FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #24 Ann Marie Wants Jobs for Our Region

This is the BIG LIE. Every move AMB has made in Washington has played to the hand of big business, moving jobs offshore and removing protections for workers. 

Loyalty to the workers of this congressional district is the LAST thing she feels. Loyalty to AMB, her power and the 1% is where her heart resides.

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #23 "More Jobs, Less Government"

So say her signs. 

Offshore jobs? Trade agreements? Yes indeed. Jobs at home? Not so much. 

How about retraining for displaced U.S. workers? Definitely not. AMB voted against the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act.

What a gal!

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #22 Buerkle Will Go to Washington With an Open and Independent Mind

Buerkle voted with the Republican/Tea Party block 95% of the time so far in her Congressional term.

She did this in spite of saying the following in Compact25 in August, 2010:

I will be independent

I will be the voice of the people and not the voice of a party, a President, or a special interest group. The only special interest group I’ll be listening to is the people of the 25th District of New York.

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #21 Buerkle's Commitment to Her Constituents

 

Buerkle's platform Compact25 from August before the last election, included the following:

I recognize that as your Representative I will answer to you.  I understand that your support is not a blank check for me to go my own way without considering your wishes. While you and I may not completely agree on everything, I will welcome discussion and will approach every vote carefully.  I will post on my website an explanation and justification of every major vote I cast.

Buerkle has utterly ignored half her constituents, including a great many disenfranchised people who live in her district. People without resources simply cannot be heard by her because almost all of her "town meetings" are in the suburbs or in overwhelmingly Republican areas. 

She is never within range nor does she make a concerted effort to make disenfranchised people feel welcome at her homogeneous "town hall" meetings. In fact, people of different views or less means who come to her public meetings might well find a hostile audience sitting up front.  

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #20 Buerkle Believes in Consumer Choice

Where to start?

Blue Sky Girl found this photo on AMB's own Congressional web site heading Energy, under Issues. Never mind that only 18 months ago she introduced a bill promoting incandescent light bulbs under the guise of consumer choice.

Second, choice is precisely what she abhors when it comes to medical decisions between women and their doctors. Which is it: small government or big government?

And third, AMB belongs to a small and elite group called "The Flat Earth Five." The idea that sound science enters into any of her stances on any "issues" is absurd.

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #19 This Dear Lady is Your Friend

This dear lady, Ann Marie Buerkle, has rallied the disaffected and angry people of her district by telling them she will represent them in Congress.

Can anyone tell us one thing that she has accomplished for her district in the past nearly-two years? Has she brought jobs here? Has she brought public works dollars here? Is your life better now than it was two years ago because of anything Buerkle did in Washington?

Yes, she has taken the credit for grants and loans...as a representative of government. But personally? Nothing.

Remember the voucher misinformation? Remember "death panels"?  Remember "seeking common ground"? Remember the catastrophic near-default of our country? Remember Compact25?

What her supporters don't know is that her history, for her entire public and political life, has had one purpose: selfishness. 

That she can rally enough voters to be serious competition in an election is a silent monument to her ability to deceive.

Buerkle is an actress. She dresses the part. She speaks the lines. She is a millionaire at least two times over, telling the disenfranchised that she cares about their "issues". In fact, if you look on her website, "issues" are what what she says she cares about. You won't find anything there about real people and real problem-solving. 

Anyone can "care" about "issues" without lifting a finger. 

This dear lady is not dear and she is certainly not a lady. Ladies don't lie.

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #18 Buerkle Wants High Standards for Education

Buerkle says she cares about education but she advocates getting government out of education and removing federal mandates. 

Where does that leave children who live in poorer districts or states, or districts or states that consistently try to teach religion instead of science? 

What about states that decide education beyond 8th grade is a waste of time, or that educating girls is a waste of time?

On November 28, 2010, Buerkle said the following to Syracuse.com:

Syracuse.com: You’ve talked about shrinking the size of government regarding the Education Department. Should it be abolished?
AMB: "It sounds so radical, but if you think about it, if you think about how we’re paying all these school taxes, how much goes to the federal government, and then it comes back to the districts with all these strings attached. It’s almost laundered down there. I went by the Department of Education and I looked at this massive building. How do they know what’s best for Syracuse, New York? How do they know what’s best for Fowler High School? They don’t. It’s the local government and the state government that should have more power and more authority, and certainly be the one that handles the money. Communities and the state know what’s best for schools."

One of the great things about living in a country that has a united vision of a decent education for all children is that local or state interpretation, if it falls short, can be overridden by the federal government. Remember Brown v Board of Education of Topeka?

Lies, promised in a singularly honest moment so many years ago to Blue Sky Girl's friend J, roll off AMB's tongue like rain out of the sky.

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #17 Ann Marie Supports Improved Health Care

Think...Vouchers

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #16 Ann Marie Cares About...anybody...

...except herself.

Blue Sky Girl has been following pretty closely and cannot recall an instance of Ann Marie uttering the word "poverty", or "racism", or "equality", or "justice".

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #15 Buerkle Concerned With Women's Safety

Her use of Vera House to prove her concern for women's issues notwithstanding, Buerkle has consistently opposed a landmark bill in Congress that would further help women who need legal protections from domestic violence. She opposed reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act that would have expanded domestic violence protections to marginally protected groups such as undocumented immigrants, same sex partners and Native American women. 

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #14 Defense and National Security are Important

"The issues of Defense and National Security are important to our district and to my work in Congress." Buerkle web site

Buerkle says "issues" are important, but real security at Benghazi wasn't so important. She voted, like a well-behaved sheep, to massively cut the State Department over the last two years, leaving the US embassy deficient in security which led directly to the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #13 Spending Public Money is Bad

What Blue Sky Girl knows about Buerkle's work history is that she has primarily earned her living working in the public sector. 

In recent years public jobs have been her only source of income. From 1997 until she was sworn in as Congressman from NY 25, NY tax payers paid her salary and very handsome benefits as Assistant Attorney General. When she retires she will continue to collect many handsome benefits from both New York State and the US federal government.

You are welcome. 

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: # 12 "Rape is Rape"

 

Buerkle co-sponsored a bill with Todd Akin, R-Missouri, that included the exclusionary term "forcible rape." She has shared other, similar votes with Akin, the knucklehead who said that when a woman is raped her body naturally will not conceive. 

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #11 Concern for Women

If Buerkle felt concern for women half as much as she feels concern for her own ideology and that of her followers, she would hold in esteem and support Planned Parenthood as much as she does Vera House. 

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #10 Vet Love

“Despite the budget constraints, we can’t shortchange our veterans. We

 owe them as a nation, as a moral obligation, to give them what they need.” Post-Standard, 3/27/11

"There are many veterans that live in our district and their issues are important to me and to my work in Congress." Buerkle web site

These public pronouncements didn't stop Buerkle from voting against House bills in 2011 that would have helped returning veterans with housing and averting homelessness.

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #9 Promise to Seek Common Ground

"We may not agree on every issue, but constituents should feel that they can come to me and we can talk and we can find common ground," she said. "And that’s really my biggest task — to work hard so that the people in this district feel they have a voice in Washington." December 2010 

In all the Town Hall Meetings, visits to the office and letters with questions, there has been no "common ground" to be found. "Common ground" means precisely where AMB is standing and not an inch wider. 

When ideology rules, as it does her brand of politics, AMB will only, ever, hear that which confirms her beliefs. This is confirmation bias. Her claque, her band of merry followers, suffers the same smallness.

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #8: The Relative Importance of "Fast and Furious"

"Fast and Furious is the No. 1 issue for her Central NY constituents." Syracuse.com, July 1, 2012

Complete hogwash!

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #7 Supporting Mitt Romney

A fundamentalist Catholic endorsing a Mormon? Really?

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #6 Buerkle Endorses Mitt Romney

It strains credulity that Buerkle endorses Mitt Romney, who once upon a time supported women's right to choose and designed Obamacare, back when it was Romneycare, as governor of Massachusetts.

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #5 Supports Local Job Creation

Our Gal says she wants to reduce government interference in order to ease creation of jobs in her district. Why then did she vote to reduce taxes for companies that outsource jobs overseas?