Republican Lies category archive

And this surprises you how?

Two University of Massachusetts Boston academics — Keith G. Bentele, an assistant professor of Sociology, and Erin O’Brien, an associate professor of Political Science — recently published a paper looking at the proposal and passage of restrictive voter access legislation from 2006 to 2011. In the paper, titled “Jim Crow 2.0? Why States Consider and Adopt Restrictive Voter Access Policies,” the authors conclude that restrictive voter measures are connected to both partisan and racial factors.

“We looked at proposed and passage over this period, and we looked at just 2011 specifically,” Bentele told TPM in an interview this week. “And you have this consistent emergence — over and over and over — these partisan and racial factors are the most strongly associated with these outcomes.”

More at the link.

Below the fold because it autoplays.

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Dick Polman wonders why Republicans fell for the patently false wingnut charge that President Obama is closing the U. S. Embassy to the Vatican (he’s not, never was, never would) and why Republicans are so susceptible to lies and lying liars.

Hopefully, on some not too distant day, a smart historian with a degree in psychology will look back on this era and analyze why so many conservatives have become allergic to factual reality. This psychosis has manifested itself so often – among the birthers, the skeet shoot paranoids, the Gettysburg truthers, the list is endless – that one is tempted to simply ignore the behavior. But no. In the name of rationalism, it needs to be called out.

Read the rest.

Get out the bucks, gut out the vote.

Dick Polman on the latest wingnut tizzy in a teapot:

Since Abe’s assassination, there have been 27 presidents. Care to guess how many of them have participated in Gettysburg anniversary ceremonies? I’ll save you the time. Here’s the answer:

One.

That was William Howard Taft, in 1909.

And it bears noting that a goodly part of the Republican Party wishes that the other side had won the Battle of Gettysburg anyhoo.

More tales to tantrums at the link.

Gutting out the vote in Ohio.

Michael Smerconish realizes that he has to vote absentee in a recent local election and runs afoul of the Republican gut-out-the-vote initiative. He managed to vote, but at significant inconvenience, inconvenience which might have deterred many persons (which, natch, is the reason for the inconvenience):

Clearly we need to boost participation. And yet, around the country, most election changes are headed in the wrong direction, and at an escalating pace.

That’s the net effect of Shelby County v. Holder, in which the Supreme Court ruled in June that nine states (and several other counties and municipalities) that had been required under the Voting Rights Act to obtain preclearance before adopting new laws concerning elections would no longer be so obligated. Freed of Justice Department oversight, many states are enacting laws that would not have been permitted before the decision.

Read the full story at the link.

What jason330 said.

Graham.

Cracker.

’nuff said.

If you wonder why the Republican Party is so determined to gut out the vote, just read this.

Things are getting creepier in Texas.

Texas Former U.S. House Speaker Jim Wright was denied a voter ID card Saturday at a Texas Department of Public Safety office.

He’s going to try again Monday with a copy of his birth certificate in hand.

Can anyone seriously believe that anything about this law was legitimate and above-board?

Details at the link.

So much for the claim that the ACA is hurting people:

As TWiB pointed out, the fact that a very small percentage of persons might have to pay more is old news (yes, it’s a long listen, but worth it–subscribe; I did). And, in the great majority of cases, the plans that are no longer “allowable” are no longer allowable because, to be blunt about it, they suck.

And what’s the Republican alternative? As Alan Grayson said, it’s

Don’t get sick. If you do get sick, die quickly.

Me, I’m just trying to stay alive until I qualify for Medicare.

My individual policy premium is going up next year, but that’s because my age keeps going up. Beats the alternative, as far as I am concerned.

Via TPM, which has commentary.

Texas Attorney-General would appear to be a voter fraudster under the terms of Texas’s new voter ID law.

Heh.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

Sometimes, the mask slips:

Via TPM, which reports that the man who told the truth has been canned, even though, according to him, one of his best friends is black.*

_________________

*Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, yes, he said that.

Thom and Ari Rabin Havt (full disclosure: he has a new book) discuss the mechanics Republicans used to dream drum up the Benghazi Scamdal:

When the rather hysterically-phrased stories broke last week that the latest gut-out-the-vote efforts in Texas might disproportionately affect women (for example) because of differences in documents occasioned by marital name changes, much skepticism was exhibited.

Take this, skeptics:

A new voter ID law requiring strict uniformity across all forms of identification nearly kept a Texas district judge from being able to cast her ballot in the state’s early voting session. According to Think Progress, Judge Sandra Watts was challenged at the poll when she presented her usual ID.

(snip)

Watts said she has voted in every election for the last 49 years and that her name on her driver’s license has remained the same for the last 52. The address on her license and voter registration card have been the same for more than two decades. However, on Tuesday, at the outset of early voting for the Nov. 5 election, the judge was asked to sign a “voter’s affidavit” saying that she is who she says she is before she would be allowed to vote.

The problem was that her maiden name was listed as her middle name on her driver’s license, whereas on her voter registration card, her actual middle name is listed.