You may recall, from George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the memory hole, where inconvenient and embarrassing documents and records were disposed of, thus eliminating them from the historical record.

Congressman Ben Cline has tried to make use of a modern memory hole by deleting without explanation at least two posts from his campaign Facebook page. Thanks to the magic of Screen Capture, he hasn’t entirely succeeded.

Cline posted in November 2020 that he was proud to support his friend, the crazed election conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell.

Powell has since argued that “no reasonable person” would believe her claims of massive election fraud.

At some point, that post was removed from Cline’s Facebook page. To borrow another term from Orwell, Powell has become an unperson.

Now I’ve noticed that Cline also “disappeared” a post from July 2020, in which he claimed that the story of the slave-owning Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson involved “bridging racial divisions.” He also mocked the City of Lexington for renaming the cemetery named for Jackson.

As I noted at the time:

Congressman, you can’t simultaneously enslave Black people, as Jackson did, and “bridge racial divisions.” It doesn’t work that way.

After revealing his contempt for Lexington (which voted heavily against him in the 2018 Congressional election), Cline speculates sarcastically about the cemetery’s new name.

“Future Democrat Voter Quarry?” What are you saying here, Congressman? That Stonewall Jackson and others interred at the cemetery will rise from their graves and vote Democratic? That local Democrats will cheat in future elections by voting on behalf of the people buried there?

Apparently Cline realized he had gone too far. But instead of publicly acknowledging that fact and apologizing, he behaved like an employee of Nineteen Eighty-Four‘s Ministry of Truth. He decided that the Facebook post “did not exist; [it] had never existed.”

I had hoped Congressman Cline’s recent experience with COVID might give him a new perspective on the need for prudent actions to combat the spread of the still-dangerous and sometimes deadly pandemic.

Instead, as before, he stands with those whose supposed right to be unvaccinated trumps any concern for public health or any consideration of medical science. While vaccinated himself, he lacks the simple courage, decency and respect for life to tell people to get vaccinated. Instead he simply tells them to “make the decision that’s right for them.”

Cline, along with other Congressional Republicans, has introduced a bill to prohibit organ transplant centers from denying transplants based on whether the donor or recipient is vaccinated against COVID.

In a press release, Cline quotes the executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons supporting this legislation.

According to Wikipedia, the AAPS is a “politically conservative non-profit association that promotes medical misinformation, such as HIV/AIDS denialism, the abortion-breast cancer hypothesis, vaccine and autism connections, and homosexuality reducing life expectancy. The association was founded in 1943 to oppose a government attempt to nationalize health care.” This is an organization that routinely rejects evidence-based medical science. Its support for any legislation should raise doubts about that legislation. Cline’s willingness to cite the AAPS should raise doubts about him.

The American Independent Foundation reports:

The medical website Stat reported in January that both physicians and medical ethicists have long favored deciding who gets transplants in part based on who is most likely to survive and thrive. Unvaccinated transplant recipients are at an especially high risk of dying if they get COVID-19.

“The entire transplant evaluation process, which can be very long and very demanding, is about making sure patients are in the best physical, mental, and social condition to endure a transplant, and then all the downstream effects of transplantation,” transplant specialist Olivia Kates of Johns Hopkins Medicine told the outlet.

The report also noted that such requirements are common for potential transplant recipients, who are often prohibited from smoking cigarettes and required to be inoculated against hepatitis B and other illnesses in order to be eligible for consideration.

In an essay published by NBC News on Jan. 31, medical ethics experts J. Russell Teagarden of the Working Group on Compassionate Use and Preapproval Access and Arthur L. Caplan of the NYU School of Medicine argue that COVID-19 vaccination status is and should be an important consideration in deciding who gets organ transplants because it is a factor in likelihood of success.

“The likelihood of transplant success is based, in part, on transplant candidates’ susceptibility to infections — an important cause of death after heart transplants. … Accordingly, in picking who gets a heart, hospitals have made vaccination one of a variety of considerations. That is not bias against the unvaccinated. It is trying to save the most lives with a scarce organ supply,” they write.

In his statement on Tuesday, Cline wrote, “Getting vaccinated is a personal choice and should not be mandated.”

Noting this frequent argument, Teagarden and Caplan observe, “Choices have consequences, sometimes very tragic consequences.”

Consider the following sequence of events:

1. On January 6, 2021– during a pro-Trump mob’s brutal assault on hundreds of police officers protecting the U.S. Capitol, members of Congress and their staffs– Congressman Cline posted on his Facebook page:

2. As recently as last July, Cline delivered a speech to a Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, in which he referred to “our great President Donald J. Trump.” Every indication is that if Trump runs for President in 2024, he will have Cline’s enthusiastic support.

3. At a Saturday rally in Texas, Trump said, “If I run, and if I win, we will treat those people from Jan. 6 fairly. And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons. Because they are being treated so unfairly.”

So Congressman: Are you OK with the “great” Donald J. Trump promising pardons to the people you said deserved to be prosecuted to the the fullest extent of the law?

So, Congressman: Are you saying that public schools should be barred from requiring ANY of the potentially life-saving vaccinations that have been mandated in Virginia for decades with no serious opposition?

Every January, when anti-voting rights and anti-union politicians like Congressman Cline purport to honor Martin Luther King, it’s important to recall that Dr. King:

• Marched and went to jail to achieve the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which those same politicians now refuse to restore and strengthen. Given the chance to do so, Ben Cline has repeatedly voted NO.

• Was a staunch opponent of anti-union “right to work” laws that those same politicians– including the union-hating Cline– want to impose on a national level.

• Was murdered on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, where he went to support a strike by members of Local 1733 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Can you imagine Ben Cline even crossing the street to support any sort of labor strike?

Thanks to Yvonne Surette for this excellent op-ed in Thursday’s News-Virginian.

You’d never know from Congressman Cline that Thursday was the one-year anniversary of one of the most harrowing events in American history.

Cline’s Facebook page: nothing.

Cline’s Twitter account: nothing.

Cline’s website: nothing.

He didn’t attend a remembrance event at the Capitol. He has never publicly discussed his own experience on January 6 of last year.

I’m reminded of this scene some years ago when the Simpsons visited China.

I suppose if Cline and most of his Republican colleagues had their way, a similar plaque would be placed in the Capitol rotunda.

Ben Cline and his Republican colleagues in Congress have no positive agenda for the country.

Their only plan is to:

• Oppose legislation to help Americans provide for their families, care for their children, aid seniors, end voter suppression and remove obstacles to union organizing– and hope voters don’t notice.

• Try to distract voters with phony culture-war nonsense and scaremongering. This explains the latest posts on Cline’s campaign Facebook page.

First came this:

According to at least one poll, the vast majority of West Virginians support Build Back Better if it includes raising taxes on the richest Americans and corporations, regardless of Senator Joe Manchin’s position.

Bette Midler spoke (stupidly) for herself and has apologized. Meanwhile Cline’s Republican colleague Paul Gosar posted a video depicting him killing one of Cline’s favorite targets, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and refused to apologize. But that was OK with Cline, who voted NO on a motion to censure him.

It’s easier for Cline to take a shot at that favorite rightwing target, the “Hollywood elite,” than to confront the outrages of his fellow Republicans, let alone the real and excessive power of the corporate elite who help fund his campaigns.

A little later Cline posted this:

In response to a comment asking Cline to define Critical Race Theory and provide specific, proven examples of Critical Race Theory being taught in Virginia public schools, he (or his staff) posted this from the rightwing Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal– which does neither.

For the first time since March 2020, Congressman Cline has scheduled in-person town hall meetings: for Monday December 13 in Amherst County, Buena Vista and Highland County.

See below for more information and registration.

Constituents will have the chance to question him about his vote AGAINST the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, among other matters.