Here is a List of the Most Outrageous Lies Told By Conservatives in 2013

Here is a List of the Most Outrageous Lies Told By Conservatives in 2013

by Bob Cull

We know that to the conservative mind, a lie isn't a lie as long as it supports a conservative position. With that in mind, we've put together a list of some of the most outrageous lies told by conservatives in 2013.  A list of all of the lies would take up our monthly allotment of bandwidth, so we'll stick to lies which earned a "pants on fire" rating from Politifact.com.

1. Michelle Bachmann is a world class liar, and has earned many pants-on-fire ratings over the last 12 months. Let's take a look at some of her finest moments.

Speaking at CPAC in March, Bachmann said:

Scientists tell us that we could have a cure in 10 years for Alzheimer's, if we'd only put our mind to it... How did we possibly get to this point of political malpractice? Because our government... has created a cadre of overzealous regulators, excessive taxation and greedy litigators.

Experts say it's a combination of stagnant funding and the complexities of the condition that have held up research; no one has said we could have a cure in 10 years.

2. The same day she said of SNAP:

Of every dollar that you hold in your hands, 70 cents of that dollar that's supposed to go to the poor doesn't. It actually goes to benefit the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. 70 cents on the dollar.

The research she used to come up with the figures was flawed, and even the author of the report she used says that she misinterpreted his figures.

3. In May, a chain email made the rounds in the right wing blogosphere which said in part:

ObamaCare allows the establishment of Dhimmitude and Sharia Muslim diktat in the United States. Muslims are specifically exempted from the government mandate to purchase insurance, and also from the penalty tax for being uninsured.

Dhimmitude is not only not found anywhere in the law as the author of the email claimed -- the writer says it's on page 107, but it's not even a word, but a corruption of the word "dhimmi," which merely refers to a non-Muslim living under Muslim protection. There's no prohibition on purchasing insurance in Islam, and Muslims are as likely to have insurance as anyone else.

4. After Connie Mack claimed that Obamacare is the largest tax increase in the history of the country, Rush Limbaugh cranked it up on his radio show claiming:

"Obamacare is nothing more than the largest tax increase in the history of the world."

All taxes associated in any way with Obamacare come to a mere 0.49% of GDP while, to mention a small sampling of previous taxes in the U.S. only, and only since 1968, Revenue and Expenditure Control Act of 1968: 1.09 percent of GDP, Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982: .8 percent of GDP, Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act of 1980: .5 percent of GDP.  There are others, but you get the picture.  

5. In September Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant Governor of New York State said in an op-ed in The New York Post:

"‘Are you sexually active? If so, with one partner, multiple partners or same-sex partners?’"

In the piece she makes the claim that under Obamacare all doctors will be required to ask this and other prying questions about our sex lives or lack thereof.  Of course there is no such provision in the law. Doctors are told in med school to ask these questions but few do.

6. In an October 9 column, Ann Coulter said:

"no doctors who went to an American medical school will be accepting Obamacare."

Of course there is absolutely no evidence that any doctor, no matter where they were educated, will refuse to see people simply because they are only recently insured.

7. In August Eric Cantor said:

"The IRS will have access to the American people’s protected health care information."

The IRS will verify that you are eligible for a subsidy and they will verify that you have insurance for the purpose of assessing the penalty from those who refuse to purchase insurance.  That is the total extent of involvement that the IRS has with Obamacare.

There are many more lies told by conservatives over the course of the year. But as noted above, this is a partial list of those which earned a Pants on Fire rating for being particularly egregious.

Bob Cull