Maybe when Trump looked at Fiorina's face and made the infamous and sexist remark, he wasn't talking about her being "ugly" per se, but about the twisted inner ugliness that was on display for the whole country during Wednesday night's CNN debate. DO LOOK AT THAT FACE-- it was twisted, contorted and misshapen in the same way Hitler's was when he was trying to manipulate large audiences.Fiorina was forcefully asserting that the blatant lies she was spouting were A Truth worth fighting for. And when sociopaths like Fiorina lie, they get intense as a mechanism for persuading lo-info listeners that they are being the soul of integrity. Trump didn't go anywhere near the ugliness that Carly Fiorina really is. She even implied that her 34 year old step-daughter had died of "marijuana addiction," just one of her onslaught of bold-faced lies to prove her narrow partisan points. As Charles Pierce noted in Esquire, She was steely-eyed in her prevarication."
She was relentless in her determination to launch pure crapola into the stratosphere. She smiled rarely. She glowered effectively. The woman stares daggers better than anyone I've ever seen. And, on many occasions, she lied her ass off with a formidable brand of armored certitude. If you eliminate "telling the truth" from the assessment, Carly Fiorina was every bit the winner she is universally acclaimed to be this morning.
Biggest lie-- depending how you're measuring, I guess was the Planned Parenthood tape nonsense she made up. "As regards Planned Parenthood, anyone who has watched this videotape, I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain." That never happened... but it's a Republican primary and the audience isn't about truth or fiction, just about fantasy.
Fiorina might have trouble finding this video to show to Clinton. No such video has surfaced, certainly with no scenes inside a Planned Parenthood facility... [T]he procedure she describes is not shown.
Lying with conviction and aggressiveness does not turn a lie into truth and although that doesn't matter at all to Republican primary voters, it does mater to normal people who Fiorina or Trump or whichever Republican wins the primaries will one day have to persuade they're worthy of the presidency. But, hey, what the hell... anything that distracts from her dismal record as a failed businesswoman has got be viewed as a plus. And it worked-- the media fix was in, as Scott Walker explained to Glenn Beck yesterday (above).Legislatures and/or governors in Louisiana, Alabama, New Hampshire, Utah and Arkansas have already defunded Planned Parenthood. And today the Republican-controlled House voted to do likewise nationally, despite polling that shows 54% of the American people want finding continued and only 26% want it stopped.Leading up to today's vote by House Republicans-- joined by Blue Dogs Dan Lipinski (IL) and Collin Peterson (MN)-- to defund Planned Parenthood, Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree defined what the vote was all about: "Women across America are under attack and the battle is being waged in the halls of the U.S. Capitol. That's right, Republicans in Congress are threatening to shut down the government unless Planned Parenthood is defunded. These extremists in Congress have spent the better part of the last century trying to deny women's access to health care, contraception, and their right to make very personal health decisions. Now they want to take away access to family planning for an entire generation of women. They are willing to stop at nothing-- even shut down the government-- to take this away from women... A government shutdown would mean our country's bridges would continue to crumble without repair. Millions of families would be denied at the gates of national parks and monuments. It's even possible seniors would miss their checks and veterans could be denied benefits. All because Republicans want to deny health services to millions of women across the country."Lipinski, far uglier than Fiorina no matter how you measure itWell... Republicans and the two "Democrats." The GOP bill to defund Planned Parenthood-- based on doctored videos-- passed 241-187. The two Blue Dogs who crossed the aisle and voted against women were anti-Choice fanatic Blue Dogs Dan Lipinski, who represents a D+5 district in Chicagoland, and Collin Peterson, who represents western Minnesota (R+6). There were 3 Republicans who voted against the bill-- Charlie Dent (PA), Robert Dold (IL) and Richard Hanna (NY). Peterson and Lipinski also voted against the Democrats on the motion to recommit and, yesterday, in the procedural legislation.Last cycle the DCCC spent $3,611,284 to prop up Peterson's failing career and Pelosi's related House Majority PAC spent another $332,439. As soon as the vote was taken today, the DCCC sent out an urgent e-mail urging its followers to "DENOUNCE REPUBLICANS FOR VOTING YES." The DCCC pulled strings to get Lipinski's district gerrymandered-- in this case to make it much less Hispanic-- so he wouldn't have to fear a primary. It doesn't cost much for him to run in the general and he doesn't need any help from the DCCC. Peterson on the other hand, is on DCCC life-support. If they withdrew their financial support he would retire immediately since he could never win on his own.Progressive champion Donna Edwards (D-MD) summed up how most Democrats feel about the nonsense the GOP forced them to vote on today:
Once again, House Republicans are ignoring their responsibility to govern in order to appease the most conservative wing of their caucus. Let’s be clear-- women’s reproductive health is a private medical conversation between a woman and her health care provider-- period. It is unacceptable for politicians to impose their personal beliefs on the private medical decisions of millions of women across the country. To make matters worse, this nefarious effort to defund Planned Parenthood would be devastating to women’s health. In Maryland alone, over 33,000 women in 2013 relied on Planned Parenthood centers to receive critical health care services, including medical checkups, contraceptive care, flu vaccines, pap tests, and breast exams. This is about primary healthcare for women-- without access to the basic health care that Planned Parenthood provides many of these women will simply be forced to go without care. It is already federal policy, and has been so for many years, that federal funds cannot be used for abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is threatened. This legislation aims to deny women’s reproductive choices and limit critical health care services for millions of women across the country, many from our most vulnerable communities.With only five legislative days until yet another Republican government shutdown, valuable time was lost today on these purely ideological bills. I hope the Republican leadership will do what’s right for the American people and work with Democrats to fund the federal government. Our nation cannot afford another Republican shutdown like the one in 2013, which closed the government for 16 days and cost the economy $24 billion and 120,000 jobs. Once again, working families deserve better, and the Republican leadership can do better.