Dumb lists

How can "death panels" not be the #1 dumbest Republican conspiracy? Oh, because Bachmann trumps Palin for pure crazy. Got it.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/29/the-12-weirdest-right-win_n_406045.html

Probably my favorite is the coin deal - a decision during Bush's tenure, which I suspect Bush had absolutely nothing to do with, is derided by the right as an outrage because Obama somehow is at fault.

Most bizarre is their claim that Obama is a Muslim - because, of course, that necessarily means he's somehow part of a terrorist sleeper cell. This was going on at the same time they were attributing nasty sound bites from his long-time pastor to him. To their credit, their "base" didn't seem to notice the conflicting lies.

Frankly, I think it must have been a difficult to whittle down the Republican wingnut list to just 12.

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Dumbest quotes of the 2000s. Once you eliminate the celebrities, guess which side of the political spectrum is massively over-represented?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/29/the-dumbest-quotes-of-the_n_405836.html

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Speaking of dumb...

Really, fox? The word "allegedly" is so big that it's inappropriate for the President of the United States to use it? Here's some actual news for you - some of us really do want a President that has some intelligence and can effectively articulate his thoughts.

tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com

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Speaking of dumb, guess which party things this statement is logical?

I want the President to fail, so I opposed his attempts to help the country. Those attempts were a failure, so he's a failure. But they actually succeeded, which is why I deserve all of the credit for them.

thinkprogress.org/2009/12/28/more-stimulus-hypocrisy

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Of course, expectations of a political party are pretty low when they decide that this is a more pressing issue than ending wars, fixing the economy, creating jobs, improving healthcare or re-installing safeguards against the next financial collapse:

scienceblogs.com

Foreigners using host country's healthcare

Foreigners taking advantage of a neighboring society's policy on helping those who need healthcare to get it, because their home country is inadequate for them.

If you listen to right-wing propaganda, you'll probably assume it's about Mexicans coming to the US. But the reality is, much like a lot of the conservative propaganda out there, the exact opposite.

www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/july-dec09/mexico_12-28.html

1,000,000 American retirees live in Mexico, largely to be near affordable healthcare. You won't hear that simple fact ever spoken on fox.

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Quick look at how the US stacks up against the rest of the industrialized world. So, lines sloping up are good. The US certainly is a superlative, but not in the way that opponents of improving US healthcare suggest.



From http://blogs.ngm.com/.a/6a00e0098226918833012876674340970c-800wi

To keep this in perspective, the Bush tax cuts cost 2 1/2 times as much as the House Democrats' healthcare reform bill. With the key difference that the tax cuts are taking taxes from low and middle income earners and giving it to the rich, where the reform bill is projected to be completely covered by its savings, and end up reducing the deficit.

Remind me again why I'm some kind of communist, socialist, terrorist-loving anti-American for wanting to improve things in this country...

The underwear bomber

Two Saudi al-qaeda military commanders that appear to be behind the attempt to blow up a plane over Detroit were once held by the US. They were captured and jailed, but were released by the Bush Administration in 2007. The two entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" to show they were ready to re-enter society, and were then set free.

abcnews.go.com/Blotter/men-believed-northwest-airlines-plot-set-free/story?id=9434065

Thanks, Bush.

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In June, the Republicans voted to strip funding for the TSA. The conference bill included more than $4 billion for "screening operations," including $1.1 billion in funding for explosives detection systems. The party of NO is actively helping the terrorists by pursuing their political agenda at the expense of the best interests of the US.

www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1209/GOP_blame_at_TSA.html

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One of the fundamental problems with the Transportation Safety Administration is that, after almost a year in office, President Obama has yet to get a leader in place. Oh, the nominee is ready to go, there's just the formality of Senate confirmation. Of course, it turns out that Republicans are so bent on making it look like President Obama is failing, that they will block any nominee to head the TSA. And not just block the appointment, but not allow any discussion or vote whatsoever. They are that willing to allow serious harm to befall the United States, as long as their political goals are being achieved.

politicalirony.com/2009/12/29/republicans-hav-some-explaining-to-do

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Eight years ago, Bush waited 6 days before making a public statement about the shoe bomber. No Democratic candidate or media outlet complained. Today, Obama is being portrayed as 'weak on terror' by both Republicans and in the media from another foiled trans-continental flight attack.

trueslant.com/rickungar/2009/12/29/obama-gets-heat-for-treating-americans-like-adults-in-terror-incident

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The Republican idea of what to do with the underwear bomber? Torture him. And what does torture produce? False confessions. What does actual prisoner interrogation produce? Actionable intelligence. So, are the Republicans trying to get false confessions, suppress actionable intelligence, just enjoy causing pain, or a combination of all of those things?

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/dec/30/torture-bomb-flight-253

Energy independence

Do we now think that it would be a good thing to generate 25% of the US's energy needs from solar energy? What if we could have gotten to that goal a decade ago? Well, during his Presidency, Jimmy Carter signed into law an order to do just that by the year 2000. The goal was achievable, and a plan was set up to get us there. In 1981, the conservatives took over and killed that plan, in order to preserve our dependence on foreign oil - and the oil company profits that come from it.

That's not the only damage the conservatives did to domestic energy production projects. By now we could have much or all of our gas and diesel needs met by algae. Not only was that plan scuttled, but the scientific progress was actively destroyed by the conservatives once they took power.

Can the sabotage be undone, and advancements made? The potential reward is independence from foreign oil. The down side - if this succeeds, oil company profits would be decimated. No wonders the conservatives have been so set on destroying this program.

www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/the-lost-decade-of-algal-biofuel

But here is some very good news in the form of a potential death-blow to conservative energy policy - a home battery that could store up to a week's worth of energy. This could make wind and solar much more viable, which would harm the oil importing strategy.

green.venturebeat.com/2009/12/24/panasonics-new-home-battery-could-store-a-weeks-worth-of-electricity

Permanent occupation of Afghanistan was the plan

Uh, so what was going on during the Bush Administration when they said we were training Afghan forces to take over security of Afghanistan?


www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/34624999#34624999

Apparently, there was no actual plan to turn the country back over to its countrymen, only the expectation to militarily occupy it forever.