Category Archives: Voter Suppression

Undermining Democracy.

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For more than 40 years, the Republican Party has been working to undermine our elections.  It first became apparent with the Watergate break-in, which was an obvious attempt to steal an election and subvert our constitution.

But the Republican strategy actually began a few years earlier, when Republican Vice-President Spiro Agnew used his position to create partisan distrust of our news media.  The attack on the media gained steam as ensuing Republican administrations appointed directors to the Federal Communications Commission with instructions to repeal the Fairness Doctrine.

They succeeded in 1987, giving birth to hyper-partisan TV networks such as Fox News Channel and right wing radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh.

In addition, Republicans began a partisan attack on our judicial system.  Once based on merit, the Supreme Court was changed by Reagan, George H. W Bush and George W. Bush when they nominated ideologues such as Thomas and Scalia to make decisions based on conservative “values.”  They were rewarded with Supreme Court rulings that equate money with free speech and corporations with individuals.

Of course, these decisions assured the Republican Party of an overwhelming campaign advantage funded by their multi-national corporate masters.

In the House of Representatives, former Speaker Newt Gingrich began a cleansing of moderate Republicans in order to assure party-line votes on virtually every issue.  And, in the Senate, Republicans began wielding the filibuster in record numbers to force Democratics to gain a super majority on even the most mundane of bills, such as nominations for Treasury, State, EPA, Education, Justice, ATF, and federal judgeships.

In order to win elections, Republicans created divisive issues villifying minorities, immigrants and gays, then loaded the airwaves with negative ads in hopes of disgusting voters, thereby suppressing votes by all but their most right wing base.

When they lost by a landslide in 2008, Republicans tried to convince voters that the elections were stolen without providing a shred of actual evidence.  They then set about creating laws and reducing polling hours to suppress votes in mostly Democratic areas by demanding photo IDs that are sometimes expensive and hard to obtain.

Republicans have tried to bust unions in hopes of ending union campaign contributions to Democratic candidates.  They have tried to defund Planned Parenthood, not just because they disagree with abortion, but because it represents a reliable Democratic voting bloc.  They have also tried to defund public broadcasting in hopes of destroying the last truly independent news network.

Republicans have even defunded education at every level.  After all, an uneducated and uninformed electorate is more easily deceived by Fox News and other Republican-controlled media.

Despite all of this, surveys show that if every eligible voter went to the polls, President Obama and Democrats would win handily.  Let’s make sure enough of these people vote to spoil the Republican strategy.

Why Teapublicans See Cheating Everywhere.

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In 2000, voter suppression in Florida gave the White House to George W. Bush.  Even though investigations proved the election was stolen, Democrats accepted the results for the good of the country.

But after Barack Obama’s landslide victory in 2008, Republicans claimed that ACORN had stolen the election for Democrats.  Lengthy investigations found absolutely no evidence of voter fraud.  Nevertheless, Republicans refused to accept President Obama’s legitimacy.  They questioned his citizenship.  They blocked and obstructed every presidential decision and appointment setting a record for the number of filibusters and holds on appointments.

For the past four years, Republican legislatures and governors have passed new voter ID laws in order to prevent many Democrats from voting.  They have instituted voter purges in heavily populated Democratic voting districts. 

Now they claim the polls have been rigged to show President Obama with a lead over Mitt Romney.  And they claim that the Obama administration has rigged the job numbers to show that the economy is better than it really is.  Of course, if the polls are rigged, then they’re being rigged by both liberal and conservative media.  And the administration has absolutely no influence over the reporting of jobs data.  Indeed, the data actually lags behind independent payroll data from ADP.

Why are Teapublicans so determined to find fraud by Democrats when there is none?  I’d suggest it’s the result of a guilty conscience.  Since Teapublicans so readily steal, cheat and lie, they assume everyone does.

Truth is, Teapublican ideas are not popular with most working Americans.  To compensate, Teapublicans pour money into commercials filled with patently false charges against their opponents.  They steal opposing candidate’s signs.  They vandalize cars sporting opponent’s bumper stickers.  And they cry foul whenever something goes against them.

If Teapublicans really want to find cheaters and bullies, all they have to do is look in a mirror.

More Ugly Politics From Arizona.

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For many years, Arizona politics have been uniquely corrupt and ugly.  Arizona is, after all, home to the finger-wagging Governor Brewer, SB 1070 sponsor Russell Pearce, and birther Sheriff Joe Arpaio.  It seems that Teapublicans in the state compete with one another to see who could come up with the next dirty trick.

So it’s no surprise that, when a new Teapublican voter fraud scheme came to light, it was led by an Arizonan.

Nathan Sproul is the former head of the Arizona Christian Coalition and the Arizona Republican Party.  He is also the founder of Lincoln Strategy Group which has been tied to widespread efforts to suppress Democratic votes by shredding registration forms and other dirty tricks. Naturally, the GOP felt that qualified Sproul to help them defeat President Obama.

They paid Sproul $3 million to register GOP voters in battleground states for this year’s elections.  But, in order to distance themselves from Sproul’s past problems, they asked him to set up shell corporations to hide his involvement.

It didn’t work.

Sproul’s new firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, now faces allegations of voter fraud in at least five swing states.  It appears his company was registering dead people to vote as Republicans.

What makes this incident so embarrassing for the GOP is that Sproul was caught doing what Teapublicans accused ACORN of doing – only none of the accusations against ACORN stood up to scrutiny.  It also flies in the face of the GOP’s claims that their voter ID laws in battleground states are intended to prevent voter fraud.

Once these new accusations were made public, the GOP immediately distanced itself from Sproul, acting “swiftly and boldly” according to RNC spokesman Sean Spicer. They claim that they have a “zero tolerance” for voter fraud – unless, of course, it benefits a Teapublican candidate.

The Corporatization Of America.

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Teapublicans are fond of calling President Obama a socialist, a communist or worse.  Of course, there is absolutely no evidence to substantiate their claims.

Most likely, the reason for their accusations is to distract voters from recognizing what’s really happening to their country.  Over the past 40 years, Teapublican policies have given virtually all of the political power to large, multi-national corporations as well as the very wealthy and the very powerful. They’ve accomplished this through the systematic use of propaganda.

Following more than a decade of acccusations that mainstream media was liberally-biased, they were able to repeal the Fairness Doctrine in 1987.  Within 20 years of the repeal, 91 percent of talk radio was conservative blather, giving them a large megaphone with which to peddle their ideas.

In the 1980s, Republican-appointed bureaucrats (along with a few Democrats) approved an unprecedented number of mergers and acquisitions in defiance of monopoly laws.  It was done under the guise of globalization; to better prepare American corporations to compete with European and Japanese businesses.  As part of this globalization, multi-national corporations were permitted (actually incentified) to ship manufacturing jobs overseas in order to cut labor costs and crush labor unions.

The Free Trade Act, intended to make it easier to export our products, instead made it even easier to export our jobs.  It also allowed our subsidized agri-businesses to dump cheap corn into Mexico and Central America, displacing tens of thousands of small farmers.

When Americans began to recognize the full impact of jobs being sent overseas, Teapublicans created straw dogs.  Prior to elections, they proposed so-called “values” legislation banning abortions, banning gay marriage, and denouncing so-called attacks on Christianity in order to distract voters.  They blamed our economic problems on immigrants, unions, “entitlements,” government employees, teachers and first responders to keep voters from focusing on the real issues.

Conservative Supreme Court justices ruled that money equals free speech, and that corporations should enjoy the same rights as individuals.  Of course, these rulings allow multi-nationals to spend as much as they want to elect officials who will be most favorable to their issues.

To keep President Obama from meddling with their grand corporate plan, Teapublican legislatures passed a variety of strict voter ID laws to disenfranchise many of those most likely to vote for Obama.  Now they’re crying “Class Warfare” and “Redistribution of Wealth!”

Will they continue to get away with this corporate takeover?  Or will the majority of Americans finally recognize what’s happening and take our country back?

Do Teapublicans Actually Know Anything?

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For several years, surveys have shown that the majority of Teapublicans don’t know that President Obama was born in the United States.  The polls have also shown that a significant number of Teapublicans think Obama is a Muslim.

Now polls in Ohio and North Carolina show that approximately two-thirds of “very conservative” Teapublicans think former governor Mitt Romney deserves more responsibility for ordering the killing of Osama bin Laden than President Obama!

Say what?

Romney ordered the killing of bin Laden?  Now that would have been quite an accomplishment for someone who has no current standing in the federal government.  Nevertheless, that is what the polls show.

Is it any wonder that so many Teapublicans believe their lieing leaders?  Is it any wonder that poor and middle class Teapublicans continue to vote against their own self-interests?  Is it any wonder that our nation’s politics are so fractured?  How can anyone hope to negotiate and compromise with officials who represent these people?

No doubt these are the same people who think the Earth is only 6,000 years old, and that our ancestors rode dinosaurs.

Teapublicans are doing everything possible to keep Democrats and minorities from voting this election by requiring new photo IDs.  Instead, maybe they should require an intelligence test for voting.  If they did, we might not see another Teapublican president or Congress in a generation.

“Rampant” Voter Fraud?

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Teapublicans claim to be concerned about vote integrity.  So, in order to assure everyone that there is not massive voter fraud, they have passed strict voter ID laws in a number of states – primarily so-called “battleground” states.  In doing so, they are forcing tens of thousands of voters to seek new photo IDs.

A lesser known Teapublican tactic is to restrict voting hours and the number of days for early voting.  In Ohio, Teapublicans have eliminated Sunday voting, which has been highly popular amongst African-American voters.  In response to the predictable outcry, the Ohio Secretary of State said there should be no special accommodation of any group of voters (especially those who are most likely to vote for President Obama).

In summation, Teapublicans are so concerned about the sanctity of our right to vote that they are willing to keep tens of thousands from exercising that right.

To explain their actions, Teapublicans have cited voter fraud.  They use anecdotal evidence that felons, dead people and non-citizens have voted.  That prompted investigative reporters to examine the facts.  News21, a Carnegie-Knight investigative reporting project, found just 10 cases of alleged in-person voter impersonation since 2000.  10 cases out of 146 million registered voters!

Those numbers tend to be supported by an investigation by the Bush administration which found only 86 cases of alleged fraud out of 300 million votes cast.  (Of course, the administration did not report on the voter suppression and voter fraud in 2000 that gave Bush the presidency in Florida.)

Teapublicans say they aren’t trying to suppress the vote.  They say one incident of voter fraud is too many because it could affect the outcome of an election.  Who do they think they’re kidding?

For more, read The Teapublican Book of Lies available at Amazon.com and other on-line bookstores.

Why You Should Hate Teapublicans. Let Me Count The Reasons.

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1 – Richard Nixon’s Watergate break-in intended to literally steal an election. 

2 – The “Southern strategy” in which the GOP embraced racists. 

3 – The “Moral Majority” in which the Party embraced “social” issues. 

4 – Reagan’s union-busting. 

5 – Elimination of loan interest deductions resulting in huge tax increases for the middle class.

6 – Cuts to capital gains taxes and estate taxes on the wealthy. 

7 – Reagan’s Iran-Contra plan which financed Central American death squads.

8 – Deregulation of Savings and Loan institutions resulting in the loss of billions.  

9 – Gun laws putting military-style weapons in the hands of millions. 

10 – $60 million witch hunt and impeachment of President Clinton. 

11 – Massive voter suppression giving the 2000 election to George W. Bush. 

12 – Bush’s failure to act on warnings of a 2001 terrorist attack. 

13 – The Bush tax cuts.

14 – The unnecessary and completely unfunded war in Iraq. 

15 – “Swift-boating” of Vietnam War Hero, Sen. John Kerry. 

16 – Richard “The Dick” Cheney. 

17 – The outsourcing of our military to corporations. 

18 – Awarding government contracts to corporations with offshore “headquarters.” 

19 – Deregulation of banks resulting in mortgage fraud.

20 – The Great Recession.

21 – Subsidies and tax breaks for corporations that send jobs offshore.

22 – Fox News Channel and right-wing hate radio. 

23 – Unsubstantiated claims about President Obama’s birthplace and religion. 

24 – The Tea Party.

25 – Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, Steve King and Paul Ryan. 

26 – Attacks on women’s rights. 

27 – Attacks on the LGBT community. 

28 – Plans to repeal The Affordable Care Act. 

29 – Assaults on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. 

30 – Obstruction of hundreds of President Obama’s appointments. 

31 – Filibusters. 

32 – Buckley v. Valeo resulting in a ruling that money is free speech.

33 – Citizen’s United which gave corporations the same rights as people.  

34 – Voter ID laws intended to steal the coming election.

35 – Attacks on Public Broadcasting, education and the environment.

36 – Blaming the poor and the unemployed for our deficit.

37 – Blaming teachers and first responders for our deficit.

38 – Trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor.

39 – Vilifying immigrants to get votes.

40 – The debt ceiling debate.

41 – Embrace of Ayn Rand’s self-centered philosophy.

42 – Lies, lies and more lies.

Learn more in The Teapublican Book of Lies available from Amazon.com and other on-line bookstores

Everything Wrong With Politics All Wrapped Up In One Super PAC.

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If you watch television news, you’ve probably seen the despicable “birther” ads paid for by the super PAC, Conservative Majority Fund.  The anonymous group is also running a commercial “to stop the UN gun grab.”  This little gem claims that President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton are set to sign an agreement with the UN that will take away your guns.

Oh my, the Black Shirts are coming!  The Black Shirts are coming!

Before you grab your assault weapons and head for your hideout, you should know that the commercials are just more Teapublican lies, albeit some of the most disgusting yet.  You already know that President Obama was born in the US.  And, in reality, the UN Arms Trade Treaty is designed to control arms trade between nations to prevent weapons from being sold to rogue groups such as al Qaeda.  It will do nothing to interfere with Second Amendment rights.

Of course, the Conservative Majority Fund offers many other reasons you should be afraid – very afraid.  It wants you to be afraid of voter fraud so you’ll accept highly restrictive new voter laws.

No group better exemplifies the toxic state of political discourse in the US.  No group better exposes the Teapublican tactics of fear and voter suppression.  And no group better illustrates the problem with the “money equals free speech” ruling by the Supreme Court which allows anonymous billionaires the opportunity to buy an election.

To learn more about Teapublican tactics and lies, read The Teapublican Book of Lies, available at Amazon and other on-line bookstores.

Conservatives Trying To Steal Elections… Again.

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For the past two years, Teapublican state legislatures have passed measures calling for photo IDs for voters.  They claim that, if you are required to have a license to drive, you should be required to have a photo ID to vote. (Of course, they don’t feel the same about those who carry guns.) They say their only interest is to eliminate voter fraud, especially by illegal immigrants.

Given the fact that there is virtually no proven voter fraud in this country that seems unlikely.  And anyone who is familiar with illegal immigrants knows that an attempt to vote is much too risky.  They would  never take the chance of calling attention to themselves for fear of getting caught.  For example, I recently asked a County Recorder in Arizona how many illegal immigrants have tried to vote in the county.  The answer was none. Moreover, I asked how many instances of voter fraud the county had uncovered in recent elections.  The answer was five.  All were caught.

Let’s get to the real reason for these new voter laws: Stealing elections.

Many of the voters who do not have photo IDs are likely to vote Democratic.  You see, many people in large cities, particularly in the inner cities do not have need for a driver’s license or a passport. They are often elderly, poor or students.  In the past, they have voted using voter registration cards, student IDs and other forms of identification.  Unless, the Department of Justice steps in, that will change.  And millions of voters will not be allowed to vote unless they obtain the proper kind of photo ID in time for this fall’s elections.

In Pennsylvania, it’s estimated that 750,000 eligible citizens do not currently possess identification cards issued by the state Department of Transportation.  That’s 9.2 percent of the vote!

To illustrate how unfair and absurd this new bill is, it will prevent all of the state’s Amish from voting, since their faith does not allow them to have their pictures taken.

Of course, Pennsylvania is not alone.  Voter purges are continuing in many other states, as well.  If they’re allowed to get away with it, we could see a repeat of 2000 when Vice-President Al Gore won the popular vote and lost the electoral vote as the result of voter suppression and dirty tricks in Florida.

The Teapublican Book of Lies.

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You know those things Teapublicans present as facts that just never quite make sense?  The ones that are repeated day after day on Fox News Channel and right wing radio?  The conservative ideas that have been tried and failed, but keep coming back?

I’ve taken 50 of those so-called “facts,” researched them, and presented my findings in a new book:  The Teapublican Book of Lies.  It’s a sort of handbook for debates with your conservative friends and family members.

Pardon the shameless self-promotion, but you can buy the book from Amazon.