Anyone who’s followed the (not-so) illustrious career of Barbara Comstock over the years knows a few things about her.
First, you know that Comstock – despite her fallacious claims to the contrary – has never been a “moderate” in any way/shape/form. In reality, Comstock:
“…earned her cred as one of the GOP’s top attack dogs. She was a leading crusader among Republicans interested in impeaching then-President Bill Clinton, served as the chairwoman of I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby’s defense fund and ran opposition research for the Republican National Committee.”
Today, Comstock continues in that fine, hard-right tradition by voting with Donald Trump an eye-popping 98% (!) of the time. Not only is that horrendous in its own right, it’s also definitive proof that Comstock is NOT – repeat, NOT! -” moderate” or “an independent voice,” as she laughably claims in her new TV ad (see below). Oh, and if voting 98% of the time with Trump isn’t terrible enough, FiveThirtyEight.com rates Comstock an enormous 51 points (!!!) more to the right than her district (VA-10) would warrant her being. In other words, if Comstock truly were an “independent voice” representing her district, she’d vote with trump something like 47% of the time, not 98% of the time. Holy hard-right!
Second, given that she’s so hard right, yet has always run in relatively “purple” districts of Northern Virginia, you know that Comstock has had to be a master of obfuscation (aka, lying) about her record. Part of that obfuscation is, as noted above, somehow convincing people that she’s a “moderate” or “independent voice,” which she absolutely IS NOT. Another part of Comstock’s strategy, as we’ve seen in campaign after campaign, is to attack her Democrats on the standard, brain-dead Republican lines of a) “[fill in the blank Democratic candidate] will RAISE YOUR TAXES!!!!” and b) “[fill in the blank Democratic candidate] is LIBERALIBERALIBERAL!!!” Both attack lines, of course, are devoid of substance and a sure sign that Comstock has nothing positive to offer — no positive vision, no serious accomplishments, nothing. So she resorts to spending 100s of 1000s of $$$ on crap like this (complete with stupid, super-annoying circus-style music – vomit).
Third, you know that Comstock lies. And lies some more. And then when she is done lying, she…continues to lie. In this new TV ad, for instance, Comstock’s lies include…well, everything! Let’s list them, from beginning to end.
a) COMSTOCK AD CLAIM: “Barbara Comstock voted for tax cuts helping Virginia families and creating good jobs.” In fact, according to independent analyses like this one, 53% of taxpayers (working class and middle class) would pay HIGHER taxes in 2027, while the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers will see a tax cut of around $20,000! Also worth nothing is that in 2027, “the top 1 percent would receive 83 percent of total benefits,” while “people making less than $75,000 in income would see tax hikes, including a 26 percent tax average increase for those who make between $20,000 and $30,000.” Also worth noting, a recent analysis by the Brookings Institution found that the Republican tax law that Comstock is touting will make things worse in basically every way – worse inequality, much higher deficits/debt, a “small” impact on long-term economic growth, etc. As for supposed creation of “good jobs,” it turns out that “many companies are returning huge portions of their billions in tax savings to shareholders in the form of share buybacks and dividend increases — not necessarily new hiring and investment.” Even worse, “The tax law didn’t do anything to provide an incentive to employers to create jobs. There’s nothing in there that would suggest that employers have a particular incentive to hire more people or pay the ones that they have more money.” In sum, Comstock’s claim in the TV ad is TOTALLY, WILDLY FALSE.
b) COMSTOCK AD CLAIM: “Jennifer Wexton is the “#1 Liberal in the Virginia Senate.” This one is more brain-dead than anything. And although I’m sure that Cindy is flattered to see her VAPLAN ratings cited, the way Comstock is using this is simply mindless drivel. For starters, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being liberal; that’s simply standard right-wing bullshit to distract from stuff like the fact that Comstock votes 98% of the time with our corrupt, race-baiting, demagogic, quite possibly criminal “president.” Next, let’s look at the “liberal” issues that Comstock thinks are so terrible – Medicaid expansion to hundreds of thousands of Virginians (which, I’d note, a number of Comstock’s former REPUBLICAN colleagues voted for!); the “clean rate freeze bill” (Comstock would prefer that Dominion keep Virginia ratepayers’ money, not give it back); “civil asset forfeiture,” which is an issue you’d think that libertarians, conservatives and liberals could all agree on; a bill banning utility campaign donations (of course Comstock wants to keep the corporate gravy train flowing); guns in churches (NRA-funded Comstock probably thinks that’s a great idea); fair/non-gerrymandered redistricting (again, who opposes THAT?); etc. Finally, I’m not at all convinced that going back to the ol’ right-wing “liberalliberalliberal!” attack line is going to work in 2018, when liberals are super energized and heading to the polls in droves. But whatever, it’s her money to flush down the toilet on stupid TV ads if she wants to do that…
c) COMSTOCK AD CLAIM: Wexton supposedly “wants to raise taxes $1,817 a year,” “cut the child tax credit in half” and “raise taxes on 90% of U.S. taxpayers.” I mean, I’m not even going to do a detailed debunking of this garbage, it’s simply too stupid to even respond to, other than to ask, what the HELL are you blabbering about now, Barbara Comstock?
d) COMSTOCK AD CLAIM: Comstock’s supposedly “Virginia Independent Voice.” Debunked already above, but just to reiterate: Comstock votes 98% of the time with Trump, which is an enormous 51 points (!!!) more to the right than her district (VA-10) would warrant her being. In reality, Comstock is almost totally in lockstep with the corrupt, criminal, Putin puppet in the White House. But of course she doesn’t want to talk about THAT, so she puts out trash ads like the following. Clearly, Comstock thinks that VA-10 voters are complete idiots. On November 6, send her a resounding message that you don’t appreciate having your intelligence insulted by Trump’s VA-10 “mini me,” by sending Jennifer Wexton to Congress, preferably in a landslide!
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