Motley Moose – Archive

Meet the people who gave the GOP control of the House of Representatives

25% of Americans do not believe in evolution.

21% of Americans believe there are real sorcerors, conjurers, and warlocks.

25% do not believe in astrology.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, four in 10 Americans mistakenly believe the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act creates a panel that makes decisions about end-of-life care.

20% of Americans believe the sun revolves around the Earth. – Gallup 1999

33% don’t believe the 1st Amendment applies to all religions.

24% believe President Obama is a Muslim.

Voter participation in American mid-term elections is notoriously low. The 2010 election is no exception. Only 41.5% of eligible voters cast a ballot. Approximately 56% voted for the GOP. That means 23% of eligible American voters gave the GOP control of the House of Representatives. Look once more at that list above and ask yourself – Is this any way to run a country?

In 1994, Newt Gingrich unveiled the Contract for America. Many political analysts view  this document as being helpful to the GOP’s effort to gain control of Congress in that year’s election. Now that the GOP finds itself in a similar situation in 2010, they have decided to release a Pledge to America with the hope that it will help them gain control of Congress in the mid-term elections. Whether that proves to be true is yet to be seen.

A draft version of the document has been released on the Internet. What I’ve read so far appears to be a typical GOP document filled with misdirection, misinformation, half-truths, and outright lies.

The misdirection starts on the first page in the intro. They save the lies for the content. I’ll deal with those in a later post.

An unchecked executive, a compliant legislature, and an overreaching judiciary have combined to thwart the will of the people and overturn their votes and their values, striking down long-standing laws and institutions and scorning the deepest beliefs of the American people.

What they say in that paragraph is true. The misdirection is that they want people to think they are talking about the current government when it is obvious that they are describing the Bush administration that was appointed by a conservative controlled Supreme Court  and enabled by a compliant GOP-controlled Congress.