"The Cat's Out of the Bag, America"

Did you ever wonder where certain expressions come from? We have all heard the term “pig in a poke” from time to time as we were growing up, but what does it mean? The story I heard goes like this; way back in the 15^th or 16^th centuries, there were common markets where people would go to make purchases of grains, vegetables, fruits, livestock and other things that were necessary to have to be able to exist. These were not the “super-markets” or giant “box stores” we are accustomed to in today’s world. These “markets” were just merchants gathered in a village or on a dirt road, “hawking their wares” to all who would listen. Some of these merchants were good and honest men, and some were not. Most peasants were “dirt poor” and looked for any bargain they could find, and some unscrupulous merchants happily took advantage of them. Here is their “pitch”: “My friend, I have here a sack containing a young piglet suitable for breeding or eating, whatever your pleasure may be, and I will sell this piglet to you for the cost of only five pence, but you must take it away immediately or I will be overcome by others who want the same deal and I only have this one piglet”.

The gullible peasant would then reach into his meager purse and hand over his last five pence and take the sack, walking away happily with his bargain. Once this unsuspecting customer was out of sight, he would open his sack to gaze upon his newly acquired piglet; to his surprise, he found a squirming alley cat, not suitable for “breeding or eating”; he had been swindled!

This explains another old axiom; “don’t let the cat out of the bag”, a term used by those unscrupulous merchants to their cohorts when perpetrating their nefarious deeds on their innocent victims.

Centuries have passed since people began using these expressions, yet they still seem applicable in today’s world of lies and deceptions.

I will now speak about two occasions where these expressions apply.

Let’s first recall “Obamacare”, Barack Hussein Obama’s “pig in a poke”; remember Nancy Pelosi saying “you have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it”; well, Congress (Democrats) passed the bill and America walked down the road and “opened the sack” and found, not an “alley cat”, but a “skunk” that is now stinking to “high heaven” instead of the promised wonderful benefit the “unscrupulous merchant” said it would be; and who suffered, American taxpayers and thousands of workers who lost their healthcare plans as a result of this “pig in a poke”.

Let’s now recall something that has really been in America’s forefront over the last few days; Benghazi revelations! E-mails that have shown a conscious effort to deceive the American public in an effort to sway the 2012 Presidential Election in favor of Barack Hussein Obama. Trey Gowdy has just been appointed as chairman of a select committee to investigate these new revelations of lies and cover-ups by key Obama administrators. The expression “the cat’s out of the bag” seems to be applicable in this situation, and the “unscrupulous merchant” has been shown up for what he is, a LIAR and a DECEIVER!

In ancient days, “tar and feathers” were used to punish this type of behavior; today, we are more civilized, so let’s just “THROW THE BUMS OUT!”