{"id":27410,"date":"2017-05-06T11:23:10","date_gmt":"2017-05-06T18:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=27410"},"modified":"2017-05-06T11:23:10","modified_gmt":"2017-05-06T18:23:10","slug":"everyday-erinyes-73","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/05\/06\/everyday-erinyes-73\/","title":{"rendered":"Everyday Erinyes #73"},"content":{"rendered":"

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage.  These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that.  Even though there are many more which I can't include.  As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are <\/span><\/span>Alecto<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span>, <\/span><\/span>Megaera<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span>, and <\/span><\/span>Tisiphone<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>. These roughly translate as "unceasing," "grudging," and "vengeful destruction."<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It has been a rough week, only slightly alleviated by the news that two law enforcement murderers (out of how many hundred?) will be facing, one a possible penalty (after a plea bargain), the other charges (and what else remains to be seen), for their crimes.  The passage of the AHCA (Abysmal Horrible Crap Act) has dominated the news, and, as fury-worthy as it is, there is really nothing to say about it that hasn't already been said, and that multiple times.<\/span><\/span>\"\"<\/p>\n

Although, perhaps I can come up with some words that have not been seen – at least not nationally – the lamebrain in question probably sent them to the local papers, but I don't know whether anyone bothered to publish them, as predictable and vapid as they are.  The Congressman for CO-05, Douglas Lamborn, my Congressman, sent out this statement in an email:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

"I have kept my promise to replace Obamacare with a patient-centered plan that reduces government control, lowers costs, and increases the health care choices available to the American people. The AHCA has improved over the last month. The Freedom Caucus has worked with the moderate Tuesday Group to forge a compromise that will lower premiums and increase the flexibility of individual states to manage their health care decisions. Additionally, I personally negotiated with House Leadership to fix an error that locked veterans into the VA health system and prevented them from accessing the benefits of the AHCA. Securing this important victory for our veterans allowed me to support the bill.<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

With this vote, we have ended the individual mandate, blocked federal funding from going to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, phased out Medicaid expansion, reduced regulations and taxes, and gutted Obamacare. I hope that the Senate is able to build upon the good work done by the House and deliver a strong bill to the President. By standing with President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Health and Human Services Secretary Price, I have voted to move us forward to a future of improved health care access and affordability for all Americans."<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(It is also on his website, but we don't link to websites of this nature here.)<\/strong><\/span>  I am sure it is now obvious to everyone here, if it wasn't already, why I make a point of remaining on good terms with <\/span><\/span>Alecto<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span>, <\/span><\/span>Megaera<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span>, and <\/span><\/span>Tisiphone<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Just for good measure, though, on the National Day of Prayer this week, Shouty McShoutface signed an executive order regarding "Religious Liberty."  Naturally it was one of those documents that promulgate and support making it legal for those calling themselves "Christians" to discriminate against anyone not calling him or herself Christian – or, calling him or herself Christian, but not looking exactly like the "Christian" doing the discriminating.  And, of course, Congressman CO-05 had on opinion on that too:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"\""I want to commend President Trump for signing today's Executive Order on Religious Liberty, defending the liberties enshrined in our founding documents, and making good on campaign promises to preserve and protect religious freedom. Along with other Members of Congress, I urged the President to act quickly on this order, to restore to people of faith the freedoms that have been being encroached upon in recent years. Under the Obama Administration, men and women faced crippling penalties for simply living out their faith in everyday lives.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The United States of America has a long and rich history of being a bastion of freedom for those persecuted for living out their religious beliefs. I am grateful for the efforts of this administration to return to those values by reining in the culture of government intimidation and unfair punishments of those seeking to faithfully live out their deeply held convictions. No one should ever be forced to decide between giving up their deeply held convictions or facing the threat of unfair government punishment through crippling fines. Religious liberty takes nothing away from American citizens, but merely underscores the value and right of religious expression for the many millions of Americans who hold to a particular faith."<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(The picture shows him accepting the "True Blue" arard from the Family Research Council.  No comment.) <\/span><\/span>Alecto<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span>, <\/span><\/span>Megaera<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span>, and <\/span><\/span>Tisiphone<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>, dealing, as you generally do, directly with prime movers of evil, you may think I want you to go after this guy, and, in a way, you would not be wrong.  However, this Congressional District is laid out in such a way that if you took him out, he would most likely be replaced by someone worse.  I can't even call that a gerrymander.  It became like this when far right Christianist and Dominionist groups all more or less simultaneously decided that Colorado Springs was a wonderful place to headquarter. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So what I really would like to happen is a change to the hearts and minds of the voters of CO-05 so that we can elect an actual human being to Congress.  I know that's a tall order.  And timeconsuming.  It might not happen in my lifetime.  It may not happen before the earth burns to a crisp.  But I do think it is worth attempting.  Dear ladies, thanks.  And good luck.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Furies and I will be back.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Cross posted to Care2 at <\/span><\/span>http:\/\/www.care2.com\/news\/member\/101612212\/4051167<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage.  These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that.  Even though there […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":18437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}