AlterNet's Top 10 Right Wing Jaw-Droppers of the Year

The right-wing's hit parade of madness and the politics of resentment.

Complied by the editors of AlterNet

America's right-wing is a national embarrassment. On any given day, you can find its leaders spouting racism, pretending poverty doesn't exist, mocking the idea that climate change is a serious problem, or attempting to restrict the fundamental rights of women. Here are some of AlterNet's most popular and outrageous stories about the right from this year.

1. Why Americans Are So Ignorant -- It's Not Only Fox News, There Are Some Understandable Reasons for It

by Lawrence Davidson, Consortium News

Sure propaganda, government secrecy and Fox News have a lot to do with it. But there are broader societal pressures as well. "The majority of any population will pay little or no attention to news stories or government actions that do not appear to impact their lives or the lives of close associates," Davidson writes. "If something non-local happens that is brought to their attention by the media, they will passively accept government explanations and simplistic solutions."

2. The Most Depressing Discovery About the Brain, Ever

by Marty Kaplan, AlterNet

Say goodnight to the dream that education, journalism, scientific evidence, or reason can provide the tools that people need in order to make good decisions. Kaplan argues, "It turns out that in the public realm, a lack of information isn’t the real problem.  The hurdle is how our minds work, no matter how smart we think we are.  We want to believe we’re rational, but reason turns out to be the ex post facto way we rationalize what our emotions already want to believe." 

3. 10 Most Absurd Sex Tips from the Christian Right

by Amanda Marcotte, AlterNet

Modern conservatives can't stop talking about sex. And what they say opens a window into the strange, sexist worldview of patriarchal religion. "Throughout fundamentalist Christianity, one piece of advice rings out above all others, which is that marriage only works if wives submit to their husbands," explains Marcotte.

4. Right-Wing Group Seeks Help Rewriting the Bible Because It's Not Conservative Enough

by Richard Schiffman, AlterNet

The King James Bible and more recent translations are veritable primers of progressive agitprop, according to the founder of Conservapedia. Writes Schiffman, "When Jesus greets his disciples with the blessing, 'Peace be with you' (John 20, 26), the editors cleverly change the wording to, 'Peace of mind be with you,' so that nobody gets the wrong idea and thinks Jesus was some kind of lilly-livered pacifist.

5. Shocking New Evidence Reveals Depths of 'Treason' and 'Treachery' of Watergate and Iran-Contra

by Robert Parry, Consortium News

New evidence continues to accumulate showing how Official Washington got key elements of two major presidential scandals of the Nixon and Reagan administrations wrong. "Newly disclosed documents have put old evidence into a sharply different light and suggest that history has substantially miswritten the two scandals by failing to understand that they actually were sequels to earlier scandals that were far worse. 

Watergate and Iran-Contra were, in part at least, extensions of the original crimes, which involved dirty dealings to secure the immense power of the presidency," Parry reports. FBI's J. Edgar Hoover's fingerprints are all over this one. 

6. You Think You Knew Crazy? Think Again. 10 Shockers from the Increasingly Unhinged Right Wing

by Janet Allon, AlterNet

Nothing shuts down America's far-right lunatic fringe. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia said of Lucifer this year, "He’s a real person. Hey, c’mon, that’s standard Catholic doctrine! Every Catholic believes that."

7. Right-Wing Is Filled with Biblical Illiterates: They'd Be Shocked by Jesus' Teachings if They Ever Picked Up a Bible

by CJ Werleman, AlterNet

Jesus wouldn't have supported food stamps?

8. 5 Christian Right Delusions and Lies About History

by Amanda Marcotte, AlterNet

They're not just delusional about science! Here's Marcotte relating craziness the Christian Right peddles about the founding fathers: "For people who downright deify our Founding Fathers, the religious right is really hostile to accepting them as they actually were, which is not particularly religious, especially by the standards of their time. 

But David Barton, a revisionist "historian" whose name comes up again and again in these kinds of discussions, has  spread the belief far and wide in the Christian right that the Founders were, in fact, fundamentalist Christians who are quite like the ones we have today. Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas confirms this, saying that Barton “provides the philosophical underpinning for a lot of the Republican effort in the country today.”

9. 10 Outrages and Crazy Statements by Right-Wingers This Week: Pope Provokes Free-Market Freakout

by Janet Allon, AlterNet

The right freaked out about a compassionate pope and transgendered people, and spewed some really bizarre conspiracy theories. Allon shares how Fox Business Channel host Stuart Varney was just stewing about the pontiff’s remarks. “Capitalism, in my opinion, is a liberator,” he lectured Pope Francis from his television pulpit. 

“The free choice of millions of people is the essence of freedom. In my opinion, society benefits most when people are free to pursue their own self-interest. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but it is not.”

10. Texas Republican Judge Switches Party, Denouncing GOP as Party of Bigots and Hate-Mongers

by Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet

GOP was called out by the judge for having a culture of  "pettiness and bigotry."