Debunking the Top 10 Most Egregious Republican Lies

Bob Cesca of the Huffington Post writing for AlterNet debunks the most popular wide-spread conservative lies.  Of course most of you have the intelligence to dismiss the bunkum that the right spreads through their favorite FAUX news station, blogs, pols and pundits for their low-information, extremist followers who'll swallow anything so long as it conforms to their bubble-thinking paranoia and -- most important-- Obummer and Moochelle Derangement Syndrome.

So here's Cesca's list of the top ten favorite lies the right wing believes (the complete list is HERE):




10) Obama Doubled the Deficit.

 This was a favorite of the Mitt Romney campaign. Throughout 2012, Romney repeatedly said, "The president promised to cut the deficit in half. He's doubled it!" No. No he hasn't. First of all, this line depends entirely on voters not understanding the difference between the deficit and the debt. See previous "simpleton" remarks. Indeed, the president has absolutely cut the deficit by way more than half in his first five years. When he took office, the deficit for 2009 was projected to be $1.4 trillion. The deficit at the end of 2014 will be $514 billion, just three percent of GDP. That's a nearly $1 trillion reduction in five years.


9) Man-Made Climate Change Is a Hoax. 

According to a clearly liberal agency called "NASA," a full 97 percent of scientists with specific expertise in climate science agree that climate change is real and humans are causing it. We shouldn't really have to say anything else. Of course if you're Lloyd Christmas from Dumb & Dumber, and "one-in-a-million" means "there's a chance," then the three percent of scientists who aren't sure about climate change obviously indicates that it's a hoax.


8) Cold Weather Disproves Climate Change

New York City or Minnesota or Washington, D.C., isn't, you know, the globe. Climate scientists base their global warming observations on global temperature averages. So while it might be snowing outside Sean Hannity's house, average temperatures year-over-year are growing progressively higher.


7) Tax Cuts Do More to Stimulate The Economy Than Food Stamps and Unemployment Benefits. 

According to Moody's Analytics:

Every dollar spent on unemployment benefits generates 1.61 in economic growth.
Every dollar spent on food stamps generates 1.74 in economic growth.
But every dollar spent on rolling tax rates back to Bush-era levels only creates .32 in economic growth — that's a 68-cent loss on investment.


6) Cars Kill a Lot of People and No One Wants to Ban Them Like Guns!

 Unlike firearms, cars aren't explicitly designed to kill or wound living beings (humans, animals, etc). They're designed to move you from one place to another. Yet unlike firearms, cars and drivers are heavily regulated by the government, from emissions standards to annual inspections to safety features, and so forth. You can't legally drive a car that doesn't feature seatbelts, or a car that spews too much exhaust into the air. You have to take both a written and a behind-the-wheel test to get a license to operate a car.

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So if the NRA and its supporters are going to keep using this car analogy, then let's talk about regulating guns and gun owners the same way we regulate cars and drivers.


5) The Affordable Care Act Covers Abortion-Inducing Emergency Contraception.

Admittedly, there are so many Obamacare myths to choose from: death panels, IRS goon squads raiding homes, it's a "job killing" law, it's a "government takeover," etc. It's all a pile of hooey and definitely worth mentioning here. But this lie about emergency contraception coverage is so insidious that it even managed fool some liberals. Contrary to lawsuits by various religious businesses and organizations, the various forms of emergency contraception covered by the law do not, in fact, block implantation of a fertilized egg. If these medications were indeed abortifacients, they wouldn't be covered because it's illegal for the government to do so.


4) Obamaphones! Okay, just stop it with this.

No, the Obama campaign wasn't handing out free phones in exchange for votes. However, there's definitely a program that offers low-cost telephones to citizens who can't afford one. The truth is the Lifeline program has been around since 1984 when, that's right, Ronald Reagan helped to create it.


3) It's Safer to Have a Gun in the House, or a Concealed Weapon on Your Person.

 I'm going to step aside and let an actual Republican debunk this one. Here's David Frum:

 A gun in the house minimally doubles the risk that a household member will kill himself or herself.
(Some studies put the increase in suicide risk as high as 10 times.) An American is 50 percent more likely to be shot dead by his or her own hand than to be shot dead by a criminal assailant. More than 30,000 Americans injure themselves with guns every year.


2) Exhaling Releases "Dangerous" CO2.

 This is so dumb, it easily ranks as the most ridiculous climate change lie. Yes, more ridiculous than the blizzard thing. It's truly astonishing that anyone with half-a-brain actually believes it.


1) Voter Fraud Is a Serious Issue That Requires Strict New Voter ID Laws. 

In Ohio...Secretary of State Jon Husted ballyhooed his war against fraud by nabbing a whopping 20 potential cases. 20 out of nearly six million votes cast in that state in 2012. The Bush Justice Department found that there were as few as 80 successful prosecutions of voter fraud cases out of hundreds of millions of votes cast since 2000. For this ratio of possible-fraud-to-votes-cast we're told we need laws that make it more difficult to vote. By the way, some Republicans came right out and said it: this is all about electing Republicans.