@TheBradBlog You see? Who says voter fraud is a made-up problem?
— billmon (@billmon1) August 10, 2013
.
From the article:
With these 300 fraudulent votes created by one Republican candidate alone, that’s 300 more fraudulent votes than have ever been created by ACORN or anybody who has ever worked for them….
For those keeping score at home, this particular GOP fraudster lives in Massachusetts. Yay, Massholes!
Baud
If only Massachusetts had a Voter ID law.
? Martin
This is what happens when you let poor people vote.
Xantar
I know Matt Damon actually has said he’s parting ways with Obama, but seeing the Newsmax headline quoting him is still really funny. All of a sudden I guess Matt Damon isn’t a Hollywood liberal now.
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman:
Can you say “Diebold in Ohio, 2004?”
Sure you can, boys and girls!
Villago Delenda Est
@Xantar:
As long as you disagree with the terrible near sheriff, you’re aces in Newsmax’s book.
gene108
@efgoldman:
What does GOBP stand for? I’ve seen it in the blogosphere.
Botsplainer
Is it pathetic that I’m sitting with my dog at a bar?
shelly
I didn’t even know they were dating!
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
FTFY.
MattF
@Xantar: But it’s OK if you’re a Republican, and that’s all there is to say about that. From my point of view, t’s the Newsmax headline about those three odd vegetables that we need to worry about.
TG Chicago
Bradblog’s point about the difference between voter fraud and election fraud is a great one.
To put it another way, have you ever known a bank robber to go to one million banks and rob one dollar from each of them?
No, they go to one bank and rob a million dollars from it. Nobody would ever take the time and the risk to steal tiny amounts from each of multiple banks (or to go to multiple polling stations to cast one measly illegal vote each time). You’d do it all in one big heist. That’s the election fraud we need to worry about.
Roger Moore
@gene108:
Let me Google that for you.
Roger Moore
@TG Chicago:
No, but there was a recent case where teams with forged ATM cards went around and made fraudulent withdrawals from a large number of machines in a short time. They were able to get away with significant amounts of cash that way. Similarly, you can influence elections if you have a group of people who vote fraudulently at a series of polling places. That kind of thing used to be a fairly common way of for big city political machines to steal elections, but it doesn’t happen much anymore because we have good procedural safeguards- mostly around poll watchers and keeping the voter rolls- to prevent it.
Chris
@efgoldman:
One of my few Republican friends from college was complaining the other day how disgusted she was that someone who was kicked out of the College Republicans for trying to rig the yearly election in favor of his frat buddies… was now “Digital Communications Director for the Office of Speaker Boehner.”
I didn’t quite have the heart to tell her that in all likelihood, the election rigging was probably considered a plus rather than a minus on the resume.
Geoduck
I do have to disagree with Bradblog about vote-by-mail being a bad thing. We do it in Washington state, and the only thing I miss about the old system is the community feeling that comes from hiking over to the local polling place.
Dr. Dave
@Roger Moore: And here I had always assumed that it stood for “Good Old Boy Party” since so many of them are “good ole boys” in the sense of being white, southern, and male (or at least sympathetic to that point of view). You learn something every day… (or maybe I can get credit for an alternative interpretation).
Dead Ernest
@Botsplainer:
Perhaps for your dog.
They serve biscuits?
Dead Ernest
@efgoldman:
And combining this with B’splainer’s comment re what’s pathetic, I’m going back in to the office to mess with what it takes to pry payment from the health insurance companies.
Keith P
So the solution to voter fraud is to make it harder for Republicans to vote. Not bad.
Roger Moore
@Dead Ernest:
I think a court order to seize their assets usually works. I’m not sure if there’s anything else that does.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman: Actually, all this time, I thought you were the one who came up with it!
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
Those may make you feel better, and they may even help the next guy, but I’m not sure if you can extract payment that way.
Felonius Monk
@Botsplainer:
Whose idea was it to go there? Yours or the dog’s?
AxelFoley
@Xantar:
I thought his silly ass broke up with Obama a while back? This must be the longest break-up on record.
I am not a kook
@Botsplainer: Depends. Is your dog the kind of dog that attracts persons of the appropriate gender for you? Booty retriever, if you will. If you’re sitting with your back against the wall with a p*t b*ll, U DOIN IT RONG.
RSA
A BJer has already commented on the post I’m linking to, but check out Kevin Drum‘s impression of John Cole.
NotMax
@Botsplainer
Not if the dog is buying.
TG Chicago
@Roger Moore: My point is that the risk/reward ratio is way too high for voter fraud, but it is much lower for the kind of election fraud BradBlog pointed out.
The risk/reward ratio is low for ATM fraud since there is no human there to apprehend the criminal. That is not so for voter fraud.
raven
@NotMax: As you know, I don’t drink but I do go to a couple of joints now and then that let the pups in.
Yatsuno
@raven: I thought Lil Bit demands her daily walk to the café for brekkies!
Burnspbesq
In today’s episode of Blind Squirrel Finds a Nut, the part of the blind squirrel is played by Megan McArglebargle, who actually understands the fundamental truth about the battle over state and local government employee pensions.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-07/we-are-all-going-to-pension-hell.html?wpisrc=nl_wonk_b
She’s got no answer, but the fact that she’s asking the right question is a pleasant surprise.
raven
@Yatsuno: Oh yea, big city bread for her cookie. The Normal Bar over to Normaltown doesn’t serve chow so critters are welcome.
Right now she’s alternating between trying to get at the butter beans that are being shelled and the chicken brats with blueberry sad cuke slaw!
Burnspbesq
@shelly:
What’s the point of being Preznit if you can’t use the Secret Service to conceal your extramarital flings?
NotMax
@raven
Irrespective of one’s relationship with alcohol, all those neighborhood watering holes deserve a nod for providing comics with the hook for a near-infinite number of “A (blank) walked into a bar” jokes.
Botsplainer
He’s been mauled by servers at the second bar I’m at. They’ve brought him ice water, French fries, and I think they like him more than me.
raven
@NotMax: I’m not that kind of duck!
raven
So as long as we’re just fucking around
Cat In A Shark Costume Chases A Duck While Riding A Roomba
raven
A dog walks into the Normal Bar. . .
Burnspbesq
@raven:
Dude, heard the new Guy Clark album yet?
raven
@Burnspbesq: oooo, no.
raven
@Burnspbesq: But I do have Heartrworn Highway.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Swear I read the thread yet somehow did not see that you got there first. Credit where it is due.
So, fallback to runner-up quip:
No, sitting with your dog is not pathetic. Pathetic is dancing with your dog at a bar.
raven
@Botsplainer: One would hope. That fucking dog is beautiful, get used to it.
burnspbesq
@raven:
Called “My Favorite Picture of You.” ‘Tis typical Guy Clark, I.e., damn good.
There are probably folks out there who would say that he’s made the same record over and over again for 40 years, but that’s like complaining that Mariano Rivera only has one pitch.
raven
@NotMax: Or. . .
raven
@burnspbesq: Ever heard this
Kin: Songs by Mary Karr & Rodney Crowell
burnspbesq
@raven:
Oh, yeah. That’s the jen-yoo-wine article.
You have Rodney’s “Acoustic Trio Live” set, with Jenny Scheinman and Will Kimbrough? I think it’s only available on his website.
Gene108
Too bad Taylor Swift hasn’t “dated” the Prez, like Damon, the songs of the “split” would be EPIC!
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
That’s probably it.
Fux?
gogol's wife
@Botsplainer:
Well, he is devastatingly cute, you know.
SiubhanDuinne
@Botsplainer:
He prolly tips better.
gogol's wife
@efgoldman:
I hate to be pedantic, but stress in Russian is variable. Whoever told you that the stress is always on the next-to-last syllable was wrong. Although that’s true for Polish. Knowing where to put the stress in Russian last names sometimes stumps native Russian speakers. And with some names, like Ivanov, it can be different depending on the family. Some people with that name say ee-VAHN-off, others say ee-vahn-OFF.
And don’t get me started on the vexed question of whether the hero of Anna Karenina is Levin or Lyovin.
gogol's wife
@efgoldman:
And this may blow your mind, but the correct pronunciation of Tchaikovsky is chee-KOFF-skee. In an unstressed syllable, a after ch is pronounced ee.
raven
@burnspbesq: I’ll be lookin
gogol's wife
I wish Cassidy would come back. I don’t know enough to take a position on pit bulls, but I agree with him about gun control.
raven
@gogol’s wife:
Rimsky Korsakov?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7fRryop0EM
burnspbesq
I hope Arsenal wins the Premier League this season, just so that we can be spared the incessant whining of their fans.
NotMax
@gogol’s wife
Certainly would be unusual to hear Sergei’s last name as Rok-mahn-EEN-off.
Southern Beale
Fox Television may produce reviled Hillary Clinton biopic … to which RNC PR BS responds, “oh well, guess we can’t have GOP debates on Fox either!”
mai naem
@gene108: Grand Old Big Pustules
Southern Beale
What are the chances some underpaid, overworked employee of the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago secretly taped some of the ALEC shenanigans?
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
I meant that you can’t predict which syllable the stress will fall on, not that in any given name it moves. It doesn’t move in Ivanov either, but you have to know which one it falls on.
gogol's wife
@efgoldman:
I’m not indignant — I just don’t want you going around mispronouncing Russian composers’ names because somebody steered you wrong one time.
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
I see that I misunderstood your comment. Indeed, it’s not Rakh-man-NEEN-off.
Southern Beale
@raven:
Where can one buy a hammerhead shark costume for a pit bull? Asking, for a friend.
beltane
Religious family leaves the United States on a boat claiming persecution, then gets lost at sea and has to be rescued by the Coast Guard http://www.theguardian.com/world/feedarticle/10924681 This could be the makings of the next Werner Herzog film.
gogol's wife
@efgoldman:
Tone is really hard to capture on here. I hope you don’t lump me in with the people who were calling your radio program. If I did that, I’d never get off the phone.
Except there are no classical-music programs any more.
gogol's wife
Okay, here’s a question for the BJ commentariat, and I’m sorry it’s out of harmony with the recent theme of sobriety: what is a good recipe for a Cosmopolitan cocktail? I’m giving a birthday party for a friend who loves them, and I have no idea how to make them since they sound just awful to me. I got a recipe off the internet and I just tried it, and unfortunately I ended up pouring perfectly good Finlandia down the sink because I couldn’t drink the thing. What is the best recipe?
raven
@Southern Beale: There may be a contact on that youtube. Orrrrrr, http://pinterest.com/aewfibers/cat-costumes-my-cats-will-hate-this/
NotMax
Tres bizarre. Is the price of eggs prohibitive?
Trooptrap Tripetrope
Apropos of nothing whatsoever, here are three websites for pointlessly wasting one’s time:
Zombo
Staggering Beauty
Image Nodes
raven
Dog martini costume!
NotMax
@gogol’s wife
3 parts good brand lemon-flavored vodka, 2 parts (maximum – less may be preferred) cranberry juice, 1 part Cointreau, 1 part lime juice.
Shake well with ice, strain into glass.
Twist a piece of fresh orange peel over the top after pouring, and run the orange peel around the rim.
gogol's wife
@raven:
That is so cute!
But what about a Cosmo? (I realize you’re not the person to ask.)
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
Thank you! Do you think it’s okay to use Rose’s lime juice rather than fresh? I really don’t like fresh lime juice.
NotMax
@gogol’s wife
Sure, but you may want to adjust the ratio to your taste because of the added sweetness, or increase the amount of orange oil from the peel to smooth the sweetness.
If you happen to have it, Absolut Citron is quite well-balanced, and the lemon flavor doesn’t overpower as it does in some brands (YMMV).
The cranberry juice is more coloring than for flavor, so that’s why mentioned possibly using a little less.
Anya
@Xantar: So, Matt Damon finally decided to break with Obama for good. This took, like, four years.First, it was “I am disillusioned,” then he made some noises about whether he’ll vote for him or not ( like he had an actual choice) and now he’s completely breaking up with him. Maybe Clooney will do a couple’s counselling for his two friends.
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
Yes, I thought Absolut Citron would be the best bet, not limonnaya.
gogol's wife
@efgoldman:
I hope I wasn’t offensive. I’ve struggled with pronouncing Russian last names for 30 years, so I get a little wonky on the topic. I spent 25 years mispronouncing the name of a minor character in Brothers Karamazov, and I am supposed to know better.
And you know that “I hate to be pedantic” always means “I’m about to be pedantic” on here.
NotMax
@gogol’s wife
Secret to the vodka martinis my guests rave about is to use a 1 part Absolut Citron to 4 parts unflavored vodka when making them.
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
Full recipe? (although most of my friends are pretty abstemious, it could come in handy)
Steeplejack
@gogol’s wife:
Okay, how do you pronounce “Nabokov”? I remember reading somewhere years ago (Time magazine?) that it was “Na-BOA-kov” instead of the visually obvious way.
NotMax
@gogol’s wife
4 parts vodka
1 part Absolut Citron
not quite 1/2 part Noilly Prat vermouth
Shake well with ice.
Preferred choice for garnish, on a toothpick, is those tiny pickled green tomatoes (usually in the market near the olives/pickles), otherwise cocktail onions rather than olives (which makes it a Gibson, but no one knows what a Gibson is anymore, so I just roll with martini).
NotMax
@NotMax
It should go without saying, but gonna say it anyway.
Noilly Prat dry vermouth.
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
Thank you!
gogol's wife
@Steeplejack:
Nabokov himself had a joke about this. In English, it’s NA-bo-koff. In Russian, it’s na-BOAK-off. In French, it’s na-boak-OFF.
Yeah, in Russian the stress is on the second syllable.
smintheus
Brad Friedman is a hapless dope, as he proves yet again here. The news reports he links indirectly to don’t say anything about this guy Villamaino casting any votes fraudulently. He wasn’t charged with that, though Friedman strongly implies that he returned the absentee ballots for 280 people.
What Villamaino did was change the party registration for those people and then request absentee ballots in their names.
gogol's wife
@Steeplejack:
I left out the best part of the joke. The same is true of his first name, Vladimir. In English the stress is on the first syllable, in Russian on the second, and in French on the last.
Steeplejack
@gogol’s wife:
Stupid polyglot Russian smart-ass.
Anne Laurie
@mai naem: I thought it was Greedy Old Bastids Party, until EFGoldman corrected me!