Truthiness Rises Again

“If you believe it, it’s not a lie”, or a variation on that theme, seems to be the foundation the Republicans are functioning from these days.  As a result, they can say anything they want to, anytime, anywhere for any reason whatsoever.  What a freeing feeling that must be!  Never having to look up and verify the source of your statements.  Just think of all the time one can save by not having to verify.

I wrote a blog about this sort of thing in October of last year, True Facts vs Truthiness, because it was already beginning to be such a problem that Stephen Colbert created the term, truthiness, to cover it.  Truthiness as a word is pretty funny, one has to admit, but the cause for the need for such a term is not.

This past month or so Darryl Issa, (R) unfortunately from California, Chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been conducting hearings on the “Fast and Furious” program to “walk” rather than run guns into Mexico to the drug cartels there to trace the guns directly to crimes.  Apparently the program was talked about but never implemented, but was described as a fait accompli by a so-called whistle blower.  One person said it was a fact.  Seven DOJ personnel disputed the fact.  But Issa chose to go with the one, because the truthiness of the one corresponded with what he wanted to believe, while the testimony of the seven did not.  Thus, since he believed it, it was not a lie.

During the Committee hearings, Issa refused to call any witnesses that might not corroborate what he wanted to believe.  Then he insisted that Eric Holder was withholding information from a Congressional committee, and the Republicans on the committee voted to hold Holder in Contempt of Congress, even though President Obama had issued an Executive Order preventing the release.  By law, the documents Issa could not be released because they were the subject of an ongoing investigation, but never let a little matter like that get in the way.

So yesterday the Republicans, and some Democrats who could not stand up to the National Rifle Association threats, voted to hold the Attorney General of the United States in Contempt of Congress for upholding the law!!

Does anyone else out there feel like he/she has fallen down a rabbit hole?  Only instead of the Red Queen threatening to cut off everyone’s head, we have a bunch of whackadoodle Republicans saying anything they want to, because if they believe it, it must be true.

Absurdity at its Best

Over the years I have often been amused by the pompous right wing conservative’s lack of humor.  Everything is so very earnest.  When I was first elected during Board meetings I simply could not keep my sense of humor out of the conversation.  After one of what at the time I thought was particularly funny even though I can’t remember what it was now (after all it was nearly 13 years ago), the very conservative Chairman of the Board commented that “we need to keep under control here”.  Of course, the response to that was, “Is someone out of control?”  I give him credit for telling me several months later that he really liked the lighter tone.

With that being said, Rachel Maddow had a segment on her MSNBC.com program last night that I thought was particularly hilarious.  I tried to pull the segment up on the MSNBC website, but the ExxonMobile ad that popped up first would jam after the first few seconds, so I googled D. Portado instead and came up with the following paragraphs which are the ones Rachel had on her program.

Here’s an excerpt of a 1996 episode of This American Life that featured Mr. D. Portado:

Man: Hey, Pedro. Go back to Mexico, stop taking our jobs, and stop looking at my daughter!

Daniel D. Portado: Immigrants, are you tired of being pushed around in America? Well, don’t sit on your serape. Do something about it. Join the conservative political action group HALTO– Hispanics Against Liberal Takeover. 

Announcer 1: HALTO was formed by Mexicali karaoke lounge sensation Daniel D. Portado as a way to spread California Governor Pete Wilson’s message of self-deportation to a national audience. 

Daniel D. Portado: I am the chairman of HALTO, Daniel D. Portado. What is self-deportation, you ask? Think of it as a permanent vacation. Just imagine, in one easy step, you can avoid all this crazy anti-immigrant harassment in America. How? Self-deportation. Just imagine yourself on the beach, in Mazatlan, relaxed, tension-free. Immigrants, join HALTO today and see your homeland tomorrow. 

Announcer 1: Self-deportation is a trademark of Hispanics Against Liberal Takeover. Subject agrees to voluntarily repatriate to native land or Mexico, whichever is nearest. All self-deportations are final. No exchanges or refunds. Tickets are one way only. 

Pete Wilson never got the joke!!  He took up the banner of self-deportation as a serious issue.  Apparently Der Mitt has not gotten it either, since he so seriously brought it up during one of the primary debates as something the Hispanic community supported!

Never, never, ever vote for a Republican who has no sense of the absurd. 

Subversion of the Constitution?

Way back in the 1930’s when I was a little girl, my family was really pretty socially conservative.  I was taught that one did not mention any other portion of one’s anatomy other than arms or legs.  The portion of the anatomy to which these appendages were attached was simply ‘the body’.  At least, “nice” girls did not.  “Nice” girls didn’t do a whole lot of things that are perfectly acceptable today, like flirt, for instance.  And it was impressed on me over and over that I must not ever let a boy know that I was smarter than he, although at the same time I was expected to get all A’s in all of my classes except any math, because everyone knew girls were not good in math.  All of a girl’s life was proscribed by what men might think of her actions.  Not only her physical looks, but how she acted, spoke, or thought about things.  The objective was to get married, and have her husband make all of these decisions for her. 

It was much later in life that I learned where this extreme attitude had come from.  Life for women was difficult enough before the Protestant Reformation.  During and after in those areas of Europe where the Reformation dominated, the attitude that material success followed directly on the heels of someone who acknowledged that Salvation was by faith alone, and that justification could be brought about by accepting the Christian Scriptures as literal.  By making salvation by faith alone, the concept of also doing good works to help one achieve salvation was lost.  The end result of this was that if a man were successful it meant he had been saved and God was pleased with him.  To let his neighbors know that he was successful he would have a submissive wife and children, and material goods to show off.  With his family, he was the final authority figure.  What he said, went, so to speak.  This gave him permission to beat his wife and children if they didn’t do exactly as he said.  To keep women out of the public arena and in the kitchen, they would be deprived of any education more than that needed to read the Bible to the family.  Men had total control.  Nice for the guys; not so good for the gals.  My childhood was sort of a lingering cloud of that attitude, although my parents were adamant that I should go to college; not to become wise, but to find a husband.  That came later, much to their distress because they felt my college expenses had been wasted! 

When the feminist movement began, I certainly agreed with a great many of their positions, although I never ever burned a bra!  I was thrilled that my own four daughters could choose any profession they wanted, or if possible, could stay home and raise a family, or do both, if they chose to do that.  Birth control was easily attainable, although I will admit the first time I was leaning on a counter at the local drug store and realized I was leaning on a display of condoms, I was somewhat startled.  It took me awhile to realize that although I am not in favor of abortion, abortion needs to be safe and legal for those women who do not agree with me, and that their lives are sacred, too.  In short, it had seemed, up until about 1980 that although women had achieved a great amount of equality, they still had a pretty long way to go in some areas, like equal pay for equal work.  But as examples, women could have their own credit cards, buy and sell their own stock, and have their own bank accounts.  Actions that were not possible in my youth.

During the past 12-15 years, the welling up amongst fundamentalist Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, of some of the attitudes toward women that I experienced as a young woman disturbed me, but then I figured if that is what they wanted to believe, it’s a free country, with freedom of religion.  But during these past few years these fundamentalist attitudes, whether overtly religious or not, in the political arena toward women are dragging women back to those years that were so terribly constrictive for them.  The Catholic Church taking on women theologians and women religious, and attempting to put them back under the thumb of the all-male hierarchy; all of the anti-abortion legislation in Republican State legislatures, particularly those such as Virginia requiring transvaginal probes for ultrasounds before an abortion, but the worst of all occurring this past week in the state legislature of Michigan.

What happened there?  Two female legislators have been banned indefinitely from speaking for saying “vagina” during an abortion debate.  Majority Floor Leader, Jim Stamas, was so offended by State Representative Lisa Brown’s use of the word “vagina” that he took the above action.  Her statement was, “I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but no means no.”  What should she have said?  Perhaps, going back to my childhood, “That portion of my anatomy that lies between where my legs attach to my body.”  His sense of what a proper woman should do and say directly influenced his reaction.  Who gave him the right to decide what Representative Brown could say, so long as she said it in a civil manner in a civil setting?

The Radical Right doesn’t see this as a War on Women.  They see this as a divine intervention to get those uppity women back where they belong.  Religious attitudes, whether overtly expressed or not, are becoming part of the political landscape – and that is not freedom of religion.  It is a direct attempt to subvert the First Amendment to the Constitution:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof:”  I charge that this overt attempt to place all of these cultural restrictions on women that derive from some 15^th Century religious zealot is a subversion of the Constitution.

Romney and Bullying, Part Two

Romney and Bullying, Part Two.

When I wrote the blog below 5/11/12, I didn’t know that Romney had managed to avoid the draft for military duty in Vietnam.  Don’t misunderstand me, I opposed that war then, and I certainly do not support it now.  But using one’s religious obligation to be a missionary in France for two years, among other devices for avoiding the draft, then joining a protest supporting the war was a little much.  Avoid the draft if you must oppose the war, but then don’t support the war where other young men and women are dying or being injured, mentally and physically, while you peddle your bicycle in France. 

And in May, Romney still hadn’t begun to campaign against President Obama because he had not won the requisite number of delegates to cinch the Republican nomination.  Now he is campaigning with full blast lies against the President.  His phenomenal comment that President Obama has done nothing to create jobs has been really astounding.  The President has presented a Jobs Bill to Congress several times.  They passed the one portion dealing with cutting taxes, but refused to pass either this Jobs Bill or the Transportation Bill that would put thousands of people back to work repairing and upgrading our roads and bridges. 

I think Romney has gotten away with spouting off anything that pops into his head for so long, he has forgotten, if he ever knew, that now YouTube is repeating everything he has ever said, 24/7.  And once it is on YouTube, it is everywhere.  24/7. 

So, add his Vietnam experience with his blatant lying about President Obama’s record, plus the record of his lack of empathy, or sympathy, listed below, and use the energy generated by either anger or disgust to register voters, walk precincts, do whatever you can do on your regional level to elect caring people to Congress who will support President Obama in his second term. 

On Martin Bashir today, 6/8/12, Romney was pooh-poohing President Obama’s “to do” list for congress, saying that his “to do” list was written on his heart, and it is “Jobs, jobs, jobs”.  Bashir’s comment to that was that Romney could write it on his heart, which was, after all, and Etch-a-Sketch heart.

Romney and Bullying 5/11/12

When the news broke the other day about Mitt Romney’s high school bullying incident, I was rather annoyed.  As someone said, we probably all did stupid things in high school, so why make a big deal out of this.  That is the point of maturing – we grow out of our high school attitudes and mature into thinking, empathetic adults.  But then I began thinking about some of the other things Mitt has done and said, and in my mind they form a pattern.

 First it was the high school bullying.  A bully cares only about his or her own feelings and doesn’t think, or care, about the feelings of the one being bullied.  Then it was the “dog on the car” episode.  This one bothered me because Mitt’s first answer was not only really ludicrous, but was a lie as well.  He commented that the dog carrier was really airtight.  If it had been airtight, the dog would have suffocated shortly after the trip began.  Further, if it had been airtight, the dog’s effluent wouldn’t have run down the back of the car.  There was no discussion about the condition of the dog at the end of the trip.  Then it was how funny it was that when his Dad closed a plant in Michigan and moved it to Wisconsin, the local band could only play “On, Wisconsin”.  No thought about the people in Michigan who had lost their jobs, or apparent care about what happened to them.  Later, he commented that he really loved to fire companies who were not performing to his standards.  No comment, or thought, about what happened to the people working in the companies he fired.  He had a habit while at Bain Capital of manipulating companies into bankruptcy after having gutted all of their assets for Bain Capital without a thought about what the workers of those companies would do for a living.  And finally, his op-ed piece regarding letting Detroit go bankrupt, knowing full well there was no private capital around to bail them out, and he objected to using tax dollars to do so.  Not a word about the thousands of people who would be out of a job.

Anyone of these incidents, if isolated, would not be enough to form a pattern.  Obviously.  But when one puts them all together they do form a pattern of someone, who in this case happens to be a man, who has absolutely no comprehension that his actions will have a severely detrimental effect on a great number of people.

Martin Bashir had a Democratic analyst, Julian Epstein, on his program today who made the same connection, for which I was thrilled.  At least there is someone who has the ability to get this pattern of Romney’s out into the public forum.  But that was today.

Now imagine this man, Mitt Romney, as President of the United States.  What a chilling thought.

Writer's Block

So far I have been sitting here for an hour, reviewing various websites, playing solitaire, thinking about the issues of the day, and writer’s block has me in its coils.

There is so much to write about: Donald Trump and Der Mitt; Der Mitt and the misspelling of America on his new campaign app (Americia, for those who haven’t seen it), along with the quip that how can Der Mitt lead a country he can’t spell; the call I received just now from Wisconsin (I live in California) to help with the campaign to unseat Governor Scott Walker in the recall election.

Now that is something I can get excited about.  That and the probable recall of Governor Snyder of Michigan.  The reason I can get excited about those recalls in other states is the reasons behind them.  Scott Walker has done his best to use legal means in Wisconsin to disenfranchise voters, destroy the ability of unions to organize and collect campaign funds to offset the corporations, aka Koch Brothers, flooding the state with money to support Walker, his statement to his most affluent Wisconsin supporter that his intent was to divide and conquer the unions, etc., etc.

And Rick Snyder?  This is the so and so who got the Republican Michigan legislature to pass a law giving him the right to dissolve local duly elected Boards and Commissions of towns and cities, and to appoint his own personally selected financial manager, who then sells the assets of the communities to private individuals – all in the name of being fiscally responsible.  The problem with this, of course, is that his policies are what caused the fiscal damage in the state in the first place.  So, go in, wreak havoc, then blame the locals for the problems he caused, do away with them, and allow his buddies to have a field day acquiring public lands and properties at rock-bottom prices.  And this regardless of what the people who were elected by the rest of the people want or would have done.

If this were isolated in only one or two states, one could perhaps ignore it.  But it is happening all over the country.  Get Republicans into office, then use legal means to keep those who would vote for Democrats from voting at all!  Florida is the newest example of that.  These Republicans are using the scare tactic of “voter fraud” as their excuse for doing all of this.  In all of the voting history of the United States, there are few successfully prosecuted  cases of voter fraud. Not too bad, that.  Although the Dept. of Justice has stepped in re: Florida and stopped the voter rolls purge as of yesterday.

This is the year we all have to become involved in whatever way we can – sign up to register voters this fall, if able, walk precincts for liberal local candidates, support state and federal candidates with whatever finances you can afford, and talk, talk, talk to all your neighbors and friends. 

This is the year we must take our country back from those who would turn it into a white, elite, religiously fundamental, and totally controlled non-democratic entity.