Top 6 Fallacies Of 2014


Here?in the U.S. of A., it’s becoming all-too common for media to distribute propaganda, slanted news, and general misinformation. And especially in an election year; Congress already has it on the books that the 1st Amendment allows them to legally lie in campaign ads, and we saw plenty of that in this year’s?mid-term races.

There were a few standouts this year, though, and ?that?(just like last year’s) all seem to share some common threads: they all involve President Obama, and all came from Republican advocates, if not the Republican Party itself. Have a look!

fallacies

1) Obama Refused To Deport Illegal Immigrant Children

obama immigrants
(Image acquired from RealThinkFactory)

When Central American children weren’t quickly deported earlier this year, demonstrators hit the streets. Angry crowds in California and Arizona waved ?Impeach Obama? signs in their protests against this retention of illegal immigrant children. Sarah Palin even wrote an op/ed demanding Obama be impeached just because the kids were being detained. After all, it was the president himself who was keeping them here, costing all of us taxpayers a lot of money to care for and house them, right?

Wrong. It’s a law signed by former president George W. Bush that required retention of those children. The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (or?TVPRA), requires that minors from specific Asian and Central American countries be given extended stay if they are caught in the U.S. Instead of sending them back to their home countries, which are identified as ones where crimes against children (including sexual crimes) are of high risk, such illegal immigrants are to be provided representation?from a federal asylum officer, who will represent them in a courtroom setting. A U.S. judge gets to decide on their deportation. So not only did this law come from the last president, but Bush signed it for a damn good reason, too.

But most media didn’t bother to set the record straight when they reported about the protests, and some even seemed to openly promote the silly argument.

2) Ebola = Obama

obama ebola
(Photo by Rob Groce)

All the news on Ebola was reminiscent of the Y2K frenzy 15 years ago. Back in late ?99, media continuously spread news that predicted computer shutdowns, resulting?from use of two-digit year abbreviations, would cause havoc worldwide in the new year. You never heard of it again after Jan. 1, 2000, though, when it was apparent that Y2K was not the BFD previously predicted.

Now fast-forward to 2014, when media was chock-full of news about Ebola. This very serious (but not seriously contagious) virus was coming to the United States, news said. Everyone was at risk, reporters told us. Many will die, networks warned. And, somehow, it was all Obama’s fault, said Republicans, who were the ones milking this one to the max through many media.

In email blasts, the GOP claimed an outbreak of the virus was about to strike the U.S. because Obama didn’t secure the borders. ?The Obama administration refuses to impose a travel ban,? wrote Ann Coulter in a claim that he was purposefully putting the public at risk; ?Obama doesn’t want to protect Americans.? ?When one American developed Ebola after returning from Liberia, Republicans said Obama could have prevented it, and warned that thousands would now die from the illness because he didn’t. And as the rather conservative The Hill claimed on Oct. 16, ?The Ebola crisis in the United States has become an anchor threatening to sink the Obama presidency.?

Cementing the fact that Republicans were only breeding hypochondria for political purposes, on Election Day (at least in the southeast region of South Carolina) the GOP distributed outdoor signs that read ?EBOLA,? complete with the president’s ?O? logo.

But what really happened? Four Americans were afflicted with Ebola, not the tens of thousands Republicans claimed would acquire the virus. Only one of them died from the illness; the other three were quickly and completely cured.

And just like Y2K was gone from the news after Jan. 1, 2000 came around, hardly any reports on Ebola have circulated after the November elections.

3) Obama Recklessly Threw Away Public Tax Dollars By Funding Now-Bankrupt Solyndra

(Image from WashingtonIsBroke.com)
(Image from WashingtonIsBroke.com)

This one’s a continuation of smear started in 2012 by the Romney campaign. Solyndra was a solar energy company; it received a $529 million loan from the Dept. of Energy in 2009 for manufacturing of solar panels, but filed for bankruptcy just two years later. That’s a big bill for taxpayers to assume, and in exchange for nothing. And wouldn’t you know it? According to the Republican National Committee, that was Obama’s fault.

In an April 15 email, RNC deputy chief of staff Chuck DeFeo said ?last time Obama had a Democratic congress, he rammed through his large, expensive, and disastrous programs (?) like Solyndra ? costing every taxpayer.?

But DeFeo might have spent too much time in the sun right before he distributed that message. You see, the program that offered the loan to Solyndra was created in 2005. And who was president in 2005? George W. Bush. Solyndra applied and was approved for the loan in 2008. And who was president in 2008? George W. Bush. And, just for the record, with which political party is George W. Bush affiliated? That’s right ? the Republican Party. That Solyndra didn’t get the funding until after Democrat Obama took office in no way ties the current president to that company’s failure. ?And that this falsehood didn’t do any good for Romney’s campaign means that the RNC should’ve thought first about trying it again.

(And by the way? The same funding program for alternate energies is now over $5 billion in the black.)

That didn’t stop the GOP and its supporters, though, who even distributed modified photos of the Solyndra logo that included the Obama ?O? in the name.

4) Obama Responsible For $7 Trillion In National Debt

obama debt

In another April 2014 email from the RNC, its co-chair Sharon Day offered this classic line: ?since becoming president, Obama has added nearly $7 trillion to the national debt.? And national debt at that time was over $17.5 trillion (for update, it recently broke $18 trillion). Thus, according to RNC’s Day, the current president is holding the tab to 40 percent of all U.S. debt in just his first five years.

But Day’s claim is only partially true ? and very, very partial. Yes, that is the amount of debt increase during Obama’s administration. But his presidency, its budgets and its spending are not the cause of that debt.

Over 93 percent of all national debt results dominantly from bonds and Treasury Bills sold to fund the programs, tax policies, and other fiscal practices of Presidents Reagan, Bush, and W. Bush. The interest owed on those bonds and bills increases on a daily basis. Thus, the consistent rate of increase isn’t attributable to money being spent, but to interest earnings accrued by those T-Bills and bonds. The total amount of national debt that is attributed to President Obama, and from his annual budget proposals that exceed annual tax collection, is only about $286 billion. And that’s less than 1.6 percent of all current national debt.

(In addition, this ?national debt? isn’t solely comprised of debt; it also includes assets. For example, the Social Security Trust Fund is sitting on a few trillion. Because that money is expected to be spent one day, though, it’s automatically included in the ?debt? category. The retirement funds of all federal and many state employees, which are positive assets, are also included in that dollar figure. If there’s any one thing that the public is continually misled about, it’s this subject of national debt.)

5) Benghazi

obama benghazi
(Image from NRCC.com)

Congressional hearings on the Sept. 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission began shortly after the incident, and quickly determined that the White House did all that it could in the circumstance. Senior officers already testified that the military could do nothing about it. Media confirmed that the ambassador slain in that attack had himself twice refused military backup only one month before. Hearings also determined that the White House in no way attempted to cover-up or water-down information about the attack, too.

But that didn’t stop the GOP from trying this route all over again at the same time primary elections started to make daily news. And it wasn’t just to smear opponents? campaigns, either. To the Republican Party, ?Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi? translated to ?Donation, Donation, Donation.? And the National Republican Congressional Committee made it quite apparent that the goal was campaign fundraising. Right after a new Benghazi Select Committee was created in May 2014, NRCC’s website launched a ?Benghazi Coverup? page that only served to collect donations. ?You’re now a Benghazi Watchdog,? the page (still online) reads, and right above its suggested donation increments.

Thankfully, the recent (and seventh) congressional review confirmed yet again that no one failed to do anything that could have prevented the attack, and that no one tried to cover up anything, either. The only error, the review concludes, was that the CIA did not fully prep U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice before she spoke to the United Nations about the incident.

Republicans are still drumming up an eighth ?review? for next year, however, the only goal of which could be to damage Hillary Clinton’s name while she begins her 2016 presidential campaign.

What really should be investigated, though, is the immorality of the Republican Party in this case. The GOP is shamelessly using the names of four brave Americans who were killed by terrorists, and only for its own political gain.

6) Obama Slashed Defense Budget

obama military budget

This is from another email blasted by the RNC, this one from March 2014. In that email from Sen. John McCain, he says: ?if you want to see where Obama and the Democrats? priorities lie, look at how much they’ve slashed the defense budget(.)?


While he’s right that defense spending did get cut, the bill that did so didn’t come from any Democrat, and not from the president. That bill, voted on in Dec. 2013, was authored and solely sponsored in the House by U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, a Republican from Kentucky. And when the bill passed, it didn’t do so with Democratic support. In fact, only two Democrats in the House voted for this bill, while 188 voted against it. On the other side, 228 Republicans voted for the bill that slashed defense spending, and only one GOP representative voted nay.

For McCain to state otherwise, then, is a full, complete, slap-in-the-face lie.


Know of any other fallacies that you think should have made this year’s list??Let us know at the Liberal America Facebook page! (And check out the Top Fallacies of 2013, too.) Sign up for our?free daily newsletter to receive more great stories like this one.

 

I had a successful career actively working with at-risk youth, people struggling with poverty and unemployment, and disadvantaged and oppressed populations. In 2011, I made the decision to pursue my dreams and become a full-time writer. Connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.