Republican Lies category archive

Gene Nichol tells one voter’s story of how disenfranchisement plays. A snippet:

When her turn finally came, she explained she wanted to get an ID so she could vote. “I handed him my license and other things,” she said. The agent looked at her license and threw it back on the counter. “Don’t you know you can’t use that,” he said, “it’s expired.” Ms. Robare explained she didn’t know it had expired. He refused to look at the other documents and turned her away. “He treated me like I was stupid,” she said. “I was in tears.” She went home.

After doing more research, she learned she would need copy of her birth certificate. That was something of a problem. Ms. Robare is adopted and, in New York, her records were sealed. So she was told she would have to apply to Albany for a new one. But she was dogged, learned where to make the request, and paid the special fee and delivery costs. The bill came to $72.

Follow the link to see what happens next.

Dick Polman discusses Hilary Clinton’s calling out that Republican Lie. A snippet (emphasis added):

Then, in a speech last Thursday, she added another key color to her palette: Voting rights reform. She proposed that all Americans be automatically registered to vote when they turn 18, and that all states offer at least 20 days of early voting. And she denounced the GOP’s ongoing voter-suppression campaign: “What is happening is a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people and young people, from one end of the country to the other.”

She also named names: Rick Perry, Chris Christie, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush (she could easily have added John Kasich), all of whom, in their gubernatorial tenures, have curbed access to the ballot. She said of Republicans, “What part of democracy are they afraid of?”

As my two or three regular readers know, I’m not a big Clinton fan, but I have to commend her for facing this particular lie squarely.

Do follow the link. The entire article is worth your while.

Yet another Republican steps into the quicksand legacy of President George the Worst’s Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq.

Lies, if and once they come to light, do have a way of coming back to bite their adherents in the nether regions, do they not?

Let the biting continue.

A. Nothing.

Let Paul Krugman explain.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., tries to figure out when a fact becomes a non-fact. A snippet:

As best I can recall — my computer ate the email — that was how the key line went in a reader missive that had me doing a double take last week. It was not the outlandish assertion that struck me but, rather, the emphatic claim of its veracity. We’re talking Shift-Lock and all-caps so there would be no mistaking: “Obama is a Muslim. That is a FACT.”

Actually, it is not a fact, but let that slide. We’re not here to renew the tired debate over Barack Obama’s religion. No, we’re only here to lament that so many of us seem to know “facts” that aren’t and that one party — guess which — has cynically nurtured, used and manipulated this ignorance for political gain.

Via Kos.

John Cole.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., thinks Fox News’s decision, not only to countenance, but to support Bill O’Reilly as more persons publicize his perfidy says a lot about Fox News. A snippet (emphasis added):

For the one falsehood, (NBC News’s Brian–ed.) Williams received a six-month suspension without pay. For a handful of apparent falsehoods, O’Reilly has received unstinting support from his bosses at Fox.

This rather neatly makes the point I sought to make a month ago. Namely, that Fox – the window-dressing presence of a few bona fide reporters notwithstanding – is not a real news-gathering organization but, rather, the propaganda arm of an extreme right wing that grows ever more cult-like and detached from reality as time goes by. Fox is a belief system, not a news network. Exhibit A is the fact that O’Reilly is not now fighting for his professional life.

To anticipate what his believers will say in his defense: Yes, he is a pundit and yes, pundits are entitled to their opinions. But that does not release them from the obligation to be factual.

Via Job’s Anger.

A. Republicans.

Werner Herzog’s Bear analyzes Republican attempts to ban factual history in Oklahoma and other places. A snippet (emphasis added):

Historical knowledge is the greatest bullshit detector of them all. Calls for the newest war don’t look so inspiring once you know America’s imperial past. The slayings of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Eric Garner don’t look so random and accidental if you know the history of racist violence undertaken by the authorities against people of color. Scorched earth libertarianism looks mighty stupid if you know how that worked out the first time during the Gilded Age.

There is a very powerful segment of society that relies on the masses being ignorant of a broader, more historical perspective on the present.

Do read the rest.

The start of Bob Cesca’s headline pretty much sums it up:

Republicans in Oklahoma Seek to Replace History Classes with GOP Speeches . . . .

The why is simple. Republicanism is counter-factual, so Republicans fear encountering facts.

Details at the link.