Reblogged from http://katrinataylordotme.wordpress.com/...
Last week Tom Fitton, president of the right-wing group, Judicial Watch, said that "he is afraid [President Obama] and his gang are planning to steal the election". He was speaking to a group of "poll watchers" part of an organization called Truth the Vote which is reportedly preparing 1,000,000 people to "watch" the polls in November. The group, which was investigated by the Justice Department in 2010 for voter intimidation in Texas is now under scrutiny by Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) who has recently launched a congressional investigation into the legality of the group's tactics.
In listening to Mr. Fitton and the rousing reception from his audience, it's clear that these people have become so delusional in their fight against a fictional President Obama, one who is creating "food stamp armies" to come out in full on election day, that they've made themselves willing thugs for a party that will gut the programs many of them need for survival. They exemplify the model of the Freudian "authoritarian personality", one who projects his or her own aggressions onto stereotypes of "the other".
And it's a gob smacking notion coming from Fitton, to claim that the President is the one trying to "steal the election", considering that since 2010, forty-one Republican-led legislatures throughout the country have passed, are trying to pass, or have been stopped from passing, laws that make voting harder for everyday citizens. The unquestionable effort to disenfranchise millions of people, often lower-income, minority, elderly, students ... likely Democratic voters, has been a collaborative wave against the foundation of our democracy.
And the biggest case of voter fraud now is with Republicans in Florida, whose shenanigans threaten to cause problems such as double-registrations and phony address changes, just to name a few. In the state that launched the prototype for voter intimidation & fraud.
Funny how the mainstream media would rather run rampant with stories about "the President's poor debate performance" than to call Republicans out on their vile & unpatriotic tactics. Why do the work of reporting real news when so much empty hype is handy? Particularly when it displeases the corporate masters.
And, now I'm the one apparently living in the alternate reality since I was thoroughly shocked at the pundit pile-on of the President immediately after the debate last Wednesday and continuing until today. Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Ed Shultz, and others, I love ya but I'm going with Gandhi on this one when he says "if a million people believe a wrong thing, it's still a wrong thing".
I honestly did not see the same debate that so many other "disappointed" people & pundits saw. What I saw was a balanced, measured & reasonable President Obama debating a straight-up lying Mitt Romney. The etch-a-sketch moment his campaign promised and, for which, he seems to be getting rewarded. At this point, I don't feel its rude to call Mitt out as a liar as only an idiot doesn't know that it's true. How does one engage in battle with fools? An observer might wind up confused about which one is which. In my view, President Obama handled the debate well and boxed Mr. Rmoney in on his newly-found, previously-held, and concurrently, disputed positions.
Republicans not only want to take us back to the 1950s but seem to forget that such a thing as video is available now.
And confusion seems to be the game plan as we wind down to the final weeks before the election. Just throw out a few smoke bombs and maybe the truth will get lost in the mix.
When Mittens touted the new term "trickle-down government" 9 times during the debate, I thought it might be an attempt to twist the narrative. Like Tom Fitton's projection about the President, claiming him the cheat, Jack Welch's borderline treasonous accusations against the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and various other such foolishness, the Republicans now seem intent on just muddying the waters so thickly that no one can wade through it. Trickle down government .. trickle down economics ... it's all the same, you know.
I can't imagine that the people who still support these clowns are made up of liars & cheats. But how else could one support them when they've shown themselves to be so unscrupulous? I actually have a few close friends who support Mitt Romney but when pressed about why, repeat only Republican talking points, commonly known as "misinformation" as per FOX News. However, that Republicans have put so much effort in lying & cheating and so little effort in taking care of the peoples' business and actually governing, makes them unelectable, in my book. Do they really feel so lacking in ability that their only recourse is to cheat? And that it's so blatant I find most disturbing. Seriously. After months of mind-boggling flips & flops, what can Mittens say now that can be believed? How can anyone take him for a serious contender for the Presidency of the United States when the most consistent things about him, these days anyway, are lying and dodging taxes?
Needless to say, I'll be voting straight blue in 3 weeks.