The Watering Hole; Friday July 18 2014; “Zombie Lies”

Courtesy of Daily Kos, a couple of posts from the last several days that made me chuckle, thanks to the ways they expose and mock the Right Wing fallacy-based idiocy that we all see and know far too well. First there’s Bill Maher’s “Zombie Lies” in which, via reflection on GOP’s anti-Obamacare ‘talking points’, he calls out the Wingnut technique of making maximum use of lies. Here’s a snippet from the attached video and full transcript:

Yes, zombie lies.  Remember “fracking doesn’t cause earthquakes”?  Zombie lie!  So stop saying it!

Voter fraud?  We studied it, it’s not an actual problem.  Stop zombie lying about it.

Their entire economic philosophy — cut taxes for the rich, and it trickles down — is a zombie lie!  (audience cheering and applause)

And all these zombie lies are still out there, roaming the countryside, neither alive nor dead.  Like Dick Cheney.  (audience laughter and applause)

Hungry for brains.  Like Dick Cheney.  (audience laughter)

I mean, we think we’ve eradicated one, but it turns out it’s just lying dormant in a cave full of bat blood, like the ebola virus.  Or Dick Cheney.  (audience laughter)

Couple that with Kos’s (July 12) Saturday nutpick-a-palooza: Cheering the Palin-impeachment crazy where he mops the floor with comments from Breitbart.com, and in the process paints a portrait in which each common Wingnut lie appears as though a brushstroke in their despicable ‘masterpiece.’ It’s a lengthy expose’, but one filled with half-witticisms, such as:

“Sorry, they already have changed the old United States Motto from ” In God We Trust ‘ over to ” In Allah we Trust ” and the currency replacing the dollar the “Amero” will be coming out in a couple of months after the dollar collapses under the weight of our $17 Trillion dollar Debt and the United states is dissolved into the North American Union . . .”

“Obama is a dictator. He has neutered the most powerful entity in our Constitutional Republic, Congress. Take action America, demand that Congress do it’s job and IIMPEACH OBAMA!”

“Voter fraud will be used to win the senate. We will never see truly conservative people in office anymore.The elites have sold our country down the river just as much as BO by standing idly by and not doing anything.”

“That would be nice – but I think bho has done enough to just be arrested by officials and then tried by the people if we had some leaders in congress and the military who would stand for US . . .”

“The O-man, Barack Hussein Obama, is an eloquently tailored empty suit. No resume, no accomplishments, no experience, no original ideas, no understanding of how the economy works, no understanding of how the world works, no balls, nothing but abstract, empty rhetoric devoid of real substance.

“He has no real identity. He is half-white, which he rejects. The rest of him is mostly Arab, which he hides but is disclosed by his non-African Arabic surname and his Arabic first and middle names as a way to triply proclaim his Arabic parentage to people in Kenya . Only a small part of him is African Black from his Luo grandmother, which he pretends he is exclusively. . . .”

“What took the good Governor so long to say this? Obama should have been impeached LONG AGO….& thrown into prison for his treasonous actions against our Constitution & the US”.

[To Palin] “Thank you for your continued service. Your words inspire.”

Etc. etc. — old familiar Zombie Lies intermeshed with new Zombie Lies which will soon sound familiar enough to again become old Zombie Lies, to be repeated over and over and over again without thought or pause.

What intrigues me most is simply the ponder, the one that querries what exactly is the source of such pervasively idiotic and abject stupidity? I suppose one could suspect a combination of upbringing, education level, education quality, IQ, brain damage, probably even my favorite — genetics. Is Teh Stupid an inherited trait, or is it imposed? Some of each? How did the United States slip, in roughly a mere fifty years, from a technical and scientific global giant to now become an intellectual shitstorm where nearly 50% of the (voting) public appears to be embarrassingly stupid?

One can only wonder.

OPEN THREAD

 

49 thoughts on “The Watering Hole; Friday July 18 2014; “Zombie Lies”

  1. [his brother and two sisters are already peregrinating the wider world.
    This fellow will be leaving soon. We wander downtown looking for him – he’s elusive.
    Roosting spot is this louver so he returns most nights…when he goes off to parts unknown— the earthbound bipeds will have an ’empty’ feeling – skies devoid of juveniles until next year]

    In case you wondered what a juvenile peregrine falcon looks like up close and personal:

      • If I were the accident investigator on that crash, I’d declare it a crime scene.
        Everything and everyone that had touched anything to do with that flight is sequestered and impounded.
        All of their offices placed under guard and nothing to be removed.
        Sadly, any real evidence has probably already been destroyed or replaced with bogus data or red herrings.

  2. Collective punishment of civilians in pursuit of terrorists or in wartime is a breach of the UN charter
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/father-gathers-body-dead-son-two-plastic-bag-gaza-shelling?CMP=twt_gu

    But “its OK if Israel does it” – IOKIIDI – right?

    And in other news…

    … the Buk launcher which probably shot down MH17 yesterday… is reportedly on its way back to Russia, with its Russian military crew.

  3. What if men had a waiting period for a prostate biopsy? A bill in Congress that would prohibit targeted restrictions on abortion providers:

    “It’s called the Women’s Health Protection Act, and it would end the attacks on abortion clinics through one simple measure: requiring states to regulate abortion providers in exactly the same way they do other clinics and doctors who provide comparable services. No more singling out abortion providers. …

    Want to force women seeking abortion to listen to a script full of lies and then make them wait 24 or 48 hours to think it over? Better be prepared to do the same for people who need colonoscopies. Want to require a bunch of unnecessary visits before a woman is allowed to have a procedure? Now you need to do that for a biopsy, too. Want to force abortion clinics to meet ambulatory surgical center standards and abortion providers to have hospital admitting privileges? Well, dentists will have to meet the same standards before they can drill a tooth.”

    http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/07/15/women_s_health_protection_act_a_brilliant_bill_to_protect_women_s_abortion.html

  4. On the post ….. I am no longer surprised at how stupid the average American is…. and then I remember that half of them are then not as smart as that person.

    • Right, Strelkov and his knuckle-dragging vodka-soaked thugs can point and shoot one of these puppies *not*…. see above post…. there is a pattern of the Russian mercenaries announcing a capture of Ukrainian equipment (remember the 3 T64s?) just before they start using them…… But like the T64s, this is probably a cover for the Buk came from Russia, and is on its way back to Russia and its Russian crew is driving it.

    • We can hope JohnnyBoy read and can comprehend the letter from his friend.
      (unfortunately Boehner wear blinders that are pinpointed on the ‘impeachment’ of Obama.

  5. Why haven’t the Wingnuts invoked Saint Ronnie on the occasion of the downed Malaysia airliner? Andrew Rudalevige draws parallels between the MH17 tragedy and the USSR shooting down a Korean Airlines plane in 1983. Reagan’s reaction to it:

    “Reagan demanded an apology to the world and continued a number of sanctions — but he decided not to end grain sales to the USSR or to suspend arms control talks. George Will argued that “the administration is pathetic…. We didn’t elect a dictionary. We elected a President and it’s time for him to act.” The Manchester Union-Leader editorialized that “if someone had told us three years ago that the Russians could blow a civilian airliner out of the skies – and not face one whit of retaliation from a Ronald Reagan administration, we would have called that crazy. It is crazy. It is insane. It is exactly what happened.”

    Even at the height of the Cold War, however — and keeping in mind that the flight had departed from the U.S., with dozens of American passengers, including a sitting member of Congress – Reagan told a National Security Meeting that “we’ve got to protect against overreaction. Vengeance isn’t the name of the game.”

  6. In other news, CNN is still looking for the Malaysian airliner downed somewhere over the Ukrain. Will provide details at 11:00, 11:08, 11:14, 11:22, 11:26…..

  7. From the GOP Dum and Dummer Dept:

    Rep. Pete Sessions, the House Rules Committee chairman who led Wednesday’s hearing on Republicans’ plans to sue President Obama, presented the legal credentials that have put him in this position of responsibility.“I’m an Eagle Scout,” the Texas Republican told his colleagues. “I studied the merit badges that we took about governance, about cities, states, the national government.”

    http://crooksandliars.com/2014/07/pistol-pete-sessions-and-his-boy-scout

    • Perhaps I have a particularly questioning mind, but even as a small child I frequently challenged my parents and Sunday school teachers about “things that didn’t add up” in biblical stories, miracles, etc. My parents would quickly get angry, telling me to quit asking so many questions and just “believe”. Which confirmed they were BS’ing me. Sunday school teachers would get the sweet-smarmy look and tell me I was to young to understand, and that I should just “believe”. Same conclusion was reached.

      • I was extremely lucky that my parents were agnostic. I was 10 or 11 when I asked Dad why we didn’t go to church. He said; “because your mother and I decided we wouldn’t lie to our children”. I was also not encouraged to believe the whole Santa Claus business. There were still surprise gifts under the tree on Christmas morning and i don’t think I enjoyed them any less knowing that they came from my parents; though I was cautioned not to tell other kids that Santa didn’t exist.

        • [He said; “because your mother and I decided we wouldn’t lie to our children”]
          Wow… that’s it right there. Incredible insight on behalf of your father.
          Children learn very very early when their parents lie to them, and when they do learn that the trouble begins. It can take decades, maybe even a lifetime to overcome that. If they ever do…

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