Fraud? You Damn Betcha!

In an unguarded moment just weeks ago, Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny) revealed the real agenda behind passing Voter ID:

“We are focused on making sure that we meet our obligations that we’ve talked about for years,” said Turzai in a speech to committee members Saturday. He mentioned the law among a laundry list of accomplishments made by the GOP-run legislature.

“Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it’s done. First pro-life legislation – abortion facility regulations – in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.” [Emphasis mine]

Regarding Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, Digby writes:

If there is nothing else that can convince thinking people that the Republicans are a malevolent, anti-democratic Party, this should. There is no evidence, none, that there is any, election voter fraud, much less a systemic enough problem to turn elections, but there is ample evidence that if you make people go through ridiculous hoops to vote, a lot of them will give up. That’s the point, that’s what they’re trying to do, everyone knows it.

It’s pathetic to watch Republican spokesmen pretend otherwise. As Wally once said to The Beaver, everybody’s wise to Eddie except Eddie. Then again, fooling the rest of us is not the point, is it? Many of the lies are directed at and spread by their own base. Between the lies they tell the rest of us and the lies they tell each other, daily, on Fox News, on talk radio, and in chain e-mail propaganda shared far and wide across the Internet, it is hard to know how many know the difference between truth and lies any more. Much less care.

Years ago, I read a report about a school bus service operator in North Carolina who bought a half dozen new buses, only to have multiple problems with them. Fresh from the factory, several would not pass inspection. Clutches kept burning out. He complained to the manufacturer and got nowhere. He called other owners and documented that they were having similar issues. Yet the manufacturer insisted there was no problem with the product. It must be his drivers.

Finally, the owner met with a regional manager who told him the same thing to his face. This was his reaction:

He was lying to me. I knew he was lying to me. He knew I knew he was lying to me. But he was lying anyway, not because he had anything to gain from his lies, but because it was company policy.

(Cross-posted from Scrutiny Hooligans.)

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