Romney Advises Broke, About-to-be-Unemployed College Students: “Just Borrow Money From Your Parents!”

Back in 2008, I used to argue that Sarah Palin didn’t really exist — that she was actually an incredibly elaborate Tina Fey performance art project, an Andy-Kaufman style hoax. Because, seriously — Palin was so staggeringly vapid that it stretched credibility that she could be for real. It almost seemed more likely that she might be an over-the-top parody of a certain kind of blissfully idiotic, all-American wingnut, than that she was an actual person.

I often have similar thoughts about Mitt Romney. A surpassingly perfect villain for our times, he appears to come straight from central casting as the slick, shifty-eyed C.E.O. who’s fixing to downsize your ass — and implement his evil scheme for world domination while he’s at it. The G.O.P could not have run a more astonishing incarnation of the self-parodying cluelessness of the 1 percenters if they tried. For all practical purposes, it’s as if the the top-hat-and-tails-wearing Monopoly guy was their candidate.  READ MORE

Keeping Students From the Polls

Then-presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama greets supporters before a rally in Madison, Wisconsin. President Obama returned to the University of Wisconsin to get young voters and minorities excited about voting in the midterms, 02/12/08. (photo: Rick Bowmer/AP)

By The New York Times | Editorial

28 December 11

Next fall, thousands of students on college campuses will attempt to register to vote and be turned away. Sorry, they will hear, you have an out-of-state driver's license. Sorry, your college ID is not valid here. Sorry, we found out that you paid out-of-state tuition, so even though you do have a state driver's license, you still can't vote.

Political leaders should be encouraging young adults to participate in civic life, but many Republican state lawmakers are doing everything they can instead to prevent students from voting in the 2012 presidential election. Some have openly acknowledged doing so because students tend to be liberal.

Seven states have already passed strict laws requiring a government-issued ID (like a driver's license or a passport) to vote, which many students don't have, and 27 others are considering such measures. Many of those laws have been interpreted as prohibiting out-of-state driver's licenses from being used for voting.

It's all part of a widespread Republican effort to restrict the voting rights of demographic groups that tend to vote Democratic. Blacks, Hispanics, the poor and the young, who are more likely to support President Obama, are disproportionately represented in the 21 million people without government IDs. On Friday, the Justice Department, finally taking action against these abuses, blocked the new voter ID law in South Carolina.

Republicans usually don't want to acknowledge that their purpose is to turn away voters, especially when race is involved, so they invented an explanation, claiming that stricter ID laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud. In fact, there is almost no voter fraud in America to prevent. 

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