Day: 8/14/2011

10 Things You Need To Know About Rick Perry

Posted by on August 14, 2011 at 9:37 am. 6 Comments :

Texas governor Rick Perry is officially in the race for president. The question now for America is: Do we want a president who may be even more ignorant than George W. Bush?

Perry graduated from Texas A&M with a 1.9 GPA or D average. He received mostly C’s and D’s in his courses, including a C in U.S. History, a D in Principles of Economics, and even a C in gym. And he is an advocate for the sort of education that would bring everyone else down to his level.

“I am a firm believer in intelligent design as a matter of faith and intellect, and I believe it should be presented in schools alongside the theories of evolution.”

But that’s just for openers. Here are some things that voters will need to know as Perry’s revival show gears up for a national tour:

Rick Perry

We definitely have the makings of a political/evangelical uprising that could finish off the economic and cultural decline that Bush started. For his campaign announcement speech, Perry was introduced by Erick Erickson, the editor of the uber-conservative RedState, and a CNN contributor, who is notable for calling a Supreme Court Justice a “goat-fucking child molester.” And in his speech Perry reiterated the four principles he intends to pursue if elected:

“We need balanced budgets. We need lower taxes. We need less regulation. And we need civil justice reform.”

Sound familiar? That’s the standard GOP recipe for national disaster that got us where we are today. But perhaps the most frightening part of Perry’s platform is his devotion to a radical religious crusade as the means to resolve the country’s problems:

“Fellow Americans, right now, America is in crisis. We have been besieged by financial debt. Some problems are beyond our power to solve. We will gather to pray for a historic breakthrough for our country. There is hope for America. We will find it on our knees.”

That’s all America needs now. A president who would have us all kneel and pray away our problems. Calamity Perry does not have solutions to the serious dilemmas we face. He only has platitudes and scripture and a firm belief that he has been called by God to save America.

[Addendum] Perry has also been implicated in a slush fund scheme to benefit his campaign contributors. Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal called it Rick Perry’s Crony Capitalism. That conclusion was based on an in-depth investigation by the Dallas Morning News that uncovered Perry’s Tech Fund Aided Firms With Ties To His Donors. Under Perry, taxpayers may not have access to frivolities like health care, education, or food, but they do get to funnel cash into the pockets of Perry’s political patrons. This scandal alone should sink Perry’s aborning campaign. That is, if the national media has the integrity to give it the attention it deserves.

What We Learned About Michele Bachmann This Week

Posted by on August 14, 2011 at 3:43 am. NO Comments :

The winner of the Ames, Iowa Republican Straw Poll (by a mere 152 votes over Ron Paul), Michele Bachmann revealed much of herself to the electorate this week.

Michele Bachmann

First, in the Fox News debate on Thursday, Bachmann was asked about her recent confession that, despite not wanting to pursue tax law in college, she did so anyway at the behest of her husband because…

“…the Lord said, ‘Be submissive. Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands.'”

When she was asked at the debate whether she would be submissive to her husband were she elected president, she responded by attempting to redefine the term:

“…it means respect. I respect my husband. He’s a wonderful, godly man, and a great father. And he respects me as his wife. That’s how we operate our marriage. We respect each other.”

The problem with that answer is that no dictionary, and nowhere in the Bible, is submission defined as respect. What’s more, the Bible doesn’t say that husbands should be submissive to their wives. So even if submission did mean respect, it is not reciprocal, as Bachmann implies. Ultimately, her answer to the question was that, since submission equals respect, and respect is demonstrated by capitulating to your husband’s demands, Bachmann would indeed be submissive to her husband as president.

The second thing we learned was that, until recently, Bachmann lacked faith in America. In her presentation prior to the straw poll, she told Iowans that…

“As we’ve been all over the state, what we have seen is a restoration of that dream and you have restored in me my faith in America.”

I wonder if all the right-wing, pseudo-patriots who became faint upon hearing that Michelle Obama’s national pride was restored during her husband’s campaign for president in 2008, will be equally as appalled at Bachmann’s confession? Furthermore, what will they make of her disparagement of the whole of the nation other than Iowa?

“I see on television destruction all across the country, but not in Iowa. It doesn’t matter what city I’m in, I see happy, confident, optimistic people.”

So Iowa is the island of euphoria in a nation beset by turmoil and despair. Apparently she sees depressed, reticent, pessimists from Maine to California. It would be interesting to see how she would campaign in the other 49 states if she wins the nomination, which, of course, she won’t, but that’s another story.