Headlines - Monday August 15

James Moore: Why Rick Perry is headed for the White House.

 

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Shared sacrifice is only being shared by the middle class and poor, thanks to the political class. NY Times

 

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Now that David Gregory has given questions about teh ghey and their satanic nature the beltway imprimatur, I hope we see this every fucking day and twice on the Lord's day. And let's ask the other candidates their opinion on choice Bachmann quotes like these: (video)

REP. BACHMANN: It's a very sad life. It's part of Satan, I think, to say that this is gay. It's anything but gay. ... It leads to the personal enslavement of individuals. Because if you're involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it's bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair, and personal enslavement. And that's why this is so dangerous. ... We need to have profound compassion for people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life and sexual identity disorders.

MR. GREGORY: Do you think that gay Americans hearing quotes like that from you would think that that's, that's honor and dignity coming from you about their circumstance?
REP. BACHMANN: I am not anyone's judge…
MR. GREGORY: Right.
REP. BACHMANN: ...and I'm not standing in as anyone's judge.

Now that the economy is in the toilet, Republicans don't want or need social issue distractions, but that's too bad, because you can't go cold turkey on that crack.

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Jill: Wouldn't it be easier to just say you don't want to do it anymore and go home?

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Here's an interesting graphic from @OFA_MO There have been three GOP debates, and over 55,000 words were spoken. "Obamacare" and "Entitlement" and "Sharia Law" -- even "Soviets" -- get tossed out there every other breath, while the words /"middle class"/ have not crossed a single candidate's lips even once.

 

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Marcus Bachmann

 

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I really hope the Obama administration and the Democrats go after Rick Perry for this recent bit of history.

Texas, which crafts a budget every two years, was facing a $6.6 billion shortfall for its 2010-2011 fiscal years. It plugged nearly all of that deficit with $6.4 billion in Recovery Act money, allowing it to leave its $9.1 billion rainy day fund untouched.

"Stimulus was very helpful in getting them through the last few years," said Brian Sigritz, director of state fiscal studies for the National Association of State Budget Officers, said of Texas.

Even as Perry requested the Recovery Act money, he railed against it. On the very same day he asked for the funds, he set up a petition titled "No Government Bailouts."

"Join our fight and add your voice to a growing list of several thousand Americans who are fed up with this irresponsible spending that threatens our future," Perry wrote on his blog on Feb. 18, 2009.

Seriously, bookmark this blog entry. Use it often. Post it on Facebook. Send it to your Republican friends. Rick Perry supports wealth redistribution and he supports bailouts. Period. Irrefutable fact.

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Here's a pretty good rule of thumb: The guy who carries on and threatens secession for his state isn't the fella who will keep the best interests of the nation as a whole first in his mind. "It was the kind of scene that Texas Gov. Rick Perry will point to often as he rolls out his presidential campaign: a ribbon-cutting ceremony just outside Dallas, launching a corporate headquarters, with hundreds of new jobs, and validating what he calls his "Texas miracle" of growth. ... After a months-long courtship that included a trip to China, where he dined with the company's chief executive, Perry announced that telecom firm Huawei Technologies would base its U.S. operations in Plano. In a video of that October 2010 event -- now playing on YouTube, courtesy of the governor's office -- Perry praised the company's "really strong worldwide reputation" and its chairman, Ren Zhengfei, whose straight talk he said reminded him fondly of West Texans. ... While Perry focused on Huawei's ability to create jobs in a sluggish economy, national security experts in both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations had concluded that the global telecom giant poses a potential cybersecurity risk to U.S. military and businesses. Three times since 2008, a U.S. government security panel has blocked Huawei from acquiring or partnering with U.S. companies because of concerns that secrets could be leaked to China's government or military."

 

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C'mon -- it's just a joke! Libs need to get a sense of humor! The chairwoman of the Sumter, SC collection of tea-party traitors posted a "joke" to her Facebook page about assassinating the President and Mrs. Obama. We are a couple of the offended taxpayers who want some of the money we send to Washington used to prosecute her treasonous ass right into a five year stint in a federal lockup.

 

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Bland cheese curd/make-believe Republican candidate Tim Pawlenty ended his candidacy today in a desperate bid to convince voters he had been running for the GOP nomination. As his announcement came on a Sunday morning when news editors were at their orgy mansions in the Hamptons and regular GOP voters were sleeping off their oxycontin in church, the move did little to combat the reality that Tim Pawlenty doesn't even exist. READ MORE »

 

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Perry is in, Pawlenty is out, Bachmann wins the Iowa Straw Poll and Palin continues her life as a grifter.

Pawlenty – as much as he tried to push his conservatism to the far right, he simply wasn't crazy enough for a base that generally prefers their leaders with a few less moving parts in the cranium. Throw in Pawlenty's lack of charisma and the man never stood a chance.

Bachmann – the perfect mix of insanity, persona and Jesus to keep most teabaggers happy. But while the woman who was hoping for a U.S. default on the debt might have the recipe to keep wingnuts clapping their hands in joy, those very same traits would make her a major underdog in a national election. Enjoy her while you can.

Perry – the gun-slinging, Bush wannabe, has just made Romney's pursuit to the top a little more stressful. Similar to Bachmann, he has the persona/Jesus ratio just about right but comes a bit short on the crazy scale, but not by much. His strength lies in his ability to appeal to all factions of a Republican party – from Religious Right zealots to establishment type Reaganites. It's a potent mix in a Republican primary but less so when trying to appeal to independents still shaken from eight hellish years of Bush.

Perry, by the way, also has an affinity for having people executed, guilty or not.

In the Hank Skinner case, Perry has actively fought DNA testing that could confirm the innocence (or guilt) of another Texas man on death row. Skinner was at one point hours from execution before the Supreme Court intervened (the intervening justice was Antonin Scalia, believe it or not). In Skinner's case, the prosecution actually began to conduct DNA testing on crime scene evidence, then stopped when the first tests confirmed Skinner's version of events. Perry again justified willful ignorance in this case by simply noting that he's personally convinced of Skinner's guilt.

Watch him move ahead of Romney real quick. The primary just got a little more interesting.