Facebook's questionnaire to identify trustworthy news sources leaves a lot to be desired.

Courtesy of BuzzFeed:  

Last week, Facebook said its News Feed would prioritize links from publications its users deemed "trustworthy" in an upcoming survey. Turns out that survey isn't a particularly lengthy or nuanced one. In fact, it's just two questions. 

Here is Facebook's survey — in its entirety: 

Do you recognize the following websites

• Yes 
• No 

How much do you trust each of these domains?

• Entirely 
• A lot 
• Somewhat 
• Barely 
• Not at all 

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed this as the only version of the survey in use. They also confirmed that the questions were prepared by the company itself and not by an outside party.

Uh....is that it?

Do you want InfoWars to be listed as a trusted news outlet.

Because this is how you get InfoWars listed as a trusted news outlet.

Right Wingers and Russian trolls will simply flood the questionnaire with responses and we will end up with Alex Jones, Russia Today, and the White House web page as the only sources listed on our Facebook news feed.

Jeff Sessions during his Senate hearing today, "I don't recall, I don't remember, I don't like to be rushed." Update!

I wanted to embed the Kamala Harris questioning because I loved how unrelenting she was in trying to get Sessions to tell the truth.

And this is my favorite part of her questioning.

I love this song. #SessionsHearing pic.twitter.com/CejALVymeT

— Philip Lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) June 13, 2017

Kamala Harris tore Sessions a new one today and he got his tiny little elfin feelings hurt, which inspired John McCain, who is not a member of this committee, to ride to his rescue.

Earlier in the hearing Sessions called any accusation that he helped or was aware of any collusion with the Russians an "appalling and detestable lie": 

"Further, I have no knowledge of any such conversations by anyone connected to the Trump campaign," Sessions said. "The suggestion that I participated in any collusion or that I was aware of any collusion with the Russian government to hurt this country, which I have served with honor for 35 years, or to undermine the integrity of our democratic process, is an appalling and detestable lie." 

Sessions also refused to talk about any of this conversations with Trump:

Sessions confirmed that he had left Comey on his own with Trump in the Oval Office alone February 14, though declined to say whether he was ordered to do so by the President citing the need to keep his conversations with him private. He also said that Comey had later told him he was concerned about the meeting, but he did not say that something improper occurred. 

Oddly enough Sessions also claimed that he had never been briefed on the Russian hacking: 

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said during new sworn testimony that he has never received a briefing on Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election. 

"It appears so, the intelligence community seems to be united in that," Sessions said Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, in response to a question from Maine Senator Angus King about whether Russia worked to influence the election. "But I have to tell you Senator King, I know nothing but what I've read in the paper. I've never received any detailed briefing on how hacking occurred or how information was alleged to have influenced the campaign." 

King asked Sessions, now the top law enforcement officer in the country, to confirm that he never received any briefing on the Russian measures in the election. "No, I don't believe I ever did," Sessions replied.

Now either Attorney General Jeff Sessions just perjured himself, or he is completely unfit for the position of Attorney General, because it would seem to be impossible for an AG to do their job without having many substantive briefings on the fact that the Russian government hacked into our election in an attempt to manipulate the results.

Update: Al Franken weighs in.

Fire from Al Franken: "He’s trying to downplay the gravity of and whitewash the fact that he misled the Senate Judiciary Cmte under oath." pic.twitter.com/TK3LdNNllf

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 13, 2017

Mitch McConnell met by nearly a thousand protesters in his home state.

Courtesy of WUKY: 

Nearly a thousand people have crowded behind a chain link fence to try to catch Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's attention as he made his first stop on a tour of Kentucky during the congressional recess.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell fielded a series of heated questions during his first speech in a tour of Kentucky during the congressional recess. 

McConnell did not answer questions about the deadly raid in Yemen or coal jobs continuing to disappear, and instead thanked the questioners for their "speeches." 

One woman shouted, "if you answer that, I'll sit down and shut up like Elizabeth Warren." She was referencing the now-infamous event on the Senate floor earlier this month when McConnell ordered the Democratic senator from Massachusetts to sit down during the fight over Jeff Sessions' confirmation as attorney general.

The protesters on Tuesday chanted, "No ban, no wall, Mitch McConnell take our call," a reference to the senator's clogged voicemail system during the first month of Donald Trump's presidency.

This of course is only one example of the many protests and contentious town halls that are happening around the country.

The election of Donald Trump has inspired a kind of fervent activism unlike anything I have every seen before. And I love it!

And of course he hates it.

The so-called angry crowds in home districts of some Republicans are actually, in numerous cases, planned out by liberal activists. Sad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 21, 2017

Nice try, but I think that will only make these people even more passionate.

And it is not only happening in public, behind the scenes there are e-mails being sent and phone call being made on an almost continuous basis to just about every Senatorial and Congressional office in the country.

In some cases they are even going old school.

Courtesy of Five Thirty Eight:  

On Feb. 1, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Maine Sen. Susan Collins gave back-to-back speeches on the Senate floor stating their intention to vote against the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as secretary of education. This was a big deal: If one more Republican came out against Trump’s nominee, DeVos would be voted down, unless a Democrat also broke ranks. That’s when the faxes really started to pour into Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey’s Washington office. He’d already been averaging a few hundred a day ever since President Trump was inaugurated; that afternoon, the number shot up to more than 300 an hour.

Really? Faxes? I don't even have a fax machine anymore.

But you have to admit it is certainly hard to ignore 300 faxes coming into your office every hour.

That is the kind of pressure that changes votes.

YouTuber breaks down Donald Trump answers and explains their appeal. Very informative.

I really enjoyed this, and actually learned something from it.

So much so that I am now a subscriber to his channel.

Four decades of Hillary Clinton responding to sexist questions from the media.

Courtesy of Mother Jones:

Nearly four decades is a long time to be hearing the same stuff about being a woman in power. The nauseating proof comes in the form of a new video that was put together by National Memo, a news and politics website, and posted to YouTube on Thursday. 

It tracks almost 40 years of Hillary Clinton—as first lady, senator, and presidential candidate—and the sexist ideas about women in public life put to her in numerous media appearances. Some of the interviewers appear to be adopting sexist tropes to humanize Clinton or to highlight inequalities, while other commentators are downright nasty. Together, it plays like a relentless heartbeat of gendered criticism.

You know sometimes I look at Hillary Clinton and I think "The poor woman just looks exhausted sometimes."

But you know dealing with this kind of garbage for four decades would probably destroy most people, and the fact that Hillary Clinton may look a little tired sometimes but is still plugging away and working for the people of this country should be admirable by anybody's standards.

Journalist attempts to stump Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with question about quantum computing. He answers it. Correctly.

This guy is smooth.

If you want to make yourself ill just compare him to the front runner in the GOP nomination.

Canada is a pretty lucky country.

Hopefully they will cherish their intelligent charismatic leader far more than Americans have done for the last seven and a half years.

Hillary Clinton snaps at questioner who accuses her of taking money from fossil fuel companies.

Courtesy of TPM: 

Hillary Clinton appeared flustered Thursday when an attendee at a campaign event in New York state asked her if she would reject campaign donations from fossil fuel companies, responding by accusing rival Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) campaign of spreading "lies." 

"I do not have—I have money from people that work for fossil fuel companies," Clinton said, waving her finger at the woman who asked the question. "I am so sick, I am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me. I'm sick of it." 

Greenpeace posted video of that exchange online.

Earlier this same day Sanders said this at a Wisconsin rally:

"We don't represent Wall Street. We don't represent the drug companies or the fossil fuel industry. We don't want their money," Sanders said at the rally.

Before I chime in I wanted to share this comment over at TPM that I thought did a pretty good job of explaining why Hillary was a little testy over this question:  

She's making a distinction between taking money from people who work in particular industries and taking money from the industries (which might still be illegal, I haven't checked this week) or their PACs or trade associations. And on one hand, that's a fair gripe and on the other it isn't. 

The reporting sites do tend to just aggregate all the money by the contributor's employer and report as money from that industry. And in some cases, at some companies, with regard to certain employees, that's true--a hat gets passed among executives at some totally not mandatory cocktail party fundraiser the CEO just happens to be holding to which his senior executives just happen to be invited, and it's understood that the check will be written or the Company will be very unhappy. 

But it's also unfair to assume that everyone who writes a candidate a check is doing it on behalf of, or because of, who he or she works for. Plenty of people write campaign checks because they support positions contrary to the wishes or interests of their employers. If some oil employee believes greenhouse gases are destroying the planet and cuts a check to Hillary or Bernie, it's crazy to think they should send that money back because of who the check writer works for. And I'm not seeing any sign that Bernie does that, btw.

Yes, that's an excellent point, with a better explanation than I could have provided. (NPR says that donations from employees of fossil fuel companies only account for two-tenths of one percent of Clinton's overall donations. Hardly enough to signify that they have some special access to the candidate.)

However putting all of that aside the real problem for me is that it feeds into a certain meme put forward by the anti-Hillary folks, and that is that she is not good with people and overly secretive and defensive.

Much as President Obama could not provide ammunition for his opponents to frame him as the "angry black man" Hillary cannot provided ammunition to characterize her as "a bitch."

As Q would say, "Never let them see you bleed."

New Rule: Sarah Palin should NEVER be allowed to teach young children ANYTHING!

Look who @TheBrodyFile found at Des Moines airport? @SarahPalinUSA holds press avail with kids!Love it. #CBNNews pic.twitter.com/Gmt5TrySoz

— David Brody (@TheBrodyFile) February 2, 2016

"All the resources that God created for us, for mankind's responsible use, we can do it safely and responsibly because we hired the right people."

I am not sure what the original question was exactly, but I am confident that Sarah Palin made all those kids dumber by answering it.

Palin was so proud of her teachable moment, that she also mentioned it on Facebook:

Willow and I find it nice to be stuck in Des Moines airport with great kids like this Santa Monica class that traveled to the Iowa caucus on a field trip. (Preferable to some media jackals weather-delayed in here, too. I asked a few of them to take lessons from these 6th graders.) Such polite students, asking the best questions about our political system! Told them it was the best interview of the week! 

Of course it was the "best interview of the week." The children's understanding of politics is probably only a few years ahead of Palin's instead of decades like most journalists.

Did you know that NRA was invited to participate in President Obama's town hall and refused? Yep, that's what happened.

Courtesy of Media Matters:

MEGYN KELLY (HOST): The NRA's Chris Cox with his organization's first response to President Obama. Chris, thank you so much for being here. So let's start with the notion that he wants to meet with you. He went on to say, if only you'll put aside your rhetoric and what he seemed to be describing as straw man when it comes to gun issues. Are you prepared to meet with him? 

CHRIS COX: Well Megyn, let's be clear what this is really about. This president is trying to create an illusion that he's doing something to keep people safe. He needs to do that because the truth is his policies have failed miserably. We saw that materialize itself in San Bernardino when we had a terrorist attack. This president didn't use it as an opportunity to unite this country. He didn't use it as an opportunity to lay out a plan to defeat terrorism. He used it as an opportunity to impose more gun control on law abiding Americans. 

KELLY: He is treating that as a case of gun violence as well. 

COX: Exactly. This is an attempt to distract the American people away from his failed policies. So did we participate in CNN's event tonight? No, we didn't. We were offered one pre-screened question. Megyn, I know that you don't send your questions over to the White House so I would rather have a conversation with you that's intellectually honest than sit through a lecture and get one opportunity to ask a pre-screened question.

Tough talking gun pimps, act like badasses on the internet and during speeches before like minded audiences but when given the opportunity to put their money where their mouth is they cave like the little bitches that we know them to be.

How many times has the President argued his case in front of hostile crowds, like Fox News, the debate stage, and once even at the House Republican's retreat in Baltimore?

Did he balk at the idea that people might reject his opinion or ideas? No he did not.

But these NRA assholes just want to snipe at the President from the safety of the internet, talk radio and of course Fox News.

No wonder they have to carry guns, they are gutless POS.

Young woman stands up to stump Trump on his attitude toward women. But was she a plant? Maybe.

This exchange received quite a bit of attention from the blogosphere which correctly pointed out that Trump never really addressed the woman's questions and seemed a little condescending.

But as it turns out the young woman's name is Lauren Batchelder and she was once an intern for Kelly Ayotte and is currently an intern for Jeb Bush.

Of course when THAT news came out the Right Wing blew up and is now calling Batchelder a plant by the Bush campaign.

A contention by the way that Trump himself was quick to promote.

The arrogant young woman who questioned me in such a nasty fashion at No Labels yesterday was a Jeb staffer! HOW CAN HE BEAT RUSSIA & CHINA?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 13, 2015

Well if Jeb! really was behind this I think he just shot himself in the foot. Probably the same one that he seems to have permanently jammed in his mouth.

Presidential candidate, and neurosurgeon, Ben Carson does not know if the Bible has authority over the Constitution.

If you're convoluted response to this question is that you have to know which passage of the bible is addressing which specific portion of the Constitution then your answer is "Yes the Bible has authority over the Constitution."

Which translates to the American people as "No I should not be running for President of the United States."

President Obama smacks Major Garrett down over "nonsense" question. Update!

Courtesy of HuffPo:  

President Barack Obama publicly scolded CBS News' Major Garrett during a gathering of the press corps at the White House on Wednesday, chastising the reporter for asking if the president is "content" to celebrate the Iran nuclear deal while four American hostages remain in Iran. 

"That's nonsense. And you should know better," Obama replied.

I watched much of this press conference, and enjoyed how determined the President was to answer every question posed by the reporters in the room. The guy was clearly having the time of his life answering questions about the new deal with Iran.

However when Garrett stood up and asked this insulting and disrespectful question I thought it might anger the President so much that he would end the press conference.

Instead he gave his answer, though clearly with some irritation, and went right back to taking any and all questions from the pool of reporters.


Correction: My earlier post said that Garrett was reporting for Fox News, however he is actually now reporting for CBS.  My bad.

Update: Here are some of the folks who are applauding Major Garrett's question:

God bless you, Major Garrett

— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) July 15, 2015

.@MajorCBS hits a second homer.

— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) July 15, 2015

How dare @MajorCBS make Lord Obama uncomfortable! Off with his head!

— S.E. Cupp (@secupp) July 15, 2015

So you can understand why I briefly forgot that Garrett no longer worked for Fox News.

Hold the presses, Jeb Bush has a third and final answer on going into Iraq. (At least we think it's final.)

Courtesy of TPM:  

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) on Thursday offered yet another answer on the Iraq war saying that, given what he knows now, he would not have authorized an invasion of Iraq. 

Those comments strongly contrast ones he made on Monday to Fox's Megyn Kelly when he said he would have authorized an invasion. A day later, he backtracked, saying he misheard the question and did not know what he would have done. On Wednesday, Bush said he refused to answer as it would be a disservice to American troops. 

But at an event in Tempe, Arizona, on Thursday, Bush gave yet another answer. 

"I would have not engaged. I would not have gone into Iraq," Bush said.

That's all that Talking Points Memo offered, but the Washington Post added this:  

"That's not to say the world is safer (I think you meant "Isn't safer.") because Saddam Hussein is gone. It is significantly safer. (No, actually it's not.) That's not to say that there was a courageous effort to bring about a surge that created stability in Iraq. All of that is true. And that's not to say that the men and women that have served in uniform, and many others that went to Iraq to serve did so certainly honorably. But we've answered the question now."

So as you can see Jebbie is still trying to thread the needle here by not outright condemning his brother's choice to go to war, but also not suggesting that he would have made the exact same choice. 

However considering that it took him three tries to verbalize an answer that does not put him in lockstep with his brother's terrible choices, I think it's pretty clear that the damage has been done.  

Oh hey never mind everybody, Jeb Bush just misunderstood that question about the Iraq war.

My attention level is right about here.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

Jeb Bush on Tuesday sought to arrest a chorus of criticism from Democrats and some conservatives after he told an interviewer that, knowing what history has since shown about intelligence failures, he still would have authorized the 2003 invasion of Iraq. 

Calling in to Sean Hannity’s syndicated radio show, Mr. Bush said he had misunderstood a question that one of Mr. Hannity’s Fox News colleagues, Megyn Kelly, had asked him in an interview shown on Sunday and Monday nights. 

“I interpreted the question wrong, I guess,” Mr. Bush said. “I was talking about, given what people knew then.” 

The attempt at mopping-up was quick, but it did not bring the controversy to an immediate end: When Mr. Hannity asked about the 2003 Iraq invasion again, in yes-or-no fashion, Mr. Bush said he did not know what the answer would have been, saying, “That’s a hypothetical.” Then, he seemed to go out of his way to absolve his brother, former President George W. Bush, who ordered the invasion: “Mistakes were made, as they always are in life,” Mr. Bush said.

"Mistakes were made?"

There were no mistakes made. The Bush administration did exactly what they set out to do, and used intelligence that they KNEW was faulty to do it.

They quietly fed false information to newspaper writers, used Fox News as a propaganda machine, and destroyed the career of a CIA agent in order to push their agenda.

And don't give me that crap about Jebbie not understanding the question.

Megyn Kelly, a host on Fox News the best friend the Republican party ever had, prefaced the question with "Knowing what we know now." She did hurriedly add that part to the end of the question, as an after thought. THAT was the very first sentence!

Here is what Jim Newell of Salon had to say about this: 

Jeb Bush has had 12 years to come up with a decent response to questions about his brother’s dumb war in Iraq. He has tens or hundreds of millions of dollars ready to go for a campaign, and dozens of the finest political advisers in the Republican Party working with him to craft proper messaging on any and all topic areas. And unlike, say, Scott Walker, he is well-versed in policy himself, too. 

And yet he still cannot offer a coherent response to the most predictable question ever conceived, his answer to which he should be rehearsing in the mirror each morning after he wakes up, and even listening to a looped tape of while he’s asleep: Knowing what we know now, would have you authorized the invasion of Iraq? Knowing that the main pretexts for the war were false and that the war would last forever and it would suck mightily – things that people should have known in 2002-2003, too, but never mind that for the moment — would you still have done the Iraq? 

When Fox News’ Megyn Kelly asked Bush this question earlier in the week, Bush had to simply pretend he didn’t hear the “knowing what we know now” part. He answered his preferred question, about whether he would have authorized the invasion if he was president or had a vote in the matter in 2003. 

Newell goes on to suggest that this might not be a gaffe that Jebbie can recover from, and that it might literally have doomed his candidacy. 

If true this changes the entire 2016 paradigm.

I have long believed that ultimately this contest would come down to Jeb vs Hillary, Bush vs Clinton, dynasty vs dynasty.

But if Bush really did just accidentally blow his dick off then that means Hillary's future opponent is going to be one of those red nosed bastards from the GOP clown car.

And who among them could ever even get close to the primary without self inflicting a wound at least as big as the one that Jeb just inflicted?

Hell more than half of them have already relegated themselves to "also run" status due to crippling gaffes that occurred even BEFORE they announced their intention to run. (Yeah Ted Cruz, I'm looking at you.)

No right now the only hope the Republicans have in 2016 is that Hillary has a bigger, yet unknown, albatross around her neck than Jeb's brother's unnecessary war of choice.

Good luck with that GOP.

Jeb Bush claims that even knowing what we know now he would have invaded Iraq.

Courtesy of RT:  

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said that he would have authorized the 2003 invasion of Iraq even if he knew then what he knows now, the potential presidential contender said in an interview with Fox News. 

The comment was made after Fox News host Megyn Kelly asked Bush if he would have still authorized the war “knowing what we know now.” 

“I would have, and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody. And so would almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got,” Bush responded. 

“You don’t think it was a mistake?” Kelly asked afterwards. 

At this point, Bush acknowledged that the invasion was based on “faulty” intelligence but did not back down from his initial answer. 

“In retrospect, the intelligence that everybody saw – that the world saw, not just the United States – was faulty,” he said. “In retrospect, once we invaded and took out Saddam Hussein, we didn’t focus on security first. The Iraqis, in this incredibly insecure environment, turned on the United States military because there was no security for themselves and their family.” 

“By the way, guess who thinks that those mistakes took place as well? George W. Bush. So just for the news flash to the world, if they’re trying to find places where there’s big space between me and my brother, this might not be one of those.”

I have heard a couple of pundits suggest that Jebbie misheard the question, or that he didn't take time to think it through before answering, but it seems to me that the question was pretty damn clear.

And Jeb expanded on his answer in a way that suggests that it was not the decision to go into Iraq that he believes was wrong, but rather the way security was handled AFTER we started killing Iraqis for no good reason.

Oh and his contention that Hillary would have invaded Iraq if she knew what she knows now, is dead wrong as well.

This courtesy of the Washington Post: 

In "Hard Choices," Clinton, a former secretary of state and former U.S. senator who is exploring a 2016 presidential campaign, writes: "[M]any Senators came to wish they had voted against the resolution. I was one of them. As the war dragged on, with every letter I sent to a family in New York who had lost a son or daughter, a father or mother, my mistake become (sic) more painful." 

Clinton continues, "I thought I had acted in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I had. And I wasn't alone in getting it wrong. But I still got it wrong. Plain and simple."

So not only is Jeb demonstrating that he shares the same inability to learn from mistakes that his brother suffers from, but that he is also willing to lie about others in order to cover his ass.

You know I thought Jeb made a fatal mistake when he identified George W. as one of his advisers, but clearly he was not yet done pounding that stake into the heart of his campaign.

Rand Paul abruptly walks away right in the middle of a question being posed by a reporter from the Guardian.

Courtesy of Salon:

 As if to say, “I am not a sexist looney tune hothead who only cuts off female reporters, but rather a looney tune hothead who cuts off any reporter whose questions I don’t like,” GOP presidential candidate Rand Paul cut short an interview with The Guardian’s Paul Lewis on Friday, leaving the reporter in the dark (literally) after being pressed for specifics on campaign strategy and criminal justice. 

After offering a terse response to Lewis on how he plans to reach both the Republican base and more centrist voters, Paul abruptly shut down the conversation and walked away from the reporter, who continued to push for “a specifics answer.” As Lewis explained to the camera that he and his team had been asked to leave, someone turned off the lights. 

Holy shit! This guy has the thinnest skin I have ever seen.

And once again the hard questions have really not yet been asked of Senator Paul.

Have we ever seen a presidential campaign start to go off the rails this quickly before?

Sarah Palin pulls out of appearance at Cambridge Union Society. Who could have seen this coming? Oh, everyone?

Courtesy of Varsity: 

In a statement issued this afternoon, the Union said: "We regret to announce that Sarah Palin will not be visiting the Cambridge Union during Lent Term 2015. She is unable to visit this term due to scheduling difficulties, but we are exploring potential future dates." 

Sarah Palin, alongside Stephen Fry, Jon Snow and leader of feminist movement FEMEN Inna Shevchenko, featured as one of the main highlights in the Union termcard announced in January. 

This development comes as the second high profile cancellation the Union has seen this term. Buz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, was scheduled to visit the debating society and was included in the preview of its termcard shown to the press. However, it was later stated that he would not be coming to speak at the Union. 

Thomas Hughes-Mclure, a second-year student at Trinity College, told Varsity he was "heartbroken". 

"This is a heavy blow to an already dull line up, she was the only event I had any interest in attending this term", he continued.

Oh I'll bet he was looking forward to it. I mean who else could they depend on to completely fall apart during the Q and A and to provide high profile coverage from local news agencies?

Let's face facts, it would have been a train wreck of epic proportions.

As many of you pointed out when we first posted about this speech last month.

So the quitter quits again. So predictable.

Update: For those calling for confirmation from other sources.

By the way they are suggesting that the Cambridge Union is exploring an appearance at a later date.

But let's face it, she won't show.

Apparently Sarah Palin gave a speech in Texas this morning. You know, same shit different longhorn.

I love how this Forbes article set up how they were going to share bits of the speech: 

It can be challenging to parse Palin’s core message from within her slap-dash stream of consciousness rhetorical style. There was no teleprompter today, so it helped that her presentation was moderated in the form of a Q&A, which sort of kept her on topic. Is that unkind? Well she’s used to it. “You can’t be afraid to stand up to the press,” she said today. “Look at the Brian Williams stuff. They lie.” Fittingly, within the cavernous hall at the Hilton Americas where she spoke, a handful of reporters was sequestered in a corner as far away from the stage as possible. No recording devices allowed, but I type pretty fast. 

In the interest of sharing with you what Palin was trying to say, I’ve sought here to distill and edit down her disjointed message into a more coherent whole. So here goes. Try hearing her voice as you read it.

With that the reporter, Chris Helman, offers up a number of snack size sound bites for our amusement:

“Energy is my baby. The thing that I miss most about my governing responsibilities is to be able to spur investment in exploration and development.”

Well it IS reminiscent of her relationship with Trig, in that she has no idea what it is, how it works, or what it needs to be successful

My husband Todd started off with BP on the North Slope of Alaska. “We raised our kids with that North Slope lifestyle. Thank you so much for paying my bills for many years.”

Considering how her children turned out that seems like more of an indictment against BP more than anything else.  

“The president is not for American energy independence.” If he were he wouldn’t be trying to lock up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. That’s “20 million more acres he wants to lock up from development.” 

Obama wants to balance that out by opening up some waters off the Eastern seaboard to oil exploration. But “that’s a bogus exchange.” 

“All we need to explore and develop ANWR is a 2,000 acre swath. Alaska is 400 million acres when you consider our water and land. A postage stamp in the middle of a football field. That’s all the land we need to develop.”

Okay that 2,000 acres only includes the area where the drilling will occur. There are still thousands of acres that will be impacted by moving in equipment and building pipelines. And that does not even take into consideration what will happen in the case of a spill.

And if we have learned nothing else from building the Alaska pipeline, it is that leaks and spills are unavoidable.

And simply put the LAST thing our environment needs is more oil being pulled out of the ground.

And what about the impact that the oil exploration might have on the wildlife?

Oh she has an answer for that I see.

“The administration is not understanding the inherent link between energy and security and energy and prosperity. He’s rewarding the environmentalists who are extreme in saying there would be environmental harm in developing ANWR.” They worry about the impact on the “moose and caribou.” Well we’ve had the Trans-Alaska Pipeline for decades, and that “pipeline has not been adverse at all.” 

On the contrary, “the animals like the warmth” that the pipeline gives off. “The animals mate under the pipeline. I haven’t actually seen it” but that’s what I’m told. If oil and gas development is risky to wildlife, “if it is to hurt one caribou, then that one caribou should take one for the team and allow the rest of the country to benefit.” 

"Take one for the team?" She does recognize that caribou do not exactly consider themselves to be part of our team doesn't she?

Concerning the presidential race in 2016: 

“I can’t wait for 2016. That election I can see from my house. I hope for a GOP candidate who understands energy and understands infrastructure.” 

“Hillary Clinton will be the Democrat candidate because she has the money.” After her, it’s a “shallow bench.” Is there any chance a dark horse could emerge to challenge her? “Not really, because of the money. Hillary Clinton will seize the opportunity to collect those funds. Hillary is it.”

Well we agree on that last part at least.

And of course the obligatory question that always has to be asked of this nitwit:

Is Sarah Palin considering a run?  

“I’m so sorry you asked that. It’s “just too early.” But “a lot can change.” 

She's sorry they asked her? She would literally curl up in a ball and die if people stopped asking her that question.

Palin then goes on to casually attack the President and then give her clearly prepared remarks on Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the Middle East.  (Remember she had the questions submitted before this appearance so that she would have prepared responses.)

Palin ends her remarks by blowing kisses at the military.

“Freedom isn’t free. You have to fight for it.” That’s why I support the U.S. military. “They are America’s true heroes.” 

I still have trouble understanding how slaughtering people in a foreign land makes America free.

So there were no huge Iowa sized gaffes in this speech, which I am sure is why they insisted on getting the questions with enough time to prepare reasonably intelligent answers ahead of time.

It appears, at least initially that Palin stuck to the script and clicked the safety on the verbal salad shooter.

But really, how long can that last?

Sarah Palin to speak at leadership institute this Thursday. Here's how you can help.

Courtesy of OA Online: 

Former Alaska governor and vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin will make an appearance here as part of the University of Texas of the Permian Basin’s John Ben Shepperd Public Leadership Institute Distinguished Lecture Series Thursday. 

The theme for the free lecture is “Groundbreakers, Mavericks and Trailblazers: How Women are Showing 21st Century Leadership.” It is set for 7 p.m. Thursday at the Wagner Noel Performing Arts Center at State Highway 191 and Farm-to-Market Road 1788. 

The discussion will examine characteristics and demands of 21st century leadership and how women are meeting those challenges.

The moderators for this event are  from Odessa America, and they have reached out on Facebook for some assistance with the questions: 

Just came to our email that former U.S. Vice President candidate Sarah Palin is requesting all media questions to be submitted prior to a meet and greet. No surprises wanted, it seems. So what do you think of that? What should we ask her?

Nothing surprising here as we know that  Palin considers any question she has not heard about ahead of time, and been given a ghostwritten response to, to be a "gotcha" question.

The woman cannot function without a team of handlers helping her to keep it together, (See Iowa speech.)

Anyhow the Facebook page has already received some great tips. Here are but a few: 

Ask her why she's such a lying, hate-fueled harpy. 

Please ask her, "Are you still nuts?" 

Ask her why we should care what she thinks, I have always wondered.

Those are good, but I thought perhaps some of you might be able to help with even MORE pointed questions that we would love  the Wasilla Wendigo to answer.

Ray "The banana man" Comfort explains why Neil deGrasse Tyson is wrong that the Bible is not a reliable source of science. Uh huh.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

Creationist Ray Comfort complained that Neil deGrasse Tyson had misrepresented the Bible. 

The astrophysicist and host of Fox’s “Cosmos” said recently that using the Bible as a scientific source was problematic, because no one had ever scientifically proven a theory based on scripture. 

Comfort said last week on his online “Comfort Zone” program that Tyson wasn’t qualified to make that determination because he’s not a theologian. 

“You know, the word ‘science,’ it’s kind of a magical word,” Comfort said. “‘I believe in science.’ It just means knowledge, that’s all it means. There’s different areas of science, different areas of knowledge. When you say the Bible is not a science book, you’re saying it’s not a knowledge book? It tells us how God created the Earth!” 

Knowledge, of course, is not quite all that defines science, which is characterized by systematic methods of observation in pursuit of new understanding. 

But Comfort insisted the Bible was a science book because it described the origins of the universe. 

“It gives us the basis for all creation, and it passes the scientific method,” he said. “It’s observable – Genesis – and testable. Evolution is not. You can’t observe something 60 million years old, but you can observe what Genesis says.”

So to be clear, this idiot is saying that Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, cannot judge the scientific merit of the Bible because he is not a theologian, that science itself is a "magical" word, and that the Bible does indeed describe the origins of the universe.

Here let us examine this incredibly detailed description of the beginning of our universe, as explained in the Bible, shall we?

From the book of Genesis:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. 

6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day. 

Wow, that really does describe exactly how the universe came to be, how it functions, what it is made up of, it's dimensions, it's age, and everything right? Um, not exactly.

So according to this there was an earth BEFORE there was the light of the sun? But are we not trapped in the orbit of the sun?

And the sky is made up of water? Water?

What about the stars?

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

So the stars are trapped in the "vault of the sky," which is made up of water, and are there simply to "mark sacred times?"

And the moon is a "lesser light to govern the night," and NOT simply a satellite trapped in earth's orbit which reflects the light of the sun back to earth?

Really?

But what about dark matter, gravity, super novas, black holes, the Big Bang?

The Bible addresses none of that. In fact, and I hate to be a skeptic here, it is as if the people who wrote the Bible only had a fundamental, and perhaps illogical, understanding of the world around them.

Do you know what might help to clear up any questions that might remain, AFTER reading the Bible?

Science.

In fact it does not appear that there are really any actual factual explanations about the world, its people, and the universe in which we live, that cannot be answered WITHOUT the Bible.

I'm just saying.

And I would assume that as science moves forward and continues to answer heretofore unanswerable questions, the Bible, the Torah, and the Koran, will be looked to less and less for answers that can now be factually explained, with evidence provided to back them up.

And that's really the problem that Ray Comfort has with this Cosmos program isn't it?

He knows in his dark little heart that the more people turn to education and science to find answers, the faster charlatans like himself, and Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, and William Lane Craig will be out of a job.

P.S. For those who may wonder why I call Comfort the "Banana Man" take a moment to learn why NOBODY should take this guy seriously about anything.