*Preface: It is not my intention to intentionally hurt any of my friends with these comments. If they have that impact I am sorry.
**Preface to the Preface: I wanted to write this article to discuss the issues important but unfortunately there is one, too much information, and two, it pisses me off too much.
Today I decided to try a small social media experiment. I posted the following around noon today on my Facebook wall
~ "I betcha I speak for a lot of Americans when I say I want to go over there right now and start teaching those folks a lesson. And let's not stop at the Czech Republic, let's go after all Arab countries. The Arabians need to learn that they can't keep comin' over here and blowing stuff up. Let's set off a couple of nukes in Islamabad, burn down Prague, then bomb the heck out of Tehran. We need to show them that we mean business."
~Sarah Palin
No Words.
The "No Words" adage was all me. As the day progressed I received many comments on my wall and even more messages. I found my inbox fuller than it has ever been with many messages from people I don't even know, which makes me question my Facebook account settings. I thought, perhaps, people were responding to a youtube link I shared recently. Bibleman the TV/Movie Series, which I have to say is by far one of the funniest things I have ever found on the internet. I don't mean funny in an anti-christian way, I understand that you have to find a way to make the bible interesting for children, (Think Captain Planet but with less budget and more message, oh and I guess no color coded racism) but the way they do it in their "action packed" series is simply hilarious. Tangent aside I expected my friends had responded in kind to my post, but no it was about my Sarah Palin comment. Many of the things that were said were nasty. Very nasty. But so be it. People are people.
My post, I know, and knew all along was fake. Sarah Palin did not say this on FoxNews, in reference to the Boston Bombing suspects, but instead it was a piece of satirical political humor written by The Daily Currant. But is it all that strange that she might say something like this? After all this is a women who has produced such gems of wisdom as these:
"Dr. Laura: don't retreat...reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence "isn't American,not fair")" --Sarah Palin, in a Twitter message coming to the defense of Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the talk radio host who apologized and decided to retire from her highly-rated program after using the N-word on the air 11 times in 5 minutes, Aug. 18, 2010
This ape-like behavior in the White House and in the Democratic-controlled Congress needs to be stopped. Americans will not put up with this for long. – Sarah Palin, March 30th 2010, Amridge University, Alabama.
What’s really funny is seeing these [queer] activists supporting Muslim governments. They don’t want us to bomb them…. Do they know what would happen to them outside of the United States? Do they know what what would happen to them if Islamists took over this country? They are lucky that they live in a privileged country… a country which gives them every right to do whatever they want no matter how much they happen to hate it. It’s all very ironic.
– Sarah Palin, April 7th 2010, The Sean Hannity Show.
So based on previous comments made by Palin our piece of political satire is not all that far from the truth. But at the end of the day, although it is quite horrifically funny, why repost it without any clarification? Because I can. No that's not the right reason. Oh maybe it is because it is what the Republican attack machine has been doing for years. No Democrat can make even a joke in the media-laden world and get away without being lambasted by the Republican Party. Now you might consider me to be hypocritical, aren't the Democrats doing the same thing? No, but it isn't for lack of trying, we just aren't any good at it. Let us look at a few examples:
1. "Under Barack Obama's watch, we have expended $805 billion to liberate the people of Iraq and, more importantly, 4,400 American lives."
---Oct. 28, 2011, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. Interview with Wolf Blitzer
Bachmann's number comes from the cumulative total spent in the war from 2003 - 2011, our war expenditures from that time included over 6 fiscal years of the Bush Presidency. As for the 4,400 American lives, well as of October of 2011 there had been 4,482 deaths and of those 261 came on Obama watch. When Bachmann was asked a factual question about her inaccuracies:
Blitzer: "But as far as Iraq is concerned, the Iraq War, which started in March 2003 -- that was President Bush and the Republicans who launched that war that went on for years. This current president is now withdrawing all of those troops from Iraq. Don't you give him credit for that?"
Bachmann responded with this gem:
"Wolf, the current president is being kicked out of Iraq. The president of the United States has gotten nothing."
Now why is it important that we look at this quote. Other than the fact that it is a blatant lie, (Numbers don't lie, Mitch does) it also feeds into the 805 billion dollars that Rep. Bachmann spoke about above, 2+ years later. Also it became a major Republican talking point used by John Boehner and other Republican candidates in the lead up to the election. Here is the truth:
In order to arrive at the claim above McConnell spokesman Josh Holmes said that the Democrats spending in one month was 818 billion dollars. (Dollars I might add being used to get out of a recession created by George W Bush). That's 31 billion on the expansion of State Children's Health Insurance and 787 billion for the stimulus bill. First off Mitch, 326 billion of that stimulus bill is from tax cuts (http://www.jct.gov/x-19-09.pdf) which is not spending, but if it were, then it would be future spending cuts. Why does this matter? Because Bush spent an estimated 655 billion until the end of his term but appropriated 808 billion (805 was actually spent, see Bachmann). Also this is only based on the actual money appropriated but if we include everything down the road including full Veteran Benefits, the actual amount of money that the Bush White House "spent" will be in excess of multiple trillion dollars.
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I had a great desire to look at hundreds of quotes in which the Republican Attack Machine ran its mouth, but unfortunately it is the week before finals and I just ran out of time, so instead I will launch into my shortened rant.
Why did I post a fake Sarah Palin quote? Because I'm sick and tired of the Republicans being the only one who lies and gets away with it, the latter part being the more important part. Is lying a bipartisan issue, no, Democrats are guilty of lying as well, but unless it involves sex (i.e. Anthony Weiner, Bill Clinton) rarely do Democrats continue to lie once they have been caught. Again this is a statement that will inevitably get me into trouble, but so be it. On the overall scale of Republican lies and lies on top of lies it is monstrous in comparison to the amount that Democrats do the same. Many more Democrats obfuscate the truth rather than lie, Republicans are blatant about it. But aren't blatant about the truth. Politicians lie, I get that, it has and will happen for the rest of well, time, but my problem isn't when a politician lies, it is when they lie in order to cover up their lies. The old saying that if you get incredibly drunk you can just "drink yourself sober" is equivalent to the way the Republican party looks at lying, "lie yourself into the truth." If you lie about something enough it will become part of the rhetoric and then citing a source will be based on just another lie. Fox Noise is best at doing this.
Obama is the biggest spending President in history and has spent more than any others! BULLSHIT. Yearly spending increases do not exceed 2% which is the lowest rate since Eisenhower. Our nation debt is 16.7 trillion dollars. When Obama took office we has a debt of 10.6 trillion dollars. 6.1 is less than 10.6
Obama is a Muslim! BS. And even if he was, who cares?
Obama isn’t an American! BS, you're are just plain wrong if you believe this.
Obama is a Communist/Socialist/Fascist! HUGE BS. Even if he was any of these things, which he is not (based on any of these manifestos he would make a terrible member of the party) all of these things are DIFFERENT. Communist does not equal Socialist or Fascist.
Obama is always on vacation! BS. In his first term Obama has taken 131 vacation days (on par for 262 overall). Bush: 1,020 days in 8 years. Reagan: 484 in 8 years.
Unemployment is at record highs! BS. The Unemployment rate is currently 7.7%. At its height in 2009 it was 10% (largely attributed to Obama, but really part of the broken recession that Bush built) When Reagan took office it was 7.5% and shot up to 10.8%. Unemployment at the beginning of 2001 was 4.7% below the traditional national rate of 5%. At the end of the Bush White House it sat at 9.3%
Obamacare is unconstitutional! BS. The Affordable Care Act was passed by Congress, the President and later by the Supreme Court. Yes it is Constitutional.
Obama wants to rule like a dictator, he’s the Executive orders President! BS. Obama: 147 Executive Orders in 4+ years. Bush: 291. Reagan: 381.
Obama has waged a war on the rich! BS. We have added 300,000 new millionaires since Obama has taken office.
Obama is out to take our guns! BULLSHIT. If, in fact, he wants your guns than he is exactly the same as Reagan and Bush who backed the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004.
These are just a few of the lies that Fox Noise CONTINUES to tell even after they are blatantly confronted with the TRUTH.
SO YES. I did post a statement online that was false. Am I any different from Mitch McConnell, Sarah Palin, Todd Akin, Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, George W Bush, Ronald Reagan, John McCain, Jeb Bush, Paul Ryan, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Rand Paul, Eric Cantor, John Boehner, Mike Huckabee, Charles Grassley, John Kyl, Ben Nelson, Saxby Chambliss, Mike Crapo, Rob Portman, Jim Inhofe, Mark Kirk, Pat Toomey, Jim DeMint, Mary Landrieu, Jon Thune, Orrin Hatch, Roy Blunt, Ron Johnson, Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, Sean Hannity, Greta Van Susteren, Shepar Smith, Neil Cavuto, Monica Crowley, Geraldo Rivera, Glenn Beck, Andre Napolitano, Bill Sammon, Bobby Jindal, and on and on and on
Oh yes, I am different because of this: Dear Sarah Palin, although I knew that The Daily Currant had created a misrepresentation of your views on the Boston Bombers I still decided to post this funny, but wrong status on my Facebook wall. I'm sorry if it offended you.
I admit to my lies.
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