Thursday, October 29, 2015

Corporate ass-kisser Jessica Medeiros Garrison as a champion for women? Please, don't make us laugh


Jessica Garrison, with U.S. Judge
Bill Pryor and U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions,
two of her right-wing mentors.
Republican political operative Jessica Medeiros Garrison tries to portray herself as a champion of women in a recent online rant against Legal Schnauzer. That notion is laughable to anyone who knows the first thing about Garrison's background. And in the course of her rant, as told to Liz Welch of marieclaire.com, Garrison winds up affirming some of the worst stereotypes women have had to fight for years.

Garrison claims that my reporting about her extramarital affair with Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange is a form of bullying--and the point of her Marie Claire piece is to stand up for other helpless women who might become the subjects of evil journalists. This is how Garrison so nobly puts it:

This is about more than just me. It's about the women who are bullied, trolled, and victimized online because someone has an agenda, or a chip on their shoulder, or a self-righteous feeling that they simply ​can​.

Wow, that Jessica is quite a gal, standing up for imperiled women everywhere. But is her concern real? Not even close.

The first clue comes when Garrison tells us about her professional life:

By then, I was a Executive Director at RAGA, the Republican Attorney General's Association, in Washington, D.C. My job was to meet with corporations to promote working with Attorney Generals. One day, I went to a meeting with the Government Affairs director at Apple at a restaurant in Cupertino, California. When I arrived, he said, "I looked you up online so I could recognize you." My heart stopped beating. All I could think throughout the meeting was, 'This man thinks I slept with the Attorney General of Alabama.'

Let's examine that first highlighted sentence for a moment. Garrison says her role is to encourage corporations to work with attorneys general. (Jessica has a little problem with grammar here; the plural is attorneys general, not attorney generals. You'd think a woman with a law degree, who had been appointed to a job in the Alabama AG's office and as executive director of an association of AGs, would know that.) But Jessica says she represents only Republican AGs, so her line about promoting work with all AGs? Well, that's a lie.

Even more troubling is this: The attorney general, in most jurisdictions, is defined as the chief law-enforcement officer and chief legal adviser to the state government. In other words, a big part of the job is to prosecute individuals, including corporate titans, who violate state laws. A state attorney general should be one of the last people corporate heads would want to work with.

Apple Inc. headquarters in
Cupertino, California
Unless, of course, Jessica's real job is to more or less conduct a "shakedown cruise" of corporate executives, assuring them that a contribution to RAGA will make it more likely that Republican AGs look the other way when said executives step in legal doo-doo. Was that the whole point of Garrison's visit to Apple in Cupertino, California?

Now, Jessica wouldn't do that would she? A 2014 New York Times article suggests that's exactly what someone at RAGA does:

The Republican Attorneys General Association, created nearly 15 years ago, has grown in prominence as the number of Republicans holding the job has surged, reaching 25 as of this year. RAGA takes in millions of dollars a year from major corporations — companies that are seeking help to move their agendas or have been targets of investigations.

Why would major corporations need help from attorneys general to "move their agendas"? I can see how they might need experts in advertising or public relations or lobbying. But an attorney general? I can't fathom a legitimate reason for a corporation to want the help of AGs to "move its agenda"--unless, of course, the corporation is up to no good and needs AGs to look the other way. Is Jessica Garrison a glorified "bag man" (or "bag gal") for conservative law-enforcement types?

Here's a better question: Does anyone seriously think Jessica Garrison is a champion, of any sort, for women? She has publicly stated that her professional mentor is U.S. Circuit Judge Bill Pryor, a former Alabama Attorney General. Pryor might be one of the most virulent anti-woman political figures in modern American history. When President George W. Bush nominated Pryor to the federal bench in 2003, civil-rights and women's groups were so outraged that Bush was forced to make a recess appointment.

(By the way, who started RAGA, the outfit that now employs Jessica Garrison? It was Bill Pryor. Does Jessica Garrison pretty much owe her career to the anti-woman Bill Pryor? A strong argument could be made that the answer is yes.)

Did Garrison help the cause of women with the shrill, high-anxiety tone of her Marie Claire piece? Given that women have had to fight the stereotype that they are prone to be nervous, hysterical, overwrought, and high strung . . . well, I would submit that the answer is no, she did not help the cause of women. In fact, she probably caused them to take several small steps backward.

Garrison's piece is filled with so much overtly emotional language that it can set one's nerves on edge just to read it. As a public service, I counted the number of times Garrison used certain emotionally charged terms. Here is my count:


* Shocked -- 1

* Tears or "in tears" -- 2

* Heart stopped beating -- 1

* Paranoid -- 1

* Mortifying or mortified -- 2

* Shouting or elated -- 2

* Anxiety, stress, or sadness-- 1 each


That's 12 high-intensity words or phrases in a relatively brief, 18-paragraph story. I think I need to take a Xanax after finishing it.

Consider Garrison's tone, compared to the calm, professional demeanor of Hillary Rodham Clinton when she recently faced intense grilling about Benghazi before a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Who is the better role model for women?

Heck, consider Garrison's self-centered tripe to the reporting I've done on real women--Sherry Carroll Rollins, Linda Upton, Angela Drees, Bonnie Cahalane--who have been abused by the Alabama justice system, Has Jessica Garrison ever taken a stand for such women? Has she ever taken a stand for any woman, other than herself--or maybe a sorority sister who is as self-absorbed as she is?

In short, who is more the champion for women--Jessica Garrison or Legal Schnauzer? Under any reasonably objective examination, my record would trump hers eight days a week.

Oh, and we mustn't forget this: Garrison's marieclaire.com article reveals her to be a hypocrite of Bunyanesque proportions. We've already noted this quality in Garrison on the subject of Big Tobacco. But now, her gross hypocrisy is on display regarding another major issue of the day.

More on that coming soon.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post, LS. Made me LOL several times, especially the stuff about JMG always being mortified and petrified, etc.

Anonymous said...

JMG was just being a name dropper when she threw that Apple Inc. stuff in there. Makes her look like a big shot.

Anonymous said...

I would say Garrison and Rebekah Caldwell Mason are cut from pretty much the same cloth. Not much difference between them.

Lacy said...

The secret to success for women is to follow Republican cavemen like Bill Pryor, Jeff Sessions, and Luther Strange? If that's what it takes, I think I would rather be a failure.

Anonymous said...

Of course Legal Schnauzer and most anybody is more of a champion for women than this Garrison gal. All she and Rebekah Caldwell Mason prove is that in a backward state, women have to sleep their way up to the top. The message loud and clear to all Alabama women is that you better move elsewhere if you want to retain your dignity.

Anonymous said...

Women like Garrison and Mason become conservatives because it's so much easier for them to move up the ladder than it would be if they were progressives. Most (if not all) of the intelligent women are Democrats, and it's hard for someone with slim credentials (like Garrison and Mason) to gain a foothold.

Women face a lot of competition in the progressive world. Not so in the progressive world. Look how high Sarah Palin and Carly Fiorina have risen in GOP politics. No way they get that far as Democrats.

Anonymous said...

Who pays Jessica's travel expenses? Gee whiz, she goes to Cupertino, California, and Portugal. Those trips ain't cheap.

Anonymous said...

Don't you think you've beaten up on Ms. Garrison enough?

legalschnauzer said...

No.

Anonymous said...

Legal Schnauzer, you do make some good points, but extoling a lesbian, murderous, woman who won't leave a philandering husband would not be an example that I would want for any female granchild of mine.

Anonymous said...

It sounds to me like RAGA is, indeed, pulling a scam on these corporations. Isn't there a DAGA (Democratic Attorneys General Association) that does pretty much the same thing?

legalschnauzer said...

Sad to say there is a DAGA--and like you, @4:30, I'm guessing they do pretty much the same thing as RAGA.

Kind of makes me think there is a lot of whoring going on in the world of attorneys general. Sounds like a bunch of them are corrupt politicos with their hands out, people who have essentially sold their authority as law-enforcement officials to the highest bidders.

Here is URL to DAGA. It's probably just as gross as RAGA.

http://www.democraticags.org/

Anonymous said...

She's hot.

legalschnauzer said...

Your bar for "hotness" is set very low.

Anonymous said...

When you pop your Xanax Roger think of the word "Victorious," in regards to her 3.5 million dollar judgment against you.

legalschnauzer said...

"Victorious" based on what?

Anonymous said...

http://www.scribd.com/doc/268792754/Davy-Hay-Default-Judgment-Order

Based on the judges decision. Was this decision appealed? Am I missing something?

Anonymous said...

I read your blog and it just confirms you are a paranoid douche... the whole world is out to get you for no reason.... poor Roger

:(

legalschnauzer said...

The judge's decision is not even close to being in line with the law, @6:25. I will be outlining that in an upcoming post. Meanwhile, you are welcome to see if you find a single piece of statutory or case law that supports the judge's decision.

legalschnauzer said...

Gee, what a clever comment, @9:59. Never heard that one before--and it has zero to do with the subject matter in the post. No wonder you post as Anon. I would too if I didn't have the brainpower to come up with something better than that.

Anonymous said...

What happened to Davy Hay?

legalschnauzer said...

I don't know. Probably would be best to direct that question to Davy Hay. My experience has been that he's not much of a lawyer, and I certainly would not recommend him to anyone else. I feel like he conned me.

Anonymous said...

Roger,it all makes sense to me now.
Although you have welcomed me to look for statutory evidence or case law supporting the judges decision in the defamation lawsuit, I am not the one appealing this case and leave that in your capable caveman lawyer hands.
Did you file an appeal?
Why not?

It all makes sense. Murph never gave up his fighting spirit that ignored defeat and the harsh reality that surrounded him. Right or wrong has no place in the canine world, only fight or flight.

e.a.f. said...

she does get an award for most air head comment: he thought she had slept with.....
she is too insignificant for him to know who she has sex with, it most likely never occurred to him to think about her personal life. In business, its business, not who some one sleeps with. if you can grind a deal to get a deal from an a.g. you aren't interested in who the operative has sex with. How vain that woman is. as if her sex life was important to a c.e.o. she is sort of cute in that tacky southern way, but really, she needs to get over herself.

as a long time feminist I say Jessica does nothing to advance the interests of women anywhere. she is just another bad e.g. of some one who slept with the boss as a stepping stone.