“Happy Memorial Day to All, including the Human Scum that is working so hard to destroy our Once Great Country, & to the Radical Left, Trump Hating Federal Judge in New York that presided over, get this, TWO separate trials, that awarded a woman, who I never met before (a quick handshake at a celebrity event, 25 years ago, doesn’t count!), 91 MILLION DOLLARS for “DEFAMATION.” She didn’t know when the so-called event took place – sometime in the 1990’s – never filed a police report, didn’t have to produce the “dress” that she threatened me with (it showed negative!), & sung my praises in the first half of her CNN Interview with Alison Cooper, but changed her tune in the second half – Gee, I wonder why (UNDER APPEAL!)? The Rape charge was dropped by a jury! Or Arthur Engoron, the N.Y. State Wacko Judge who fined me almost 500 Million Dollars (UNDER APPEAL) for DOING NOTHING WRONG, used a Statute that has never been used before, gave me NO JURY, Mar-a-Lago at $18,000,000 – Now for Merchan!”
Yes, her again. In her Beetlejuice fiasco apology, Rep. Lauren Boebert lied about an important aspect of her “date night” at the musical Beetlejuice, akin to an inconvenient fact. As a general rule, lying when you’re professing to tell the truth is a bad idea. This is doubly true for Lauren Boebert, a habitual liar; her lies are easily fact-checked. Inside and out of the Capitol building shetellswhoppers. Moreover, lying when issuing a statement seeking sympathy adds another dimension to just plain lying – stupidity (which she’s famously done before). If, like Boebert, you are in the professional class of liars, one must be vigilant: don’t lie stupidly. As we wrote about Trump here, that makes things significantly worse, witness Seinfeld’sGeorge Costanza.
In this case, her apology gave the clear impression that her date at Beetlejuice was a casual affair, seemingly a first date. She gave credence to that by avowing, with a tinge of humor, “I learned to check party affiliations before you go on a date,” as in, “I didn’t know he was a Democrat.” In fact, she knew him and his party of choice quite well: Quinn Gallagher, 46, a Democrat and co-owner of Hooch Craft Cocktail Bar which has hosted drag shows and pro-LGBTQ+ events. Importantly to this saga, they had been dating for some time, “under the radar.”
Seriously?
Is this worth grousing about? Well, yes, a qualified yes, let’s not get carried away. Her lie is small compared to her still active lies about the 2020 election, and LGBTQ+ “grooming.” What’s important here is that Boebert lied about her relationship with Gallagher. Why hide it? Was it due to his co-ownership of a bar that hosts drag queen shows and LBGTQ+ events? She’s no friend to that community, having said this about the Equality Act :
It’s likely that she didn’t want any inconvenient facts to muddy her somewhat humorous apology to her constituents. So, she reflexively lied about the relationship with Gallagher by styling it like a first date simply to try to bury the other, more politically dangerous, inconvenient fact that her date co-owns an LGBTQ+-friendly bar. Some of her constituents may not applaud her for that, and her bid for reelection is none too certain already. She’s been, overall, an embarrassment, now this. In 2022 she won by a mere 546 votes, and in late August polls show her in a dead-heat with her challenger,Adam Frisch.
And as mentioned above, it’s stupid lying, easily uncovered by simple googling, and that is why it matters more than a garden variety white lie. She ought to be careful, in a close reelection race, all lies are worthy of careful vetting.
From last night’s GOP presidential primary debate, sponsored by CNN, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Enterprise Institute (both, all righwing, all the time):
ED MEESE, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: “At least 42 terrorist attacks aimed at the United States have been thwarted since 9/11. Tools like the Patriot Act have been instrumental in finding and stopping terrorists. Shouldn’t we have a long range extension of the investigative powers contained in that act so that our law enforcement officers can have the tools that they need?”
BLITZER: “So, Speaker, just to clarify, you wouldn’t change the Patriot Act?”
GINGRICH: “No, I would not change it. I’m not aware of any specific change it needs.And I’d look at strengthening it because I think the dangers are literally that great. And again, I’ve spent years studying this stuff. You start thinking about one nuclear weapon in one American city and the scale of loss of life and you ask yourself, what should the president be capable of doing to stop that?”
So, he’s against changing the Patriot Act. O.K., that’s fine, after all, to me, its provisions are intrusive enough already. He then asserts, “I’m not aware of any specific change it needs.” O.K., agreed, let’s not make it worse, and with this particular Congress, making it less intrusive is a non-starter. Yet, Gingo’s apparently open to any change it might need, as long as he becomes aware of it. That leaves a lot of wiggle room, and Newt loves to wiggle. [Note that there are many proposals to amend the Patriot Act, particularly in the area of cyber-security – collecting citizen data, increased “information sharing” etc.]
Next, though, is Newt’s promise that he’d “look at strengthening it,” although in the previous sentence, less than two seconds behind him, he maintained the Patriot Act didn’t need changing. Confusing? Or a MENSA mind too deep for us to follow? No, I pick “mendacious” – a person given to or characterized by deception or falsehood or divergence from absolute truth. That’s how Gingo’s mind works. You can’t teach this kind of seemingly crafty deceitfulness. It’s inherent. In less than three seconds, he took positions that were contrary to each other. One cannot “strengthen” the Patriot Act, without changing it. These abrupt turns in his thought seek two results – to have deniability (“No. I never said that!”) and to widen his wiggle room (No. I never ruled that out!). He doesn’t have to conjure up these contradictory positions on the fly, they emanate from him like chitin from a Venus fly trap.
“I would rather tell seven lies than make one explanation.” Mark Twain – Letter to John Bellows, 11 April 1883
Who Knew? For three days, a no holds barred anti-public sector union t.v. spot created by Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS has been running on cable t.v. and it’s a humdinger. It discloses an overly and overtly cozy financial relationship between public sector unions and the Democratic party. The 30-second clip was cut by Crossroads GPS from their primary one-minute ad. In it we see a shoddy performance by the National Education Association’s general counsel, Bob Chanin, who strongly suggests the NEA is less about education and more about collecting dues, influencing elections, and increasing its political power. At the outset of the Crossroads GPS ad, Chanin says:
“. . . it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children. And it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year . . .”
Thanks to Crossroads GPS, and its apparently hidden camera at the NEA’s 2009 annual meeting, we learn how secondary the cause of public education was to its brutal power grab. Who knew? Crossroads GPS did. But as with anything involving Karl Rove and a bunch of Bush II era political right wing journeymen, the affair needs a full examination, fore and aft. And here you go with what Chanin actually said, in context.
“So the bad news, or depending on your point of view, the good news, is that NEA and its affiliates will continue to be attacked by conservative and right-wing groups as long as we continue to be effective advocates for public education, for education employees, and for human and civil rights. And that brings me to my final and most important point. Which is why, at least in my opinion, NEA and its affiliates are such effective advocates. Despite what some among us would like to believe, it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children. And it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them, the unions that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees”
It’s Not a Lie, It’s Just a Schmear of Untruthiness. What Mr. Chanin said and what Crossroads GPS did with it might make you a little nauseous, and, then again, it may provide a lot of insight into how propagandists operate, particularly Karl Rove protegees. The gist, of course, is obvious, the ad so thoroughly misleads with such breathtakingly dishonest editing that it ought to be a case study in bullshit detection for criminology majors. Is it any surprise that Karl Rove’s in charge?
Crossroads GPS will be remembered as near idiots who hadn’t figured out that their content can be examined and shot down. Someone please remind Rove and Associates that for years now it’s been lots easier to fact check by using mysterious machines like computers, “the Google,” and video and audio history. Old-fashioned folks (me) still take handwritten notes. And videos, audio tracks, handwritten notes, speech notes, and memories are there in abundance when it comes to Bob Chanin’s farewell address.
All this Crossroads GPS nonsense gives a good view into the right wing propagandist mind. And their anti-public union tidbit puts some key features of their approach on display. The ad is so obviously manipulative and utterly dishonest; how did they think no one would pick up on the sneaky Bob Chanin edit? It’s as obvious as coming home with a bottle of booze in one hand, a joint in the other, and proudly telling your spouse, “Late night at the office, love of my life.” The fact is they didn’t care if they got away with it.
Truthful Thinking Is Just So 20th Century. Stephen Colbert captured our present age as a time of “truthiness.” I think we’ve all noticed for some time now, truth isn’t just taking a beating – that we could all understand. What shakes us up is that truth is way too often irrelevant. Truth has, by some, been kicked to the curb and left for dead.
Why? For Rove and other propagandists (right and left), their audience, their “base,” exists to be manipulated without mercy, regardless of their collective needs. To the Rove’s of this world, manipulation is an amoral activity, it is simply a practical necessity to gain and retain political and economic power for themselves or for their clients. Yet, one can’t succeed at manipulation without knowing one’s audience very well. And they do.
“In The Long Run, Hierarchical Society Was Only Possible On A Basis Of Poverty And Ignorance.” George Orwell,1984, Ch. 3.
Most often, and usually through no fault of their own, many in Rove’s anti-union base are unsophisticated, under-educated, hidebound fans of FOX Newsiness, suspicious of joint action to assist anyone but their inner circle of family and friends, and just plain angry at modernity and the received history of recent times. It’s likely that the average person in the Rovian base (1) will notinvestigate the Crossroads GPS anti-union claims, or examine Bob Chanin’s NEA speech, and (2) will notbelieve any “liberal” blowback they may accidentally hear or read. Rove knows they are allergic to anything not already believed. He has, after all, been one of their principal cattle dogs, keeping them in the herd, yapping and biting at their heels and flanks, keeping them voting for politicians and policies that, for most of his base, are genuinely against their interests, and the interests of their children.
In closing, here’s an expert demonstration of the use of another arrow in the propagandist’s quiver, complete denial. Once caught in a preposterous lie, they most often simply do not admit it, and, most importantly, do so with bravado and bravura, they continue to stay on the message the lie or misrepresentation advances.
Look Both Ways Before Crossroads (GPS)! This little dust-up will pass, as has been the habit lately since the Democratic party is now categorized in the taxonomic table as “invertebrate.” And it’s truer than true, we all do this opportunistic lying at times to get ahead, individuals and political parties and unions all, (although my experience is that the right wing GOP is far more committed, religiously, it seems, to telling such categorical lies that it takes one’s breath away). In any event, given their full coffers, Crossroads GPS will go on and on and on, but maybe, in time, the truth will catch up with them.
