Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
Energy Secretary Rick Perry was duped by Russian pranksters in a phone call he believed was conducted with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroisman. In the 22-minute phone call confirmed by an Energy Department spokesperson Tuesday, Perry discussed everything from the oil and gas industry to coal exports and Russian cyberhacking with a person he believed to be the Ukrainian PM, but who was actually a Russian comedian. At one point, the man claiming to be Hroisman announced that the Ukrainian president had personally developed a “new kind of fuel” made from alcohol and manure, the distribution of which Perry said he’d be willing to discuss at a later date. Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexei Stolyarov, two Russian comedians known for similar prank calls, took credit for the stunt. Energy Department spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes said Perry was “the latest target of two Russian pranksters” who often target “those who are supportive of an agenda that is not in line with their government’s.”
Nice explanation there Ms. Hynes, but we all know that the Trump Administration is not doing ANYTHING that is not in line with the Russian government.
Perry was pranked because simpletons are easy to take advantage of, and that is why we typically choose intelligent people to run the government.
I am sure that the first thought that went through most of your minds was that this seems eerily familiar, and you would be right.
Yet another bespectacled moron that pranksters found to be an easy target.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry is cooking up a case to stifle further federal support of renewable wind and solar energy. He’s ordered a dubiously sourced staff study that is aimed to paint renewables as an unreliable source for the nation’s electric grid.
The study, due June 23, seeks to determine whether federal tax and subsidy policies favoring renewable energy have burdened “baseload” coal-fired generation, putting power grid reliability at risk. It is being spearheaded by Energy Department political appointee Travis Fisher, who’s associated with a Washington policy group that opposes almost any government aid for renewable energy.
Fisher wrote a 2015 report for the Institute for Energy Research that called clean energy policies “the single greatest emerging threat” to the nation’s electric power grid, and a greater threat to electric reliability than cyber attacks, terrorism or extreme weather.
The Institute for Energy Research and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance, has been the “influential force in shaping Donald Trump’s plans to dismantle Obama administration climate initiatives,’’ according to Bloomberg News.
The Energy Department is closing an office that works with other countries to develop clean energy technology, another sign of the Trump administration’s retreat on climate-related activities after its withdrawal from the Paris agreement this month.
The 11 staff members of the Office of International Climate and Technology were told this month that their positions were being eliminated, according to current and former agency employees. The office was formed in 2010 to help the United States provide technical advice to other nations seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The small office also played a lead role preparing for the annual Clean Energy Ministerial, a forum in which the United States, China, India and other countries shared insights on how best to promote energy efficiency, electric vehicles and other solutions to climate change.
After all of the hard work that President Obama put into making this country energy independent and moving us away from planet killing fossil fuels, here comes this Texas shit kicker to undo the whole thing.
And while we are all distracted by the Russian investigation Trump and his progress hating cohorts are slowly dismantling all of the advances we have made in the last eight years.
And it is not just in renewable energy. They are also undermining our civil rights, our education system, and even our access to affordable health care.
We need to keep all of this fresh in our minds as we approach 2018. Because that will be our first opportunity to start to put things right again.
Typically, a president's initial comments mark the end of on-camera coverage of White House Cabinet meetings, with administration aides then escorting members of the small press "pool" out of the room. But Trump invited reporters to remain as he called on his senior-most advisers to "go around, name your position" and say a few words about the administration's work.
"Start with Mike," Trump said, referring to his vice president. Mike Pence, whom Trump kept in the dark for two weeks after learning that then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had given the vice president false information earlier this year, responded by saying that serving as Trump's number two is "the greatest privilege of my life."
"An honor to be here," said Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who recently offered his resignation amid strains over the Russia investigation.
"My hat is off to you," said Energy Secretary Rick Perry, referring to the president's explanation of his decision to abandon a global climate change agreement.
"We thank you for the opportunity and blessing you've given us to serve your agenda and the American people," said Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, the subject of recent reports that Trump may fire him.
Okay seriously, WTF?
It's like Trump has gathered together a cabinet of Stepford wives who have been programmed to only deliver up compliments to their dear leader.
That creeped me out so bad it gave me chills.
Senator Chuck Schumer decided to find the humor in the event.
President-elect Donald Trump will nominate former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to serve as secretary of Energy, according to reports by CBS News and NBC News.
The former GOP presidential hopeful beat out two contenders for the Cabinet post: Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat representing West Virginia, and Ray Washburne, a Dallas investor working in oil and gas operations, CBS News reported.
On Monday, Perry attended a meeting at Trump Towers but didn't take questions from reporters.
The Energy Department is the same federal agency Perry wanted to eliminate — and then forgot to name when asked which departments he would shut down.
"I will tell you, it is three agencies of government when I get there that are gone: Commerce, Education, and — what's the third one there? Let's see," Perry said during a Republican presidential primary debate in November 2011.
Perry followed that last part up with an "Oops."
Which is exactly what every idiot who voted for Donald Trump should also be saying about now.
By the way Rick Perry is on the board of the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, which means those native American protesters better not get used to sleeping in their own beds anytime soon.
You know when I first suggested that Donald Trump was putting people in his cabinet to destroy the agencies they were responsible for I was half kidding.
Here's the story, according to Rafael Cruz:
My son Ted and his family spent six months in prayer seeking God's will for this decision. But the day the final green light came on, the whole family was together. It was a Sunday.
We were all at his church, First Baptist Church in Houston, including his senior staff. After the church service, we all gathered at the pastor's office. We were on our knees for two hours seeking God's will. At the end of that time, a word came through his wife, Heidi. And the word came, just saying, "Seek God's face, not God's hand." And I'll tell you, it was as if there was a cloud of the holy spirit filling that place. Some of us were weeping, and Ted just looked up and said, "Lord, here am I, use me. I surrender to you, whatever you want." And he felt that was a green light to move forward.
That Rafael Cruz should cast his son's presidential campaign as a divinely inspired endeavor is not surprising. For years, he has been a freelancing evangelical who has promoted an extremely fundamentalist version of Christianity and decried those, including other Christians, who do not share his religious views. He has called for fundamentalist Christians to gain control of most aspects of American society, and he has issued a series of controversial statements blasting President Barack Obama, gay rights activists, and other spiritual enemies. As Mother Jones first reported, he called Obama an "outright Marxist" who "seeks to destroy all concept of God" and urged Americans to send him "back to Kenya." He said it was "appalling" to have a gay mayor in Houston and asserted that Satan was behind the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage.
O-k-e-y d-o-k-e-y then.
As you all well know I don't exactly believe in God. But if I did and I thought that he chose fucking Ted Cruz to be the Commander-in-Chief, I 'm pretty sure that would destroy my faith right there.
By the apparently God also chose these folks to run for President as well:
Scott Walker
John Kasich
Ben Carson
Rick Perry
Rick Santorum
and Mike Huckabee.
Let's also not forget that according to Sarah Palin he chose her to run for the VP spot as well.
Well it looks to me as if either all of these people have several screws loose, or God just likes fucking with people.
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) announced Friday he is ending his presidential campaign.
Perry announced the end of his campaign at the Eagle Forum -- an event founded by conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly -- in St. Louis, Missouri.
"We have a tremendous field – the best in a generation – so I step aside knowing our party is in good hands, and as long as we listen to the grassroots, the cause of conservatism will be too," Perry said, according to his prepared remarks.
And then there were sixteen.
Should we start taking bets on who drops out next?
Forty percent of early-state Republicans and nearly half of early-state Democrats believe Rick Perry will be the first candidate to drop out of the presidential race.
That’s according to this week’s POLITICO Caucus, our weekly bipartisan survey of the top strategists, activists and operatives in Iowa and New Hampshire.
“No money and cannot gain traction, even though he has the best record and a superb message,” lamented an Iowa Republican. “Best retail politician I have ever seen, yet not able to pick up interest against a strong field. Where was this guy last time around?”
Less charitably, another Iowa Republican said, “When you’ve suspended all staff pay, the writing is on the wall. His team suggests he’ll have a memorable debate moment. Unfortunately for Rick Perry, that moment happened in 2011, oops.”
Recently Perry stopped paying his staff due to problems with fundraising, which is never a good sign.
And once the ex-Governor of Texas drops out that might start a chain reaction which will see others with low poll numbers following suit.
Right now according to Real Clear Politics Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham,and Bobby Jindal are all polling at around one point apiece. (In Graham's case that number is occasionally zero.)
Well personally I will be a little disappointed to see Rick Perry go. I was really looking forward to his one upping the famous "oops moment."
Oh well there are still plenty of clowns crowding the car, so I seriously doubt that the entertainment will stop any time soon.
After enduring Donald Trump's barrage of insults for weeks, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry told the billionaire businessman to put up or shut up on Wednesday, challenging him to a pull-up contest.
Trump, who's currently leading polls of the 2016 Republican primary, told the Daily Mail on Wednesday that Perry lacks the "energy," the "brain power," and the "toughness" to be an effective president.
Perhaps it was that last charge that stung the most. Perry, a former Air Force captain who's worn his tough-guy image on his sleeve during a long career in politics, fired back during an appearance at the Yale Club.
"Let's get a pull-up bar out there and let's see who can do the most pull-ups," Perry said, inciting a round of laughter and applause from the audience.
Okay for the record I would not want to contribute to either man's campaign, but having said that I would be willing to pay to see this.
For one thing I am almost positive that Trump could not even begin to lift his bulk off of the ground, and if he did he would undoubtedly shit himself with the effort.
After all the man rode an escalator down to announce his intention of running for president.
Down, not up, down.
Okay I have to say that I am REALLY looking forward to his first debate next week.
Though sadly it appears that currently Rick Perry is not quite making the cut.
"Sure I'm obnoxious. But you're all still talking about me aren't you?"
Do you know how sometimes things start off kind of fun, but after awhile you just want to bang your head on the wall to make it stop?
Oh, what am I saying? We have been covering Sarah Palin for over seven years, of course you do.
So my favorite bit of Trump news was the incredible Rick Perry smackdown:
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has already emerged as one of the GOP presidential field’s most vocal critics of Donald Trump, ratcheted up his rhetoric again Wednesday as he slammed the real estate mogul’s presidential bid as a “cancer on conservatism” and warned that, left unchecked, Trump could be the demise of the Republican Party.
“He offers a barking carnival act that can be best described as Trumpism: a toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition if pursued,” Perry charged during an address at the Willard Hotel in downtown Washington. “Let no one be mistaken: Donald Trump’s candidacy is a cancer on conservatism, and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised and discarded.”
“Donald Trump, the reality television star, is a great generator of ratings. But Donald Trump the candidate is a sower of division, wrongly demonizing Mexican-Americans for political sport,” Perry said. “He has piqued the interest of some Republican voters who have legitimate concerns about a porous border and broken immigration system. But instead of offering those voters leadership or solutions, he has offered fear and sound bites. This cannot stand.”
Okay that was pretty satisfying.
I'm sure many of you remember that Trump suggested that Perry should take an IQ test before being allowed onto the debate stage, and in fact used Perry as a barometer to suggest that Lindsey Graham was even dumber.
Marco Rubio also piled on, but he flubbed the shot by also insulting President Obama:
“I don’t think that the way he’s behaved over the last few weeks is either dignified or worthy of the office that he seeks. We already have a president now that has no class," he said.
Bullshit, the man has more class than can be found in the entire Rubio family.
In other news Trump finally released his actual financial-disclosure report. (Kind of.):
The document, released publicly by the government agency Wednesday, provides an unusually detailed look at the range of the magnate’s holdings. But the disclosure is unlikely to stem the ongoing debate over Trump’s net worth.
Last week, Trump claimed that his net worth for 2015 had reached more than $10 billion. There is no way to corroborate that figure from the document, which requires candidates to list assets, income and liabilities only in broad ranges.
So yeah, we still don't know exactly how much this asshole is worth.
The good news in all of this is that it appears that Trump may have peaked and according to PPP his numbers are likely to level off or even go down from here on.
Even after Trump is finally finished, which I think may not take place until he gets his time on the debate stage, you just know that certain GOP candidates are going to be kissing his ass in the hopes that he does not savage them, or better yet agrees to endorse their candidacy.
Which means that this idiot is going to be a political force in this country for years to come, whether we like it or not.
I am disappointed by today’s Supreme Court ruling in the King v. Burwell case. But this decision is not the end of the fight against Obamacare.
This fatally-flawed law imposes job-killing mandates, causes spending in Washington to skyrocket by $1.7 trillion, raises taxes by $1 trillion and drives up health care costs. Instead of fixing our health care system, it made the problems worse.
Aww, Jebbie's got the sads.
And he is by no means alone.
Marco Rubio:
I disagree with the Court’s ruling and believe they have once again erred in trying to correct the mistakes made by President Obama and Congress in forcing Obamacare on the American people."
“Despite the Court’s decision, ObamaCare is still a bad law that is having a negative impact on our country and on millions of Americans. I remain committed to repealing this bad law and replacing it with my consumer-centered plan that puts patients and families back in control of their health care decisions. We need Consumer Care, not ObamaCare.
Rand Paul:
This decision turns both the rule of law and common sense on its head. Obamacare raises taxes, harms patients and doctors, and is the wrong fix for America's health care system.
Rick Perry:
The Obama Administration has ignored the text of the Affordable Care Act time and again, and today’s ruling allows them to continue to disregard the letter of the law. While I disagree with the ruling, it was never up to the Supreme Court to save us from Obamacare. We need leadership in the White House that recognizes the folly of having to pass a bill to know what’s in it. We need leadership that understands a heavy-handed, one-size-fits-all policy does nothing to help health outcomes for Americans.
With individual premiums up more than 50 percent and nearly 5 million people losing their health plans, Americans deserve better than what we’re getting with Obamacare. It’s time we repealed Obamacare and replaced it with truly affordable, patient centered-health care reform, and I look forward to laying out my ideas on this issue.
(That's all bullshit by the way.)
There were also tweeted responses from the clown car:
And what Santorum said should be a lesson to Progressives that they must all turn out to vote in order to ensure that the next Supreme Court Justices selected are not Right Wing lunatics like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Speaking of Scalia here are some not to be missed portions of his dissent on this ruling. (I especially like the "jiggery-pokery" line.)
All in all with this, and Bristol's admission that she is pregnant, it has been a pretty damn good day for your friendly neighborhood blogger.
While speaking at the California ProLife Legislative Banquet last week, California Assemblywoman Shannon Grove (R) suggested a theory that the state's worst drought in 1,200 years may be divine retribution for California providing women with access to abortions, RH Reality Check reported.
“Texas was in a long period of drought until Governor Perry signed the fetal pain bill,” she told the audience. “It rained that night. Now God has his hold on California.”
Actually Grove is conflating two diff rent events, the bill she speaks of was signed in 2013, while the drought that devastated Texas was in 2011 and Rick Perry's attempts to pray away the dry did nothing to alleviate the drought in Texas:
In the four months since Perry’s request for divine intervention, his state has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Nearly all of Texas is now in “extreme or exceptional” drought, as classified by federal meteorologists, the worst in Texas history.
Lakes have disappeared. Creeks are phantoms, the caked bottoms littered with rotting, dead fish. Farmers cannot coax a kernel of grain from ground that looks like the skin of an aging elephant.
Of course facts don't matter when you have an agenda that you believe is backed up by your holy book.
Here was perhaps the best response to Grove from the Facebook page of Pro-Choice Kern County:
Fox News host Sean Hannity continues his streak as conservative king maker, as the network announced Thursday that he will have the first interview with Jeb Bush after his presidential campaign announcement next week.
The former Florida governor is expected to announce his presidential campaign Monday in Florida. On Tuesday, Hannity will interview Bush. Bush will also appear on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" that same night.
Bush campaign spokespeople confirmed that Bush will not hold any interviews Monday and that Hannity will be his first.
Good idea. Reach out to potential independent voters not already determined to vote against the Democratic candidate, by going on the cable news network that is only watched by the hard line conservatives in the country.
Fallon is better, but if he really wants to reach the masses he probably needs to make an appearance with Colbert when he takes over Letterman's old show.
If he has the guts that is.
By the way it turns out that almost ALL of the GOP presidential hopefuls will have to kiss Hannity's ring before going on to other venues to talk about their candidacy, including Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul.
But hey, don't forget that Fox News is "fair and balanced." Just so long as you agree ideologically with them on everything that is.
In an interview with conservative commentator Andrew Wilkow last week, Coburn trashed nearly every GOPer running for president, calling them “not ready for primetime,” lacking “integrity,” not “capable,” and saying he wouldn’t support one of them even if he won the nomination. Wilkow acknowledged the impact of Coburn’s words, noting that “once you retire, you can speak your mind in a way that might be different than if you were still sitting in the Senate.”
Here's the rundown:
Rand Paul: “Scares me to death on international foreign policy. Know him well, very smart. Think he was totally wrong on NSA. Didn’t speak truthfully about what was actually the facts. Would not vote for him for president.”
Marco Rubio: “Of all that are out there right now, probably my favorite.”
Scott Walker: “Not ready for primetime, in my opinion. You look at what happened in Wisconsin in terms of him beating the recall and everything else, he didn’t do that. The Republicans around the country did it for him. They pulled him out of the fire. I just don’t think he’s quite ready for primetime, in my opinion.”
Ben Carson: “I have a personal bone to pick with him on integrity that I witnessed. He made a commitment at the Prayer Breakfast not to attack the president. The speech was nothing but an attack on the president. The people who organized the Prayer Breakfast asked him not to do that. He said he would not, and then he went out and did it.”
George Pataki: “Probably smart enough, but would never encounter the votes. Nor does he have the conservative fiscal credentials or other credentials he would need to have a coalition behind him, in my opinion.”
Rick Perry: “Good guy. I don’t think he’s capable at that level.”
Lindsey Graham: “Love him, but he’s right in the middle, so I don’t see how he builds a coalition. I think his effort is try to talk about foreign policy and that’s what he ought to stick to.”
Carly Fiorina: “Smart lady. I helped her in her Senate campaign of which she was ultimately unsuccessful, but it’s because she could never get into good debates. Smart, savvy, experienced. Knows the issues that I’ve been talking about. Presents well. Doesn’t have a voting record. They’ll trash her bigtime because of her Hewlett-Packard experience.”
Ted Cruz: “Not ready for primetime.”
Mike Huckabee: “Possibility. Good guy, well-rounded. Could fit in the middle and could attract votes from both sides.”
Rick Santorum: “Love him as a man. I think he feels called to try to do this. I don’t think it’s within his reach.”
Chris Christie: “Don’t know. I haven’t followed him well. I saw his tollgate problems. I like the fact that he answers questions correctly, which very few candidates do. I like the fact that he’ll take a risk and give you an answer that’s not politically popular.”
Jeb Bush: “I don’t think America will elect another Bush president. I talk to a lot of liberals all the time. They still loathe George Bush. And so you shut out 47 percent of the electorate with that nomination. So you only get to lose three or four percent. I just don’t think it’s a possibility.”
While I agree with many of Colburn's observations, the fact that the two he separates from the bunch as being potentially viable are Huckabee and Rubio, makes me wonder just how honest he is being with himself, and with the interviewer.
The idea that Mike Huckabee could "fit in the middle" is laugh out loud funny, as he is one of the most extreme examples of a religious right candidate.
Still it is always nice to see the conservatives eating their own.
“There are certain shows on Fox I can’t watch,” Coburn told audience members at Tulsa Community College in Oklahoma. “Because they’re totally not fair and totally not balanced. What I want is, I want all the information in which I can make the best decision.”
Hillary Clinton accused four potential GOP presidential rivals by name of being "scared of letting citizens have their say" as she called Thursday for every American to automatically be registered to vote.
Clinton told an audience at the historically black Texas Southern University that she supports the concept of signing every American up to vote as soon as they're eligible at age 18, unless they specifically opt out. She called for expanded access to polling places, keeping them open for at least 20 days and offering voting hours on evenings and weekends.
For the first time in her campaign, she attacked her likely opponents by name as she laid into four GOP governors -- Texas's Rick Perry, Wisconsin's Scott Walker, Florida's Jeb Bush and New Jersey's Chris Christie -- telling them to "stop fear-mongering about a phantom epidemic of voter fraud."
"All of these problems voting just didn't happen by accident," she said. "And it is just wrong -- it's wrong -- to try to prevent, undermine and inhibit Americans' right to vote."
Good for Hillary!
You know all of these voter restriction laws were put in place specifically to beat Barack Obama, and the news ones, that will be used for the first time in 2016, were put in place to specifically defeat her.
Fucking pansy ass Republicans know that can't win in a fair fight, so all they have are tricks and cowardly personal attacks.
Former Gov. Rick Perry suggested Tuesday that successor Greg Abbott went too far last week in raising questions about U.S. military exercises in Texas.
“It’s OK to question your government. I do it on a regular basis. But the military is something else,” said Perry, an Air Force veteran, as he prepared to speak to the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth. “Our military is quite trustworthy. The civilian leadership, you can always question that, but not the men and women in uniform.”
Wow! And here I thought that making it so that Wal-Mart had to explain that they were not digging tunnels under their stores to help Obama invade Texas, was the most embarrassing thing that could happen to Texas and its new governor.
But having Rick Perry, a man who seemed to never hear a conspiracy theory that he didn't agree with, come out and call you batshit crazy, well that has GOT to be a wake up call.
Of course now that Perry has insulted his base, I wonder how he expects to have a legitimate chance at the Republican presidential nomination?
After all just because you are not as crazy as the craziest people in your state, certainly does not mean you are not still too crazy for the primary voters.
For Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum – who won Iowa’s last two caucuses on the strength of evangelical voters – doing well at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition’s gathering this weekend is a must.
“Santorum and Huckabee are the two who really have the most at stake,” said Sam Clovis, a Sioux City social conservative who placed second to Joni Ernst in Iowa’s 2014 GOP Senate primary. “Between Huckabee and Santorum, they need to come back and recapture some of that magic they had in ’12 and ’08.”
Altogether, nine Republicans likely to make 2016 presidential bids are scheduled to speak at Saturday’s Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition Spring Kick-Off . The subtext for the event won’t be subtle: It is taking place at the evangelical Point of Grace megachurch in Waukee, a Des Moines suburb, and will attract the leading activists from Iowa’s social conservative community.
Well this is the can't miss event of the year for those Republican candidates who want to lock down that holier than thou vote.
But wait, something seems amiss.
According to that announcement up above, Cruz, Fiorina, Jindal, Santorum and Walker are all definitely coming. While Bush, Carson, Christie, Graham, Huckabee, Paul, Pence, Perry, Rubio, and Trump have all been invited to show up.
But somebody's missing.
Oh that's right.
But wait, even if she is NOT running why would she skip this event?
After all it has her favorite things. Faith, freedom, free publicity, and yet she is not only not a confirmed speaker, but it appears that she was not even invited.
Could it have anything to do with the fact that the last time she showed up in Iowa, this last January for the Freedom Summit (Just freedom, no faith.), that she made such an incredibly incoherent speech that she actually received thanks from the Democrats?
Is it possible that she has finally made herself such a laughingstock that even the Iowa freedom loving faithful cannot stomach her act anymore? And is that also why she bailed out of her NRA appearance in Nashville?
So as I posted last month Palin was among a who's who of potential GOP presidential candidates invited to speak at the NRA's leadership forum this weekend.
And then suddenly, sometime early this afternoon, she was no longer listed on the NRA's official page.
Breaking news. Sarah Palin cancels NRA appearance.
Read it on their website.
This of course caused a lot of hand wringing and concerns that something bad had happened, as they had all but convinced themselves that this was the perfect platform for her to announce her candiacy.
As of right now there has been no reason provided, but there was this article over at the The Tennessean:
Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has suddenly canceled her upcoming appearance at the National Rifle Association's Annual Meeting in Nashville later this week.
But Palin canceled her visit on Wednesday, Jennifer Baker, director of public affairs for the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action, confirmed.
Baker did not provide a reason for Palin's cancellation.
Well since we don't have any official word as to what made her suddenly drop out, let the wild speculations commence!
Cruz’s White House run is disturbing, and not just because it involves Ted Cruz. Rather, he embodies the modern conservative propensity toward a fundamentalist American civil religion and its attendant, overly simplistic myths. As the English political activist George Monbiot observed during the dawn of the second President Bush’s Iraq War, to America’s conservative subculture “the United States is no longer just a nation. It is now a religion… It is not just that the Americans are God’s chosen people; America itself is now perceived as a divine project.” American civil religion hinges on what Ted Cruz defined in his Liberty University speech as “the promise of America,” embodied in “the American exceptionalism that has made this nation a clarion voice for freedom in the world, a shining city on a hill.” The religion of America is a civil religion that casts the United States as a divine world power shaped by a series of comforting myths that, in the eyes of fervent believers like Cruz, make it the ultimate political Promised Land.
The term “civil religion” goes back to the writings of French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, who ruminated on the tensions that arise when church and state become separate entities. In American discourse, the term is most closely associated with sociologist Robert Bellah. In 1967, Bellah characterized civil religion as “a set of beliefs, symbols, and rituals” that was “neither sectarian nor in any specific sense Christian” but nonetheless constituted a shared experience of being American that was inspired by Christian notions of redemption and spiritual fulfillment. Civil religion casts America as a beacon of secular and sacred hope in a fallen modern world. In this context, Bellah wrote, “Europe is Egypt” and America was the Promised Land to which ”God has led his people to establish a new sort of social order that shall be a light unto all the nations.” And if this concept seems open-ended and ripe for abuse, that’s because it is.
.......
Cruz had the myth of the Chosen Nation down pat when he claimed that America is “an indispensable nation, a unique nation in the history of the world.” As for the myth of Nature’s Nation, he evoked America as the cultivated political garden of God Himself that, “from the dawn of this country, at every stage… has enjoyed God’s providential blessing.” The myth of the Christian Nation? Cruz parroted the now standard (but historically bogus) right-wing claim that the U.S. “was founded upon” the idea that rights come from a very specific “God Almighty.” Cruz’s reference to the myth of Manifest Destiny was more veiled, but he name-dropped key historical figures such as Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (no doubt for good bipartisan measure) and, of course, Ronald Reagan to reiterate his point that God has blessed every step in America’s development. The myth of the Capitalist Nation came via his railing against standard conservative government bogeymen like “regulators,” “tax collectors” and Obamacare that despoil the purity of the Free Market. Finally, Cruz touted the myth of the Innocent Nation when he claimed that political change will only come from “lovers of liberty” who realize that “God isn’t done with America yet.” Bless their liberty-loving souls.
Cruz’s speech was a prime example of how the right wing promotes a deeply fundamentalist American civil religion that relies on time-honored myths to characterize the United States as a nation guided by providential destiny. Cruz and other conservatives don’t see America as one nation that is a part of world history; they see it as one nation apart from world history, one that exists free of the flawed human agency and historical contingency that — contrary to Cruz’s claims — has shaped all of the human experience.
An America as defined by a future President Cruz is an America that sees itself as blindingly perfect, naively innocent, incapable of critical reflection over both its strengths and weaknesses and utterly convinced of its capacity to shape the world in its own image. Cruz’s version of civil religion is the ultimate example of how conservatives “absolutize the righteousness of the United States.” When you believe that God has blessed America from the beginning, you ignore the times that Americans have invoked God to justify the evils of Indian removal, slavery, racism, sexism and environmental destruction. More importantly, you undervalue the times when Americans have overcome those sins to demonstrate what Abraham Lincoln called ”the better angels of our nature.” When you worship capitalism and tout the United States as the world’s only hope, you ignore the false idols that led to the Great Recession and the bloody folly of the Iraq War that’s left the Middle East in tatters. When you develop a false sense of American innocence, you view national self-reflection as a weakness.
This of course is the same kind of thinking that allowed an arrogant pseudo Texan from a famous political family take this country to war with the idea that all the poor savages needed was a little American exceptionalism in their lives to make all of their problems simply disappear.
It's also the same mindset shared by a Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, and of course Sarah Palin.
In fact when Palin suggests that President Obama is trying to "fundamentally change America" this is what she is talking about. The idea that the President would try to convince Americans to climb off their high horse and recognize that we are part of a global community that can all work together toward progress rather than an oligarchy that is working to proselytize their message of political religiosity to the unsaved, frightens people of limited intellect such as Palin.
However the most dangerous thing imaginable for this country would be to return to leadership that sees this country as not only without flaws, but incapable of mistakes due to the fact that the Constitution, much like the Bible, was inspired by God and is therefore infallible. (Amendments Shamendments.)
Now if you will excuse me I have to go lie down in the fetal position for a few minutes.
Here are the CPAC straw poll results courtesy of the Washington Times:
25.7 Sen. Rand Paul 21.4 Gov. Scott Walker 11.5 Sen. Ted Cruz 11.4 Dr. Ben Carson 8.3 Former Gov. Jeb Bush 4.3 Former Sen. Rick Santorum 3.7 Sen. Marco Rubio 3.5 Donald Trump 3.0 Carly Fiorina 2.8 Gov. Chris Christie 1.1 Former Gov. Rick Perry 0.9 Gov. Bobby Jindal 0.8 Former Gov. Sarah Palin 0.3 Former Gov. Mike Huckabee 0.3 Former Ambassador John Bolton 0.1 Sen. Lindsey Graham 0.1 Former Gov. George Pataki
1.0 Undecided 0.7 Other
A couple of surprises.
One that Jeb Bush was able to come in fifth in a rather hostile environment.
Two that Rick Santorum is still even allowed to participate in these things anymore.
And three that Sarah Palin was able to come out ahead of a man who actually quit his successful show on Fox to prove that he was serious about running, while all she does is shake her moneymaker until things get hot and then up and quits each election cycle.
Stewart played speech clips of everyone from Mike Huckabee to Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, Donald Trump, and Sarah Palin, and said the summit is like Tide in that it “gets your whites whiter.”
“It cannot get more entertaining and less electable than Trump,” Stewart said, before showing bits of Palin’s speech at the summit.
"It was all going fine until tragically her subjects stopped talking to her verbs," Stewart, later adding that the speech "wasn't just regular-person incoherent, it was Palin incoherent."
A choice excerpt from Palin's speech closed the segment: "To finally stop this overreaching bureaucracy, we get on offense and drive in solutions—and we be bold," she said on the footage.
"Sarah Palin doesn't believe in your liberal elitist 'grammar' and 'syntax,'" Stewart concluded. "She be bold."
Even Daily Show host Jon Stewart was briefly disoriented after watching Sarah Palin’s speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit this past weekend.
“You know, that’s the kind of talk you hear before the pharmacist says, ‘Ma’am, you’ve gotta leave the Walgreens,’
Stewart said after one excerpt. “Now we know what it’s like to get cornered by Palin at an open-bar wedding.”
I actually thought I would post about this later in the day. But then I realized that people would not stop sending links to it until I did.
I have to admit that this Freedom Summit speech is gold. I mean it's not drunken brawl good, but it IS pretty damn good.
P.S. By the way I hope that Palin has paid homage to he snow gods. Because without that huge winter storm in the lower 48 this speech would be all anybody wanted to talk about.
