DEVELOPING REPUBLICAN LYING OVER THE DECADES

 by Ruth A. Sheets

We hear and read a lot about Trump's "Big Lie" these days.  We are regularly reminded that this is unprecedented, and it is, but it is still a lie.  The "big lie" is a betrayal of the trust of the American people and a forced complicity among Republicans who actually know it is a lie, but to fit in, they must swear to it.  The Lie is the story of a former president who can't let go of the power he believes he obtained fairly, deserves, and was cheated out of in the 2020 election.  Of course Trump is a liar in every way, but it is important to remember that Trump's lying and Trumpian Republicans did not spring from nowhere and nothing.  The "Big Lie" and the January 6^th insurgency it engendered have been brewing for decades 

A beginning can be seen in the anti-New Dealers of the 1930s and beyond, calling the New Deal Communist and a variety of other false names, trying to sink the programs that were rescuing families and workers from the worst of the Great Depression.  The claim was the programs would bankrupt the country, and worse.  Since Republican officials were doing well, they dismissed the suffering of their desperate fellow citizens as just an unfortunate temporary setback.  (I'd rather think this than that they just didn't care.)  

Republican political lying stayed somewhat under the radar during WWII, but after the war, Republican activists tried to bring down the New Deal by lying about the programs' effectiveness.  For example, they targeted unions calling their union-busting Taft-Hartley Act "Right to Work."  Naming things exactly opposite of what they are/do is a continuing Republican practice – The "Freedom Caucus" strategizes to take away rights like voting from people they dismiss, to insure Republicans will stay in power.  Freedom for whom?  Perhaps, freedom from accountability for themselves?

Joe McCarthy, Republican Senator from Wisconsin,  in the 1950s, destroyed many people's lives with his lies and only a rare few Republicans said anything for fear he would go after them.  McCarthy and Trump have a few obvious things in common:  lying regularly, blaming people for things with no evidence, holding blank folders or papers pretending they contain names of the accused or other important information, being power-hungry narcissists.  His lying brought McCarthy down but not until a lot of people's lives were permanently damaged.  Trump's lying has only gotten him voted out of office, so far.

It is important to remember that Democrats can lie too.  Some Democrats joined Republicans in lying during WWII about the danger posed by people of Japanese descent in this country, and forced 120,000 of them into "internment" camps in some of the worst places that could be found in this country to imprison them, even American citizens!  President Lyndon Johnson and his team lied about staying involved in Vietnam reiterating and expanding the lies of the Eisenhower Administration's belief in our need to fight Communists there.  The Dems could have said "no" to the lies. 

Richard Nixon honed Republican lying and surrounded himself with liars.  He did some good things during his administration, like establishing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and resuming relations with China and the Soviet Union, but the lies were mixed in, and ultimately drove him from office.  It is a positive that Republicans as well as Democrats called him out on his lying and cover-up, but they should not be seen as heroes as some want to claim; they were elected officials living their oaths.  Maybe those Republicans look heroic because so few congressional Republicans today show any courage.

President Gerald Ford decided people didn't need to know what Nixon was really doing and where all the lies led, so pardoned him.  Nixon was not held accountable just as Donald Trump will most likely not be.  I suspect Nixon's resignation was the product of a deal with Ford and Congressional Republicans. 

The lying did not stop after Nixon, it just added targets, particularly women, and women were recruited to do a lot of the lying.  Efforts arose to undermine the Civil Rights movement too and lies worked well,  just make up stuff, put people in their place, wherever white men wanted them to be.

Ronald Reagan and his crew were somewhat more sophisticated and careful with their lies than Nixon had been.  When called out, they whined that either they didn't know or that the accusers were the liars (Iran-Contra and "Trickle Down Economics" for example).  Despite his lying, Reagan is often seen as saintly even by some Democrats.  I guess if you smile a lot and lie with conviction you can earn a halo.

Starting with Reagan, justices were appointed to the Supreme Court by Republican Presidents who claimed some kind of "Originalist" position (Antonin Scalia for example).  "Originalist" justices claim to see the Constitution the way our Founders had planned it and the founders' version of the Constitution somehow anticipated the 20^th and 21^st centuries.  I think of this as a "smart guy" lie disguised to look like a profound truth.  It is really a way to defend racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic and other rights-warping rulings reflecting the justices' own personal beliefs, giving those "beliefs" more weight than they deserve.  Liberty and justice for all" for "originalists" meant liberty and justice for rich, gun-toting, Christian white men and corporations.

So many Republicans were sharpening and test-ballooning their lying, even cheating skills during the 1990s it would be impossible to name them all, but Newt Gingrich was a leading practitioner.  A serious expansion of the lying occurred under George W. Bush.  His intense ignorance allowed some of those smart liars to deceive our nation, lying us into the invasion of Iraq being the most deadly example. 

Then, the worst of all things happened for white Republicans, a Black man was legitimately elected president, TWICE!  Republicans scrambled to respond, recruiting Donald Trump and others, preparing them for the next phase.  There was no certainty in 2009 that trump would ever be a candidate, but he established his Bonafides by lying about President Obama's birth.  The Tea Party lied that they were the true inheritors of the American Revolution and a Black president just didn't represent them.  Republicans either said nothing to refute these claims or whole-heartedly jumped right in supporting the lies.

Through lying and cheating, Trump got elected and lied in office more than 30,000 times according to dependable media sources.  Some of his biggest lies came after he was voted out of office, when he should have been put out to pasture.  The Republican Party with few exceptions, a year and a half later repeats Trump's big lie every day along with uncounted new lies.  The groundwork has been carefully laid over decades, so it is no surprise to me that 85% of Republicans say they believe Trump's "big lie" and all the other lies Republicans have been pushing to their falsehood-addicted base.  Most of that base has been carefully trained to believe all the lies, all their lives, and to faithfully follow the Republican Liar in Chief, whoever he is and  wherever he leads, even if he is inept and hardly functioning. 

Lying, since Trump entered the campaign for president in 2015 has been ubiquitous even in the "mainstream" media.  The perpetrators of the lies "plant" them somewhere, perhaps social media, perhaps Fox "News," and by evening they are in the nightly news as facts or claims that must be refuted, of course, after they have been carefully stated.  It may be too late to stop that practice because the liars cleverly create situations they can slip the lies into so they are sure to be repeated and covered.  Even if the reporter says it is not true, it is out there and the base can say "see, the media claims it isn't true, but they wouldn't tell the truth about that anyway." 

The media does have themselves partially to blame though, because when Trump and other candidates blatantly lied, the media would not even say the word "lie."  They even had trouble with "not true" and "falsehood."  They did manage a "not verified" or "no evidence of that yet" now and then.  Things have improved somewhat, but the damage has been done and will take a lot of concentrated effort to correct.  The lying continues at full speed and nearly everything for Republicans deserves a lie or ten, and the "base" will believe it all, and that base is being courted by willing liars.

I wonder, can the dependence on lies by Republicans be reversed and a major political party saved from disaster both for themselves and for our nation?  Remember, political lies are mesmerizing.  They temp people to believe they are getting some kind of private knowledge that makes them special and worthy of something, even if the receiver of the lie does not know what that something is.  They belong to an exclusive club, in this case mostly white, straight, and Christian.

So, is this Republican Party of lies salvageable before it brings down our democracy?  The jury is still out  on this one. 

WHEN LIES ARE WHAT’S TAUGHT

by Ruth Sheets

Teachers are amazing.  Every day during the school year and often for summer school too, they get up, travel some distance (it varies), arrive at school, try to catch up on communications that came to them overnight, and set up their classrooms for the day.  That’s all before the students arrive.  Once that happens, the race is on to give students their very best, sharing information, facilitating discussion, evaluating understanding and progress for their many students, maintaining some level of order, and making the students’ learning experience valuable.  Then, for secondary and some elementary teachers, the process begins again when the next class comes in, then the next and the next to the end of the day. 

Most teachers are competent and knowledgeable about their subject(s), and invested in their own learning.  In most districts, to earn tenure, teachers must have a Master’s degree in education or their subject area before 5 years have passed.  Teachers are watched, evaluated, thrown into challenging situations for which they are not fully prepared, supplied with inadequate resources, working in rooms that are too hot, too cold, too small for the number of students.  They work with students who have inadequate access to technology, but are evaluated as to student success despite the obstacles.  These mostly well-trained, creative, caring, kid-loving professionals are now the target of scared uninformed, mostly white parents and politicians.  These folks in more than a few of our states are now expecting teachers to regularly lie by commission and omission.

Over the past year, Republicans have taken aim at our public education system, well, more than usual.  Teachers have weathered such attacks in the past by doing their jobs even better.  Many teachers left the profession, though, because they decided that they no longer wanted to accept the stress and abuse.  We are now seeing that the people in the field are those seriously committed to our kids, their learning, and their future.

The problem now, Republican school boards and politicians are doubling down on techniques used all over the world by authoritarian governments to make education everywhere in their realms uniformly dedicated to the business of indoctrinating children to just what the government wants kids to know.  That is not the way in a democracy but it does not seem to matter to the perpetrators of the attacks on our schools and libraries

In this iteration of going after our schools, The Trump cult has passed laws in several states that forbid teachers from telling the truth about a lot of subjects to their students.  They can’t share the “1619 Project” on racism in America or teach the Holocaust without presenting “the other side” or mention LGBTQ rights or talk about racism and slavery as anything but a personal choice by practitioners.  No controversial topics are to be discussed.  In some places, evolution (a fact) and climate change (also a fact) are not to be included in the curriculum or even discussed.  No sex education either just in case same-sex relations are mentioned or inspire questions by students.

The goal is to keep white children from feeling guilty or uncomfortable or as if they might want to positively change things.  These fragile white kids, their parents, and just about anyone else can now report any teacher who covers any of the above topics, and the financial penalties can be substantial.  Yay!  vigilantism!  Thanks, Texas, for getting things started with that! 

In our own state, Pennsylvania, there is a bill pending that would allow anyone in the state to report a teacher who has discussed any difficult topic.  In other states, mostly in the former Confederacy, there are proposals to live stream classrooms so anyone can watch and report.  Tennessee, Oklahoma, Florida, and South Dakota right now are among the worst, but Texas, Mississippi, New Hampshire, and others are following right behind.  In at least one state, teachers must report to the parent if a child asks a “challenging question,” whatever that is. 

The reporter I first heard fully discuss this had to do the “balance” thing and equated the above with colleges prohibiting abusive speech and bullying toward other students.  Sorry, but it’s not the same, not even close

The legalized lying about what teachers are teaching and forbidden to teach is so egregious every citizen of this country should be screaming.  The process is reminiscent of the Communist and Fascist crushing of speech that doesn’t fully support their propaganda, going on now in Russia, China, and other countries, and which consumed the Nazis throughout Europe, Franco’s rule in Spain, and the many Communist regimes in the last century.    

I partially blame the Supreme Court for magnifying this anti-democratic insanity.  I believe the approved lying got traction with the Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in 2013.  The decision was based on the lie that the former Confederate states and a few others no longer should need to check in with the Department of Justice to make voting rules changes; they had learned their lesson and would no longer discriminate.  This allowed states to target voters and put into place all kinds of voter suppression policies, lying that they were necessary to stop fraud (practically non-existent).  This action by the Court led to disenfranchisement of people of color, students, and poor citizens who couldn’t get past all the new obstacles quickly placed in their way.  When people can’t vote, a whole lot of people who shouldn’t be in office get elected.

The media was a major force in permitting or even promoting the lying.  You’ve got to present “both sides” of every issue even if there are not 2 legitimate sides.  The media knew, for example, that Donald Trump as candidate and president lied a good part of the time (more than 30,000 times in public in his 4 years in office).  The best the media could do was say or imply that what he said might not be exactly fair or was an exaggeration.  They were lies!!  The word “lie” is rarely used even now.  Reporters will sometimes say falsehood or incorrect.  The word should have been “lie.”  It could have helped people who were only listening in passing to know that Trump is a serial liar, but the opportunity to stop it passed. 

How does this impact our public education system?  Well, it has normalized lying among many Republican and conservative groups.  Claim teachers are brainwashing their kids, it must be happening.  Claim the 1619 Project is filled with lies and they don’t even have to read it.  Ban books that promote sex or being gay or Black supremacy, they don’t have to read the books before lying about them either.  

Let’s face it, the reality is, a lot of white people are scared that somehow the increases in the number of people of color living in our nation will take away their white privilege that they don’t even admit they have.  They don’t want their privileged kids to be confronted by the fact that white people have committed all kinds of atrocities throughout history.  They want their sheltered kids to think that they have earned all the privilege they have and that it is those horrible others who are trying to take it away.  Those others include African-Americans, Latinx, Native Americans, Asian-Americans, LGBTQ persons, Muslims, historians, teachers, writers, and anyone who is not them and wants those white kids to learn about people other than whites.

Teachers have always been targets for whatever flavor of lying and mythmaking Americans are indulging in at the time:  Remember the Alamo, the honorable nature of the Confederacy and the good treatment of slaves, the necessity of interning Japanese-Americans and invading Iraq, and so much more, sometimes out of ignorance and sometimes because teaching the “lies/myths” was ordered (as propaganda).

We know better now but my guess is this current limiting of what teachers can say and what students can discuss will expand before common sense takes over, if it does.  We have lived a pandemic and are still in it and many of those same scared legislators and parents have ignored medical advice and have preferred lies about ineffective drugs and the suggestion that mask mandates infringe on their freedom.  Clearly the truth is just too hard for some adults to manage even if it is easier to digest and will keep them healthier and alive. 

I can’t help but wonder if any of those white legislators and parents have even considered the trauma their kids’ classmates of color have experienced from the bullying, false history, segregation, harassment by police, poverty, and more.  Nah! 

With these new restrictions on education, will students of color and LGBTQ students ever feel safe enough to share their feelings with their white classmates and if that sharing happens unbidden, will the teacher be blamed, prosecuted?  What happens to the students then?

Let’s face it, little white kids are not fragile.  They can read the books the former Confederacy wants to ban and expand their understanding.  They can hear about LGBTQ persons without suddenly becoming gay, but learning about it could save their life when they are trying to figure out who they are. 

It seems to me in this case, parents are the problem.  They worry their sons and daughters may get to know and appreciate the challenges faced by our nation and want to ask their parents what they have done to make things better.  Perhaps the parents have nothing to contribute and they don’t like it.

Clearly, we can’t count on the current Supreme Court, but we should be able to count on the non-right-wing media to keep what is happening in the states in people’s faces.  Political candidates who truly support democracy need to find clever, honest ways to get the word out to citizens about how voters are being used to keep others down by Republicans who are OK with taking away their rights in power.

Above all, teachers, don’t quit. That is just what Republicans are hoping for.  If you quit, they can break our schools and our unions, then dump anyone in classrooms feeding kids the BS that right-wing lies are really truth.  Already there is a teacher shortage and all kinds of inexperienced people are being allowed to be unsupervised in classrooms with vulnerable kids.  Hey, who cares what the kids are being fed as long as they are in person in school.  Parents have to work, you know. 

It is really hard when lying becomes the law of the land or at least in certain states.  We need teachers to find creative ways around these appalling laws/lies and we need to find ways to keep any of the bills now in state legislatures from passing.  We also need to fight these laws with everything we have – are you listening media?  We owe this to our kids, all our kids, even the “fragile” white ones.

KIDNAPPING TRUTH

by Ruth A. Sheets

There are two basic types of truth, the capital "T" truth and the lower case "t" truth.  The first is what we hold as ultimate truth, our beliefs, our understanding of how the world/universe works.  I am not talking about that Truth here.

The second is "the" truth.  This involves facts, what actually happens.  It involves numbers, language, observation in the real world.

Not only has there been an assault on the truth, (lower-case "t") lately, but in some cases, it has been kidnapped, possibly held for ransom.  Perhaps, it has been replaced with the changelings Alternate Facts and Fake News. 

The problem is not that we can't tell these are changelings, (you know, the beings fairies exchanged good little children for), but we are getting used to having them around.  We know Alternate Facts just spouts fabrications.  We even laugh sometimes at her blatant misuse of information and data.  We know that although the main stream media does cover the changelings too often and too deeply, it does try to get the story right most of the time, when it is not afraid of being called "enemy of the people." 

Cute little Fake News is very active, but not where current politicians direct our attention.  Conservatives/Republicans cry out, for example,  that some social media has banned Alex Jones from their platforms, yet also cry out against the media reporting on the kidnapping of children by US Government officials at the border as the work of Fake News. 

Alex Jones consistently employs Fake News and her consorts to tell Americans that Sandy Hook was a hoax and a spate of other ridiculous false tales, while there is every kind of physical evidence of the border child kidnappings.

Kelly Anne Conway, Mr. Trump's nurturer of young Alternative Facts insists her protege is alive and well and explains all Mr. Trumps forays into the land of untruth.  For many, Alternative Facts is their darling.  It lets them continue to pledge their allegiance to Mr. Trump while maintaining their personal belief that lying is a sin (or at least that is what their Judeo-Christian faith tells them they should believe).  It's not lying, it's Alternative Facts. 

There are a few ways we can tell that truth has been missing for a while and its absence was barely noticed.
- Even Democrats believed Republican lies that Nancy Pelosi was an ineffective leader.
- Millions ignore the overwhelming evidence of human activity causing global warming, so leaders do nothing.
- Republicans/conservatives  are guaranteed to bow to the choice of Brett Kavanaugh as Supreme Court justice, but Democrats are buying the nonsense that if they don't vote for Kavanaugh, we'll get someone worse.
- Immigrants are criminals, so it really doesn't matter what happens to them.  They have no right to be here.  Separated from their children?  That's their fault.
- Corporations have the people's interests at heart or they couldn't make any money.
- There is an infinite amount of fraud in our voting system.
- Republican/conservative legislators name bills that will do exactly opposite of their title and don't see a problem with it.
- Russia didn't meddle in the 2016 election, so we should fire Robert Mueller.

Truth is missing from the current administration and Republican party in general. Her loss is being felt by everyone whether they know it or not.  We need to get out and actively look for her and replace the changelings with veracity, you know, the basic honesty we were taught as children.  We need to send those changelings back to hades where they came from.   

HONESTY

by Ruth A. Sheets

During this past election cycle I have thought about honesty, probably more than at any other time in my life.  I suspect I am not alone in this.

Politicians are not generally credited with honesty, but in my lifetime, there has been an understanding that someone running for the highest office should demonstrate a certain level of integrity, perhaps a bit higher than other politicians.  If the candidate were to “lie,” he would make it a small one usually related to party-inspired promises he would naturally not be able to keep. This was expected. And, if a president put the country and its beliefs at risk, he could be impeached.

This time, a self-proclaimed “great businessman” Donald Trump felt no need to keep to any known standard for honesty. It is hard to say whether this lying was to cover up things he does not want people to know or if he just wanted to confuse everyone. Perhaps it is just habit. Who can tell? 

Hillary Clinton, and Trump’s primary opponents were called on nearly every possible falsehood, by Mr. Trump, his crew, and even the media. However, Trump’s lies were so numerous, the press could not figure out how to deal with them, and still can’t.

A disturbing factor in all this for me is the way Republicans and Evangelical Christians have rallied to this liar in droves. Aren’t these the folks who wanted The 10 Commandments posted in every courthouse in the land?  Isn’t one of these commandments “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor?” (pssst, it means don’t lie.)  And, doesn’t Jesus say that everyone is our neighbor?  Where are the Christian zealots who wanted to condemn any Democrat or other lesser mortal who valued religious freedom enough to nix the courthouse 10 Commandments tablets?  Why, they stood with the liar, of course. To people who are not Evangelicals, the choice of the religious right seems to be any man, no matter how unqualified over any woman, no matter how qualified. God must have told them that the “lying” commandment isn’t as important as keeping a woman out of office. “I’m not sexist. I just don’t trust Hillary.”

Religious paragons claim their choice was for an outsider who would fix things for them, but honesty isn’t part of their repertoire.  How often have we heard in the past few months “I am not a racist.  I voted for Obama, but he divided the country more than anyone else ever has.”  Lying to yourself is still a lie, you guys. 

So, let’s see,  Mr. Trump can lie in nearly every speech he gives and tweet he tweets, but the “I’m not racist, I’m not sexist” religious don’t really care and were just fine with saddling all of America with someone who has no clue what honesty is.  I say this about Trump because I don’t want to believe he is deliberately manipulating good little Christians with his lies because he is truly evil.  Oh wait, maybe THAT is the truth!

Chaos must be OK because it is God’s will?

They Call it 'Flexibility'

by Ruth A. Sheets

Just when you think you have experienced every manifestation of Romnesia, one more bit of craziness raises its head.  On Elliott Spitzer’s show on Current TV “Viewpoint,”  Romney’s frequent change of position and casual lying was referred to as “flexibility.”  Then, viewers were informed that this is just the quality needed for negotiating.

Since George Orwell’s classic “1984,” we have been aware of the power of language.  Give something a clever name and it won’t matter what that thing actually is.   Advertisers have taken advantage of this for years.  We call flavored sugar water things like Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper.  None of it is good for us in any way even the one named “Dr.”  The names are great, though. 

We expect politicians to manipulate language to catch the attention of particular constituencies.  That is just part of political life.  The current cycle has carried this idea to heights previously unimagined by most Americans.  

Mitt Romney’s handlers are masters at language manipulation.  They craft his message so carefully that the lies are often tucked in the fast flow of words that Romney pours out for his audiences.  The lies are carefully mixed in with truths and half-truths and when called on them, he will “double down,” strongly defending the lies. 

Mitt Romney lies so often he can’t possibly remember what is the truth.  But, he is a good Mormon, so we can’t call what he is saying lies.  We say he is flexible.  Candidate Romney is sooooo flexible he has no obvious set of core principles.  It doesn’t matter, though because the majority of folks who support him like his one main feature: White.  This means that whatever he actually believes doesn’t matter to them.  And, the lies are irrelevant too.. 

For the people on the fence, calling lies “flexibility” makes their choice of Romney acceptable.  Remember, these are good Christians who love the 10 Commandments.  If their candidate is a liar, they will have a personal conflict.  Renaming Romney’s lies clears up the problem for them.  Isn’t language manipulation great?!

The Message We are Sending

by Ruth A. Sheets

The election process keeps rolling on.  It seems we have been at it for years.  Oh wait, we have.  What’s the message we are sending to the world, our children, and future generations, running is more important than governing.

One of our candidates, Mitt Romney has no trouble lying on a regular basis.  Whenever he faces an audience, he says whatever he thinks that audience wants to hear.  No one really knows what he stands for and what kind of president he might be, but the election is really close.  What is the message sent forth? Lying works and if you say it loud enough and you act as though you truly believe your lies, people will believe them too and vote for you.  Mitt Romney has this one down.

Mitt Romney talked over President Obama in the first debate, showed him a lot of disrespect, even to the point of bullying.  The President was advised that if he were too strenuous in his debate style, he would be seen as “THE ANGRY BLACK MAN” AND WOULD SCARE FOLKS OFF.  Romney had no such directive or stereotype, so he could open fire, even though most of what he said was untrue.  What is the message? Bullying works and our racism is actually OK because it can get you what you want.

Mitt Romney supports denying women most of the rights they’ve earned in the past 40 years or so, and yet a large number of women are supporting him.  What is the message? Women’s needs aren’t even important to women, despite the effect of losing those rights on more than half the population.

The wealthy are buying the 2012 election with the blessing of the Supreme Court, and Americans go on as though this doesn’t matter.  They complain about the number of ads, especially the negative ones, yet they allow those ads and that money to persuade them.  What is the message? Money can buy anything and everything, even our democracy.

Conservatives claim to spend a lot of time trying to channel our founders, trying to figure out how those guys would have handled the situations we are facing today.  It is hard to imagine that our founders would have been pleased by this campaign.  Their message? Decide what kind of society you want, one ruled by the wealthy for the interest of the wealthy, or something that is more balanced and fair for the country as a whole. 

One would be hard put to see that Mitt Romney can possibly bring us to the latter. 

The Day After the Debate

by Ruth A. Sheets

Nearly 24 hours after the “Big Debate” last night and I am thinking of Snake Oil salesmen.  All the pundits say that Romney won the debate and I suppose if you look at points made, he did.  He talked so fast that it was hard to follow what he was saying and claiming.  That is saying a lot since I read things at least twice the speed of what most people do.

The snake oil guy misdirects, and has a patter that makes you think you heard something critically important when the claims he is making are either untrue or impossible.  One can get so caught up in the excitement of the moment that a credible response is unlikely. 

President Obama got caught in the patter last night.  How does someone, even an intelligent knowledgeable person, pick which of the multitude of claims to respond to?  It is even more difficult when the salesman changes his entire pitch.

The positions Romney stated as his own last night were not those he has held throughout the rest of the campaign.  He has changed his position on taxes and whose will be raised, how the deficit will be closed, how much or little the wealthiest among us will be asked to pay.

On health care, Romney practically claimed Obamacare while saying he would repeal it.  How can one hold both positions?  He said we need regulation, but wants to repeal Dodd-Frank, the law passed to help stop crashes like we experienced in 2008, but not all of it, just the things he doesn’t like.  Of course, one should not get specific.  Peoplemight hold you to it.

I could not see either candidate, but heard Obama being mostly straightforward and sounding serious, although he did not take many ascertive opportunities to challenge Mr. Romney.  Mr. Romney was, what I call “snarky.”  His voice sounded condescending and had a triumphant note to it.  He made me tired just listening to him.  That is what the snake oil salesman does.  He wants you to buy his useless product by making you feel that you are so ill that you need it.  The lies go with the territory.  That is an American tradition.  If one challenges the lies, one will be accused of lying and making up one’s own facts, a misdirect.  Hmmm!

Where do we go from here?  Mr. Obama must get tough.  I know what it will look like when he goes directly at Mr. Romney and challenges him on at least some of his hogwash.  Being Black, he has to be so careful that he doesn’t look like he is targeting Mr. Romney.  Mr. Romney, meanwhile, can say nearly anything and will be seen as strong and a man of character, when in reality, he’s a snake oil salesman who is only interested in his sale.

Are You a Racist? Take This Quiz and Find Out

by muon

I was told last week that suggestions of racism among Romney supporters is highly offensive. I was told this by someone who was more of an Obama non-supporter than a true Romney supporter. He stomped his foot and shrieked while making his point, so I know he was sincere.

Okay, I agree, generalizing is never a good idea. Thus I invite everyone, no matter whom you support, to take this quiz, add up your score, and see how you do.


A) I believe President Obama was born

1-  in Kenya, and is therefore not a citizen and not qualified to be President.
2-  possibly outside of the US, but he has an American mother, so it doesn't matter (as in the case of George Romney, Mitt's dad, who was born in Mexico, yet no one questioned his citizenship when he ran for president)
3-  in Hawaii, and he should have been believed even before producing 2 birth certificates, but now that he has produced them, get over it.

B) I believe President Obama

1-  is a Muslim, and that's a bad thing.
2-  might be a Muslim, but in a country where we have freedom of religion, what does it matter?
3-  is a Christian, specifically, a member of the United Church of Christ, like more than one million Americans.

C)  I believe

1-  candidates for president should have American-sounding names.
2-  if a candidate has an odd name, it doesn't mean he wouldn't make a good president.
3-  that all Americans have American-sounding names. It's that melting pot thing.

D) I believe Mitt Romney's welfare ads

1-  show that lazy black welfare recipients have been released from their work requirement by Obama, and are taking tax money right out of the pockets of hard-working white people.
2-  not sure what the ads show, but I'm sure not all welfare recipients are black and not all workers are white. Even if they were, shouldn't we help those in need?
3-  are proven lies. Work requirements have not been dropped, only moved to the states, which is what states requested (including Republican governors). The states in turn have to meet a set of federal regulations to keep their right to make their own reforms. Moreover, as of 2011, nearly the same number of white and black families (about 38%) were receiving welfare. The remaining 20-some% went to other minorities.


If you scored

12 -  You're not a racist and are well-informed to boot.
8-11 - You're not a racist; your heart's in the right place. You just need to get your news from reliable sources and don't believe everything you hear. Go to factcheck.org, which checks statements and ads from BOTH sides.
5-7 - Try the reliable sources mentioned above for two weeks and take the quiz again. Put all political ads and right-wing talk shows on "mute."
4 - Sorry, you're a racist. No getting around it. If this offends you, think of how much more you offend me.

Getting to Know Him

by Ruth A. Sheets

Well, the Republican National Convention has arrived. We keep hearing from pundits and commentators that this is Mitt Romney’s chance to let America know who he is.  Interesting!  Mitt Romney has been running for president for nearly five years.  Is it possible that there is something about him we can learn this week that we didn’t know?

I suspect that part of the problem we have in getting to know Romney is that he constantly changes himself to fit whatever situation he is in.  When running for office in Massachusetts, he chose to be moderate, support human rights, believe in universal health care, and respect a woman’s right to choose.  The people of Massachusetts wouldn’t elect anyone with less.

When running for president in 2008, he moved somewhat to the right.  This was a realistic position for him  because the Republican Party had not yet chosen its new compass which only points Right.  He seemed to move away from health care a bit and dropped his stance on women’s right to choose, as well as his open, accepting stance on rights for gay Americans. .

For the 2012 presidential election, he has made the full Right turn along with the party.  Now, he can’t even defend the health care program he helped get through in Mass. because it looks too much like the plan the Democrats passed in 2010.  Not only is he against women’s right to choose, he is decreasing the types of exceptions he would allow for abortions, and stands against most types of contraception, perhaps all (one can’t really tell since his mind changes so often).

Romney is a wealthy, white, conservative, Mormon, former businessman who owned and operated a company that specialized in buying out other companies.  He is not a good speaker.  He can’t tell a joke (as evidenced by his comments about his birth certificate). 

He has had no military service, but is a  war hawk and wants to continue to bloat the defense budget.  He also wants to cut many programs that support disadvantaged citizens as he “attempts” to cut the deficit.

 

Mitt Romney claims to be a family man, having a wife, Anne, and five sons.  He does not do his own shopping (the answers given when asked what he was buying at a store: hardware stuff, groceries).

From his comments to audiences and ads, it is clear that he tells the truth only when he feels he will gain politically from the effort.  (According to some fact checking sites, he avoids the truth  about 10% of the time, something like a tithe).  The web can supply numerous examples of Mr. Romney’s untruths.

When asked to comply with demands for documentation, the same demands he has made of opposing candidates in the past, he refuses.  (He has released only 1 year of tax returns and one estimate of the current year, when he has asked for more from others.)

So, what do we think we will learn from Romney’s Convention persona?  How are they going to make him appear more human?  Come to think of it, he is such a skilled cameleon thus far, I guess they can make him whatever they want him to be and he will be it. 

The sad part for me is that a whole lot of Americans will believe whatever nonsense they are fed about this man and his worthiness to be president.  Even if Romney and his team can’t be honest, moderates and liberals will need to try to keep the truth in front of voters.  Good luck with that.