Republican Lies category archive

Republican science is a fraudulent construction detached from reality (see, for example, “climate change,” “human sexuality”), created to support the goal of rich-richer-poor-poorer by marshalling hate and fear to cause distraction.

It is a misdirection play on a grand scale.

The Commander Guy describes the dynamic quite well. A snippet:

Note to Wingers: (1) Rightwing mythology keeps the rubes confused and angry. That is what it is for. (2) You don’t need to believe it to use it. (3) When confronted with truly toxic rightwing mythology (as a Republican candidate–ed.), you either need to bat it down forcefully or pretend you are unfamiliar with the specifics of the particular myth but will look into it.

Continuing the Republican practice of saying whatever sounds good at the moment, Republican candidate Todd Akin claimed this weekend that women (I’m paraphrasing here) can’t get pregnant from rape unless they enjoyed it.

(Honestly, folks, you can’t make this stuff up–unless you are a Republican. Then anything goes.)

To foster understanding of how this biological process works, ABL has helpfully posted a diagram.

E. J. Dionne compares the Democratic and Republican positions on Medicare. A snippet:

Those who want a searching discussion of the need – and it is a need – to cut the cost of health care do their cause no good by evoking a false equivalence. There is a difference between Obama saying that Romney and Ryan want to alter Medicare fundamentally, which is true, and the GOP saying that Obama wants to undercut Medicare, which is not.

How misleading is the Romney argument? The liberal blogger Steve Benen summarized the GOP’s strange logic perfectly: “that Barack Obama is a left-wing socialist who wants government-run socialized medicine and that Barack Obama is a far-right brute who wants to undermine government-run socialized medicine,” i.e., Medicare. It doesn’t add up, does it?

In Wingnut World, stuff doesn’t have to add up. It just has to sound good today.

Then something else can sound good tomorrow.

Via BartCop.

Honoring the troops, the Republican way. Ronnie Polaneczky reports:

MY FRIEND JOE Varsanyi Sr. died on Monday. He was 91, a decorated patriot who fought in World War II. Had he lived, this simple, honorable man who risked his life for his country would’ve had a very hard time voting in November’s elections.

That’s because Joe didn’t have a driver’s license. He long ago lost track of his birth certificate and his military identification. He didn’t even have utility bills proving his residence, since his last residence was a nursing home where he tried to regain his strength after his cancer spread.

Without any of these documents, there would have been no reasonable way for him to obtain the voter ID that the Commonwealth Court on Wednesday reiterated is needed to cast a ballot on Election Day.

More at the link.

Via BartCop.

Dick Polman theorizes why Mitt the Flip gets away with the lies:

It’s a real dilemma for the traveling reporters. If they were to flout the unwritten rules of traditional objectivity by calling out and documenting Romney’s welfare lie each time he uses it, two problems would likely arise: editors wouldn’t like it (they’d fear complaints from readers about “bias”); and the Romney staffers wouldn’t like it (they’d retaliate by freezing out the offending reporters).

So Romney gets away with it – not just the factual inaccuracy, but the not-so-subliminal racial message about a black president who supposedly wants to hand out welfare checks to Those People. And sure enough, racists are hearing the message loud and clear. The other day, a neo-Confederate website approvingly quoted Romney’s welfare lie, and said: “Mitt Romney is speaking to our people, promoting popular issues with subtle and not so subtle racial themes….Mitt Romney is a solid White guy with a large, very beautiful White family.”

They won’t stop until the news stories begin with “Mitt Romney told another lie today . . . .”

Donald Luzzatto, writing in my local rag, is fed up the the U. S. Chamber of Commerce’s ad campaign on behalf of George “Macaca” Allen:

My house’s 14-year-old – every home should have one – is now watching his first election unfold, or at least the first one that’s ever held his attention.

When another political commercial interrupted running or diving or soccer, he had had enough: “How can they say that?” he asked, incredulous. “It’s just not true!”

This kid is no innocent. He knows how to consume media with skepticism and doubt. But he also knows there are rules about what people selling stuff can say. Because of that, he’s unaccustomed to straight-up lying from TV commercials. Let alone from guys who want to be president or a senator.

Two stories about the hollow hypocrisy of the Republican gut out the vote movement. Two nuggets.

First the facts: it’s all hypocritical hype:

A new nationwide analysis of more than 2,000 cases of alleged election fraud over the last dozen years shows that in-person voter impersonation on Election Day, was virtually nonexistent.

The analysis of 2,068 reported fraud cases by News21, a Carnegie-Knight investigative reporting project, found 10 cases of alleged in-person voter impersonation since 2000.

Monica Yant Kinney writes of lawyer and ex-prosector Tia Sutter, who is has never driven a car and is now disabled:

“I know I could convince a jury of 12 peers beyond a reasonable doubt that I am who I am,” Sutter tells me from her home in East Falls. But so far, neither PennDot nor the Social Security Administration (SSA) agrees about her identity.

“They tell me I don’t exist.”

At the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Timothy Nolan takes a detailed look at the tactics of the Republican gut out the vote movement. A nugget; follow the link for the details:

Since at least 2008, when minority voters gave Barack Obama his victory margin — the president won only 43 percent of the white vote — Republicans have increasingly relied on voter suppression to counterbalance the steady shrinkage of America’s white majority.

Former Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer (currently under indictment for stealing party funds) stated in a deposition released in July that a 2009 party meeting included discussion of “voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting.”

In December, Paul Schurick, a top aide to former Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich, was convicted of election fraud for using automated phone calls to suppress the African-American vote during Mr. Ehrlich’s unsuccessful 2010 bid. “The first and most desired outcome is voter suppression,” stated one consultant’s memo entered into evidence. It described a “Schurick Doctrine” to “promote confusion, emotionalism and frustration among African-American Democrats.”

What the BooMan said.

It’s awfully early in the campaign to start shouting “welfare queens,” now, isn’t it?

About four minutes in, Mike discusses the formula for fomenting hate. If you listen to nothing else, listen to minutes four to six and ask yourself who it calls to mind.

It’s a Republican thing:

At Philly dot com, two law professors conclude that Republican “gut out the vote” laws violate the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, which states succintly:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay poll tax or other tax.

A nugget from the column:

The 24th Amendment forbids the imposition of “any poll tax or other tax” in federal elections. Texas’ law flatly violates this provision in dealing with would-be voters who don’t have a state-issued photo ID. To obtain an acceptable substitute, they must travel to a driver licensing office and submit appropriate documents, along with their fingerprints, to establish their qualifications. If they don’t have the required papers, they must pay $22 for a copy of their birth certificate.

If they can’t come up with the money for the qualifying documents, they can’t vote. The 24th Amendment denies states the power to create such a financial barrier to the ballot box.

There’s no there there. TPM:

. . . They’ve (the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania–ed.) formally acknowledged that there’s been no reported in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania and there isn’t likely to be in November.

The state signed a stipulation agreement with lawyers for the plaintiffs which acknowledges there “have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states.”

It’s all hype and hypocrisy.

Senator Nelson of Florida speaks out: