Humorless Politics Thread

[Smelodies]

Donald robbed me at Trump Plaza last night in AC.

[Kormod]

Ugh, really?

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/dec/20/lie-year-democrats-claims-republicans-voted-end-me/

Lie of the Year 2011: 'Republicans voted to end Medicare'

With a few small tweaks to their attack lines, Democrats could have been factually correct, said Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. "I actually think there is no need to cut out the qualifiers and exaggerate," he said.

At times, Democrats and liberal groups were careful to characterize the Republican plan more accurately. Another claim in the ad from the Agenda Project said the plan would "privatize" Medicare, which received a Mostly True rating from PolitiFact. President Barack Obama was also more precise with his words, saying the Medicare proposal "would voucherize the program and you potentially have senior citizens paying $6,000 more."

But more often, Democrats and liberals overreached:

• They ignored the fact that the Ryan plan would not affect people currently in Medicare -- or even the people 55 to 65 who would join the program in the next 10 years.

• They used harsh terms such as "end" and "kill" when the program would still exist, although in a privatized system.

• They used pictures and video of elderly people who clearly were too old to be affected by the Ryan plan. The DCCC video that aired four days after the vote featured an elderly man who had to take a job as a stripper to pay his medical bills.

"Both parties use entitlements as political weapons," Ryan said in an interview with PolitiFact. "Republicans do it to Democrats; Democrats do it to Republicans. So I knew that this would be a political weapon that the other side would use against us."

[fonpr]

• They used harsh terms such as "end" and "kill" when the program would still exist, although in a privatized system.

That's ending it in everything but name?

[cavorting with nudists]

Motherfuckers.  Politifact is dead to me.

They came up with the "Lie of the Year" by choosing ten of the stories they'd published in 2011 and then opening it up to a vote. Obviously all the right-wing blogs herded their readers over there to vote for this one.  Didn't they kind of abdicate their responsibility to judge which of the "lies" they'd exposed was most egregious?

While the voting was going on, you could vote for "other" and write in your own choice.  I wrote in "'Democrats' claim that Republicans voted to end Medicare is a lie'--Politifact." Obviously I didn't carry the day.

[cavorting with nudists]

Jesus, it gets worse.

It wasn't only right-wing bloggers who urged on their minions--Paul Ryan himself e-mailed his PAC to stuff the ballot box: http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/12/07/paul_ryan_wants_you_to_goose_the_lie_of_the_year_vote.html

But check this out: According to Politifact's own poll results, two "lies" outpolled "Republicans voted to end Medicare." "The economic stimulus created 'zero jobs'" by eight percentage points. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/dec/20/lie-year-2011-readers-poll-results/

So Politifact didn't shirk their responsibility after all.  Even though "Republicans voted to end Medicare" only landed third place in the reader's poll, they exercised their own independent judgment and made it "Lie of the Year."  After all, it was so much more mendacious than, say, "Abortion services are 'well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.'"

[cavorting with nudists]

Newt or Supervillain? I would say this quiz is surprisingly difficult (I got 40% right), except that I guess it isn't really that surprising.

http://supervillainornewt.com/

[Kormod]

http://www.newtgingrich.com

[Kormod]

American Story

[cavorting with nudists]

Oh, this is too good:

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2011/12/gay_marriage_amy_koch_michael_brodkorb.php

The gay and lesbian community of Minnesota has issued a letter of apology to recently resigned Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch for ruining the institution of marriage and causing her to stray from her husband and engage in an "inappropriate relationship."

"On behalf of all gays and lesbians living in Minnesota, I would like to wholeheartedly apologize for our community's successful efforts to threaten your traditional marriage," reads the letter from John Medeiros. "We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry."

[Stupornaut]

Maybe the (now second-)funniest thing about that scandal was the Star Tribune creating this headline juxtaposition.

[Smelodies]

Just when you thought they couldn't get any lower:

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201112220024

[Kormod]

Further proof that Ron Paul is insane:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/12/23/_the_ron_paul_survival_kit_comes_in_an_official_world_war_ii_u_s_army_ammo_holder_.html

[buffcoat]

... for people who can't multiply and then add.

[Kormod]

Eat it, haters:

Newt Gingrich: A Merry Christmas Video from NewtHampshire

[Steve of Bloomington]

More from the Ron Paul blooper reel:

http://www.mrdestructo.com/2011/12/game-over-scans-of-over-50-ron-paul.html