislative initiatives in thirty-seven states to require photo identification to vote. Engelbrecht has received especially valuable counsel from one member of the group: Hans von Spakovsky. A Republican lawyer who served in the Bush Administration, he is now a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank. “Hans is very, very helpful,” Engelbrecht said. “He’s one of the senior advisers on our advisory council.” Von Spakovsky, who frequently appears on Fox News, is the co-author, with the columnist John Fund, of the recent book “Who’s Counting?,” which argues that America is facing an electoral-security crisis. “Election fraud, whether it’s phony voter registrations, illegal absentee ballots, vote-buying, shady recounts, or old-fashioned ballot-box stuffing, can be found in every part of the United States,” they write. The book connects these modern threats with sordid episodes from the American past: crooked inner-city machines, corrupt black bosses in the Deep South. Von Spakovsky and Fund conclude that electoral fraud is a “spreading” danger, and declare that True the Vote serves “an obvious need.”