Another breathless email from the Opinion Times (and seriously, where did all these email lists come from? I didn’t sign up for them.), warning us of the following:
The “stimulus” package being forced by Nancy Pelosi down the throat of Congress, is laden with pork-barrel spending. This is not stimulus. It’s a major government expansion in the mold of The New Deal and an attempt by Democrats to recover the losses they took in the last 15 years since the Republicans gained Congress in 1994.
But here is an outrage you need to be aware of. Do you remember the radical, left-wing group, ACORN? There are dozens of cases of voter fraud perpetrated by ACORN all over the country. To advance their radical agenda, they have double and triple registered voters as well as submitting fake names.
Just so we get an idea of how pervasive this problem is, I submit to you the following statistics:
Number of votes cast in the 2008 Presidential Election: 129,391,683
Number of cases of alleged voter fraud as stated by the Opinion Times (they claim “dozens,” so let’s say three dozen, and give them the benefit of the doubt and call them baker’s dozens): 39
I think I need to delete my peak wingnut post before it is used against me every day for the rest of my life.
*** Update ***
Fail:
Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said he had allegations last fall of widespread voter fraud – allegations a special prosecutor reported Tuesday were wrong, noting the only voter fraud found was from a Connecticut man who told on himself.
“Ultimately,” Special Prosecutor Michael O’Neill wrote in a report, “the investigators discovered ‘get-out-the-vote’ practices, sponsored by community organizations, which took full advantage of this unique absentee-voting period, but no evidence these practices violated Ohio law.”
“Told ya so,” Tim Burke, chairman of the Hamilton County Democratic Party as well as chairman of the Hamilton County Board of Elections, said with glee of O’Neill’s report.
Too funny.
Zifnab
It’s 1932 all over again folks. Just because Herbert Hoover happened to be in office when the economy goes south, its all his fault. And those sneaky Democrats are trying to slip in during the dead of night and play the same trick they played on Americans 70 years ago. And look what that got us? Seven long years of recovery culminating in some of the most productive and triumphant years in US History. Do we really want to go back to that? Do we really want to relive the 40s and 50s?
Incertus
At one point, I had a troll who signed me up for stuff from Newsmax and CNS News and WorldNut Daily and the rest of them. My little site, and a troll did that. Haven’t had that email address in years now.
headpan
Yeah, John, you know how some people say "peak oil" is a myth, well I think the same thing about peak wingnut, it doesn’t exist because as long as there is breath in their collective corpulent bodies, they will never peak out.
Comrade Dread
Well, if you threw in segregation and rolling back the sexual harassment laws, that might get the remaining GOP on board with the time travel.
John PM
This post is slightly off topic to this post but related to your earlier posts regarding the stimulus package.
Republicans will be opposing the package because if it fails, they can pin it on Obama and the Democrats and hopefully make gains in the next election. However, if the package does not work and the economy continues to slide, haven’t the Republicans considered that instead of an increase in support for Republicans there might be anarchy. Millions of people without jobs and without homes have more important things to worry about than voting. At least the Democrats will be seen as having tried to do something. Also, Obama has Secret Service protection. What does Cantor have to stop the angry mob?
Tiparillo
My new favorite Congress critter:
demkat620
Well, this is all we are going to get. They know their numbers can’t be reduced much more. Some of the smarter ones might jump, but this is it. This is what a rump looks like and if god loves us they will remain in the minority for the rest of our lives.
I really don’t see a crack up or a wise up coming any time soon.
Argive
OMFG. The wingnuts will not shut the fuck up about voter fraud.
Listen, assholes:
1. ACORN is required by law to turn in all voter registration forms they collect from canvassers.
2. Getting a job there is easy because canvassing sucks.
3. Their canvassers, in many cases, have to meet quotas. I canvassed for several organizations in the Philadelphia area in August through October. I didn’t work for ACORN, but did meet some of their people, who said their quota was 15-20 registrations per day.
Result: Some of their canvassers are desperate for work and forge registrations to keep their jobs. ACORN is required by law to turn these forms in. County voting boards then catch them (often voter registration drives will proofread the forms and mark the bad ones before they are sent out), and the fake registrations don’t get processed. Any that do go through aren’t present in large enough numbers to influence an election (Obama won by way more votes than you could possibly make up).
I mean, if there are fucking NEWS REPORTS talking about how ACORN canvassers turn in fraudulent forms, it’s a good bet that those forms didn’t get processed. I realize I’m preaching to the choir. But this is ridiculous.
blogenfreude
I thought we’d reached Peak Wingnut when Atlas Juggs "proved" that Malcolm X was Obama’s father. I don’t know what can top that, but I’ll be it’s coming soon.
Zifnab
@Tiparillo:
Doesn’t he moonlight as the Boy Wonder?
kay
I emailed my GOP House member. He ran as a moderate. Special election. He replaced the wingnut who had a heart attack.
I had some hope he would break ranks, mostly because he avoided the word "Republican" when he was running. I’m a little disappointed.
Unemployment in my county is 11.2%, as of this morning, so tax cuts aren’t much use. I’ll fax him tomorrow, and see if I can get others to do so. I like to think of him getting piles of paper.
James Gary
His right-wing lunacy sounds like Mikhail Gorbachev, extolling the virtues of communism.
That’s not really fair to Gorbachev, who actually recognized that the Communism of his time was in some need of reform and updating.
TheFountainHead
This has been one of those days where simply reading the news has shaken my already feeble faith in Humanity. The failure of these congressional Republicans to see how serious the problem is and be willing to do something about it is pretty staggering. A question to those of you with young children: Do you let your kids hang out with anyone whose parents vote Republican and get their news from FOX? I don’t have kids, but I think that would scare me on a daily basis!
demkat620
@kay:
Yeah good luck with that. This is the party that made a member of congress apologize to a radio talk show host who had made racist remarks about the popular new president.
Reason and the GOP are not related.
Rob in Denver
The tragedy of the 2008 election’s been revealed now.
Seriously, I had wingnut friends who were apoplectic about ACORN… most of them believed ballot counting would take days because of all the mayhem attributed to voter registration fraud. One of them even told me we’d be lucky if we knew the outcome of the election a week afterward.
JG
I love this new approach to "alerts." Can non-wingnuts use the same format against them of current issue + totally unrelated history?
Just as relevant.
Reverend Dennis
Just got home and news is saying that the stimulus package passed in the House despite the unanimous opposition of the Republicans.
liberal
@John PM:
Right. But
(a) Historically, the greediest of the rich would rather the world came to an end than they’d have to pay their fair share of taxes, and so on, and
(b) the kind of anarchic bad times you refer to are very unpredictable and could very well benefit the right, even if (as you reasonably point out) it shouldn’t.
The Grand Panjandrum
Yep. Passed without one Republican vote. But they did get their pictures taken with the President!
kay
@demkat620:
Patience is my one and only good quality.
It’s grim here. He may be unaware of that. It’s a big district, geographically, because it’s rural. People are "doubling up". They’re moving several families into one home. That hasn’t happened in my memory.
I have an email list of 60 local women who are active Democrats. They’ll send faxes. I’ll feel better, anyway.
Joshua Norton
Fixed.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Given that the wingnuts are reaching all the way back to the 1930s and the **shudder** New Deal, I think you need to go back to the Harding admin. and the Teapot Dome scandal to really capture the flavor of this stupidity.
TenguPhule
Hah, on the internet it’s forever.
Your shame will live on long after your bones are dust, Cole.
Ben Richards
I think we have a slight misunderstanding of what "peak" means in peak wingnut. In peak oil, the peak is the highest level of global oil production. Even if we hit peak oil, oil production does not stop; in fact, production continues, but it just can’t go higher than the peak level.
Similarly, for us to be at peak wingnut, we would have to see a maxing out of the volume of nutty screeds, whacky conspiracy theories and articles about how tax cuts solve everything.
So the question for us is whether or not the volume of wingnut output from all sources has topped out and can go no higher.
John – I think your peak wingnut timing was right. The max production of craziness was highest in the run up to election day. It was cranked up to 11 in fear of BHO-X. Hard to believe that the collective wingnut wordpress will get to those heights again. You shouldn’t question your theory just because every new day brings new wingnut talking points.
JGabriel
Argive:
More importantly, they don’t influence an election at all, because the voter DOESN’T EXIST. It’s a FAKE registration. No real voter is attached to it.
.
Jay B.
They seem to think that their own revisionist history actually happened. You know, most people outside of their Opposite World think the New Deal was a good thing. Overwhelmingly. Now I know that’s not the way to get that Wingnut Welfare, but as an opposition party that at least tangentially has to deal with reality as it is. They really should come up with something better than that. And ACORN ain’t it.
Tsulagi
Actually, at least using my environs as a judge, I don’t think their numbers are increasing. They’re decreasing, but to compensate distilling into purer form, and proving there is no glass ceiling to peak their stupid. See Operation Leper, the silly putty wielding RSSF, a R-congressman searching Iowa cornfields for a U.S. embassy…
It makes sense in a way. If you’ve suffered casualties to where you’re now significantly outnumbered, your tactics no longer give you a decisive edge as the other guys have adapted, you need more powerful weapons. I’m waiting for them to unveil Nukular Stupid.
Ben Richards
@Tsulagi – I would agree. The stupidity had definitely NOT peaked, so in that sense we probably have not reached peak wingnut.
Deborah
Earlier today Marc Ambinder had a nice little piece about the pluses and minuses for Republicans facing re-election soon. Highlights:
Over a 48 hour period when 100,000 job layoffs have been announced, Hill Republicans have decided to take a stand against the stimulus….The public approves of the stimulus plan by a very large margin – the numbers vary with the wording of the poll question, but it’s at least a plus 40%. …. Obama is the most talented political figure of our generation – Boehner and McConnell are, uh, less talented.
Republicans are trying to use fiscal discipline as their excuse for opposition, but they whistled away that former strength away over Bush’s presidency….. Republicans’ notion of stimulus is tax cuts….that is, their economic prescription is more Bush economics.
Marc is usually quite sober, and the underlying tone of this list, which is sort of "One of us is on crack, and I don’t think it’s me," really works.
I figured the Rs would pull it together at some point, but the survivors are like some grotesque parody of what the party should stand for: Only those deep in the tank keep their eyes unrolled when congressional Republicans talk about fiscal responsibility and not passing costs on to our children–that’s what, less than 20% of voters? No one is looking at the stimulus plan and focusing on friggin’ birth control, yes or no–it’s like they peeled it apart to find something that would involve sex.
Now I think in 10 years it will be the Dems v the Conservatives, or the Dems v the Greens if the Dems move right to accomodate disenchanted Republican converts. It’s like they’re completely out of ideas on what to do outside of mouth stuff they think Reagan would have said.
headpan
I still say "peak wingnut" is a pink unicorn.
Deborah
Also agree with Tsulagi, "I don’t think their numbers are increasing. They’re decreasing, but to compensate distilling into purer form."
They’re cleaning the yurt, and when the new look doesn’t win converts the problem is clearly that they haven’t tossed enough people out of the yurt.
Waingro
Wingnuts are in love with the term ‘being forced down our throats’- any discussion of their opposition to gay marriage invariably involves how they don’t want it ‘forced down their throats’. Rush Limbaugh constantly alludes to being forced to ‘bend over and grab the ankles’.
There is some serious sexual pathology among these people.
Brick Oven Bill
The good new is that, as of 1930 EST, you can still make an excellent pizza for $1.81. We will track this number periodically, indexed to food prices at Sam’s Club.
I would like to review the text of the Bill. Is it available online? One would think that it is available electronically.
The Populist
Being a former Republican (never a sheeple, though), even then I never thought the New Deal was a bad thing. What is wrong with safety nets as long as they aren’t abused?
I thought Christians are supposed to care about people and their welfare. The GOP sure put Christianity to shame.
I have reems of data that shows when you give a family food stamps it gives the economy a net gain on every dollar spent. Same goes for unemployment and other important New Deal type programs.
The GOP had their chance to show us how unfettered, unregulated capitalism would make us all better off. All they did is show me they are no better than crony loving goons who talk about how much they love America while selling it to the highest bidder. Yep, they sure don’t give two shits about this country apparently.
BTW – two memes that need to stop being pushed: Obama is Jesus and all this crap is socialism. Sorry, nobody ever said Obama was Jesus and if this is Socialism, who came up with the first bail out? Uhhhh, Bush did.
SpotWeld
Here’s the thing.
The stimulus package, no matter how well implemented, will never be perfect.
It can never improve the state of the economy to that level where everyone feels "safe" (partially because no one ever really felt safe to begin with).
And because of that the republicans don’t have to do anything but object and wait 2/4 year.
The failure of the expenditure to deliver anything but a total Utopia will be all the evidence they need to extol it’s "failure".
That’s the scenario I’m betting on. (heck, there will probably be some fence-sitting Dems who will do exactly the same thing… and Joe Lieberman.)
The Populist
I have another theory on why nutty righties spend so much time selling these foolish Limbaugh-esque memes. I feel they hate people. They hate anybody who thinks for themselves or comes off as educated. Take Joe The Plumber/Reporter/Business Owner/Country Singer/Tool (please). This foolish maroon likes to tell us that Obama is a socialist. Why does he care? The rich haven’t apparently trickled crap down to him and from what I’ve read he’s enjoyed a nice bit of time on the welfare rolls. Funny how that works. If the system is socialist, so is he.
He supports Palin. Why? She pushes a very heavy socialistic agenda by robbing the oil companies of profits to distribute to her constituents in Alaska. How is this not socialism by any definition? Please Michelle Malkin, enlighten me.
As for this idea Obama pals around with terrorists? Bullshit. Prove it.
The Populist
Spotweld,
Agreed, but if more and more people are suffering while the Republicans do nothing but obstruct, who do you think will pay at the pols? I doubt the dems will. They can always say they tried to make it better.
The Populist
If ACORN is so corrupt, why did McCain give them props when he was ready to run again?
Hmmmm….hypocrites.
demimondian
You do realize that Lieberman will vote for the stimulus, right?
At least, he will if he ever wants to visit Connecticut again.
The Populist
Actually, at least using my environs as a judge, I don’t think their numbers are increasing. They’re decreasing, but to compensate distilling into purer form, and proving there is no glass ceiling to peak their stupid. See Operation Leper, the silly putty wielding RSSF, a R-congressman searching Iowa cornfields for a U.S. embassy…
Yet, how come I always seem to see them? I added a friend on Facebook and all he does is post stories ripping Obama. Funny, he runs with the angry left argument when you point out how mean the right was to Clinton. He says that the left were meaner to Bush than to Clinton. I laugh and ask how’s that. He says it’s because liberals are full of hate. He also claims to be an independent. The Republican party might be shrinking but they are all running to be independents so they can pretend to be objective.
joe from Lowell
Holy crap, Howard Dean put a mole in the Opinion Times!
Hey, everybody, look out for those Democrats! They want to do something like the New Deal, and totally shut Republicans out of power…so, give now!
No no, to US! You don’t understand…
kay
@The Populist:
The Senate version will probably have an adjustment to the alternative minimum tax, and that’s politically popular.
GOP Senators can vote against it, but that’s problematic for them.
But, then, I thought Republicans in the House would be reluctant to vote against extending unemployment benefits, and they just did. That can probably be used against them, and soon. Like, tomorrow. The Democrats on tv are already harping on it.
joe from Lowell
Oh, and God bless ACORN, and the noble work they do.
If only the states would listen, and allow them to discard obviously fraudulent forms, like they keep requesting.
The Populist
Joe, I agree. I see nothing wrong with getting people signed up to vote. Only an elitist asshole would deny somebody the right to vote.
AnneLaurie
During the worst of the Depression, the newsreel pics of starving ‘bonus marchers’ and stories about Hoovervilles scared a certain percentage of middle-class Main Streeters into voting Republican for fear of "angry mobs" of urban, not-Protestant, non-whites joining up with the lowest-of-the-low sharecroppers and hillbillies. The fReichtards, Talibangelicals, and Plantation-Partyers who make up the modern Republican troika look back upon these modest defections, and slaver for a repeat in 2010. Unfortunately, over the past 30 years, their Dear Leaders have hollowed out the American middle class to the point where it’s nice clean white Main Street lawyers & realtors & IT professionals who are two paychecks away from homelessness. As many BJers can attest, there are no more ‘safe havens’ where the Right People can wait out an economic tsunami, and any Redstater who thinks his gated community is immune is going to face a world of hurt.
Ash Can
Meanwhile, back in Minnesota, a real-live, genuine case of voter fraud actually did turn up yesterday, at the Coleman-Franken recount trial. It was perpetrated by a Republican.
P.S. Coleman insists he’s proud of this witness.
Jeffro
Why, Populist(@36), you could almost say they’re our…national Socialists…and you’d be right!
I forget, is it Goodwin’s or Godwin’s Law??
Argive
JGabriel,
Yes, of course you are correct on that point. I’ve talked to the people who collect those forms at my local county voting board, and as far as I can tell, the worst thing that happens as a result of obviously fake registrations is that the form processors lose the amount of time it takes to look at the forms, laugh, and then pin them to a bulletin board. For instance, when I went there they had just found someone’s attempt to register Ulysses S. Grant. Quite simply, voter registration fraud is just a bit harder than most wingnuts seem to think.
AnneLaurie
Hey, in the wingnuts’ defense, a crafty name-theft like ‘Ulysses S. Grant’ would *totally* fool them!
OriGuy
@Brick Oven Bill:
It helps to know the number of the bill. It’s HR 1.
Happy reading. It’s a monster.
OriGuy
Oh, and here are the vote totals
.
Darkrose
All I’m seeing is:
stimulus
forced
Nancy Pelosi
throat
pork
….and it’s all adding up to a really unpleasant picture.
The Populist
Jeffro – Godwin’s Law I believe.
Zuzu's Petals
ACORN responds to the lying liars. One particularly relevant point: