Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

This fight is for everything.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Saturday Afternoon Open Thread: With the GOP, It’s Always Projection

Saturday Afternoon Open Thread: With the GOP, It’s Always Projection

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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!

Reader Interactions

90Comments

  3. 3.

    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.

  4. 4.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @efgoldman:

    As usual, election fraud cases most often involve insiders manipulating votes

    Can you say “Diebold in Ohio, 2004?”

    Sure you can, boys and girls!

  8. 8.

    shelly

    I know Matt Damon actually has said he’s parting ways with Obama

    I didn’t even know they were dating!

  10. 10.

    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.

  11. 11.

    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.

  13. 13.

    Roger Moore

    @TG Chicago:

    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, 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.

  14. 14.

    Chris

    @efgoldman:

    Not only does the GOBP want to win general elections by manipulating who’s eligible, they also do it to each other.

    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.

  15. 15.

    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.

  16. 16.

    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).

  18. 18.

    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.

  20. 20.

    Roger Moore

    @Dead Ernest:

    I’m going back in to the office to mess with what it takes to pry payment from the health insurance companies.

    I think a court order to seize their assets usually works. I’m not sure if there’s anything else that does.

  25. 25.

    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.

  28. 28.

    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.

  32. 32.

    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!

  33. 33.

    Burnspbesq

    @shelly:

    I didn’t even know they were dating

    What’s the point of being Preznit if you can’t use the Secret Service to conceal your extramarital flings?

  34. 34.

    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.

  35. 35.

    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.

  42. 42.

    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.

  44. 44.

    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.

  47. 47.

    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.

  48. 48.

    Gene108

    Too bad Taylor Swift hasn’t “dated” the Prez, like Damon, the songs of the “split” would be EPIC!

  49. 49.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman:

    I think i may have introduced it to this blog.

    That’s probably it.

    mispronounce one obscure central-European name, and the phones light up!

    Fux?

  52. 52.

    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.

  53. 53.

    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.

  55. 55.

    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.

  57. 57.

    burnspbesq

    I hope Arsenal wins the Premier League this season, just so that we can be spared the incessant whining of their fans.

  62. 62.

    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.

  63. 63.

    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.

  67. 67.

    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.

  68. 68.

    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?

  70. 70.

    NotMax

    Tres bizarre. Is the price of eggs prohibitive?

    Prosecutors have filed charges of bomb possession against a recently crowned Utah beauty pageant winner.
    [snip]
    The 18-year-olds were arrested last Saturday after driving around neighbourhoods and allegedly tossing plastic bottles filled with caustic chemicals at people they knew. Nobody was injured. Source

  73. 73.

    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.

  75. 75.

    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.

  76. 76.

    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.

  77. 77.

    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.

  79. 79.

    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.

  82. 82.

    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.

  83. 83.

    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).

  86. 86.

    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.

  87. 87.

    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.

  88. 88.

    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.

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