The Nation reports from Michigan:
“Some 1,500 people voted under dead people’s and prisoners’ names from 2008-11, according to Michigan’s auditor general. Many might be clerical errors, but this [...]]]> The zombies are back. It seems like only yesterday (okay, it was January) they were walking the sand hills of South Carolina.

The Nation reports from Michigan:

“Some 1,500 people voted under dead people’s and prisoners’ names from 2008-11, according to Michigan’s auditor general. Many might be clerical errors, but this illustrates the need to ensure accurate voter rolls.”

Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson wrote this in a July 2 Times-Herald column, and she lied.

Brentin Mock continues:

While it’s true that the auditor general initially found close to 1,500 cases in which a dead or imprisoned person appeared to vote, the Department of State’s Bureau of Elections (BOE) said the auditor general was mistaken on all 1,500 counts (pdf; page 17). The auditor general reports that BOE informed investigators “that in every instance where it appears a deceased person or incarcerated person voted and local records were available, a clerical error was established as the reason for the situation. In addition, the Department [BOE] informed [the auditor general] that in some cases, voters submitted absent voter ballots shortly before they died. The Department informed us that the examples provided did not result in a single verified case that an ineligible person voted.” (My emphasis.)

Like model legislation drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, the groundless allegations from Michigan are almost a carbon copy of the January episode in which South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (R) made similar claims:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Attorney General asked SLED to investigate potential voter fraud in the state after evidence that more than 900 dead people appear to have “voted” in recent elections. The evidence was uncovered by Kevin Shwedo, the director of the Department of Motor Vehicles, during an extensive review of data related to the state’s new voter ID law, officials said.

Let’s recap what the investigation by the South Carolina State Election Commission revealed after a wasting staff time and taxpayer money on this earlier snipe hunt:

As was suspected from the beginning, the fevered stories of “zombie voters” turned out to be fantasy. This week, state elections officials reviewed 207 of the supposed 950 cases of dead people voting, and couldn’t confirm fraud in any of them. 106 stemmed from clerical errors at the polls, and another 56 involved bad data — the usual culprits when claims of dead voters have surfaced in the past.

Of course, proof isn’t the point of these stunts. Advancing the “voter fraud” narrative is, and these allegations accomplish just what they are intended to. They get front-page headlines and prominent news-at-six coverage with an eye-popping crawler at the bottom of viewers’ TV screens: Dead People Vote! Investigations that reveal the allegations to be bovine excrement end up on page A6. There are no crawlers condemning the state attorney general or secretary of state for running a con on the public. Republican operatives toss these “voter fraud” smoke bombs into newsrooms every few months to keep fresh anecdotes of voter fraud in circulation and, over time, to convince people that it is widespread, that where there’s smoke, there must be a fire … somewhere, one that can only be put out by passing Voter ID laws not designed to prevent it.

Urban legends of the dead voting are targeted not so much at the general public, but at the same conservatives who lapped up Bush administration lies about Iraqi WMDs like milk from a saucer. The GOP knows its base well. Tell supporters credulous enough to fall for the WMD lie that the dead are voting en masse, and the marks will fall for that, too. Wrap it in a flag and they’ll believe anything.

A pattern of fraud? You damn betcha!

Courtesy of the Brennan Center (2007):

Exaggerated or unfounded allegations of fraud by dead voters include the following:

• In Georgia in 2000, 5,412 votes were alleged to have been cast by deceased voters over the past 20 years. The allegations were premised on a flawed match of voter rolls to death lists. A follow-up report clarified that only one instance had been substantiated, and this single instance was later found to have been an error: the example above, in which Alan J. Mandel was confused with Alan J. Mandell. No other evidence of fraudulent votes was reported.

• In Michigan in 2005, 132 votes were alleged to have been cast by deceased voters. The allegations were premised on a flawed match of voter rolls to death lists. A follow-up investigation by the Secretary of State revealed that these alleged dead voters were actually absentee ballots mailed to voters who died before Election Day; 97 of these ballots were never voted, and 2715 were voted before the voter passed away. Even if the remaining eight cases all revealed substantiated fraud, that would amount to a rate of at most 0.0027%.

• In New Jersey in 2004, 4,755 deceased voters were alleged to have cast a ballot. The allegations were premised on a flawed match of voter rolls to death lists. No follow-up investigation publicly documented any substantiated cases of fraud of which we are aware, and there were no reports that any of these allegedly deceased voters voted in 2005.

• In New York in 2002 and 2004, 2,600 deceased voters were alleged to have cast a ballot, again based on a match of voter rolls to death lists. Journalists following up on seven cases found clerical errors and mistakes but no fraud, and no other evidence of fraud was reported.

Michigan’s Secretary of State and South Carolina’s Attorney General were undoubtedly unaware of these facts, or or else didn’t think they mattered. Republicans have been crying voter fraud since the 1980s, at least. What is different now is they have more channels for promoting the lie.

Examining the effects of recently passed Voter ID bills, the Washington Post  reports that the “numbers suggest that the legitimate votes rejected by the laws are far more numerous than are the cases of fraud that advocates of the rules say they are trying to prevent.”

In trying to promote Voter ID passage, the Republican National Lawyers Association published a report last year citing some “400 election fraud prosecutions” in the entire country in the last decade. The Post  observes, “That’s not even one per state per year.” Among the dead links the association provides to substantiate its claims, only six cases are listed as voter impersonation fraud — the kind Voter ID laws are supposedly designed to stop — and none of those indicate votes actually being cast by anyone passing themselves off as someone else, dead or alive. Most involve vote buying or falsified registrations.

Meantime, the Christian Science Monitor  reports that Georgia rejected 873 provisional ballots in 2008 due to ID requirements, and 64 more in this year’s presidential primary. Indiana tossed hundreds of provisional ballots in 2008, plus a hundred more in this year’s primary. In its 2012 primary, Tennessee blocked 154. That’s 1200 votes rejected in Georgia and Indiana alone according to an Associated Press investigation.

The party that believes government doesn’t work has found a concrete way to prove it. Too cowardly to face the voters in a fair election? It’s nothing a dose of vote suppression Viagra won’t help. And Voter ID is only one of the tools in play. Common Cause just released an updated summary of additional Deceptive Election Practices and Voter Intimidation to watch out for this fall.

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.)

Something Happened

Between the time ten years ago when we had big surpluses and were paying off the debt and now when we are told the “Obama [...]]]> Just ten years ago this country was running huge surpluses and paying off its debt. But then we elected Obama and all hell broke loose. Oh, wait…

Something Happened

Between the time ten years ago when we had big surpluses and were paying off the debt and now when we are told the “Obama spending and deficit” mean we have to cut back on the things We, the People do for each other, something happened. Something changed. The things that happened, the things that changed, are being ignored in the current DC discussion about what we need to do to fix things.

Separation From Reality

This DC/Tea Party argument over deficits and the Reagan/Bush debt is completely separated from facts and history. And it is completely separated from what the public wants. There are things that we are supposed to just not remember and which seem to be taboo in the national media. There are things that are “off the table” for discussion, and certainly for solving our problems.

But here is some reality anyway, even if we’re not supposed to see it. Just ten years ago we were paying off debt at a rate that would have completely paid it all off by now. But under George W. Bush we cut taxes for the rich and more than doubled military spending. We deregulated and stopped enforcing laws. We let the big corporations run rampant. Our federal budget turned from huge surpluses to massive deficits, and Bush said it was “incredibly positive news” because it would lead to a debt crisis they could use to shock people into letting the corporate right privatize and thereby profit.

And then, under and because of Bush, our economy collapsed.

Deficits From Tax Cuts And Military Spending

Once again: the deficits are the direct result of tax cuts for the rich, and huge increases in military spending. Then that huge jump in already-large deficits up past the trillion-dollar level that occurred in Bush’s last budget was the result of the Bush-caused financial collapse. The economy collapsed and the government stepped in with hundreds of billions, even trillions, to rescue the wealthy, with “bailouts,” while doing little, even cutting back, on what our government does for We, the People. That all happened in Bush’s last budget year, not Obama’s first.

To Fix The Damage, Undo The Cause

The way to fix deficits is to undo the damage Bush did, by raising taxes on the rich, and cutting back the huge, bloated, extreme, massive, astonishing, incredible, stratospheric military budget. And we have to boost the economy by investing in rebuilding our infrastructure to get people employed. We have millions of jobs that need doing, while millions are looking for jobs. Then those people will be paying taxes instead of collecting unemployment and food stamps. And the infrastructure improvements will bosst our economy’s competitiveness. This is all so simple and obvious that only DC insider types could miss it.

Taxes And Spending = Democracy

Cutting spending doesn’t cut the need, it shifts the burden. Cutting government spending does not cut the costs to society and the overall economy of meeting those needs. Cutting government spending just shifts — or privatizes — those costs onto the backs of people who can’t afford to spend that money. That need and cost is still there in the economy, except without government — democracy — handling it, doing it for all of us, less expensively. Cutting government’s role opens those functions up to private profit, instead of We, the People taking care of and watching out for each other — and making the decisions.

Do you really think that if you phase out Medicare, that old people won’t still need the medical care? Of course they will still need it, but the government won’t be negotiating cost-savings for them, they’ll be on their own, up against the giant insurance monopolies.

In the 1950s the top tax rate was 90%, and the country’s economy worked a lot better for a lot more of us. We didn’t have big deficits. We certainly weren’t piling up huge debt. With high tax rates at the top, predatory, sell-the-farm business models didn’t make sense. We were investing in infrastructure, and that infrastructure made us competitive in world markets. We as a people were doing better every year, paying our bills, getting educated and becoming more civilized. This empowerment led to demands for equal rights for all of us.

Ignored By Media

The “both sides do it” major media is simply ignoring the majority of the public. But people aren’t fooled. Poll after poll (did I already say that?) shows that the public “gets it.” Poll after poll shows that the public wants our government to address jobs, not deficits, to restore top tax rates, to invest in America’s infrastructure, to leave Social Security and Medicare alone (or increase them,) and to put more money into education. Poll after poll.

The Public Wants Jobs

The public gets it. Poll after poll shows that Americans want their government focused on jobs, not deficits. The latest, from CNN, taken August 5-7, shows 49% of Americans think unemployment is the biggest issue facing the country, while only 27% say deficits. Only 16% say the deficit is the country’s biggest problem.

Rebuild The Dream

The The American Dream Movement is rolling out their Contract for the American Dream. The Tea-Party-fascinated press is largely ignoring this, but this movement represents the majority of the public, and can’t be ignored for long. I’ll be writing more about it later.

Also the Take Back the American Dream conference is coming up on Oct. 3. Click through and learn more.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

When you sell the farm, the farm’s gone.

Is it already too late for America? I’m starting to think that the anti-tax, anti-government conservative movement that started in the mid-70s, elected Reagan and led to [...]]]> Feb. 2010: Did Bush Leave Us Bankrupt, Corrupt, Ungovernable?

When you sell the farm, the farm’s gone.

Is it already too late for America? I’m starting to think that the anti-tax, anti-government conservative movement that started in the mid-70s, elected Reagan and led to the terrible Bush Presidency may have effectively destroyed the country, leaving it bankrupt, corrupt,ungovernable, ruled by a wealthy elite — and we’re only now just starting to realize it. To cover tax cuts we stopped maintaining the infrastructure and started borrowing. To satisfy their hatred of government we increasingly stripped away rule of law, regulation, and belief in one-person-one-vote. We are seeing the consequences of all of that coming back to roost now.

Reagan left us with massive debt and ever-increasing interest payments. Bush left us with $1.3 trillion deficits and a destroyed economy that would force further increases in the borrowing for years – to be blamed on Obama. The “free marketers” gave away our manufacturing base that will take decades and massive capital investment to recover. Obama can try, but it may just be too late to do anything about the borrowing. We need massive investment in jobs and infrastructure, and a national economic/industrial plan. But, with their own Reagan/Bush debt as ammunition, conservative ideologues continue to block every effort at investment to get out of the mess we are in.

And with the country on the very edge of defaulting on the Reagan/Bush debt, Senate Republicans are FILIBUSTERING the very debt-ceiling deal they were for just a few weeks ago…

There is much more at that old post, go read.

The informed reply goes something like this:

X-posted from Jazz from Hell

Deficits weren’t a priority when nearly all Republicans and a good number of Democrats voted for the ill conceived and ill advised invasions and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq close to a decade ago. They weren’t a priority when tens, if not [...]]]> What “the great deficit debate” really boils down to is one thing: priorities.

Deficits weren’t a priority when nearly all Republicans and a good number of Democrats voted for the ill conceived and ill advised invasions and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq close to a decade ago. They weren’t a priority when tens, if not hundreds of billions went to waste or were just “lost” in Iraq – not knowing if they ended up in the hands of those who were the stated enemy. They weren’t a priority when billions of no-bid contracts were handed out like candy, with no accounting.

There were some in Congress, including my Representative, Scott Garrett, who weren’t yet elected when the first vote was taken to start the folly in Iraq. However, he, and his ilk have been present for all or most of the subsequent economy killing votes to continue funding these disasters with our children’s, grandchildren’s and great-grandchildren’s money. There wasn’t even a hesitation on most of this – even with the very basic premise that cutting taxes in conjunction with a war is unheard of and pretty much unprecedented.

There was little to no concern of the drain on the economy, the massive deficits being caused by these trillions – coupled with the massive tax cuts at the same time. There was little to no concern when the levees in Louisiana couldn’t hold back, despite prior warnings. There was little to no concern when bridges were collapsing in Minnesota, when a failure of the power grid knocked out much of the east coast for over a full day or as our country’s roads were given failing and close to failing grades.

There was little to no concern when the amount of money being borrowed was a neverending pit, or when the weapons being used weren’t really suitable for the kind of “war” that was being waged. There was little to no concern when the debt was piling up and our country’s coffers were being raided for “business opportunities” for looting by private companies post invasion rebuilding. There was little to no concern that this government was paying private contractors scads of money for “security” in Iraq – with no accountability and on numerous instances, with highly questionable behavior.

So now, as we hear suddenly from the same people that brought the ill advised invasion and occupation of Iraq, the same people that doubled down on Afghanistan, the same people who have no interest in holding those accountable for stealing untold billions from We the People – we hear that this country can’t afford to take care of its own?

Really? Really? Perhaps if any thought was given to the plight of Americans and the US economy for the past 8 years, then we wouldn’t be in a “nobody could have guessed” scenario as the guilty parties try to give moral advice.