
4 Biggest Republican Lies
1. Lie: The 2020 Election was stolen.
Voting for election-deniers Lake, Masters, Finchem, Hamadeh… is voting for those:
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Whose steal contention has been solely based on say-so, since, after almost two years of countless exhaustively debunked allegations, MAGA Republicans have failed to come up with solid evidence of significant fraud.
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Who have no response to why "fixer" Democrats lost so many 2020 close down-ballot AZ elections nor to reasons why Trump lost by 7M+ vote (e.g., his botched handling of the pandemic that appreciably worsened the recession, inventory reductions, and the high number of business shutdowns).
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Whose MAGA colleagues in Congress, including all four GOP AZ Reps, voted Jan. 6, 2021, to overthrow the elected incoming Administration.
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Who didn't respect what eligible voters decided in 2020. Lake and Finchem say they would have decertified the 2020 AZ results. Masters scrubbed from his website that the election was stolen from Trump but questions the legitimacy of the November elections.
2. Lie: Democrats are soft on crime.
Crime is down since August (and inflation flattening), but a huge spike in right-wing misinformation that crime is out of control in Democrat-run cities, parroted by mainstream media, is driving Republican increases in the polls.
Being missed:
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Right-wing crimes against democracy have exploded, of rape and incest victims having to flee their states to get abortions.
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Crime (and inflation) will rise and fall periodically, but when democracy is gone, it’s going to be very hard to get back.
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The surge in violent crime (28%) and gun homicides (35%) rose on Trump's watch (2019-2020)
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Republican states have the nation’s highest rates of murder, violent crime, property crime and drug overdose deaths.
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Data show that the Republican simple "fix"-- their pricy call for more police on the streets and super-harsh sentencing, is not effective.
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Republicans block (reasonable measures to reduce gun violence and Dem increased law enforcement spending), blame (defund the FBI), defend lawbreakers (described the Jan. 6 violence as legitimate political discourse), and put forth dishonest, fear-mongering and racist end-of-campaign crime messaging when crime rates are statistically higher in red states.
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Police funding in all cities run by Dems increased in 2022 as happened in Republican cities.
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Democrats say be tough on crime but be smart about it. Increased investing in law enforcement support, reform, accountability, community policing, community safety, mental health intervention, after-school programs, good jobs and other proven crime-reducing programs that reduce the economic and social factors that drive most crime.
3. Lie: Inflation is due to Biden’s spending, and wage increases?
Do-Nothing Republicans have no effective inflation solution. Instead they:
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Blame Biden for what neither he nor any president can essentially control: high demand in the face of a US and global post-pandemic shortage of all sorts of things, Putin’s war in Ukraine, China’s lockdowns…
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Advocate pro-inflationary policies that would increase costs (eliminate Biden's lowered drug and healthcare premiums, student loan forgiveness) or decrease revenues and increasing spending (eliminate Biden's tax increase on large corporations, make permanent tax cuts for the rich, eliminate IRS hiring to go after rich tax-cheats).
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Defend the price-gouging monopolistic corporations, prime GOP donors, raising prices far beyond inflation in order to channel record profits into stock buy-backs and dividends instead of lowering prices to consumers, which is "the biggest domestic culprit" of inflation. Robert Reicht.
Oppose his numerous anti-inflation measures, such as:
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Lowering Medicare drug prices
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Pumping strategic oil reserves to increase gasoline supplies and lower gas prices
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Eliminating the container-ship backlog off southern California
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Clean energy tax credits.
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Stopping junk fees, disguised extra profit to jack up, for example, airline family seating and concert ticket fees, cable and hospital bills.
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Ignore the reality that high inflation began in Trump's last year, fueled by the GOP stimulus, his raising Chinese tariffs, his forcing OPEC into a 2-yr. slash of production that doubled gas prices, his worsening the declining economy by his weak pandemic countermeasures in lieu of a national strategy.
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Wages aren't pushing inflation because wages have been increasing at a slower pace than prices — leaving most workers worse off. Most American workers haven’t seen a real wage increase in 40 years.
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"The things you buy cost more than they did two years ago and though you likely make more money than you did, it’s not quite enough to stay at par. Maybe you’ve had to cut back on spending as a result. But also: Most of you are not worrying about having a job, because employers are eager to hire." Jonathan Last
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Lowering costs should be a bipartisan endeavor, not just a Dem one.
4. Lie: Democrats voted to hire an army of IRS agents who will audit and harass the middle
class.
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IRS audit rates for households earning $400,000 or less will remain the same.
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The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in July, provides funding to get IRS staffing back to pre-2010 levels, the year Republicans cut IRS staff by 30% despite ever increasing tax return filings.
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The IRS will largely be hiring staff specifically to replace anticipated retirements but also to pursue the ultra-wealthy tax evaders, not the middle class, taking on their squads of accountants and tax attorneys hiding their taxable incomes.
REFS: Principally, the 3 biggest GOP lies of the midterms (in addition to the Big Lie) - Robert
Reich, 10/17. Also, Dan Pfeiffer, the WashPost's Jennifer Rubin and Paul Waldman.
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Copyright 2022, Mike Smith, King Features, 9-15-22
