Last week, James Talarico had the flu. He regularly comes into contact with thousands of people, so picking up germs on the campaign trail is completely normal. He rested at his home in Austin, stayed in contact with his campaign, and even joined a Zoom call with a fever. Really, not a serious thing.
Not until Republican MAGA influencers on Twitter made up a tall tale about Talarico being in a mental hospital in Ohio. “Made up,” as in completely fabricated, as in it came from the imagination of some incel somewhere.
This lie went so far, so extreme, that they created a fake AI phone call to try to prove what they were saying. And that’s how they were caught. The phone call said Talarico was discharged that day, when he was literally spotted in Austin the day before. And it all crumbled from there.
As CNN reported ⬆️, this lie raked up millions and millions of views on Twitter (I don’t care what the Nazis renamed it to). Doesn’t that prove that Twitter is a misinformation platform?
Based on Elon’s baby mama, Ashley St. Clair’s lawsuit, this platform also produces child pornography. There have been lawsuits in California, Tennessee, and investigations in Europe, all regarding alleged sexually explicit AI-generated images of children.
The National Institutes of Health published a study in 2025, which concluded there was a measurable rise in hate speech, racist slurs, and extremist rhetoric following Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform.
Twitter is the propaganda arm for the far-right, built by an oligarch, run on patriarchy, and fueled by racism, nationalism, and whatever toxic sludge pays for a checkmark this week.
Some of this is indefensible.
It’s supposed to be a criminal offense to distribute deepfakes in Texas. Republicans passed that law last year. Not to mention impersonation and defamation.
This is a good time to remind everyone that Section 230 shields Twitter (and other social media companies) from what users post, and there have been bipartisan efforts to repeal it in the past. Those efforts have been mostly blocked by industry.
The Section 230 discussion really deserves its own post, because it’s been marketed as limiting free speech, instead of actual content moderation. But Twitter, a platform without content moderation, seems to make the argument for us.
We have to win elections if we ever want a better world.
This morning, one of the Krassenstein twins released a video featuring an audio clip from Twitter with Ken Paxton’s Senior Advisor, Michelle Smith. The clip implies the Paxton campaign helped invent this lie.
Yeah, you heard that right. Here’s the full video from the Wall Street Journal:
Once a crook, always a crook.
Republicans lie because they can’t run on what they’ve actually done to Texas. So, they are just out here making shit up.
Like “Gina Hinojosa voted to raise taxes 40 times.”
The more I think about this particular lie, the more irritating it becomes.
Republicans want you to believe the Republican Legislature passed a bill out of a Republican-led committee 40 times, then sent it to the Republican-led House floor 40 times, where Hinojosa had the opportunity to vote on it.
Not to mention that the Texas State Legislature doesn’t levy property taxes.
This lie has been debunked by the Houston Chronicle.
Also, the Texas Democratic Party.
They lie for the sake of lying and hope the people listening will believe it.
And that’s why lies become dangerous.
For years, the phrase most repeated in mainstream media was “Trump’s Big Lie.” Funny, we don’t hear that term thrown around anymore. But it was the lies from Trump and right-wing media and influencers that eventually led to the attempted January 6 insurrection.
In 2016, Russia ran a sweeping operation to help Trump win. A Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed it in a five-volume bipartisan report. Yet, Trump lied about it being a hoax. His base believed him. A decade later, we’re still dealing with him.
Trump spent five years claiming America’s first Black president was born in Kenya. The conspiracy theory got so out of hand that Obama eventually published his long-form birth certificate. But by then, it was too late. A 2016 poll showed that 72% of registered Republicans doubted President Obama’s citizenship.
You know, when George Dubya Bush told us all there were “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq in 2003, he was lying. 4,500 American troops died, along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
When Republicans tell lies, our society suffers. And in the age of Trump, the GOP has almost normalized lying.
Bill Adair, the founder of Politifact, talks in this interview ⬆️ about how Republicans lie way more (and it isn’t even close). He sums it up to Newt Gingrich’s takeover of House Republicans in the early ’90s and how it created an “anything goes” culture where winning justifies everything. Adair also talks about how right-wing media doesn’t challenge them, instead repeating their lies for profit.
Adair said that Americans assume that politicians have always lied.
Maybe they have. But lies in political spaces used to be treated a lot differently.
In 1954, Republican Joseph McCarthy had spent four years smearing people as communists with no proof. Then a lawyer named Joseph Welch asked him on live television, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” His career was over shortly after that.
In 1998, Republicans impeached Bill Clinton for lying under oath. They argued that a president who lies can’t be trusted with the office.
Lying used to have consequences.
Then came Trump.
Donald Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims in his first term, according to the Washington Post. Republicans rewarded him with a re-election.
So the consequences aren’t coming from Washington anymore. Congress won’t deliver them. The Texas Senate wouldn’t deliver them to Ken Paxton. Elon Musk sure as hell won’t. The only accountability left is the ballot.
And brace yourself. If they’ll fake a phone call to put a Senate candidate in a psych ward, they’ll fake something worse before November 3. Don’t believe anything you see from Republicans (golden rule).
Early voting starts Monday, October 19, and runs through Friday, October 30. Election Day is November 3.
Vote all the way down the ballot. Senate. Governor. Railroad commissioner. Every judge. Every state house seat. And vote against every lying Republican on it.
21 days until the November election!
First Day of Early Voting: October 19, 2026
Last Day to Apply for Ballot by Mail: October 23, 2026
Last Day of Early Voting: October 30, 2026
Election Day: November 3, 2026
Did you know you can find links to all the previous Meet the Candidate articles on these lists?:
Click here to find out what Legislative districts you’re in.
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I've come to expect lies from the MAGAts, and it still infuriates me. It's going to be quite a slog to undo the damage they have done, but let's start with the midterms. VOTE DEMOCRATIC, and like Michelle said Vote all the way down the ballot. Senate. Governor. Railroad commissioner. Every judge. Every state house seat. And vote against every lying Republican on it.
Brilliant piece! Thank you