Sen. Elizabeth Warren now says that last year’s government shutdown was about birth control.
Warren did not make the remark in an off-the-cuff setting. She made it in a prepared speech.
Warren said it on the floor of the Senate while supporting a bill that she knows has absolutely zero chance of becoming law.
“Remember last year’s government shutdown that nearly tanked our economy?” Warren asked. “That fight started with a GOP effort to hold the whole operation of the federal government hostage in order to try to force Democrats and the president to let employers deny workers access to birth control.”
Warren is not lying about some distant event for which there is no extant living memory. The government shutdown was last year.
Spoiler alert: That shutdown was not over birth control. That shutdown was over the budget and the entirety of Obamacare. The whole law (which hardly any Democrat read before passing it into law). Not birth control.
There is, in fact, no national controversy over birth control as such. There is a controversy over how the Obama administration used regulatory powers written into the unpopular Obamacare law to impose even abortifacient drugs on Americans who object to the use of such drugs. The controversy is over whether Americans retain the right to live out our religious values once we own businesses.
Spoiler alert: The Supreme Court ruled that we do.
Warren is not merely delivering spin. Saying that the shutdown was about birth control is a Godzilla-sized lie, told intentionally, in order to be provocative. It won’t advance the bill she is supporting. That bill stands no chance of passing in the House, supposing that it even comes up for a vote in the Senate, which it probably won’t, because Democrats do not want to be taking pro-Obamacare votes leading up to the mid-terms. The bill and speaking out in favor of it is nothing more or less than base political theater. Warren is just lying to score points with the Democrat base, who also mostly know that Warren is lying, yet they will repeat the lie themselves until the end of time.
We could send this lie over to PolitiFact or Glenn Kessler, but it won’t do any good. Supposing that they rule that Warren is lying, which isn’t a given when you consider how PolitiFact gives “Mostly False” and “Mostly True” ratings arbitrarily, she won’t stop. No amount of Pants on Fire meters or Pinocchios will stop a liar who is as brazen as Elizabeth Warren. You could line up every Pinocchio graphic in the world. You could literally drag a pair of burning pants through her office. Sen. Warren will keep right on lying.
We’re talking, of course, about a woman who lied about having Indian heritage so that she could claim minority status and get a leg up in the academic world. She defends all that to this day.
We’re talking about a senator who is in office because voters in Massachusetts don’t care about that lie.
We’re talking about a political party and movement that subscribes to the Alinsky point of view on how to conduct domestic political warfare. In that world view, you don’t discuss anything with your opposites. You belittle them, dehumanize them, smear them, and aggravate them.
And we’re talking about a media that even on its best days is very reluctant to call out a Democrat for shamelessly telling towering lie after lie.
I’m not sure that it’s possible to have a real political discussion with the likes of Elizabeth Warren. What is there to talk about when there is no agreement on the basic facts at hand? What is there to talk about when they re-write history right before your eyes? Next thing you know, Warren will blame Bush for locking veterans out of their own war memorials.
Is there even an electoral remedy for a sociopath like Elizabeth Warren? When her voters are right there cheering and lying right behind her?
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