Things Which Test One's Sense of Sympathy

Things that strain your sense of sympathy and/or concern:

    

    1.    The “reality” shows that pit man against nature in some barbaric contest. Examples might include the “The Deadliest Catch”, “Man Against Wild” and the filming of idiocies such as “Grizzly Man.” Where is the sympathy and concern for the poor camera man/crew who do all the same things, are exposed to the same deprivations and dangers,  and do it while recording the actions of the hero? As tough as “Bear”Grylls may be, the cat who films him has a harder job.

     

    2.    In the case of the “Grizzly Man”, Timothy Treadwell, who ended up as the texture in bear turds (yeah, literally) why waste sympathy on such an imbecile? He certainly was aware of the dangers inherent in dealing with these animals at close range before he became simply another nutrient. Treadwell was repeatedly warned by (Katmai National) park officials that his interaction with the bears was unsafe to both him and to the bears. "At best, he's misguided," Deb Liggett, superintendent at Katmai and Lake Clark national parks, told the Anchorage Daily News in 2001. "At worst, he's dangerous. If Timothy models unsafe behavior, that ultimately puts bears and other visitors at risk." Treadwell filmed his exploits, and used the films to raise public awareness of the problems faced by bears in North America. In 2003, at the end of his 13th visit, he and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were attacked, killed, and partially eaten by a bear; the events which led to the attack are unknown. By the way, the “dangers” Treadwell referred to were simply not a factor to the grizzlies of Katmai, who were delighted to see another item on the buffet! 

       

    3.    North Korea has detained yet another incredibly stupid American. This young man (Matthew Todd Miller,24) apparently tore up his tourist visa and claimed sanctuary/asylum, or whatever they call it these days. The fact that he was immediately arrested by North Korean authorities may well indicate their assumption that any person claiming asylum in their god forsaken hell hole, is demonstrably either insane or a spy. A corollary to this action is the behavior exhibited by those “missionaries” stupid enough to go to this rogue state and openly defy authorities there while disrespecting their religion, which predates Christianity by about 600 years.  In like manner, there are already several western “missionaries” whose need to tell others of their theological errors overcame common sense and the repeated warnings of governments, friendly and hostile, and led them to North Korea, where they languish in the Kim’s totalitarian nightmare. Sympathy for these loonies is wasted. 

    

    4.    And finally, what of “poor” Cliven Bundy, hero to the lunatic right until they realized his racist attitude might cost them votes if they continued supporting his idiot and criminal acts. Facts in his case  are as follows: Cliven Bundy is a rancher in Nevada who grazes his cattle on public land. Not his land, not “Nevada’s land” as he and his sycophants charge, but your and my land – Public Land of the USA. 20 years ago the rules regarding grazing on public lands changed, a deed done by a Republican Congress and a Democratic President, but tracing its roots all the way back to the first US Government under the Articles of Confederation. Current laws regarding grazing on these lands trace to the Depression, when desecration of these lands by overgrazing and poor farming practices helped create the “Dust Bowl” and all its accompanying misery. In 1946, responsibility for responsibly managing (and conserving ) these lands was rolled into one Bureau of Land Management (BLM). A requirement of the program was that ranchers wishing to graze on public lands would apply for leases and pay for grazing rights. Over time, ranchers, especially more affluent ones began to dominate the process such that the regulators were being more regulated (good leases going to the same influential families over and over) than those whom they were assigned to serve and regulate. So the rules were changed to require leases to be bought as usual and to be renewed every ten years.

 The current dispute began in 1993 when grazing rules were changed and Bundy refused to pay the new bills to the US government for his cattle grazing on BLM-administered lands near Bunkerville, Nevada. Bundy was eventually prohibited from grazing his cattle on the Bunkerville Allotment by an order issued in 1998 by the United States District Court for the District of Nevada in United States v. Bundy. (He refused to abide by the rules his neighbors obeyed!) The BLM complaint was supplemented when in July 2013 the George Court ordered that Bundy refrain from trespass on federally administered land in the Gold Butte, Nevada area in Clark County. After about 15 years of repeated violations of multiple court orders, in early April 2014,  the BLM began rounding up Bundy's cattle that were trespassing on the land. While they were doing so, they were confronted by protesters and armed supporters of Bundy.  The government backed off and Bundy became the flavor of the month, garnering support for his lawlessness from other like minded persons who believe the law is inapplicable to them.

Of special note is the manner in which Faux News, led by Hannity decried the rule of law in favor of this scofflaw (Bundy). Senators aligned themselves either on the side of Bundy, or the side of the law. Nevada Senator Harry Reid(D) decried Bundy’s actions as illegal and his ever more inflammatory rhetoric as essentially homegrown terrorism. This was a bit strong, as “frontier loudmouth shitkicking lawbreaker” was more apt. The Republican Senator from Nevada, Dean Heller, meanwhile hailed Bundy as a patriot. What fell off the table here was the fact that Bundy had once paid grazing fees and simply stopped doing so about 21 years ago. In my humble estimation, 21 years is a lot of patience on the part of the BLM considering the flood of court orders ignored by Bundy.  It’s important to understand that what Bundy basically believes (He doesn’t, but he says he does) is analogous to me living in Hagerstown, Md, raising cattle with the belief that I should just be able to herd them to City Park to graze. Moreover, even if another rancher was paying for the right to graze there and I wasn’t, I should still be able to get away with it.   

Fast forward to the last several days when the grand dragon took off his sheet, and lo and behold, it was Cliven Bundy! I am only symbolically calling him a klansman, but will literally brand him a racist. He has gone so far as to blame Martin Luther King, Jr. for the lamentable (to Bundy) fact that he can no longer properly use racial epithets. The skid marks of Tea Baggers and others including Hannity, trying to distance themselves from these remarks, and in most cases, from Bundy, are awesome to behold. He has been revealed, finally, as have the vast bulk of far rightists when the sheets come off, as simply another racist redneck. What troubles me is that Bundy’s Congressional supporters believe that they can separate and compartmentalize his actions and attitudes , separating his concept of “liberty”(which it ain’t) for the white rancher from his absolute disdain for the same rights for persons of color. 

Reality? Check, please!

What is he common connection between these widely divergent persons?  Cotton Mather, The  Connecticut General Assembly members, the Shakers, Christopher Love, Joanna Southcott, John Wesley, William  Miller, Harriet Livermore, Charles Taze Russell, Wovoka, Camille Flammarion, Margaret Rowen, Herbert W. Armstrong, Dorothy Martin, Jeane Dixon,  Charles Manson, Leland Jensen, Chuck Smith, Benjamin Crème, Pat Robertson, José Argüelles, Edgar C. Whisenant, Lee Jang Rim,  Harold Camping, Marshall Applewhite, Chen Tao, Philip Berg, Hon-Ming Chen, Jerry Falwell, Nazim Al-Haqqani, Isaac Newton, Ruth Montgomery, José Luis de Jesús, Warren Jeffs?

The obvious answer is that all these persons have at least once, and a few several times, predicted the end of the world in the “second coming.” Most of these predictions were the result of a convergence of ego, hubris, superstition and in almost all cases, religious zealotry. Some, like Livermore, Miller, Chen, Whisenant, Camping, Dixon, Robertson, David Berg and others are/were repeat offenders, simply unable to come to grips with their own delusions and their failures to materialize.

The Fall of Jerusalem in 70 BC was "foretold" by a comet four years before. In 79 AD the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius which destroyed the city of Pompeii was attributed to a comet. In 1665 a comet preceded an outbreak of the Black Plague that killed almost 100,000 people in London. In 1835 a comet was blamed for such widely diverse events as the fall of the Alamo, a major fire in New York City and a massacre of 280 people in Africa. While some people dreaded the poisonous cyanogen gas (determined by who knows what method to be contained in the comet’s tail), others feared that the tail of the comet would bring deadly influenza. There were stories of farmers who were too busy preparing for the end of the world to bother to plant crops. One paper from Louisville reported that "Preparations for the end of the world are being made today by the ignorant persons through central and eastern parts of Kentucky." Near Memphis, Tennessee, there were reports of people following a prophet who proclaimed that the comet would destroy the world at noon on May the 18th. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, newspapers reported that the Rev. Abraham Lincoln Johnson was holding revival meetings where his congregation was "reduced to a paroxysm of fear" as the preacher pictured the destruction the comet would bring. In Italy, farmers were blaming floods and unseasonable weather that destroyed their crops on the celestial visitor.

There seems to be two prime sources for these delusions. The first centering on astronomical and cosmological events, is derivative from simple ignorance. “Earth-centric” cosmology died a long and lingering death, as the traditionalists beat down, and sometimes killed anyone who dared seek a scientific explanation for the way things work in the universe.  Their descendents run the “Creationism” museum today. They harried men like Aristarchus of Samos to his grave for simply proffering the thought that the earth might not be the center of the Universe. Galileo, in like manner was threatened for daring to think critically about matters celestial. The second source is primarily planted in various “interpretations” of books considered scriptural by some sect or another. True, there are, simply some whack jobs making shit up, like Heaven’s Gate (Applewhite, et al) waiting for the giant space craft to come out from hiding behind the comet to save the chosen.

The streams of thought (if one can actually call blatant superstition thought) seem to revolve around either some cosmological disaster precipitated by, insert your favorite event here, comet (Halley’s every single damned time!) planetary alignment, rogue planet(The Nibiru cult) or others as yet undiscovered.  A second offshoot, really, of this lunacy are predictions, based on cosmological events, which are normal and have happened predictably for as long as man has watched the sky, that this time, something else is afoot.

 The current “Blood moon” bullshit of “Pastor” Hagee is one of these coupled with scriptural interpretation, which is the third primary type.  Nothing new about it except his senile ramblings!  While some believers have gone to great lengths to explain it away, a rational person has little other way to interpret the “Olivet discourses” in any way except that Jesus is reputed to have said he would return while some of those living then were still alive. I know, I know, it didn’t happen that way, but true believers were quick to write apologia explaining the absence of Christ’s return away as either allegorical or misinterpreted. Add to this the rantings of a minor Hebrew prophet (Joel), misinterpret his warning to Israel, which was (post Maccabbees), interpreted by Paul to mean the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 77 AD, and you have the current shitstorm of superstition flowing out of Texas. Even Baptist ministers are calling Hagee out on this one. The tragedy is, they really only believe he got the date wrong!       

We shouldn’t be surprised that south westerners are gullible. I offer the following as 20^th century proof:

“Girl Rescued from Death at Gory Stake”

“Aline, Okla., May 19. Jane Warfield, a pretty nineteen-year-old farmer girl, living near here was rescued after a hand-to-hand conflict between members of the sheriff of Alfalfa county posse and Henry Heinman's religious fanatics Wednesday evening just as the girl was about to be offered as a blood sacrifice for the atonement of the world's sins in order that Halley's comet might not destroy the earth. The girl, nude and partially unconscious, was tied to a stake in the center of a dancing group of the crazed followers of Heiman and within a few minutes was to have been stabbed and bled to death. Heinman's chief prophet was ready to perform the deed. It was known in the community that the much-heralded approach of Halley's Comet and the threatened danger attached to its appearance had affected the fanatics and frequent meetings were being held. All their secrets are closely guarded and it was not until the girl was tied to the stake that the authorities became aware of the intended sacrifice.

Posse Starts Out

A posse was immediately formed and preceding to the meeting ground of the fanatics the girl was rescued and given medical attention. Followers of Heinman attempted to fight the officers, but they were overcome with little difficulty. Heinman was arrested and placed in the county jail. Heinman instigated the act by telling his companions that the comet meant the end of the world and the sacrifice was necessary for their atonement.”

Really?  My dog just burped, it that a sign? A bird flew across the back yard, should I be alarmed? It worries me that anyone would evidence any concern with regard to the rantings of any person of any religion concerning the future when we know that most of them were oral history with no foundation in fact anyway. Then again, I am a rational humanist. So I am automatically disqualified from the debate, I suppose. 

Don't believe everything you read!

When the Continental Congress disliked acts of Parliament and, more specifically, the actions of a succession of not very bright British cabinet ministers, they realized that most American colonists had no idea who these various persons were. Their methodology for organizing popular opinion against these policies and persons was to place the blame squarely on the one person who was known, at least symbolically, to every English speaker – King George III.

     This blame was condensed by the brilliant writer and, even more brilliant propagandist, Thomas Jefferson into the Declaration of Independence. As a work of propaganda, it is almost without peer, blaming solely poor old George, who by this time was suffering the beginnings of the porphyria which would dog him for the remainder of his life, for everything. 

    Jefferson realized that to focus colonial anger there needed to be a target and George was a great one.  Jefferson listed numerous grievances against acts of Parliament and the afore mentioned ministers, placing the blame for them entirely against the king. A partial list of these acts alleged to be George’s offenses (abridged for brevity) includes:  

According to Jefferson,  George III  did/or has:

 ..endeavoured to prevent the population of these States;

…has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

… cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

… has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. (My personal favorite!)

… has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

    While acts of Parliament may have, in fact, did impose some of these conditions on American Colonists, the principal objections came from the likes of John Hancock, the wealthiest man, perhaps, in New England, and other men of relatively high status in America whose economic fortunes were affected by hated tariffs and anti-smuggling acts of Parliament. Jefferson’s job was to make the average colonist, essentially untouched by most of these issues, not only feel that the woes of the rich were the woes of the poor, but that one, and only one man , George III was responsible.

   If this sounds a bit familiar, it should. Social media are full of posts  and/or chain e-mails by the great unwashed, blaming the President for a myriad of things created and passed by a majority of 535 elected legislators and signed into law by one man.

     One outstanding example is “US Dollar to collapse as Obama’s currency law goes into effect.”  First of all, the law in question, commonly referred to as FATCA, specifies that those who are either expatriates (choosing not to live in America, but holding on to US citizenship) or simply Americans hiding money on offshore accounts thereby avoiding taxes, must pay taxes. This was passed by a majority of both houses of Congress in 2010. It isn’t new, and until very well heeled pressure groups began to protest paying their fair share(s), many Americans were unaware of it. 

    When asked if they think it’s wrong for the super rich to hide money in offshore accounts, thereby avoiding the taxes the rest of us are responsible for, over 70% of respondents in every poll on the subject ever taken resoundingly responds “yes.” In spite of this, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz  and other Republicans are lobbying to repeal and using numerous scare tactics in the process. The “currency law” referred to is the Bill which includes provisions for FATCA, again, a law enacted by Congress.  It is astounding to me that Tea Partiers would be duped into supporting a law favoring the wealthy, yet here it is! Paul, Cruz, and their ilk are opposing a law which enacts a principal consistent with the wishes of a super majority of their constituents. Mind boggling isn't it?

     Just as ridiculous, in the other direction are the spots on Facebook and elsewhere, claiming “Obama wants …..(whatever ).”  In point of fact, these are primarily ads run by Mortgage companies and have nothing to do with the President.

    I guess what I’m trying to get across here is that if you were too (lazy, uninterested, stupid) to pay attention in American Government class to learn how the legislative process works then you probably shouldn’t believe all the crap you see attributed to the President, regardless of party, unless it’s something he really, truly did all by himself, like LBJ picking his beagle up by the ears, or Nixon being so drunk that Kissinger had to take a phone call from Mrs Thatcher, or Clinton ….well, you know! If all the right side ads on FB went away, we’d all be better off and undoubtedly more well informed! 

New rule of Linguistics

Ok, new rule of linguistics: In order to restore the significance of legitimate uses of certain words, their use in everyday, mundane circumstances is suspended for the next year, at least.  I am sick (and tired) of being besieged via all media with claims, descriptors and other inappropriate adjectives relating to events, persons or things which simply don’t merit the hype. I will give several examples, just so you know where I’m going with this.

“Legendary” - Some synonyms include : famed, romanticized, storied; chimerical. None of these words or the word legendary itself can rightly be applied to, say, a club’s happy hour drinks. I don’t give a shit if you kill the last living Agave and mix the Tequila you make from it with virgin’s blood and lime juice, it still ain’t a “Legendary Margarita special!”  Even if you have Condoleeza Rice in a thong on stage, your club doesn’t have “Legendary dancers.”  Now if you had King Arthur or Guinevere, that would be legendary. Even a topless Sasquatch or Yeti qualifies. Period.

“Hero” – We are so apparently starved for legitimate heros ( defined: a :  a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability b :  an illustrious warrior c :  a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities  d :  one who shows great courage) that we will now accord the title to anyone who simply does their job well instead of backing away from responsibility. In all fairness, when the media, thirsting for a soundbite tries to pin the “hero” title on such a person, some of them actually refuse the title. The kid who calls 911 on his cell phone to report a crash isn’t a hero, the firefighter who reaches into the burning car to save a child probably is. “Sully” Sullenberger is a hero, since water landings aren’t an everyday thing, and everyone surviving them even rarer. Kanye West isn’t a hero, neither is Donald Trump, they are “sellebrities”, which is my word for persons in the public eye who are waaaay too full of themselves. No one in “Duck Dynasty” is a hero. One problem is that “Hero” should be defined by deeds, not by what other people think of a personality.  And lastly, military personnel who go wherever they’re assigned and do their jobs to the best of their ability half way around the world are heros for that commitment;  mercenaries are simply whores.

“Brilliant”/”Awesome” – Not only are they overused, they are also frequently misused. Brilliant -  “Extremely intelligent : much more intelligent than most people.”  This fits Steven Hawking and Albert Einstein, and Grace Hopper, but it certainly doesn’t fit most ordinary or even really, really neat everyday occurrences. Our British friends use brilliant almost the same way as Americans use OK. I have heard “brilliant” used to describe athletes, some of whom are barely literate, because of their physical coordination and skill. Stop it.  “Awesome” is equally overused. Awesome is supposed to be used to express a show of force or majesty. When your friend comes back with a six-pack of beer, responding with this reprehensible utterance just doesn’t match up to the awe of a powerful tornado or when viewing one of the top 10 American landmarks. Nice try, though. Unfortunately, those who misuse “awesome” when they  really mean “better than average” are not struck dumb, as, say by an event which really is awesome.

“Literally” - Literally is another word that has been misconstrued into a bastardized form. When the exact reason to use the word is to express a non-exaggeration or a realistic degree of accuracy, why do people do the exact opposite? Literally is now used as a general intensive, and its very meaning has become lost and meaningless. Literally is meant to only be used when describing something verbatim, or for a correct technical explanation. It is not a synonym for figuratively or virtually. Let’s keep it as such. “I was literally blown away……!? One can only hope!    

Let’s end this with some phrases which are almost as egregious in their contortion of meaning as the above single words:

1. “At the end of the day”: Usually this means “whenever we’re finished”,  might be in five minutes, maybe a month, but almost certainly not at midnight!

2. “Fairly unique”: Ain’t no “fairly” about it, unique means “being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else.” So “fairly unique” I guess that’s perhaps “Well, it was really cool, but there was this other shit sorta like it, so …….!”  

3. “I personally”: How else can You do something? This is maybe the most redundant phrase since “Fat, stupid addict -Rush Limbaugh””

4. “At this moment in time”: Really Bunky? You mean “now?”

5. "With all due respect”: As I’ve said before, this is misused more in application than syntactically. You actually can show all due respect, but in usage today, generally it is the phrase immediately preceding an assault on the target’s character. Respect is the last thing that will characterize the words which follow that opening line.

6. “Absolutely”: Frequently used as an alternative to “Yes,” the definition is far more restrictive “with no qualification, restriction, or limitation; totally.” There are relatively few circumstances where this overused word is truly applicable.

7.”It’s a nightmare”: No, it might be a “f*****g mess”, or a job badly done, but unless you were asleep and dreamt it it probably wasn’t a nightmare.

8. “Shouldn’t of”: Oh no, Jethro, you shouldn’t have said shouldn’t of.

So, kids, like let’s give these usages a fantabulously well earned  rest and maybe someday, we can like resume talking good English as it was meant to be spoke. 

Another Day, another Far Right lie via chain e-mail

Yet another one of those blatant lying accusations leveled against President Obama without a scintilla of truth.

The e-mail reads: (Accompanied by a photograph of five aircraft carriers docked together)  "What’s wrong with this picture? 

The picture is of the five first line U.S. nuclear carriers docked together in one place. Just like Battleship Row, Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. This picture was taken February 2014 in Norfolk, Va.  Obama ordered five nuclear carriers into harbor for ‘routine’ (?) inspections. Heads of the Navy were flabbergasted by the directive but had to comply as it was a direct order from their commander-in-chief." It continues, "This is the first time since WWII that five nuclear-powered aircraft carriers were docked together. USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, USS George H.W. Bush, USS Enterprise, USS Harry S. Truman and USS Abraham Lincoln are all in port at Naval Station in Norfolk, Va., the world’s largest naval station."

Of course, the allegation is that the President, for some reason known only to him (and speculated on by the far right Obama bashers) decided to place the nation at risk by commanding the Navy to do this. 

 Essentially every facet of this is a lie except that there are in fact, five carriers in the shot!

First: The picture was taken in December 2012, not February 2014, as the email claims. The email is also wrong about why the carriers were there. They were not docked for "routine inspections" -- they were brought to shore so that crew members could spend Christmas with their families.  Moreover, December 2012 was not the first time since the war that five nuclear powered aircraft carriers were docked at the same place at the same time. A similar unintentional gathering took place at Norfolk in July 1997.

As to the “First line carriers” claim - not so either!  First line implies sea and deployment ready. 

 One of them is the Enterprise(CVN 65),  which at over 40 years old, is being defueled prior to scrapping and, per the Navy,  "will never again go to sea under her own power."

So, that leaves four Carriers. The Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), which was in port being prepared to cross Hampton Roads to Newport News Shipbuilding  (now Northrup Grumman, Newport News) for a refueling overhaul. (The refueling was delayed by the Republican initiated sequester!)

Down to three:  The George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) was in port doing sea trials preparatory to a training cruise, having  completed a major overhaul in early December and was in the early stages of deployment work ups.

Down to two:  USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) was in port due to the need to resurface its flight deck so it would once again be operational.

The only remaining carrier was USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), which is fully operational, was spending Christmas in port prior to early January deployment

The important issue here is that only one of the carriers was deployment ready and the President had nothing to do with its being in port. The ignorance of the e-mail’s originator is blatantly obvious, especially to anyone with a military background, in that evidently  they believe the President sits at his desks and plays with little ship models and moves them around at will,  apparently to put the nation at risk.

Nothing of this nature or scale of intentional untruth has come from the left in my memory.   

More lies and the Lying Liars who tell them

     This time it’s lying by innuendo and omission. A recent political attack ad, which never mentions Rick Scott by name or his alter super villain persona- Medicaid Fraud Man, shows Charlie Crist being “interviewed.” I say “interviewed” because it takes video of Crist answering a question, spliced into commentary by one of those snotty, snide voiced attack ad voiceover guys. 

       I am not a huge fan of Charlie Crist, and I am much more concerned about the misinformation the ad causes related to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) than defending the honor of former governor “tan in a can.”  We may very well see similar ads from Crist, who has the state wide support of the John Morgan law empire behind him.  

      The spot begins with Crist being asked about his impressions about the impact of the ACA on and in Florida.  His response is “I think it’s been great.”  Snotty voice over man then weighs in. “"Great?" the narrator says.  "News reports say 300,000 health plans cancelled. Obama says patients may lose their doctors. The federal government says less work hours for American jobs," the narrator says, as an apparent quote from a February Congressional Budget Office report appears on the screen: "Obamacare will drive 2.5 million Americans out of the workforce."

     The supposition here is that viewers/listeners aren’t smart enough to discriminate between fact and fiction, or worse, and sadly, probably closer to the truth, will take what they hear as true, rather than find out the facts regarding the claim.  The first insinuation is that 300,000 Floridians are now without of insurance because of the ACA, coupled with a line essentially blaming the President if they have to change doctors. As one who negotiated health care issues for about ten years, I would acknowledge that people hate to change doctors. I would also point out, however, that the vast majority of health care plans with networks of providers have physicians move in and/or out of network all the time. It has been a fact of life ever since that darling of the Insurance industry, the HMO was incepted decades ago. So much for the “lose your doctor” claim, which is phrased almost as to imply that people will lose their doctor and have to treat themselves, since no other doctor of similar quality exists.   

     The claim that 300,000 Floridians health care plans were cancelled is the most insidious, because, as the first part of a statement of fact, it is relatively indisputable. First of all the source is cited as : “News Reports.” Which News?  Faux News? The “Tea Party Tattler?”  Ignoring the issue of legitimacy, such a statement to be valid should state, “While it may be true that 300,000 Floridians lost their health insurance, all were able to get new policies, most of them cheaper, and by law, all of them better, than the one that was cancelled, because the ACA makes many of the pre ACA predatory practices of insurers illegal.”   The internet abounds with regional attack ads of this nature, every single one of them unable to withstand the scrutiny of objective fact checks. The Conservative fact checker, Politifact, has debunked so many that they now lump them together.

      So that’s the first “lie.”  The second is more devious yet, since it is simply made false by a one word substitution.  The ACA, will allow, not "force", some workers who now must work full time to maintain health care benefits for the family, to go to part time, or some combination of reduced hours. We all know persons who would love to stay at home and raise small children or work part time, who have felt the need to work full time hours only to maintain health care coverage through their employer. These collective reduced hours added up and divided by forty (hours/week) can be “spun” as lost jobs when they are really the opposite. For every forty hours by which newly insured persons collectively and voluntarily reduce their schedules, another job is created, not vice versa.

The second part of the lie is that is the gist of what the coited CBO report actually says.  Here’s the quote:

        (The CBO estimated that the ACA would )  "Reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 percent to 2.0 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor — given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive." This would equal a "decline in the number of full-time-equivalent workers of about 2.0 million in 2017, rising to about 2.5 million in 2024," the report continued.  "By providing subsidies that decline with rising income and by making some people financially better off, the ACA will create an incentive for some people to work less," 

An important distinction in the report is that labor force may reduce by the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time workers over the next decade. That doesn’t mean 2.5 million people will leave their jobs or become unemployed. Some people will only cut back a few hours or leave a second part-time job, which likely will create jobs.

So, kids, stand by for the political attack ad barrage that will surely follow, given Rick Scott’s huge war chest and lack of character.