Sometimes you just have to relieve the tension with a little
trolling. Earlier this afternoon I
looked up Jim Jordan’s website and then called one of his Ohio offices. I said to the woman who answered the phone:
“Hello. I am looking
at the Congressman’s impressive website, and I read his bio. I could not find any mention of his military
service, but I felt sure he served. Can
you tell me which branch of the military he served in?”
She replied, rather curtly, “He did not serve. He went to college.”
“Oh,” I said, “I guess he had bone spurs” and hung up.
6 comments:
Good one!
This is not as funny, but I had fun doing it.
About 6 months before the 29018 elections I had a little fun with the then Congressman from Southern N.M. , Steve Pearce, and Congresswoman Marsh Blackburn (now Senator) from Tennessee. Pearce was holding a press conference at the University, with Blackburn as a special guest, to accuse the University of profiting from fetal tissue research. Blackburn had established a Select Committee on Infant Lives to push the fetal tissue non-issue and had targeted U.N.M Medical School and an abortion clinic in ABQ that does third Trimester abortions. I suspect never had a House Select Committee spent so much and accomplished so little.
I decided to attend. I got there early and a plan formed as I walked up to the site. I stood next to a cameraman, introduced myself and we started talking. In a few minutes a perky young blonde press aide came by and asked me if I was with the press. Of course I said yes, and told her I was a freelance reporter with an online site called the New Mexico Political Report.
I got to ask the last question: "Thirteen State Attorneys General have investigated the charge that a University or Planned Parenthood profits off the sale of fetal tissue and none have found evidence to substantiate the charge. In Texas, a grand jury was formed specifically to indict Planned Parenthood of Texas but it instead indicted the people behind the bogus tapes that purported to show the sale of fetal tissue existed. Do you have evidence that you claims are true, and if so, why have you not turned it over to the A.G.?"
The guy lied through his teeth in that typically smarmy way claiming he had seen the evidence and insisting that we should believe him. Immediately afterward, Pearce and a local attorney who earlier had made the claim that she had "boxes of evidence" that the local clinic did not get informed consent from its patients made a beeline for me. I wish I could have taped that conversation. Both said they had evidence, I said make it public or stop talking about it. Pearce made a last plea to believe him, and he was just oozing that unctuous, oily, slimy sincerity, that one sees in fundamentalist preachers and other con artists.
It sure was fun to watch them squirm. I thought of it as discomfiting the delusional.
Christopher, That's pretty good.
Very off topic, but my excuse is that I know there's an interest here in Piketty's work:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/piketty-2-ideolog%C3%ADa-y-propiedad-en/
David, thanks. I had intended to join the protestors and heckle, but having lots of experience with the press I saw an opportunity and thought 'this could be fun.' The good news is that the Tea Party congressman lost his race for Governor and the Dems picked up his seat in the House. In context, this happened while republican state office holders were pressuring the University to fire tenured faculty in the Health Sciences Center, and Rep. Blackburn's committee had been targeting the clinic and the University with demands for research and patient records, forcing University faculty to testify at the committee and applying every kind of pressure they could think of. The Health Sciences Chancellor held firm against onslaught.
As news of the depth and breath of the scandal unfolds, there are just 3 words...
Are you ready? You heard it here first:
PRESIDENT NIKKI HALEY
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