Today's "Moment of Hypocrisy" is brought to you by leading Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson.

For more on this story click here.

P.S. By the way that whole "moment of Hypocrisy" thing is tongue in cheek, because I think we all know that it is extremely unlikely that we will go through the rest of the day with only one.

The Ted Cruz photo that sent Twitter into a frenzy. Update!

Courtesy of Politico:

In an Associated Press image that drew comment and criticism on Twitter on Sunday, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is seen speaking with what appeared to be a gun aimed straight at him. 

The photograph — taken by the AP’s Charlie Neibergall — actually captured a background poster, with a large semi-blurred image of a handgun pointed at Cruz’s forehead, straight between the eyes.  

Cruz was appearing Saturday at CrossRoads Shooting Sports in Johnston, Iowa. During his speech, Cruz, an outspoken proponent of Second Amendment rights, encouraged residents to adopt what he called a Texan approach to guns by simply “hitting what you aim at.” 

Of course this was the speech that we covered yesterday where Cruz also said, "It's sad to see the Democrats take a horrific crime and try to use it as an excuse, not to go after people with serious mental illness or people who are repeat felons or criminals, but instead try to use it as an excuse to take away Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens."

Which kind of helps to make that photo seem satisfying in a strange way.

However it most certainly did not make those on the Right very happy:

Guess the Political Party: AP Photo Lines Pistol Up with Senator, 2016 Candidate Ted Cruz’s Brain: Of course, ... http://t.co/pfN1CNiSlI

— Tweetonpolitics (@tweetpoliticsUS) June 21, 2015

Just a touch misleading to suggest that the AP "pointed" the gun at Cruz's brain.

After all I am not at all convinced there IS a brain to point a weapon at in the first place.

However Cruz WAS smart enough to give the donations back from that Council of Conservative Citizens group that might have helped inspire Dylann Storm Roof's killing spree.

So there's that I guess.

Let's face it Ted Cruz is a joke, and so is his candidacy.

The only thing that keeps him from being the biggest joke in the 2016 campaign season is the possible inclusion of Donald Trump.

Update: Here's a second AP photo.

 Sooo presidential, don't you think?

Oklahoma lawmakers overwhelmingly vote to do away with an Advanced Placement History course because they fear it teaches the wrong facts.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

An Oklahoma legislative committee overwhelmingly voted to ban Advanced Placement U.S. History class, persuaded by the argument that it only teaches students “what is bad about America.” Other lawmakers are seeking a court ruling that would effectively prohibit the teaching of all AP courses in public schools. 

Oklahoma Rep. Dan Fisher (R) has introduced “emergency” legislation “prohibiting the expenditure of funds on the Advanced Placement United States History course.” Fisher is part of a group called the “Black Robe Regiment” which argues “the church and God himself has been under assault, marginalized, and diminished by the progressives and secularists.” The group attacks the “false wall of separation of church and state.” The Black Robe Regiment claims that a “growing tide of special interest groups indoctrinating our youth at the exclusion of the Christian perspective.” 

Fisher said the Advanced Placement history class fails to teach “American exceptionalism.” The bill passed the Oklahoma House Education committee on Monday on a vote of 11-4. 

And that ladies and gentlemen is how you keep the voters ignorant and voting Republican. 

It seems that more and more Republican political tactics are beginning to mimic fundamentalist religious tactics.

Keep the sheep from learning any truths that you don't spoon feed them yourself, and they will be all that much easier to manipulate.

Believe it or not Sarah Palin is once again making endorsements.

These guys are A-Okay.

Incredibly enough, after essentially seeing almost every single one of her endorsees go down in flames, Palin is unleashing the curse yet again.

From the Lilith of Lake Lucille's Facebook page:

Just back from a beautiful weekend in Alaska's Bristol Bay – nothing like some clean fresh air to reinvigorate us for the fight ahead this fall. Today, we’re announcing support for two solid constitutional conservatives from the great state of Georgia. Having many friends in Georgia, we know like us your summers are filled with fishing, family, and fresh air without much room for politics. However, with so much at risk in this year’s elections, please take time to check out these great conservatives and encourage your family, friends, camping buddies, neighbors, etc. to get out and vote for them next Tuesday, July 22nd.

Palin was in Bristol Bay this weekend? Really.

Somehow I bet that once again nobody talked to her, or even saw her over the weekend in Alaska.

And now she is interfering in Georgia politics.

Well let's meet the victims shall we?

Dr. Bob Johnson is one doctor we need in the House! Americans are tired of career politicians who make empty promises during campaigns, only to get to Washington to advance their own careers. Dr. Bob is in this campaign with a servant’s heart. As a 26-year Army veteran, a Christian medical missionary, and a surgeon, his life’s work has centered on serving country and neighbors. We need more like him in office. Dr. Bob is a conservative who will work to repeal Obamacare and balance the budget, and he has signed the pledge to self-limit the time he’ll spend in Washington. His campaign is propelled by the good Georgia grassroots. Let’s send Dr. Bob to the House on July 22nd!

 "Dr. Bob is a conservative who will work to repeal Obamacare?" Are people still dumb enough to run on that?

There is very little out there about this Dr. Bob character, but it should be noted that he is also enjoys the endorsements of The Senate Conservatives Fund, The Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, Madison Project, Georgia Right to Life, and Senator Mike Lee. So of course this guy is another Teabagger bent on obstructing progress in Washington.

Who's next?

Barry Loudermilk has a proven record of conservatism in the Georgia General Assembly, one that I hope he can bring to the weak-kneed in the halls of Congress. Barry is an Air Force veteran, small business owner, father, grandfather, and husband who met his beautiful wife in the great state of Alaska many summers ago. Barry will take his strong work ethic, life experiences, and conservative principles to Washington where he will join the fight to restore our great nation and use the Constitution as his guide. Please join me in supporting Barry Loudermilk for U.S. Congress on July 22nd. 

- Sarah Palin

Well  that is just about as blah of an endorsement as I have ever seen.

Besides meeting his wife in Alaska I am not even sure what about this guy would attract Sarah Palin.

Oh, it turns out that he was on the losing side of a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by a 61 year old black woman. I mean sure it was settled out of court, and there was a confidentiality agreement, but people don't usually part with $80,500.00 if the person being sued is in the right.

So perhaps THAT explains Palin's feelings of camaraderie.

Speaking of Alaska the AP noticed something that I did not in the recent SarahPAC quarterly filings.

Sarah Palin's political action committee gave $40,000 to congressional candidates during the last quarter but none from Alaska. 

Hey do you remember from Palin's super breathy resignation speech when she promised to work for Alaska? Yeah well that of course was bullshit.

Here is perhaps my favorite part of the AP report:

Contributions to candidates included $5,000 to Dave Brat, a donation given the day after he upset then-U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in Virginia.

Yes because if Palin can't seem to pick a winner to save her life, BEFORE a primary, she will certainly make sure to donate AFTERWARD in the hopes of  giving the impression that she was somehow responsible for their victory.

By the way that AP story was picked up by the Fairbanks Newsminer, an d I also just watched it on the local TV news, because Alaskans know exactly how full of shit this woman is.

New report says that 476,000 people have signed up for the Affordable Care Act through the exchanges. Or as Ted Cruz would say, "Just more evidence that Obamacare is an abject failure."

Courtesy of the AP:  

Administration officials say about 476,000 health insurance applications have been filed through federal and state exchanges, the most detailed measure yet of the problem-plagued rollout of President Barack Obama's signature legislation. 

However, the officials continue to refuse to say how many people have actually enrolled in the insurance markets. Without enrollment figures, it's unclear whether the program is on track to reach the 7 million people projecting by the Congressional Budget Office to gain coverage during the six-month sign-up period. 

Obama's advisers say the president has been frustrated by the flawed rollout. During one of his daily health care briefings last week, he told advisers assembled in the Oval Office that the administration had to own up to the fact that there were no excuses for not having the website ready to operate as promised. 

The president is expected to address the problems on Monday during a health care event at the White House. Cabinet members and other top administration officials will also be traveling around the country in the coming weeks to encourage sign-ups in areas with the highest population of uninsured people. 

The first three weeks of sign-ups have been marred by a cascade of computer problems, which the administration says it is working around the clock to correct. The rough rollout has been a glaring embarrassment for Obama, who invested significant time and political capital in getting the law passed during his first term. 

The officials said technology experts from inside and outside the government are set to work on the glitches, though they did not say how many workers were being added. 

Officials did say staffing has been increased at call centers by about 50 percent. As problems persist on the federally run website, the administration is encouraging more people to sign up for insurance over the phone.

So gee that is almost half a million people who, once their application is processed, would most likely lose their coverage if  the Affordable Care Act was repealed or defunded.

In another few months it might be cool million.

And then two.

And three.

And...well you get my drift.

And as those numbers pile up it just becomes that much more difficulty to  convince Americans that trying to repeal this new law is something that THEY should support. ESPECIALLY those of us getting access to health care for the first time.

The rollout may have been sloppy as hell, but clearly there are still people flooding the system and that does not exactly suggest that the program is disliked by the majority of Americans, as those on the Right keep reporting as fact.

Personally I have decided to wait just a week or two more to make sure that the glitches are gone before taking the plunge. This is a big decision for me, and I want to make sure that it happens with as little frustration as possible.

But I WILL get it. After all, it's the law.

How is this NOT considered an act of domestic terrorism?

Courtesy of TPM:

Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) held an event in New Hampshire Friday urging the state's political leaders to fight for an expansion of background checks on gun purchases, the Associated Press reported. Giffords, 42, survived an assassination attempt in January 2011. 

Associated Press reporter Steve Peoples posted this photo on Twitter, which he describes as showing a protester at the event holding an AR-15 and taking a nap:

Protester with AR-15 takes nap outside Gabby Giffords' NH event. pic.twitter.com/A9cfwmg4NA
— Steve Peoples (@sppeoples) July 5, 2013

The woman was SHOT IN THE HEAD!

Should there not be an added concerns about something similar happening again? Especially now that she is taking up the battle for background checks?

In my opinion showing up at, or near, an event featuring Gabby Giffords, blatantly displaying a weapon, is an intentional act of intimidation and, considering that it is meant to terrify the poor woman, an act of domestic terrorism.

And it seems that these jerkwads are showing up EVERYWHERE!

I think it would be well within Mark Kelly's right to knock this corpulent POS on his chubby white ass.

I know I would.

Top GOP leaders quietly instructing their contemporaries to calm the fuck down.

"What do you mean calm down? I've got the President right where  I want him. Don't you watch Fox News?"

Courtesy of Politico:  

Republicans are worried one thing could screw up the political gift of three Obama administration controversies at once: fellow Republicans. 

Top GOP leaders are privately warning members to put a sock in it when it comes to silly calls for impeachment or over-the-top comparisons to Watergate. They want members to focus on months of fact-finding investigations — not rhetorical fury. 

Why the fuss? Well… 

—“People may be starting to use the I-word before too long,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) told a radio host, making plain impeachment was indeed the I-word in mind. 

—“You could call #Benghazi Obama’s Watergate, except no one died,” Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) wrote on Twitter. 

—“It harkens back to the days of Richard Nixon and maintaining a political enemies list and treating the federal government as a tool to exact the administration’s retribution,” Sen. Ted Cruz told the National Review. 

—“This is far worse than Watergate,” Rep. Michele Bachmann said of the IRS mess at a tea party rally. 

—“I believe that before it’s all over, this president will not fill out his full term,” former governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said on his own show before the IRS and AP flaps. 

—A PPP poll found all of this to be mainstream Republican thinking, with 41 percent calling Benghazi the BIGGEST political scandal in HISTORY. 

It is important to remember that there is no evidence any of the specific controversies directly link to President Barack Obama himself. No one knows what the various congressional probes will turn up, but until there is a direct connection to the president, the best Republicans can probably do is use the three episodes to illustrate the dangerous reach — and what they see as pervasive incompetence — of the Obama government. 

Meantime, the incentives for the incendiary are strong, as the PPP polls show: It helps Republicans raise money, get on Fox and excite conservatives. It also provides an easy way for someone like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to show skeptical conservatives that he is one of them — and therefore should not be challenged in an upcoming GOP primary. This is true for most House Republicans: Redistricting has left them far more threatened by a primary challenge from the right than by a general election challenge on the left. 

The gut check moment will come when Issa needs to decide on forcing Clinton to testify. 

A Democratic strategist, knowledgeable about administration thinking, maintains that calling Clinton back would be seen as an “extreme and unprecedented stunt” and “quite a risky proposition” for House Republicans. “Congress had her an entire day in January, and she kicked their ass,” the strategist said. “If she performed that well a second time, they could lose the issue permanently. They are better off waiting until her numbers soften with time and as she comes back down to earth — in the meantime, beating the drum as a midterm issue that she is ducking and hiding.” 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are banking on the GOP going overboard — especially with women and minorities. One top Democratic aide, getting ready for combat, emailed that Republicans are likely to come off as “a bunch of white guys hammering away.” “Wonder how they will be if Hillary or Susan Rice testifies?” the aide asked. “Republicans are fully capable of taking an issue that should have valid questions asked, and turning it into another Whitewater investigation that goes way off the cliff. They could wind up making Hillary a sympathetic figure.”

Yes by ALL means put Hillary back on the stand. In fact as a Democrat and lifelong liberal I am TOTALLY on board with that plan.

After all, what could go wrong?

Perhaps our friend Bill Maher explains it best.

Sarah Palin thinks the President is vulnerable and in response unleashes her ghostwriter on Facebook. Exaggeration, hyperbole, and Middle school name calling ensue. Update!

"Blood! I smell blood in the water!"

This from the Arizona Snowbird's ghostwritten Facebook page:  

Mr. President, when it rains it pours, but most Americans hold their own umbrellas. Today in the Rose Garden you dismissed the idea of a Special Counsel to investigate the IRS scandal. With that, your galling political hubris shined bright in the midst of today’s dark clouds. 

This, of course, is in reference to the image taken during President Obama's joint press conference alongside Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan in the Rose Garden the other day, during which he asked two Marines to hold umbrellas for them, mostly, it seemed, in deference to the needs of his guest.

Apparently that action has opened up a line of attack, because as we know EVERYTHING the President does becomes an opening for a  Right Wing attack.

Then Palin's ghostwriter goes on to group Benghazi, the IRS kerfuffle, and the obtaining of the AP phone records together in order to accuse the administration of being in violation of the Hatch Act, even though NONE of those qualifies as such.

That not being enough to smear the President, Palin then accuses him of even more outrageous activities.

For more evidence of Hatch Act violations right under your nose, simply consider DOJ’s “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into the free press. Do you think they picked up some political talk when tapping the phones in the House press gallery? 

Not happy with simply going after the President concerning the AP leak investigation which saw the DOJ accessing reporters phone records, (A situation by the way for which I feel actual outrage and not manufactured outrage), she then accuses him of  "tapping the phones in the House press gallery" which is completely ridiculous and undermines any seriousness on her part.

Your team is out of control. Those who cannot remember the past and learn from it are doomed to repeat it, and that is exactly what is happening. Look back exactly 40 years ago this week and apply that disheartening chapter of American history to the team you’ve chosen and lead today.

The ghostwriter is of course referring to Watergate, because the Republicans have determined that it was far enough back that perhaps the American people have forgotten that it was  the result of an out of control REPUBLICAN administration. Which is interesting because if RAM was looking for an example of an administration violating the Hatch Act, she need look no further back than to the LAST administration, that was, here's a shocker, ALSO a Republican administration.

However satisfied that the President has been wounded sufficiently Palin's ghostwriter has her do a victory dance over his "political corpse."

Some of us warned America; we cautioned voters in 2008 that a community organizer with no executive experience and no sense of accountability would be a very poor choice for the nation’s top management position.

Yes because having old man McCain and THIS lunatic would have been SO much better for the country. (Conveniently Palin focuses on these three "scandals." two of which are nothing of the sort, and ignores the rather impressive accomplishments of her President.)

With that Palin's ghostwriter goes in for the kill.

Most Americans see ominous dark clouds looming beyond the White House Rose Garden, Mr. President. They’ll roll away only when light is shined on the Obama administration’s antics, and America will only recover when you cease avoiding responsibility in this mission of yours to fundamentally transform America. For that to happen, the press had better learn from their experiences of being duped and provide a deserving public fairer, more intelligent coverage. 

Of course THIS is exactly the time that Palin has been so impatiently waiting to arrive. A time when the President is under assault from a variety of directions and a time where she can stumble up on her Naughty Monkey pumps and kick him while he is down.

Of course if we have learned anything these last four and a half years it should be that this President is NEVER as badly wounded as his critics would like us to believe that he is, and that ultimately he will shrug off the slings and arrows of his opponents and get right back to doing the work that will, without a doubt, see him listed among the most effective Presidents that we have ever had in this country.

Time for one last parting shot.

 Speaking of coverage, glad you finally called in the Marines... shame it was just to hold your umbrella. 

- Sarah Palin

And back to the immature attack about the umbrellas. Why we would expect anything else?

However perhaps Palin has forgotten just how effective and impressive this President can be while standing uncovered in the rain.

I don't think the man was afraid of getting a little wet, he was just worried about over shadowing his guest from Turkey, and perhaps blowing a few reporter's minds.

Charisma can be so dangerous if not carefully controlled, don'tcha know?

Update: The Washington Post cannot resist pointing out Palin's hypocrisy either:  

Former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin weighed in Thursday night, blasting Obama and tweeting: 

“Scandalous Hat Trick,” she wrote. 

“Mr. President, when it rains it pours, but most Americans hold their own umbrellas. 

Well, not always.

 She is SUCH an easy target.