Cathy McMorris Rodgers will be giving the State of the Union Republican response and the word is she will be mentioning her fictitious childhood growing up on an orchard in Kettle Falls, Washington. The record needs to be set straight.
Cathy McMorris Rodgers has run her campaigns on her background as an all-American girl, growing up on an eastern Washington orchard and making her way through college on the proceeds of her 4H projects. She states this every campaign cycle in the Washington State voter’s pamphlet, which is a candidate’s job application to the voters of Washington State. The facts are she did not grow up on an orchard in Washington State. In fact, she really did not grow up in America at all.
What follows is the strange story of Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ rise to power.
When Cathy was a toddler, her parents left Oregon with Cathy and her brother and settled in Hazelton in Northern British Columbia, Canada. There they lived in a cabin without indoor plumbing or electricity. After a while, the family drifted around Northern BC, home schooling Cathy and her brother, until Cathy was the age of a junior in high School student and it was then her family finally returned to the United States. Her father found a small orchard to rent in Kettle Falls and Cathy stayed for a year and then chose to attend the fundamentalist Pensacola Christian College, in Florida. While Cathy attended, it was unaccredited and only became accredited in 2013. The student handbook reads like something you would almost expect from the Taliban.
Some of the strict rules are as follows: No dancing. Only approved music. Sexes should never study or be alone together and will be chaperoned between classes. Separate parking areas, entrances, stairs, and elevators for the sexes. Strict dress code, including no facial hair for men and women are not permitted to wear pants. Students will be in their rooms at 11pm and lights off at 11:15pm. Separate beaches for the sexes. Even students over 23, are not permitted to be in mixed groups after dark. No internet/ email access allowed. Cell phones cannot have internet access, and must be kept in vehicles. With the demerit system, the students are faced with threats, manipulation, and punishment.
Here are links to the student handbook that contains many more stifling rules that take away the ability to think for one’s self.
http://www.pcci.edu/...
http://web.archive.org/...
At PCC Cathy willingly gave up everything that American’s are guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, including, the freedom of Religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and free assembly. I believe this education at this extreme fundamentalist school was her first test as an obedient foot soldier for the far right wing of the GOP.
Cathy claims to have ‘graduated’ from PCC debt free, having paid her way with 4H projects. However, in reality her 4H projects would not even cover the airfare to Florida. Meanwhile back in Kettle Falls, her dad, whose local nickname was ‘Boss Hog’, became the county chair of the Republican Party. By Cathy’s senior year, her dad got her a position of running legislature candidate Bob Morton’s campaign. After Morton was elected, he gave Cathy a job as his legislative aide. A few years later, Morton was appointed into retiring Senator Scott Barr’s seat. At the tender age of 24, Cathy was appointed to the seat Mr. Morton was vacating. Once in the Washington state legislator she was given, despite strong objections, the position of chair of the powerful Labor and Commerce committee. Legislators were informed that Cathy had been chosen as a rising star in the Republican Party. Cathy McMorris had never owned property, ran a business, and in fact, when she was not sharing an apartment in Olympia; she lived at home with her parents. The only jobs she had before her stunning rise to power had been a hotel house cleaner, McDonalds, and playing piano in a college quartet. Yet in Olympia, the State Capitol, Cathy referred to herself as an ‘Orchardist’.
As I did at one time, you must be thinking that Cathy surely must have a brilliant mind and be a dynamic speaker. Well, Cathy has neither attributes. During her forced town hall forums around the district, she was like a quivering mound of jelly who could utter only short well-rehearsed party lines. At these meetings, one could always find her father sitting in the front row, glaring at her, while she looked like she wanted to bolt for the door. She could not answer simple questions, but loved to talk about what she knew best, Democrats taking ‘our’ guns, hunting mountain lions with dogs, and plenty of anti-environment rhetoric. The consensus among those who met her was Cathy that was as ‘dumb as a bag of rocks’.
The mystery remains, who paid for her fundamentalist education? She has readily admitted her parents did not because they could not afford it. Why was she catapulted into power? One thing is for sure, while in the Washington State legislator, representing the most conservative district in the state, she voted with an extreme block of fellow conservatives. She was also the most dishonest representative in living memory. She could get away with her extreme votes, bills she sponsored and co-sponsored bills, because the small (conservative) town newspapers would not dare to mention them. When a member of the public or challenging candidate would question her voting record, she would call the person a liar and/or say they were running a negative campaign. In other words, she considers her own voting record to be negative and not in the best interested of her district!
In 2004, her handlers decided it was time to get their ‘well-groomed’ candidate into the national arena. Even though the city of Spokane had a couple of well-qualified Republicans running in the primary, Cathy had the power of Senator Slade Gorton and the GOP behind her. Nobody else stood a chance. Cathy was chosen by the GOP to go right to the top. For some unknown reason, early in her congressional career, a poll was taken and Cathy was picked as the 8th person the Republican’s wanted in the White House! WHY?!!
A TV/newspaper reporter/commentator on the Hill interviewed her when she arrived in DC and afterwards, while still flabbergasted, he asked me what the story was behind her. Why was someone with her lack of intelligence and real life experience, get to be picked as the Republican’s rising star in the GOP? It seems the attraction the GOP had with Cathy was she was obedient; she always did what she was told and could not think for herself and never strayed from party talking points. She also was a remarkable liar and a good “Christian”.
During the fundamentalist education and grooming of Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the Republicans never noticed or did not care that Cathy was ‘dumb as a bag of rocks’, because their ideal woman is obedient and cannot think for herself.
The McMorris family was forced into admitting their flight into Canada and staying until Cathy was a junior in high school, in the October 17th 2004 edition of the Spokesman Review. However, Cathy preferred the fiction of growing up on an America orchard and decided to stick with it. During her congressional campaign, her brother and she decided to add something else to the family history and decided they were descended from Oregon Trail pioneers.
Her voting record is disgusting enough, but look closely at her face because you will be looking into the vacant eyes of an accomplished liar.
Edited to add the following.
Link to the Spokesman-Review, October 17, 2004.
http://m.spokesman.com/...
From Cathy's own web page;
Early Life
Cathy is the descendant of pioneers who settled in Walla Walla in 1853. Growing up, Cathy worked on the family orchard side-by-side with her parents and younger brother. She worked in the family owned and operated business, the Peachcrest Fruit Basket Orchard and Fruit Stand, in Kettle Falls, Washington for 13 years.
Cathy was the first person in her family to attend and graduate from college. She worked her way through Pensacola Christian College in Florida (Class of 1990) and later earned her Executive MBA from the University of Washington (Class of 2002).
Here's the link to the above;
http://mcmorris.house.gov/...
