Editorial Article
by Jim Lantern, Centrist Independent (unaffiliated) Voter, Norman Oklahoma
Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson engaging in History Revision
Thursday 25 August 2016
On CNN this morning Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson claimed Trump’s new and softened position on the immigration issue has not changed at all. She claims it is the same it has always been. She explained that they are simply using different words to describe it.
From article at The Hill – Excerpts:
- Donald Trump’s spokeswoman on Thursday defended the Republican presidential nominee over criticism about his apparently changing immigration policies.
- “He hasn’t changed his position on immigration. He’s changed the words that he is saying,” Katrina Pierson said on CNN.
- “What he has always said from the beginning is that he does not want to allow people to stay in this country illegally. He does want to build a wall.”
- When pressed, Pierson continued to say that Trump is not giving a different message but is just “using different words to give that message.”
Using different words to describe it.
Like a weather forecast. No chance of rain. Suddenly, a thunderstorm. Same forecast. Just different words. Right?
“In a time of universal deceit — telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ~ George Orwell.
“It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.” ~ Mark Twain.
Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson is engaging in an Orwellian kind of history revision.
Do campaign managers, as well as the candidates, understand that they lose votes when they tell such blatant obvious lies? Apparently not. It is an insult to the intelligence of average American voters and the news media. Trump does attract more white voters who have no college degree than those who do have a college degree. For comparison, Hillary Clinton attracts more voters with a college degree than voters who have no college degree. Even so, my opinion, some people are educated beyond their intelligence and other people are intelligent beyond their education. I put more credibility and value into apprenticeship, on-the-job-training for hands-on experience, than I do in college education. I hated college during the two years I attended. I was regularly lied to by professors engaging in Orwellian style history revision and an early version of political correctness more so from the political left than from the political right – but the political right is just as guilty. I chose to live in the real world rather than their fantasy world.
If Katrina Pierson were a time traveler from an alternate history universe then it might make some sense.
It is acceptable for candidates to change their position on an issue. When new information comes to light, or otherwise when they become better informed, then they might reach a new, different, better conclusion, and [plan for a more effective course of action. Trump and his team could say the original position was based on what they knew when they first presented it. Since then they have had time to consult and get advice from experts on the subject, causing them to change their position. Nothing wrong with that. Further, Trump could say that is the way he will do the job of President – to surround himself with experts on each issue, hear what they have to say, and then make a decision for a reasonable course of action. Too bad that’s not what he is doing or saying. However, last night on FNC there was a kind of Town Hall meeting at which Trump asked the participants – voters – which position they prefer – the original tough position or the new softer position on immigration. A few die-hards stayed with the tough position. Most went along with the softer position. Both represent ongoing division within the Republican Party.
Have we forgotten why we want to toss out traditional politicians who lie to us? As a businessman, Trump is proving to be no different than the typical lying politician. Therefore, he will not get my vote. Likewise, for the same reasons, Hillary Clinton will not get my vote. Instead, I will vote for the truth – I will vote for Gary Johnson, Libertarian – former Republican – twice elected Governor of a blue Democrat state.
My new prediction for Election 2016: Voters will go to the polls on Tuesday 8 November 2016 with Clinton or Trump in mind. As they stand there ready to cast their votes, staring at the choices, perhaps they will be thinking about all the lies told by Clinton and Trump. Then perhaps for the first time they will focus on the third choice – Gary Johnson – on the ballot as a Libertarian. And then there will be an unexpected massive revolt against the Democratic and Republican parties. Clinton will get about 30%, Trump about 20%, and Johnson about 50%. I predict Johnson will remain low in polls until the last minute, which is why his win will shock the political world.
“IF THIS GOES ON—”
Excerpts from Wikipedia article…
- “If This Goes On—” is a science fiction short novel by Robert A. Heinlein, first serialized in 1940 in Astounding Science-Fiction and revised and expanded for inclusion in the 1953 collection Revolt in 2100. The novel shows what might happen to Christianity in the United States given mass communications, applied psychology, and a hysterical populace. The novel is part of Heinlein’s Future History series.
- The story is set in a future theocratic American society, ruled by the latest in a series of fundamentalist Christian “Prophets.” The First Prophet was Nehemiah Scudder, a backwoods preacher turned President (elected in 2012), then dictator (no elections were held in 2016 or later).
The following paragraphs have been excerpted from the 1986 Baen Book printing of Robert A. Heinlein’s novel titled “Revolt in 2100” –from the story titled “If This Goes On—”:
- I was kept busy but my work was fill-in work, since I was awaiting assignment. I had time to dig into the library and I looked up Tom Paine, which led me to Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson and others – a whole new world was opened up to me. I had trouble at first in admitting the possibility of what I read; I think perhaps of all things a police state can do to its citizens, distorting history is possibly the most pernicious. For example, I learned for the first time that the United States had not been ruled by a bloodthirsty emissary of Satan before the First Prophet arose in his wrath and cast him out – but had been a community of free men deciding their own affairs by peaceful consent. I don’t mean that the first republic had been a scriptural paradise, but it hadn’t been anything like what I had learned in school.
- For the first time in my life I was reading things which had not been approved by the Prophet’s censors, and the impact on my mind was devastating. Sometimes I would glance over my shoulder to see who was watching me, frightened in spit of myself. I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy . . . censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, “This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
- My thoughts did not then fall into syllogisms; my head was filled with an inchoate spate of new ideas, each more exciting than the last. I discovered that travel between the planets, almost a myth in my world, had not stopped because the First Prophet had forbidden it as a sin against the omnipotence of God; it had ceased because it had gone into the red financially and the Prophet’s government would not subsidize it. There was even an implied statement that the “infidels” (I still used that word in my mind) still sent out an occasional research ship and that there were human beings even now on Mars and Venus.
- Maybe someday the United States would have space ships again.
Previous history revision on a much larger scale by Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson…
From Mediate.com 13 August 2016 – Excerpts:
“Trump Spox Katrina Pierson: We Weren’t in Afghanistan Until Obama Decided to Go In”
- Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson has once again blamed President Obama for something that happened years before he took office.
- Remember how Pierson blamed Obama for Captain Humayun Khan‘s death in 2004? Well, on CNN this morning, as she was arguing with anchor Victor Blackwell about Trump’s “founder of ISIS” remark, Pierson actually said, “Remember, we weren’t even in Afghanistan by this time. Barack Obama went into Afghanistan, creating another problem.”
- Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson has once again blamed President Obama for something that happened years before he took office.
- Remember how Pierson blamed Obama for Captain Humayun Khan‘s death in 2004? Well, on CNN this morning, as she was arguing with anchor Victor Blackwell about Trump’s “founder of ISIS” remark, Pierson actually said, “Remember, we weren’t even in Afghanistan by this time. Barack Obama went into Afghanistan, creating another problem.”
- Blackwell pointed out that ISIS did not suddenly spring up when Obama became president.
- We should point out here that after Pierson got in trouble for muddling the facts on Captain Khan’s death recently, a high-level Trump adviser said on CNN, “I think we’re fixing it, I guarantee you that won’t happen again with her, that’s for sure.”
- Whoops.
The truth? Wikipedia articles:
Excerpts:
- The war in Afghanistan (or the American war in Afghanistan) is the period in which the United States invaded Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks. Supported initially by close allies, they were later joined by NATO beginning in 2003. It followed the Afghan Civil War’s 1996–2001 phase. Its public aims were to dismantle al-Qaeda and to deny it a safe base of operations in Afghanistan by removing the Taliban from power. Key allies, including the United Kingdom, supported the U.S. from the start to the end of the phase. This phase of the war is the longest war in United States history.
- In 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden and expel al-Qaeda; bin Laden had already been wanted by the United Nations since 1999. The Taliban declined to extradite him unless given what they deemed convincing evidence of his involvement in the 9/11 attacks and declined demands to extradite other terrorism suspects apart from bin Laden. The request was dismissed by the U.S. as a delaying tactic, and on 7 October 2001 it launched Operation Enduring Freedom with the United Kingdom. The two were later joined by other forces, including the Northern Alliance. In December 2001, the United Nations Security Council established the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), to assist the Afghan interim authorities with securing Kabul. At the Bonn Conference in December 2001, Hamid Karzai was selected to head the Afghan Interim Administration, which after a 2002 loya jirga in Kabul became the Afghan Transitional Administration. In the popular elections of 2004, Karzai was elected president of the country, now named the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.
Born in 1976, Katrina Pierson was age 25 at the time of the 2001 terrorist attack, so she should know better than to tell such a blatant obvious lie. What’s more surprising is she actually expects people to believe her. Maybe she believes her own lies. Her own fantasies. Her own alternate history world. She is like a sack labeled “Sugar” but the stink from inside leaves no doubt it contains horse manure, which makes here a lying sack of horse manure with the “Sugar” label on it.
What about her personal and professional history? No doubt, she would like to revise some of it.
From Wikipedia article – Excerpts:
- Katrina Lanette Pierson (born July 20, 1976) is an American Tea Party activist and communications consultant. Since November 2015, she has been the national spokesperson for the Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign.
- Pierson was born in Kansas to a white mother and a black father. Her mother, who gave birth to her at age 15, initially gave her up for adoption, but later changed her mind. She grew up with her mother, in poverty.
- In 1997, at the age of 20, Pierson was arrested for shoplifting, to which she pleaded no contest, received deferred adjudication, and, ultimately, a dismissal with the case sealed. She reportedly took $168 in merchandise from a J. C. Penney store in Plano, Texas, and had her then three-month old son with her at the time of the incident. Pierson told authorities she needed the clothes for job interviews. She has said that the incident helped turn her life around, showing her that mistakes often come with consequences.
- Pierson received an associate’s of science degree from Kilgore College. In 2006, she earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Texas at Dallas.
- Pierson worked for InVentiv Health in 2008; the Baylor Health Care System from July 2009 to August 2011, as a practice administrator; for ASG Software Solutions, as the Director of Corporate Affairs, from May 2011 to December 2012; and then in variety of jobs until being hired by the Trump campaign in November 2015. In 2013, she received $11,000 in unemployment benefits from the Texas Workforce Commission.
- Pierson became an activist in the Tea Party movement in 2009. Speaking in April 2009 at a Dallas Tea Party event, she called for Texas to secede from the U.S. She founded a local Tea Party group in Garland, Texas.
- In 2012, Pierson actively supported Ted Cruz in the 2012 Senate race in Texas and appeared on stage with him on election night in November.
- In the 2014 Texas Congressional elections, Pierson challenged incumbent Congressman Pete Sessions in the Republican primary to represent Texas’ 32nd district. Her candidacy was endorsed by Rafael Cruz and by Sarah Palin, who called her “a feisty fighter for freedom.” While U.S. Senator Ted Cruz offered praise, calling her an “utterly fearless principled conservative,” he stopped short of an endorsement.
- By mid-February 2014, Pierson had received only $76,000 in campaign contributions; Sessions had received almost twenty times more. In the March primary, Pierson received 36 percent of the vote, losing to Sessions, who received 63 percent. Pierson went on to become spokesperson for the Tea Party Leadership Fund.
- In January 2015, Pierson attended a meeting for Tea Party activists in Myrtle Beach with Ted Cruz. While in Myrtle Beach, she also met with Donald Trump. After meeting with Trump or his aides a few more times, Pierson introduced Trump at a campaign rally held in Dallas in September. In November 2015 she was hired as the national spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, subsequently appearing frequently on television in that capacity.
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Lantern Timeglass Journal 