Wow, it’s been an eventful week. First, the blog called the carteret con artist was very active, displaying some specific examples beyond the Joe Cafasso profile of the infamous poser and military fraud, insurance lobbyist, fraudulent former special forces soldier, fake Vietnam Vet, sailor on the North Sea, hero in the Iran conflict rescuing guys off a burning C-130, rescuer in Louisiana during Katrina under the name of Jay Cafasso, stalker, etc.,etc.

GM Roper talks about his own personal experience with a poser he ran across years ago who re-emerged. Much along the same lines as Cafasso on this post at GM’s Corner, GM refers to him as “Dario”, a man who claimed to have a degree in Chemistry and 3 years of medical school. I’ve been studying up on this lying phenomenon, because it’s surprising to me that it’s becoming ever the norm. We’ve come to expect it from our elected representatives, as a part of life, and it seems to be ever on the increase.

In “Phonies Fakes and Frauds and the Social Harms They Cause”, Dr. Gehring at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy talks about her personal experience with Cafasso an examines other examples of military frauds, resume padders, plagiarists; all frauds of similar genres who not only try to make themselves out to be what they’re not, but what they perceive they have to gain in doing so. She describes the psychology of what drives people like this and what motivates them to do it in the first place.

Here’s more evidence that it’s a growing phenomenon in this country. A devastating 86% of high school students admit that they cheat on tests. 90% of them say they’ve never been caught doing it! So this is how we’re training up a new generation of people to do what Cafasso and Dario have managed to accomplish in the lives? Are we producing more and more liars who will not only pad their resumes, but out-and-out lie about who they are, their background and what they do for a living, etc? This is a disturbing thing to me. Morality seems to have been flushed down the tubes in our modern day culture in favor of something that seems to be straight out of a science fiction movie. There don’t seem to be very many people out there who are straight with a strong moral fiber in their bones; they’re wishy washy, they change their opinions in favor of what’s politically correct, and even completely changed sides!!

Cafasso is a classic example of what I’m talking about. He worked as an organizer for the Pat Buchanan campaign, and was employed by Fox News at about $200 a week as a military and counterterrorism expert, which he’s not even qualified for, because his self-proclaimed moniker of being a retired Lt. Col from the army is just as false as barge story on the North Sea. Not only was he kicked out of the army after a short 44 days at Fort Dix, and allegedly never had a passport or even been out of the country. He was involved in the flight 800 debacle and was published in an article about it at Worldnet Daily. He lobbyed in front of Congress as ‘the head of the insurance lobby’ and a ‘former special forces soldier’. But when he was ‘outted’ as a fraud in the New York Times, he was welcomed into the bosom of the left, and was even featured as a disgruntled former Fox employee on Robert Greenwald’s “outfoxed” expose. Some have taken note, though, that of all the interviews available through a creative commons license for other diatribes about FOX and ‘the christian rightwing’, the one featuring Cafasso is missing. Leads a lot of credence to the validity, veracity and points of their complaints about Fox when they use guys like Al Franken who think it’s funny to break a chair over someone’s back who disagrees with him to pimp his book, and frauds like Joe Cafasso, doesn’t it? This man is so full of braggadicio that Moveon.org put him on a discussion panel where he presumably put in an appearance as a Fox Whistleblower! (I haven’t seen evidence of precisely who was on that discussion panel, but knowing the character of this man, I doubt he would have passed up the chance to rub elbows and make more contacts with people at the Ritz-Carlton.)

Can you imagine what kind of an existence this must be?

Gosh, can you imagine having so many identities, depending on who you’re running into, like for example - the city of Manhattan? It’s no wonder the more we find out, the more it looks like he’s ready for the loony bin. In the West Side of New York he is Blackwood. On the Lower East Side he is Cafasso! In Little Italy, he’s Big Joey Mosca. When he steps into the Village, he is Jay Mosca! When he hits the steps of the St. Patrick’s Chancery for the Catholic Charities - too close to the UN - he is Lt. Col Blackwood!

That just gives me a headache, I have no idea how he keeps it all straight, but I’m sure it keeps him busy scheming and plotting and making up new stories! I wouldn’t want to live a life where I’m constantly looking over my shoulder or around the room to see if there might be someone else present who knows that I’m lying, but that’s just me, I guess; I’m in the shrinking part of the population who actually thinks these things are despicable and matter.

X posted at The Wide Awakes