The Far-Right Lexicon of Imaginary Terms and Far-Out Definitions.

If you’re a liberal who finds it hard to understand what the far-right folks are saying these days, try to imagine how confused they must feel.
Just when they had it all figured out, when they knew that dirty Muslim in the White House was going to be all touchy-feely on terrorism and kept a Qur’an hidden under his pillow and read from it every night to Michelle and the kids, it turns out Joe Ricketts, the billionaire owner of the Chicago Cubs, has been planning to spend $10 million of his own money to resurrect Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. as part of a scare-the-crap-out-of-dumb-people campaign effort. That’s right, Rickett’s plans to show that President Obama has been attending an evil Christian church. Yeah, he’s a…

Wait a minute... It only gets worse for our friends on the right-wing fringe. Evangelicals are having a devil of a time swallowing the notion that a Mormon is running for president as their very own candidate and also claiming to be an honest-to-gosh, red-blooded Christian. Meanwhile, Rick Santorum is moping around his house in bedroom slippers, complaining that liberals ruined the Roman Catholic Church, one of the most conservative institutions in the entire world, and led it down a path to rampant priestly, predatory, sexual abuse. I mean: what won’t those liberals stoop to?
SO, IT’S TIME AGAIN to do our best to decipher what conservatives are really saying in the second installment of what will undoubtedly be my life’s work, a multi-volume work, tentatively titled  
The Far-Right Lexicon of Imaginary Terms and Far-Out Definitions.
Several recent additions have a sort of theological theme:
Creationism: on the first day God created the heavens and the earth, on the second day the Founding Fathers, on the third day Fox News, on the fourth automatic weapons and the right to bear arms. On the fifth day He created gay people so that all His other creations would have someone they might fear and loathe. On the sixth day he created real Americans (see below) and traditional marriage and then He rested.
Evolution: when Converse black basketball shoes were replaced by Air Jordans.
Garden of Eden: where Adam and Eve lived, after God finished His labors, and Nature was pure and clean and the first woman exclaimed, “Drill, baby, drill.”
Defense of Marriage Act: where God defined marriage as between one man and one woman, which was kind of confusing, since Adam and Eve had only sons. Not to be confused with Deuteronomy 22:15, where God gives advice on how a man with two wives should handle matters of children by two different women. Oh, and ignore Judges 8:30, where Gideon has seventy-one sons, many wives, and enjoys the favors of a concubine for good measure. Gideon was just some trumpet player and probably a closet liberal.
Sermon on the Mount: when Jesus blasted food stamps as a “government giveaway” and said Representative Paul Ryan was his homeboy, because Ryan had a deficit reduction plan that both protected downtrodden millionaires and billionaires and denied health care coverage to free-loading cripples and lepers. Christ went on to explain that tax increases discourage small business growth and gave a shout out to the founder of the fast food chain “Loaves and Fishes.“ 
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God: Biblical admonition against closing tax loopholes for camel herders and Big Oil companies.
IT’S NOT JUST RELIGIOUS TERMS that seem to confuse conservatives, either. We need to dissect economic and political terms, too. This was made perfectly clear a few days ago, when Richard Mourdock, a Tea Party standard-bearer, who took out Dick Lugar in the Indiana Republican U. S. Senate primary, spoke with Fox News. Murdock was asked his about his idea of bipartisanship. Mourdock replied, like a fair-and-balanced Tea Party stalwart on hallucinogenic drugs: “I have the mind-set that says bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view.”
So now we have:
Bipartisanship: when labor unions are dead, completely, and Big Coal, for example, is no longer pestered with government regulations, such as rules to protect safe drinking water, which is in no way mentioned anywhere in the 2nd Amendment, and which commies and liberals want to fluoridate in any case. Safety rules will be repealed, so that workers killed by a buildup of explosive gasses or in cave-ins are dead, as well, and then coal barons will get credit for creating jobs; as in, when workers are killed by gas or cave-ins, and suddenly we need replacement workers (see: right to work law, below).
Dream Act: the dream that every multimillionaire with really good hair, running for president, can have his own illegal-immigrant gardener, while simultaneously assuring Fox News viewers (also called real Americans; see below; also see part one) that he intends to “secure America’s borders” if elected. Securing the border will apparently keep out waves of gardeners armed with pinking shears.
Stand your ground law: a well-regulated militia being necessary to protect Sarah Palin from reality, the individual’s right to carry a gun into a Victoria’s Secret store at the mall shall in no way be infringed, since the Founding Fathers meant for everyone to have the right to drive M1A1 battle tanks if they desired, and to gun down home invaders, including Jehovah’s Witnesses who ring door bells on Saturday mornings.
Right to work law: passed with the support of campaign donations from multi-national corporations, who are really people–as Mitt Romney tells us all, when he’s not talking about trees in Michigan being just the right height–exactly as the Founding Fathers intended. These laws protect regular workers and help create jobs, often at the very lowest rate of pay. Sometimes called, jokingly when billionaires gather to party: “right to work for less laws.” Such legislation guarantees the right of non-union workers to earn $729 per week on average vs. $938 for unionized workers (See also: union thugs; part one).
War on Christmas: when the average non-union worker begins to get restless because his paycheck doesn’t allow him to buy as many Christmas presents as he was hoping, Fox News fills his mind with scary, end-times warnings that godless secular humanists want to deny his children the right to say, “Merry Christmas” to their teachers and deny him, the happy non-union worker, the right to put up festive holiday decorations.
Tax increase: what conservatives absolutely, positively protect the average worker from, because nothing says, “We love the average worker,” like low-paying jobs with no health insurance. This means the average worker, who is safe from being forced to join a union, who makes $211 less per week on average, or $10,972 yearly, is protected from paying $14 more in weekly payroll taxes and $500 in union dues. In return the thankful worker votes in support of the political interests of millionaires and billionaires, who are, really, almost like personal friends, like drinking buddies, people who still say, Merry Christmas, too, only way, way richer.
Socialism: the idea that raising taxes by 3% on top wage earners, say, a hedge fund manager who earned a $1.2 million bonus in 2012, will reduce the deficit, when in fact any attempt to raise taxes will end with the crushing of the liberties of all god-fearing real Americans (see below) and make it impossible for said hedge fund manager to donate $36,000 to his favorite GOP candidate, who is for small government for everyone, and so, when you think about it, the top 1% are really altruistic heroes.
Deficit reduction: the idea that you cannot raise taxes on Albert Pujols or said hedge fund manager, or Joe Ricketts, either. (See: socialism, above; also part one); but cutting three teacher’s jobs, because each makes $36,000 per year, will reduce government spending and trim the deficit, which is killing this nation, the greatest in the world, the nation that has a tax code that allows the super-rich to pay lower taxes than the average teacher (see union thug; part one) and now those unemployed teachers can go to work at Wal-Mart and you can save the economy and create even more jobs in the long run and thank god the billionaires are looking out for what is best for all of us.
Real American: anyone who watches Fox News religiously (and we do mean, religiously) and believes Bill O’Reilly is actually a Biblical prophet; also, anyone who believes that there is an ongoing War on Christmas (see above), and thinks that liberals want to kill and eat the Easter Bunny.
Auto bailout: a clear attempt, by President Obama, to introduce socialism, or communism, or maybe botulism to America; not to be confused with purest capitalism, which is always perfect and good and what God intended, and what Jesus was really trying to tell us, and what Joe Ricketts is trying to protect when he pours that $10 million into a slimy advertising campaign, while simultaneously asking city and state government to fork out tens of millions to upgrade his very own Wrigley Field stadium.
As far as I can tell, that’s what conservatives are saying these days; and I’m happy if I can be of any help.

Reactions to some of the nutty stuff from the Far Right going around.

I have hidden the email addresses of the posters to protect the innocent.

The right-wing lies just keep coming. They use unadulterated hate to recharge their batteries. I haven't seen anything to match it since Joe McCarthy. --- On Sat, 2/11/12,  [name deleted] wrote: Subject: Re: Medicare Premium Increase Rate for 2014 IMPORTANT Date: Saturday, February 11, 2012, 10:45 PM ...only important if you accept lies as truth.... Steve, Bob,   It's been a bad day for the truth; this morning Merrill forwarded some very clever, very false information once again challenging Obama's birth.  The birthers seem unable to stop themselves. Maybe they oughta see a shrink about their compulsion. This evening Steve, and you Bob, forwarded sinister nonsense about  Obama's sly plan to raise monthly Medicare premiums in 2014 to an outrageous $247.  Makes you wanna hate the creep in the White House for things he isn't, and hasn't done.  But then, the charlatans who hate him so intensely can't congenitally limit themselves to the things Obama has actually done wrong; they are compelled to manufacture the foulest kind of personal assassination in an attempt to persuade all America we mistakenly elected the biggest bum who ever lived to lead our native land.  I think it's also to convince themselves they got  every right to hate the man  to his core by making up facts and crimes he never committed--and that, friends, is really sad. They don't seem capable of admitting to themselves that there may really have been much more destructive bums to hold the Oval Office the past forty years, maybe because those Presidents weren't Democrats and, particularly, because they weren't black. Please remember, no matter what you may wish to believe, Obama didn't bring on the recession or the current descent into poverty of  more than a quarter of the American population, not all by himself. He ain't blameless but neither is he mainly to blame Ask Merrill to forward the dissection of the latest lies from the birthers, because I am tired of repeating myself.  Instead, add the following to your store of legitimate knowledge, and think twice before passing along ugly tales without checking them at least... twice.  In short, don't let the bogeymen control your minds.  Before you reread the junk about Obama's alleged Medicare trickery, please read the facts as they exist, and then have the kindness to pass them along--hopefully, with Merrill's new information about birther distortions--to the people who sent you the junk in the first place. By now, you should have realized that you've been too often taken to la la land by some really creepy con artists.  You may have the same hope for the outcome of the 2012 election,  but I know you guys, and I don't believe you are willing to deliberately lie like they do, but you two seem to take undue pleasure passing along turds. Art Home • Ask FactCheck • Premium Nonsense On Medicare Premium Nonsense On Medicare Posted on April 1, 2011 Q: Will the new health care law raise Medicare’s basic monthly premium to $247 in 2014, as a viral message claims? A: No, Medicare officials project the basic premium will be less than half that. But the law will eventually cause 14 percent of seniors with incomes over $85,000 a year ($170,000 for couples) to pay higher "income-related" premiums, up from 5 percent currently. FULL QUESTION Please advise the accuracy of contents below. Thank you, MEDICARE PAY INCREASE For those of you who are on Medicare (or will be soon), read the short article below. It is about the monthly amount of money you are going to pay into Medicare in 2011, 2012 and the huge increase you will pay in 2013. You will pay it. Social Security Congress will not allow an increase in the social security COLA (cost of living adjustment). However, the per person monthly Medicare insurance premium will be increased from the 2009 premium of $96.40 to $104.20 in 2010, $120.20 for the year 2011, AND a yearly increase to a wonderful $247.00 in 2014. Thank You Obamacare! In the meantime, Congress gave themselves a $3,000 a month Cost of Living Adjustment! Send this to all seniors that you know. REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER 2012 FULL ANSWER This widely circulating message is similar to a falsehood-filled screed that went around last year, urging "retribution" against members of Congress in the 2010 midterm elections. This message makes somewhat different accusations — also false — and urges voters to "remember" in November 2012. It falsely claims "Congress gave themselves a $3,000 a month Cost of Living Adjustment," when the truth is that Congress voted to deny itself any pay increase at all, both for 2010 and 2011. It wrongly blames Congress for disallowing any cost-of-living increase for Social Security recipients. It’s true there was no COLA for Social Security recipients in 2010 or in 2011, but that was due to the workings of a long-standing formula and not the result of any vote by the current Congress or the previous one. We covered this in detail in 2009 and the Social Security Administration has an explanation posted as well. It claims that "those of you who are on Medicare" can thank "Obamacare" for increases in the per-person monthly Medicare premium — "to a wonderful $247.00 in 2014." This is also false. The basic premium for Medicare Part B (which covers physician services) was indeed $96.40 in 2009. But the other numbers are all wrong. It was $110.50 last year, for example, and not $104.20 as claimed. And it is $115.40 this year, not $120.20 as claimed. Actually, only 27 percent of Medicare beneficiaries are paying the basic rate. The rest — 73 percent — are paying less under a "hold harmless" provision triggered by the lack of a cost-of-living increase in Social Security this year or last year. Most are still paying $96.40. As for the future, nobody can say with precision what the basic Part B premium will be next year or the year after, let alone in 2014. The premium is set each year at a level calculated to pay for 25 percent of the cost of the coverage. Medicare officials do keep close watch on the trends, however. And when we contacted Medicare’s Office of the Actuary, we were given these projections — the most recent available — which are current as of the president’s budget for fiscal year 2012 issued in mid-February: Medicare Part B Standard Premium (projected, February 2011) 2012 $108.20 2013 $112.10 2014 $117.10 Source: Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services Office of theActuary Subject: Fw: Fwd: Medicare Premium Increase Rate for 2014 IMPORTANT I did not check to make sure this info is correct   Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 8:40 AM Subject: Fwd: FW: Medicare Premium Increase Rate for 2014 IMPORTANT   Medicare Premium Increase Rate   Look clearly at the 2014 rate compared to the 2013 rate. For those of you who are on Medicare, read the following. It's short, but important and you probably haven't heard about it in the Mainstream News: "The per person Medicare Insurance Premium will increase from the present monthly Fee of $96.40, rising to: $104.20 in 2012 $120.20 in 2013 And $247.00 in 2014." These are Provisions incorporated in the Obamacare Legislation, purposely delayed so as not to confuse the 2012 Re-Election Campaigns. Send this to all Seniors that you know, so they will know who's throwing them under the Bus. REMEMBER THIS IN NOVEMBER 2012 AND VOTE!!! From now through November 2012 this should be required weekly or at least monthly, reading - BY ALL WHO VOTE!!! Did you notice who Obama threatened when he wasn't getting his way on raising the debt ceiling? He threatened to not pay: Social Security Retirees, Military Retirees, Social Security disability and Federal Retirees. Now.. Let this sink in really good - He did not threaten to stop payments to illegal aliens, he did not threaten to take frivolous benefits such as Internet access away from violent inmates. He did not offer to fire some of the thousands of unnecessary federal employees that he hired. He did not offer to cut down on his or his wife's frivolous gallivanting around.They went to Hawaii for 17 days over Christmas 2011. He did not threaten to not pay the senators and representatives or any of their staff. He did not threaten to take benefits away from welfare recipients. He did not threaten the food stamp programs. He did not threaten to not pay foreign aid. He did not threaten to cut back on anything that involves his base voters. The list could go on and on. He is in full political re-election mode! * Why are we allowing this person to destroy this wonderful country with his selfishness and his lies? * His type of change is killing our country. He needs to be stopped and only our Votes can stop him. * Do not forget about his tactics when it's election time. Vote Obama OUT of the Presidency in 2012. LET'S MAKE 2012 - THE END OF AN ERROR! "Democracy... Is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty ... Is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -- Benjamin Franklin AMERICA ..... HOME OF THE FREE BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE PRAY FOR OUR TROOPS ELECTION 2012 IS COMING!!! A Nation of Sheep Breeds a Government of Wolves! I'M 100% for PASSING THIS ON!!! Let's Take a Stand!!! Obama: Gone! Borders: Closed! Language: English only Culture: Constitution, and the Bill of Rights! Drug Free: Mandatory Drug Screening before Welfare! NO freebies to: Non-Citizens! We the people are coming   =

Dark Clouds from the Sunshine State

Folks,  I told you the reaction  my madras pants evoked last winter at Friday night Happy Hour in Central Florida, but just to emphasize the point I'm going to make, let me tell you again.  As I arrived at our regular table, one of the men seated there said, "What N.....did you steal those from?" My wife, ready to fight,  glared and hissed, "I can't believe you said that.” The offender shrugged, grinned and went mute. What I didn't tell you, a week or so later, my wife was at her usual north-south table position at the weekly duplicate bridge game in a room whose walls had just been repainted the color of--as she describes it--"spicy mustard."  A seventy-year-old woman sitting east-west, her mouth twisted in disgust, spoke loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear,” That’s an N....color!" I know my Friday night table mate loathes Obama and still expresses his feelings in an unexpurgated stream of malicious anti-Obama cartoons and far-right lies, the birther canard being only one of many.  He also considers himself "sympathetic to the Tea Party."  So are the others at the table. I can only guess, of course, what the bridge lady's politics are but chances are they are similar; an overwhelming number of far right-wingers live where I live in Central Florida. They outnumber Democrats and independents well in excess of a hundred-to-one. How they all migrated to the same place I cannot say with certainty, but I can be certain when I say the ones I know are enthusiastic about the Tea Party. Recently, one of them got so angry when I criticized his party that he now refuses to talk to me.  You'd think I was attacking his religion, and you'd be right; religion and politics are treated on the right with similar fervor. I did say that the Happy Hour fellow now expresses his high regard for Herman Cain.  I wasn't surprised that in this age of political correctness a guy like him would pay lip service to a Cain candidacy in an effort to convince others [and maybe himself] that he is not a bigot. He reminds me of those anti-Semites who used to say, mostly among themselves,  "He's okay for a Jew," or, worse, say to Jews,  Y'know, my best friend is a Jew." The irony is that the reactionaries who hold sway within Republican ranks consider themselves the friends of Israel. In fact, they are. That's because they and Israel share the Arabs as a common enemy.   But trustworthy Jew-lovers they are not. Today, it's popular among right-wingers to blame the media and the bankers for our ills, because "the Jews control the New York Times and Wall Street." The hate signs crop up at Tea Party rallies and on what I choose to believe are strictly the fanatical fringes of the Occupy Wall Street movement whose loose structure accommodates protesters of all stripes. This ingrained mistrust of things they have always hated in my lifetime lies barely dormant today.  Should Herman Cain become the Republican choice to face off against Barack Obama in 2012, I doubt that voters on the extreme right will remain enamored of Cain.  I doubt they will vote for Obama. I doubt they'll vote at all. It's the Republicans of the center right who will conscientiously go to the polls a year from now, but given a choice between a very black Cain and not-so-black Obama, they will opt for bitter coffee that is lightened with a teaspoon of cream. David Allen Tree [Thanks so much for your submission - ed]

Insightful Comment on Tea Party from Art Woodstone

Someone recently said,  "Religion was the first politics." Sounds right. But when politics become the very source of worship... Sounds wrong. Worshiping a political party, treating it with the same abiding passion and faith as you would Christianity or Judaism, reacting  angrily to criticism,  hating disbelievers, even exhibiting delight at the deaths of human beings whom these true believers find inferior and unGodly....Isn't that a  definition of religious fanaticsm? When was the last time you heard someone becoming outraged  because his political party was  the subject of criticism. I was asked a couple of months ago  a beautiful woman asked me how I felt about the Tea Party.  When I answered, she shocked me by calling me a bigot.  You'd think I'd just attacked Jesus and and all the Jews in the world. Most Democrats don't take it seriously when someone attacks their party; most Democrats these days don't even take the Democratic Party seriously. But the Tea Partyers and so many Republicans  have transformed themselves into  crusaders, eager to defend  the new, true faith against their  enemies. And they see enemies everywhere.  You are ostracized if  you so much as hint  that these new and still novel religionists worship false idols, or that their responses are unbecomingly joyful  when told that renegades and other lesser humans have died. This morning I received an  email from a furious neighbor  in Ocala. He was incensed that I dared strike out against his party by accusing Tea Partyers  and their right-wing GOP allies of callousness. .  He took such offense at my lack of virtue that he cast me out and vowed never speak to me again. Twenty-four hours earlier,  I  had observed in an email to him that the audience at a debate sponsored by the Tea Party loudly applauded  the news that Texas had run up a record number of executions on  Rick Perry's watch  as governor.  I was reminded of "The  Tale of Two Cities." Each time the guillotine lopped off another head, the mob cheered. So at one debate the right-wing audience  applauds executions.  At a second debate, the Republicans and  Tea Partyers in the pews  actually  cheer Ron Paul for declaring that if an American died because he chose not to invest in health insurance, that--in our free society-- was  his own problem. These worshippers profess to be charitable.  Perhaps, but if so, it is a charity governed by whim.  They  show no charity toward those of us, not  all of us murderers,  who in their eyes can never measure up to the faith. Our crime against the Church of the GOPTP is less one of criticism than of failing to accept the truth. On the other hand, when the devout members of this historic church sneer at liberals, they are being, forgive a familiar expression, fair and balanced. If we cannot accept that gospel and keep our mouths shut, it only proves we  have no place in the new god's  America. It doesn't take  much imagination to  guess where these protectors of the faith might lead us next.  Art  Woodstone