Republicanese

The neocon publicity machine has generated an enormous amount of what George Orwell called “Newspeak”.  Neocons have fallen out of repute since most of this was written, during the GW Bush administration, but today's Republicans are still doing it.  Here are a few examples:

Non-Starter:  We can't find any fault with this idea at all, but we're immovably against it anyway. E.G., R51 is a non starter.  It would result in huge improvements to our congested highways at a trivial cost to taxpayers, proportionate to their use of the highways, but we're against it anyway.  Therefore it is a non-starter.

Clear Evidence: Not one shred of evidence, or sometimes fraudulent evidence. E.G. We have clear evidence that Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction, therefore we will attack him and commit ourselves to many years of "peacekeeping" in a hostile environment, in the process alienating ourselves from the rest of the world.   The scant evidence we have shown publicly is in fact a complete forgery. E.G.  We have clear evidence that tax cuts help the economy and increase employment.   every single previous tax cut has triggered a significant rise in unemployment and the majority have provoked an economic downturn, therefore we are going to try it again, this time in a way guaranteed to bankrupt the government at the same time.

Defending freedom: Suspending or overthrowing constitutional protections of freedom and civil liberties. 

Fighting terrorism: Starting or provoking conflicts that make people who were already angry at us willing to go to almost any extreme, including suicide bombings, to revenge themselves upon us.   Also: Wasting huge amounts of money in bureaucratic boondoggles that make it much more difficult to deal with the social and political problems behind terrorism.

Overwhelming majority:  between 20 and 49.9% approval. E.G. President Bush enjoys support from an overwhelming majority of the American people.

Completely baseless charges:  Guilty as hell.  E.g., the corruption charges against Tom DeLay and the influence pedaling and bribery charges against his crony Abramov are completely baseless.  They did them and more.

Clear Skies: Allowing polluters to do whatever they want with impunity.

Healthy Forests: Allowing lumber companies to do whatever they want with impunity.

Abstinence only: Disseminating lies about, and promoting legal impediments to,  any means of contraception more effective than wishful thinking. (the studies aren't all in yet, but it's starting to look like "abstinence only" may have caused the largest increase in abortions in our country's history)

Junk Science: Anything which is carefully researched, peer-reviewed, and widely accepted by people with expertise in the topic.

Fact: Something which has no basis in reality except for how it sounds to someone with no particular expertise in any relevant subject.

Bipartisan: Supported by most republican legislators and maybe (but not necessarily) one or two extremely conservative democrats.

Saving ____: cutting funding to ____ in such a way as to severely undermine its future sustainability but ensure that the ultimate collapse doesn't occur on the present administration's watch.  e.g. Saving Social Security, Saving Medicare.

Class Warfare:  The victims of long term, sustained attacks finally waking up and complaining about it.

Fairness: Anything that gives wealthy corporations and individuals an unfair advantage, power or money.

Average Person: A person with income between the 90 and 99th percentile.  in 2003 this was the range $125,000 to $300,000.   The actual median family income then was just over $44,000.

Job Creator: Someone who makes most of their income in the stock or bond market or by collecting rent or interest, and thus creates few or no jobs.

added 27 Jan 2012

Totally Dishonest:  Exactly right. E.g.: Mitt's ads about Newt are totally dishonest.  That is, they're completely accurate.  (Very little Mitt says is truthful, but about Newt, he's right on.  Of course Newt is right about Mitt, too.)

added 28 Feb 2013
Showing Leadership: do exactly what Republicans want, in clear violation of what the voters said they wanted or any actual facts on the ground

added 28 Mar 2013
Baseless Assertion: carefully researched, well documented and reasoned.  When a republican tells you something is a baseless assertion, it's a fairly safe bet that it's true.

added 27 Apr 2013
Put Politics Aside: I've lost on the facts or the politics but I want to keep pushing my (probably nonsensical) position anyway.  (both parties use this one but the Rs use it far more)

Not Picking Winners and Losers: Rigging the game so that the powerful can do whatever they want with impunity and the less powerful have no opportunity to do more than grumble.

added 18 Apr 2014
Nobody Could Have Predicted: It isn't what our rich backers wanted, so we prevented it from happening. Scientists and other people with real expertise not only predicted, but were screaming a warning as loudly as they could.

Cooking the Books:  similar to "Junk Science" and "Baseless assertion".  Carefully researched, documented and peer reviewed.  Tends to be used for statistics.

added 18 Dec 2014
Right to Work: The right of business owners to do whatever they please to workers, especially lower pay, blocking union membership, stealing pensions and more.