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| Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh comes up a lot if one does a Google image search for "Dead Beat Dads". |
Once in a while I come across a news story that just breaks me up. I mean breaks me up in the sense that no one can be this blind, or this stupid, or sometimes both this blind and stupid. So sometimes when I need a good laugh I'll peruse the Catholic League website, or Family Research Council website, or any number of uber Catholic websites (to which I now get to add the Archdiocese of Boston's, The Pilot) for a morning chuckle. Today I came across a real laugher courtesy of the Family Research Council. As per the Chicago Sun-Times, we have the following laugher:
Rep. Walsh lauded by group for being pro-family, though accused of owing child support
By Abdon M. Pallasch Political Reporter/apallasch@suntimes.com November 3, 2011 6:06PMRepublican Rep. Joe Walsh was the only Illinois congressman to be named a “True Blue” member of Congress for “unwavering support of the family” by the Family Research Council Action committee Thursday.
Walsh’s ex-wife says Walsh owes more than $100,000 in back child support for their three children. Walsh counters that he and his wife had a “verbal agreement” that he didn’t have to pay child support during years when he wasn’t earning as much. (This verbal agreement probably was him telling her he wasn't going to pay, leaving her to foot the whole bill for three kids. What if she wasn't earning much?)
“We thank Cong. Walsh who has voted consistently to defend faith, family and freedom,” said FRCA President Tony Perkins. “Cong. Walsh and other ‘True Blue Members’ have voted to repeal Obamacare, de-fund Planned Parenthood, end government funding for abortion within the health care law, uphold the Defense of Marriage Act, and continue support for school choice. I applaud their commitment to uphold the institutions of marriage and family.”
“I am proud and honored to be recognized by the Family Research Council as the only member from Illinois with a 100 percent pro-family voting record,” Walsh said in a news release. “Defending American values have always been one of my top priorities, and this reward reaffirms my dedication to that fight.” (I didn't know it was an American value to refuse to pay for your children's support until you determined you could afford it. Hmmm.)
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Hold on a second, I don't think I'm quite getting this family values thing. These values as exemplified by Rep Walsh seem to say: 1) women have to carry all pregnancies to term, 2) women who can't afford the pregnancies they are forced to carry to term can not rely on daddy or the government to provide sustenance or medical care for these children unless men say so, 3) women will not be given access to birth control or other forms of reproductive care provided by Planned Parenthood because women are first and foremost walking uteri, 4) poor children will have poor schools, 5) gays can never adopt kids although it's apparently OK for gay daddy's not to support their children from previous heterosexual marriages if they determine they can't afford it.
Why am I having trouble finding any concept of family in these values? Seems to me these values are all about protecting male sexual and economic hegemony at the very real expense of women and children. Maybe I should be weeping instead of laughing.
Oh yeah. He is Roman Catholic and he has remarried.
ReplyDeleteHe has been lauded for "unwavering support of the family". What kind of exemption did he get to not support his own family since 2004? Too bad a Congressman's salary of $174,000 isn't enough to pay child support these days.
What kind of Teabagging hypocrite earns his living making laws then ignores the laws that apply to him specifically? He is in contempt of the court order that he support his children. His arrears and the fact that he has not paid in over a year mean that he may be charged with a felony. The monthly payment is $2,134. That's not very much. He just seems to have missed every payment for the past 3+ years.
Another organization, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) named him the "Most Corrupt.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/65203698/Most-Corrupt-2011-Rep-Joe-Walsh-R-IL
p2p
Here is a man that is now a "Representative" of the people in the US Congress and he thinks, and his supporters think, it is ok, acceptable, to not pay child support and still be considered a good family man with family values. Laugh. Cry. Moan. Groan. Disgust.
ReplyDeleteI know when I was a single parent that my ex would find ways to cheat me out of money all the time whenever he possibly could. The amounts were not huge, but it all added up. It would have cost more for a lawyer to bring him back into court for what he owed. The men know that. And the women know that if they have to go to the lawyer that cost them additional money they do not have. The mother also might have to take time off from work to see the lawyer & lose more money, and they will have to make arrangements for child care which cost more money and perhaps anxiety for the child/children that mommy is not around. It is a draining emotional experience overall for the woman.
And for some stupid reason some men believe that the women go and spend that money for child support on themselves. The truth is that women are not paid as much as the men are and if they don't receive the child support they get behind in all their bills which is very stressful to say the least. Pitifully, that does affect the children when their family budget is cut. And when the child is sick it is the MOTHERS who have to stay home and take care of the child or children, oftentimes without pay and with negative repercussions at their jobs because businesses don't have any family values either, for the most part.
Representative Walsh is not representative of a good family man or role model for fathers and the Teabagger misogynist hagglers have no sense of even common decency or regard for mothers and the children in their care. They are what the dictionary might define as political buffoons and hypocrites.
Mother F.
p2p remarried, refusing to pay child support to his first wife and somehow this guy is lauded for his 'family values'. It certainly does appear that the Family Research Council would be more aptly named if it was called Men Behaving Badly.
ReplyDeleteMother, if the message about our precious children was really getting through, parents would not have to be legally forced to pay for the support and upkeep of their precious children. Guys like Walsh demonstrate the fallacy of relying on personal charity to take the place of any government safety net. There's something revolting about the notion that the men and women who push the idea of the private charity concept are the same ones who dump their own personal responsibilities.
Thank you for expanding on that. Our precious children indeed! Our children, the one's who went to college and now there is no work for them unless they join the military and Teabagger Representative Walsh wants nothing for them really, as well as no safety nets for them either. Such fine upstanding unwavering compassionate parental figures they are not!!!
ReplyDeleteI have a hunch that Walsh would add/compute money he spent on his children outside of child support when the children were visiting him or on vacation with him, or Christmas gifts, etc.. It's all about mula, mammon and nothing about love. Is he really a "Catholic?"
Mother F.
I suspect that is the trouble. 'Men' [I just can't name him a man without the quotation marks] like Walsh view supporting the family they help create not as any sort of responsibility but as CHARITY. And for further definition of charity, it must be considered purely voluntary and not coerced by any sort of outside authority - certainly not the civil/family court system. So if an outside authority tries to coerce them, they just rebel and damn the consequences to the children they helped create and for whom they will proclaim undying paternal love. They take this whole 'king is his own castle' to an extreme.
ReplyDeleteAnd that verbal agreement he supposedly had with his ex? Yeah, you just can not do that. Neither parent can agree on behalf of the children to forgo any legally ordered child support. So not only is he refusing to pay the costs of raising children he helped create, he is trying to make their mother look irresponsible by 'reneging' on an agreement with him.
He needs a scarlet 'L' tattooed on his forehead. For the loser that he is. OK, maybe not tattooed. Maybe just a huge lapel pin that must be worn on the outermost layer of his clothing whenever he is in public...
Veronica
"And for further definition of charity, it must be considered purely voluntary and not coerced by any sort of outside authority - certainly not the civil/family court system." Great statement T'pel.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately that definition of charity is something one matures into understanding, Walsh is so far from that kind of maturity it's sickening. What Walsh and some other Tea Party types want is institutional support for their own grossly immature understanding of rights and responsibility. This is most often manifested as demanding their 'right' to visitation while simultaneously demanding their right to determine their own level of responsibility.
Or to put it differently, they want externalized rights but internalized responsibilities--but only for men. Women and children must submit to both externalized rights and externalized responsibilities without any recourse to any internalized formulations. In Walsh's case this is perfectly demonstrated by his insistence his wife did not honor the external verbal agreement and assigning her the blame.