20 Obvious Lies That Will Shock Conservatives (If They Ever Bothered To Read A Book Or Two)

Addicting Info

March 6, 2012

By Justin “Filthy Liberal Scum” Rosario

Whenever conservative bloggers try to be clever and “expose” liberal myths, you just know it’s time to pull out the rain coat, ’cause there’s gonna be a whole lot of bullshit flying around. The latest example of this is John Hawkins’ “20 Obvious Truths That Will Shock Liberals” whose real title should be “20 Easily Disprovable Stories That Conservatives Chumps Buy Hook, Line & Sinker.” Let’s take a look shall we?

1) The Founding Fathers were generally religious, gun-toting small government fanatics who were so far to the Right that they’d make Ann Coulter look like Jimmy Carter. That’s nice. They also thought leeches could cure illness. Does that mean we should stop advancing medicine or building on their ideas for a better future? I’ll keep this mind the next time some gibbering buffoon demands that “original intent” be the only guide for interpreting the Constitution. The original intent of the Founders was that slavery was just fine, black people counted as only 3/5 of a man and women couldn’t vote at all. Let’s get back to basics!! Warning: you might find that women and African-Americans have some objections.

As for “small government?” Pure ignorance. They had laws dictating what kind of public behavior was acceptable and what size barrel could be used to transport food stuffs. Small government? Don’t make me laugh.

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Boehner Brings Home Pork-Barrel Defense Project That Pentagon Doesn’t Want

Despite Earmark Ban, Boehner Brings Home Pork-Barrel Defense Project That Pentagon Doesn’t Want

Think Progress- By Zaid Jilani at 9:58 am

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) likes to tout his opposition to earmarks. Indeed, since first entering Congress in 1991, the congressman has never requested a single earmark. And one of his caucus’s first moves in the new Congress has been to renew a voluntary earmark ban in the House of Representatives, making good on a major campaign promise.

Yet as CAP Senior Fellow Scott Lilly reveals in a new analysis, “No, He Wouldn’t—Would He?,” Boehner and House Republicans appear to have included an earmark-in-all-but-name for the new Speaker’s district in the newly released House Appropriations Continuing Resolution (CR). The CR includes massive cuts to important programs like Head Start and LIHEAP, but one thing it doesn’t cut is $450 million stashed away for the construction of a Joint Strike Fighter engine the Pentagon doesn’t even want.

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5 Ways to Deal With Your Conservative Relatives This Thanksgiving

5 Ways to Deal With Your Conservative Relatives This Thanksgiving

How does one deal with the conservatives at the family table while avoiding a massive food fight? Stay calm and relaxed, and follow these simple guidelines.

AlterNet / By Sarah Seltzer and Lauren Kelley

November 24, 2010 |

Maybe your brother-in-law works on Wall Street and declares he wants to see the Bush tax cuts extended indefinitely as he scoops himself a generous portion of mashed potatoes. Or perhaps your aunt mentions, while checking on the turkey, that Sarah Palin is her role model and she can’t wait to follow her Rupert Murdoch-sponsored book tour from city to city. Or maybe, over a slice of pumpkin pie and coffee, your grandfather suggests that the Tea Party’s ideas aren’t half bad, and he likes that Rand Paul fella because he’s really getting the government out of people’s Medicare.

Given this month’s volatile political climate, chances are someone’s going to break the no politics/no religion rule and say something to make your blood boil as you sit around the table this Thanksgiving. When that cringe-inducing moment arrives, whether it’s over appetizers or dessert, you want to defend the honor of progressives and their ideas without coming across as snotty, snarky, or out of touch. And without letting the situation devolve into violence. (You’re a pacifist, right?)

As tempting as it will be to ask sarcastic questions about teabagging and what kind of scones are served at Tea Parties, that will only get you so far. And you don’t want to ruin your appetite. It’s Thanskgiving, after all.

So how does one deal with the conservatives at the family table while avoiding a massive food fight? Stay calm and relaxed, and follow these simple guidelines.

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Happy Thanksgiving Justice Bloggers!

Have a safe and fun holiday!

Suzie-Q

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Why Do Americans Keep Getting Suckered By Right-Wing Lies?

Why Do Americans Keep Getting Suckered By Right-Wing Lies?

The Nation / By Danny Goldberg

Until progressives change the mind sets of the tens of millions who believe right-wing mythology, elections will be disappointing regardless of who is in the White House.

November 21, 2010 |

Ideas don’t happen on their own. Throughout history ideas need patrons.” —Matt Kibbe, president of Freedom-Works, a tea party advocacy group, quoted in Jane Mayer’s piece on the Koch brothers in The New Yorker.

Almost half of the public is either misinformed or subject to unanswered right wing narratives. If I believed that there was a chance of Sharia law being imposed in the United States I too would be gravely concerned. If I believed that most Europeans and Canadians had inferior health care to that of average Americans, I too would be against health care reform. If I believed that man-made global warning did not exist or that there were nothing we could do about it and that environmental efforts were responsible for unemployment I’d be against cap and trade. If I believed that prisoner abuse would make my family significantly less likely to be killed by terrorists, my thinking about torture would be different. And if I believed that the problems with the economy had been caused by too much government instead of too little, that my personal freedom was threatened by the government instead of large corporations, I’d probably be in a tea party supporter and a Republican.

Unless and until progressives change the mind sets of the tens of millions of people who believe right-wing mythology, who never read the New York Times or listen to NPR, who never watch any TV news other than Fox, future elections will have disappointing results for progressives regardless of who is in the White House.

Even Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have limits to their ability to de-program those who have been indoctrinated by conservative orthodoxy. As David Bromwich recently wrote in New York Review of Books, “You can learn from them why the wrong ideas are funny, but you cannot learn why the wrong ideas are wrong.”

Changing minds is more of an art than a science. Polling and focus groups are reasonably accurate at determining how people already feel, but the idea that every message to educate or convert can be mathematically tested is illusory. Even more dangerous is the notion that public opinion somehow comes from the sky and is thus impossible to influence. The right wing knows better.

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The American Ruling Class



Rolling Stone feature discusses issues explored in The American Ruling Class

facebook July 16, 2009

by Alive Mind

The American Ruling Class has never been more relevant to the current news cycle or to the collective consciousness of the American public. Goldman Sachs is announcing record profits and it is the subject of a big Rolling Stone expose in which Matt Taibbi discusses “The Great American Bubble Machine,” stating, “The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” Does Goldman Sachs still rule the world? Find out the back story with the feature documentary, The American Ruling Class.

John Kirby , the director for this film, also posts on the Providence Journal and has done an article on “Building What”. The ad and “Geraldo-at-Large” spot can be seen on the family-members’ campaign Web site, .buildingwhat.org.

The movie, about an hour and a half, can be seen on HULU

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10 Terrible Things Republicans Will Try to Do If They Take Over in November

10 Terrible Things Republicans Will Try to Do If They Take Over in November

AlterNet / By Devona Walker

Think things are bad now? Take a look at what could happen if Republicans retake Congress in November.

September 20, 2010 |

Democrats are in trouble come November. If current polling is any indication, Republicans have a good chance of reclaiming a majority in the House of Representatives and perhaps even the Senate (though the Senate is a less likely prospect). That’s not because people are wildly excited about Republicans. In fact, a recent poll shows that registered voters rate the GOP’s performance as worse than the Democrats’. But the enthusiasm gap between the parties gives the GOP an advantage; a nine-point advantage among likely voters, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Perhaps Americans should know what’s really at stake if this batch of Republicans takes over Congress in November. Here are 10 terrible things the GOP might do:

1) Shut down government to stop health care bill. “All the Republican Congress needs to say in January is, ‘We won’t fund it,” said former Speaker of the House and likely 2012 presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, speaking about the GOP leadership’s intent to shut down the government to stop health care reform from being enacted. He should know. He did it before, back in 1995 when the Republicans reclaimed Congress during the Clinton administration. The GOP’s government shutdown was disastrous for millions of Americans.

Since Republicans can’t directly repeal the bill — President Obama would veto such an action — they may cut funding in order to hold up its implementation, forcing a stand-off with Democrats that could lead to government shutdown. Gingrich isn’t the only one sounding this threat. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said, “The endgame is a fight over funding.” Rep. Mike Pence called rolling back health reform a “mainstream GOP position.”

Meanwhile, in an interview with TPM, Donna Shalala, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services during the Clinton administration, discussed the consequences of government shutdown. Services would be stopped: “Social Security checks, Medicare reimbursements…welfare checks to the state, Medicaid checks to the state.” Federal employees would be furloughed. It would “stop all new enrollees into the [Social Security] system,” Shalala said. She continued, “It bounces through: it’s grocery stores, it’s farms […] It bounces through when people don’t have money at that scale.” Shalala also pointed out that the economy is in far worse shape today than it was during the Clinton years, so the impact of government shutdown would likely be worse than in the 1990s.

2) Attempt to privatize Social Security. Back in 2005, former President George W. Bush tried to privatize Social Security by creating independent spending accounts, similar to 401Ks. He failed. But unlike Republicans today, Bush did not have the advantage of Tea-Party backed ultraconservative Republicans, some of whom honestly believe the only role of the federal government is to fight wars and protect our borders. Among the GOP’s up and comers is Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee. He wants to create personal spending retirement accounts invested in the stock market, which sounds a lot like the current 401K system: You know, the one that lost nearly 40 percent of its value during the financial crisis.

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How Obama’s Election Drove The American Right Insane

How Obama’s Election Drove the American Right Insane

For huge numbers of dedicated right-wing Americans, November 5, 2008, was the end of the world. Or at least, the end of America as they knew it.

PoliPoint Press / By John Amato and David Neiwert

May 26, 2010 |

The following is adapted from “Over the Cliff: How Obama’s Election Drove the American Right Insane,” due out next month from PoliPoint Press.

On the day Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, much of the nation — particularly those who supported and voted for him — celebrated the election of the first African American to the country’s highest office. For those who voted for his opponent, John McCain, there was naturally the usual bitterness and disappointment.

Among a certain subset of those Americans, however — especially those who opposed Obama precisely because he sought to become the nation’s first black president — it went well beyond the usual despair. For them, November 5, 2008, was the end of the world. Or at least, the end of America as they knew it.

So maybe it wasn’t really a surprise that they responded that day with the special venom and violence peculiar to the American Right. Like the noose strung in protest from a tree limb in Texas.

Students at Baylor University in Waco discovered the noose hanging from a campus tree the evening of election day, near a site where angry Republican students had gathered Obama yard signs and burned them in a big bonfire. That same evening, a riot nearly broke out when Obama supporters, chanting the new president’s name, were confronted outside a residence hall by white students who told them: “Any nigger who walks by Penland [Hall], we’re going to kick their ass, we’re going to jump him.” The Obama supporters stopped and responded, “Excuse me?” — and somehow managed to keep the confrontation confined to a mere shouting match until police arrived and broke things up.

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Tea Bag Edition: Explosive evidence in videos contradicts NIST

Youtube

From: wordgeezer April 19, 2010

Now, listen up you arm chair revolutionaries, this happened on G. Duhbya Bush’s watch,so don’t go blamin Obama. It”s true that Obama works for the same shadow government that Duhhbya did, but he’s considerable smarter. Thats why they don’t like him much and why they pay goons like Glen Beck so much money to give him a bad time.

If you want to know why the countries so broke, take a look at the War Presidents budget for the last eight years.
Also take a look at the evidence here and ask yourself if Osama or any of his Al Qaida buddies were capable of this unprecedented destruction.

A new open and independent investigation is needed so we can get this 911 thing resolved. This would be a good subject to bring up at your next tea party, even if it isn’t Dick Army’s idea. Freedom Works, just another tricky neo conservative name, was founded to help Bu$h steal his second election and is now being used to promote the agenda of the same old shadow government that has been around since Ronnie Raygun’s time…G:

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Lieberman digs his own grave promoting Zionist agendas

See Video on Newsmax

Also, in the interview, Holy Joe mentions:

“I’ve been a Democrat all my life. I got rejected by the Democratic Party in 2006 and went on as an independent, and thank God and the people of Connecticut, I got re-elected.

“So I’m up again in 2012. I probably will run again. I’ve got to make that decision by the end of this year, I would say. You know, it’s possible. I haven’t decided what banner I would like to run under. Probably independent is the one that suits me best, because that’s what I am.

“In this very partisan time, it’s not my nature or my philosophy to just walk down one party road whether I think it’s right or not. I’m going to, like a lot of Americans, decide what makes the most sense on issue to issue and do what I think is right.

“So right now I’d probably be more inclined to run again as an independent. But anything is possible.”
Well, what Lieberweinerman fails to mention here is that the Connecticut for Lieberman Party (CFL), the folks who helped get him onthe ballot in 2006, dislike him with a passion and are working to get him out of office. Seems that everybody is pretty much done with him except for AIPAC.

Lieberman Must Go!

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Glenn Beck’s World: What If the Tea Partiers Ruled the Country?

Welcome to Glenn Beck’s World: What If the Tea Partiers Ruled the Country?

Tomdispatch.com / By Chip Ward

March 29, 2010 |

Imagine a land where white, patriarchal, religiously zealous, Tea Party-type patriots rule. It’s called Utah, and what happens here should terrify you.

What if the Tea Party ruled?  Imagine a land, let’s call it Glennbeckistan, where white, patriarchal, religiously zealous, Tea Party-type patriots hold a super-majority in both houses of the legislature, sit in the governor’s mansion, and control most local governments. It’s a place so out of sync with the rest of the nation that states’ rights and even secession are always on the agenda.  It’s a place where gun-ownership trumps all other rights, climate change is considered an insidious socialist conspiracy, and a miscarriage can be investigated as a potential crime.  Welcome to Utah.

Our rightwing red-state legislature just finished its annual 2010 session.  So-called message bills challenged the federal government’s right to govern federal lands, enforce gun controls, legalize abortion, and mandate health reform.  In addition, Utah’s lawmakers cut the education budget, raised tuitions, and slashed services to the disabled.  In fairness, state legislators across the nation, faced with disastrous drops in revenue, have likewise slashed social services and balanced budgets on the backs of the poor.  In Utah, however, they also shelved pensions for public employees.  That they could take such draconian action is instructive — organized labor is weak here, unions being another manifestation of creeping socialism.  Utah’s history of labor organizing, or grass roots and civil rights organizing for that matter, is anemic compared to most of America.  This is the place, after all, where IWW radical Joe Hill was arrested and executed.

Although Utah may be unique in some ways, Republican leaders here want the rest of the nation to be more like us.  In fact, a survey of the 2010 Utah legislative session could be considered a trailer for a movie the national Republican base would like all Americans to star in.  This movie would be for the Tea Party movement what Avatar is to tree huggers.

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