Gloria Steinem on the false feminism of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann.

Courtesy of New York Magazine:

Gloria Steinem, a leader of the women's liberation movement of the seventies, was feted at a luncheon on Wednesday in celebration of the HBO documentary about her life, Gloria: In Her Own Words. We were curious what the feminist icon thinks about women like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, who are not housewives, yet support traditional values and oppose abortion. "They’re there to oppose the women's movement. That's their job," Steinem said, accusing the two politicians of "selling out" the women's movement. "That’s just the way it is; it's inevitable. Think about Phyllis Schlafly; there have always been women like this." 

 Later, during a speech, Steinem elaborated. "I can testify, the very same things people were telling me 30 or 40 years ago — it's against nature, you can’t do this, my wife is not interested — all these [people] are now saying, well, feminism used to be necessary, but it's not anymore. That is the new form of obstruction. And, of course, it’s accompanied by the other natural thing that happens if you have a big social justice movement: You make jobs for people who sell it out. So we have Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, who are on my list of 'the women only a man could love.'" 

 "But it’s important to remember that though they are in the news, they are not in the majority," Steinem continued. "And though they get elected, there's a huge race and gender differential on who votes for them. And if you were to add the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, they are the people our founders came to this country to escape," she told the lunch crowd. "They’re the same people, right? They're trying to say God looks like me and not like you, and to use that politically to make a religious base. And so it is really a kind of rerun."

As a man observing the Sarah Palin phenomena, and immediately recognizing that she was single-handedly dismantling decades of hard work by the feminist movement, I have been particularly interested in how a person like Gloria Steinem deals with watching her receive so much media attention.

This response is kind of what I would have expected, though to be honest part of me would like her to go all "Jerry Springer" on Palin's ass and rip that fright wig and those fake glasses off her head and then turn to the media and say "How do you like her now America?" (And yes as I was typing that I realized that it was totally a stereotypical anti-feminist thing to write. Doesn't mean I wouldn't like to see it though.)

BTW if you are a Gloria Steinem fan (And if you are a modern woman or man completely comfortable with his masculinity (Like me) how could you not be?) you might be interested in watching her appearance on the Colbert Report last night. It was pretty interesting, not to mention funny.

Rachel Maddow reveals the truth behind the New Apostolic Reformation, and the man who could be their hand picked candidate, Rick Perry.

I strongly urge you to watch this segment to truly get an understanding of exactly what we might be facing in the next election.

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Here is the link to the article by the Texas Observer that Rachel references in this video.

One of the reasons that I, and many others, focused on revealing the hypocrisy, lies, and ignorance of Sarah Palin was because we knew she was being groomed by these people as a candidate in 2012.

Through our hard work, and her own embarrassing limitations, I believe she is no longer this group's "go to wingnut." Instead they are looking elsewhere, and it appears that Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry are battling it out to pick up the baton that Palin let slip through her fingers.

Now there are still secrets to reveal about Klondike Kardashian, and I am not finished with her yet (Especially since many of the secrets could also reveal scandalous behaviors by this Apostolic Reformation group, the GOP, and others), but it is just as important, no even MORE important, that we start to really shine the light on these other potential Dominionist candidates.

Because folks in my opinion these people are setting this country up for an ideological holy war between THEIR kind of Christian vs the "Kenyan born, closeted Muslim," that could be more devastating to the future of the United States than even the Civil War.

Michele Bachmann listed Francis Schaeffer as one of her most important influences.. His son, Frank Schaeffer, explains why that should terrify you.

From AlterNet:

As presidential candidate Michele Bachmann chews up scenery in the GOP primaries, the mainstream media is finally digging into her extremist beliefs in a serious way. In a profile published earlier this week, the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza talked about Bachmann's radical right-wing influences, which include the most extremist figures in the history of the religious right movement. 

One of these was my evangelical leader father, Francis Schaeffer. Bachmann says in the New Yorker article that she got into politics because she watched a film series I directed called “How Should We Then Live,” written by and featuring my dad. 

What the New Yorker article doesn’t do is explain why people like Bachmann, Sarah Palin, et al. turned to the hard reactionary anti-government right. I explain this in my book Sex, Mom and God. I think it’s important to understand this. So let me add what the New Yorker left out.

Frank Schaeffer then proceeds to take his readers on an out of control carnival ride with frights that include Theocratic beliefs, abject hatred toward homosexuals, and a complete distrust for government. 

I urge you to read it with a hot comforting beverage to sip and all of the lights on to chase away the darkness.

Things you did not know about Michele Bachmann, and some you will probably wish you had never learned.

Courtesy of NPR:

While at Oral Roberts, Bachmann worked as a research assistant for one of the professors, John Eidsmoe. She has brought up his influence on the campaign trail, telling one audience in Iowa this year that he "taught me so many aspects of our godly heritage." 

Eidsmoe's 1987 book, Christianity and the Constitution, tells Christians that "they need to get politically active and they need to get involved with the legal system and they need to make sure American law is more biblically based," says Lizza. "That's what the book ends on, a clarion call for his students to get involved. ... Eidsmoe is someone who believes American law should be based on the Bible. He believes that the United States is a Christian nation, should remain a Christian nation and that our politics and our law should be permeated by one's Christian faith." 

"For a number of years, Michele Bachmann's personal website had a list of books she recommended people read. It was called 'Michelle's must-read list.' I was looking over the list and noticed this biography of Lee by Wilkins. [I had] never heard of Wilkins and started looking at who he was. And frankly couldn't believe that she was recommending this book.""Wilkins has combined a Christian conservatism with neo-confederate views and developed what is known as the theological war thesis. 

This is an idea that says the best way to understand the Civil War is to see it in religious terms, and [that] the South was an Orthodox Christian nation attacked by the godless North and that what was really lost after the Civil War was one of the pinnacles of Christian society. This insane view of the Civil War has been successfully injected into some of the Christian home-schooling movement curriculums with the help of [Wilkins]. My guess is this is how she encountered the guy at some point. ... She recommended this book on her website for a number of years. It is an objectively pro-slavery book and one of the most startling things I learned about her in this piece." 

Wow! And here I thought Sarah Palin was the craziest bat in the belfry!

There is more in that NPR link and I encourage you all to read it.

I have to admit that the part about the South being a Christian bastion against the godless North left me slack jawed. But do you know what?  That is exactly the same kind of language that we are now seeing coming out of the Teabaggers, so I guess it does make some kind of batshit crazy sense.

FBI might be prepared to investigate News Corps under RICO statutes. In other words the same statutes they use to investigate the Mafia.

Courtesy of AdWeek:

Well-sourced information coming out of the Department of Justice and the FBI suggests a debate is going on that could result in the recently launched investigations of News Corp. falling under the RICO statutes. 

RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, establishes a way to prosecute the leaders of organizations—and strike at the organizations themselves—for crimes company leaders may not have directly committed, but which were otherwise countenanced by the organization. Any two of a series of crimes that can be proven to have occurred within a 10-year period by members of the organization can establish a pattern of racketeering and result in draconian remedies. In 1990, following the indictment of Michael Milken for insider trading, Drexel Burnham Lambert, the firm that employed him, collapsed in the face of a RICO investigation. 

Among the areas that the FBI is said to be looking at in its investigation of News Corp. are charges that one of its subsidiaries, News America Marketing, illegally hacked the computer system of a competitor, Floorgraphics, and then, using the information it had gleaned, tried to extort it into selling out to News Corp.; allegations that relationships the New York Post has maintained with New York City police officers may have involved exchanges of favors and possibly money for information; and accusations that Fox chief Roger Ailes sought to have an executive in the company, the book publisher Judith Regan, lie to investigators about details of her relationship with New York police commissioner Bernie Kerik in order to protect the political interests of Rudy Giuliani, then a presidential prospect. 

Here is where the RICO logic comes in. The usual path of a criminal investigation follows the crimes back to the source—that’s what happened to News Corp. in the U.K. when the royal family discovered that its voice mail messages were appearing in the press. But in a RICO investigation, you are really following the ethos and methods of operation of a group or organization to the crime. In other words, criminal activity is not seen as an isolated or particular event—as News Corp. has desperately and unsuccessfully tried to portray the crimes that occurred in the U.K.—but as an established pattern of conduct. 

As it happens, much of this pattern of conduct at News Corp. has long been hiding in plain sight. How the company has gotten away with such behavior is, in fact, a subtext of the investigations that are now unfolding. 

Partly, the company has escaped legal scrutiny because this is a boys-will-be-boys sort of story. News Corp.’s by-any-means aggressiveness has become so much a part of its identity that it seemed almost redundant to find fault with it. Everybody knew but nobody—for both reasons of fear and profit—did anything about it; hence its behavior has become, however unpleasant, accepted. 

And partly, it’s because the fundamental currency of the company has always been reward and punishment. Both the New York Post and Fox News maintain enemy lists. Almost anyone who has directly crossed these organizations, or who has made trouble for their parent company, will have felt the sting here. That sting involves regular taunting and, often, lies—Obama is a Muslim. (Or, if not outright lies, radical remakes of reality.) Threats pervade the company’s basic view of the world. “We have stuff on him,” Murdoch would mutter about various individuals who I mentioned during my interviews with him. “We have pictures.” 

Similarly, the Post and Fox News heap praise and favors on partisans, who in turn do them favors (the police, in New York as well as London, receive and return the favors). 

This reward and punishment has translated into substantial political power, both in terms of regulatory advantages and, too, in the ability of the company to shield itself from the kind of scrutiny that it has taken a perfect storm of events to have it now receive.

Use the same methods to investigate News Corp that the FBI used to investigate, and imprison, Mafia members? 

Considering what we know about how Fox News has used its influence to control elections, cover up for their favorite politicians, and attack competitors, it makes perfect sense to me.

Just a reminder as to how we got here.

Courtesy of the Political Animal:

1980: Ronald Reagan runs for president, promising a balanced budget

1981 - 1989: With support from congressional Republicans, Reagan runs enormous deficits, adds $2 trillion to the debt.

1993: Bill Clinton passes economic plan that lowers deficit, gets zero votes from congressional Republicans.

1998: U.S. deficit disappears for the first time in three decades. Debt clock is unplugged.

2000: George W. Bush runs for president, promising to maintain a balanced budget.

2001: CBO shows the United States is on track to pay off the entirety of its national debt within a decade.

2001 - 2009: With support from congressional Republicans, Bush runs enormous deficits, adds nearly $5 trillion to the debt.

2002: Dick Cheney declares, “Deficits don’t matter.” Congressional Republicans agree, approving tax cuts, two wars, and Medicare expansion without even trying to pay for them.

2009: Barack Obama inherits $1.3 trillion deficit from Bush; Republicans immediately condemn Obama’s fiscal irresponsibility.

2009: Congressional Democrats unveil several domestic policy initiatives — including health care reform, cap and trade, DREAM Act — which would lower the deficit. GOP opposes all of them, while continuing to push for deficit reduction.

September 2010: In Obama’s first fiscal year, the deficit shrinks by $122 billion. Republicans again condemn Obama’s fiscal irresponsibility.

October 2010: S&P endorses the nation’s AAA rating with a stable outlook, saying the United States looks to be in solid fiscal shape for the foreseeable future.

November 2010: Republicans win a U.S. House majority, citing the need for fiscal responsibility.
December 2010: Congressional Republicans demand extension of Bush tax cuts, relying entirely on deficit financing. GOP continues to accuse Obama of fiscal irresponsibility.

March 2011: Congressional Republicans declare intention to hold full faith and credit of the United States hostage — a move without precedent in American history — until massive debt-reduction plan is approved.

July 2011: Obama offers Republicans a $4 trillion debt-reduction deal. GOP refuses, pushes debt-ceiling standoff until the last possible day, rattling international markets.

August 2011: S&P downgrades U.S. debt, citing GOP refusal to consider new revenues. Republicans rejoice and blame Obama for fiscal irresponsibility.

Any questions?

The True Villian of the Economic Meltdown.

Courtesy of The Daily Beast:

But Obama is not the villain in this story. Every time I step back and ponder this sordid history, I am amazed that the Republican Party has any credibility and even 100 members of Congress, let alone a sizable House majority and enough juice to be driving the nation’s agenda as it is.

The Boston Globe ran a chart last Sunday that I’d buy billboard space to reproduce in every decent-size city in America, if I were running the Democratic National Committee. 

 (Here's the chart  to save your the trouble of searching for it.)

The premise of it was very simple: It showed how many trillions each president since Ronald Reagan has added to the nation’s debt. The debt was about $1 trillion when Reagan took office, and then: Reagan, $1.9 trillion; George H.W. Bush, $1.5 trillion (in just four years); Bill Clinton, $1.4 trillion; Obama, $2.4 trillion.

Oh, wait. I skipped someone. George W. Bush ran up $6.4 trillion. That’s nearly half—44.7 percent—of the $14.3 trillion total. We all know what did it—two massive tax cuts geared toward the rich (along with other similar measures, like slashing the capital gains and inheritance taxes), the off-the-books wars, the unfunded Medicare expansion, and so on. But the number is staggering and worth dwelling on. In a history covering 30 years, nearly half the debt was run up in eight. Even the allegedly socialist Obama at his most allegedly wanton doesn’t compare to Dubya; and Obama’s debt numbers, if he’s reelected, will surely not double or even come close as we gambol down Austerity Lane.

The GOP and the Teabaggers are going to use every one of their pet media outlets, from Fox News to Right Wing radio, to try and hang this debt crisis, and the lowering of our debt rating, on President Obama.

It is up to all of us, and what remains of the so called "liberal media," to continue pointing out who is REALLY responsible for this disaster.

And those responsible are the Republicans who increased the debt by 6.4 trillion dollars between 2000 and 2008, the Right Wing media that provided cover for them while they were doing it, and the Teabaggers who are now determined to fight this President every step of the way so that he cannot repair the damage, in the hopes that they can blame him for the whole mess in 2012 and put another GOP asshole in the White House to finish the job of bankrupting this nation once and for all.

(H/T to the Obama Diary.)

D.C. Douglas thanks the Tea Party.

This guy gets better and better all the time.

Rachel Maddow and Ezra Klein discuss the downgrading of the US debt by Standard and Poor's for the first time in history.

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In my opinion this black eye on America's reputation is solely the fault of the Teabaggers, and it is important that the media drive that point home over and over again, so that the voters know exactly WHO is unfit to serve in Congress.

I would also hope that recall petitions are being written, and that activists are preparing to head out to the streets to gather signatures first thing in the morning. In my opinion this is a situation which simply cannot be allowed to continue.

Job growth numbers better than expected. But are they good enough?

Courtesy of ABC News:

Payrolls expanded by 117,000 jobs in July as unemployment fell to 9.1 percent, a bit of good news in what has been a dismal series of economic reports this summer.

US stocks had been in a tailspin leading up this morning's Labor Department report. They closed down 9 of the last 10 trading days, capped by a 500-point loss on the Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday. The Dow has fallen 1,300 points since July 21, erasing all its gains for the year.

The report "should lessen fears that the recovery is truly faltering," Jim O'Sullivan, chief economist at MF Global, told the Associated Press.

At the 9:30 a.m. ET opening of the markets, the Dow headed straight up, surging 170 points in the first two minutes of trading. Markets in Europe, which have been rattled by rising government debt in Italy and Spain, also rose after the jobs report.

Economists were expecting 85,000 jobs to be added in July and unemployment to stay steady at 9.2 percent. In June, private employers added just 18,000 jobs.

But in July, businesses added 154,000 jobs across many industries, the Labor Department said. Governments cut 37,000 jobs last month, though 23,000 of those losses were almost entirely because of the shutdown of Minnesota's state government.

We keep hearing over and over that NO President has ever successfully run for reelection with job numbers this low, which seems to be encouraging the Republicans to do everything in their power to keep Americans out of work simply for the sake of political expediency.

If they are successful they will have demonstrated how ignorant and uninformed the America voters are, and will once again have sacrificed the good of the country in service to their corporate masters.

I think that it behooves all of us to keep presenting charts like this one...

to our friends, and families. And reminding people that THIS is the result of giving corporations indefensible tax breaks, and allowing businesses to do what they want without Government oversights in place.

Yes the job growth is slow, but under this Democratic President at least it IS growing.  What do the Republicans really offer us except more of the same policies that got us into the ditch that Obama is trying to drive us out of, with virtually NO help from the other party?

There are real people suffering here, and the idea that some politicians would play fast and loose with their lives solely in the interest of gaining or retaining power, really pisses me off!

Happy 50th Birthday Mr. President!

Have you ever wondered why Teabaggers remind you of Civil War Reenactors?

Courtesy of Salon:

The Tea Party movement takes its name from the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when American patriots dumped British tea into Boston Harbor to protest British imperial power. But while New England was the center of resistance to the British empire, there are few New Englanders to be found in today's Tea Party movement. It should be called the Fort Sumter movement, after the Southern attack on the federal garrison in Fort Sumter in South Carolina on April 12-13, 1861, that began the Civil War. Today's Tea Party movement is merely the latest of a series of attacks on American democracy by the white Southern minority, which for more than two centuries has not hesitated to paralyze, sabotage or, in the case of the Civil War, destroy American democracy in order to get their way.

The mainstream media have completely missed the story, by portraying the Tea Party movement in ideological rather than regional terms. Whether by accident or design, the public faces of the Tea Party in the House are Midwesterners -- Minnesota's Michele Bachmann and Joe Walsh of Illinois. But while there may be Tea Party sympathizers throughout the country, in the House of Representatives the Tea Party faction that has used the debt ceiling issue to plunge the nation into crisis is overwhelmingly Southern in its origins:

The four states with the most Tea Party representatives in Congress are all former members of the Confederate States of America.

Well that certainly explains the rampant racism, fundamentalism, and attempts to destroy the country.

Essentially the election of a black President seems to have reignited a covert Civil War, which is being waged by individuals who could care less if the country is destroyed in the process because they do not recognize its legitimacy anyhow.

Okay, NOW can we call them terrorists?

Lawrence O'Donnell helps to identify Mike Huckabee as a 9-11 profiteer, and a crappy history teacher.

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Personally I believe that ANY parent that subjects their child to these insultingly inaccurate "history" lessons should be charged with child abuse.

I love how O'Donnell ponders whether or not Huckabee will identify the religion of EVERY historical figure that's discussed in the tapes. I think I already know the answer to that one.

Lawrence O'Donnell and Matt Damon take a courageous stand to defend our teachers against the unrelenting attacks coming from the Right Wing.

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I am not ashamed to admit that I literally had tears streaming down my face as I watched this segment.

Lawrence O'Donnell's passion in bringing this, and other important, stories to our attention should earn him this country's undying gratitude, and Matt Damon? Well in my humble opinion from this day forward Matt Damon should be considered a national treasure.

He did his mother, his teachers, and his country proud.

I think this cartoon pretty much says it all about how the Teabaggers are screwing up our country right now.

Are you as tired of this infinitesimally tiny group of undereducated, historically retarded, and politically inept bunch of morons endangering the ability of Americans to receive the money they need to survive from their government while actively destroying our reputation around the world?

If so feel free to sound off in the comments section.

Adult language will not only be allowed, it will be encouraged.

There really are two Americas and I will never, and I mean NEVER, relate to this one!

But I do have to say that there are several members of my family who would feel right at home listening to that prayer and watching those cars drive around, and around, and around, and around, and....well you get the idea.

Have you wondered lately if racism is alive and well in Arkansas? This should answer you question.

H/T for photo to The Blaze

Courtesy of Think Progress:

A high school student in Arkansas was blocked from receiving sole valedictorian honors this summer, despite earning the highest G.P.A. in her class and receiving only a single B in her four years at McGehee Secondary School. Kymberly Wimberly’s offense? She’s black. School administrators worried that Wimberly’s accomplishment would result in a “big mess” at the majority-white school, so Principal Darrell Thompson told the student’s mother “that he decided to name a white student as co-valedictorian,” even though the white student had a lower G.P.A. The matter is currently pending in federal court.

Let me remind you that today's date is July 29, 2011, NOT July 29, 1965.

Today we also have a black man in the White House, a female Secretary of State, and a personal computer in virtually every one of our homes.  Yet in Arkansas a black female CANNOT take her place as valedictorian of her high school without having a white person assigned to share in her moment.

If certain people get into positions of power in this country, this is but a hint of the things to come.

Sarah Palin flexes what is left of her flabby political muscle to deliver a veiled threat to the freshman Teabaggers in Congress.

From Sarah Palin's ghostwritten Facebook post:

Out here in proverbial politico flyover country, we little folk are watching the debt ceiling debate with great interest and concern. Today I re-read the open letter I wrote to Republican Freshman Members of Congress in November 2010, just days after they were ushered into office in an historic landslide victory due in large part to the activism of commonsense patriots who are considered part of the Tea Party movement. I respectfully ask these GOP Freshman to re-read this letter and remember us “little people” who believed in them, donated to their campaigns, spent hours tirelessly volunteering for them, and trusted them with our votes. This new wave of public servants may recall that they were sent to D.C. for such a time as this.

In other words, according to what's written between the lines here, these freshmen politicians were sent to sabotage the process and make sure that NOTHING in Washington can get done, so that the third party (Which is already forming right under the GOP's nose), can then rise up under the "Washington is broken" banner and elect MORE saboteurs to further destroy the very fabric of this nation.

Have I got that about right?

And while this unhinged fruitcake is threatening to direct her, now dramatically decreased, Palin-bot operates away from any Tebagging politician who dares to demonstrate a general understanding of, or desire to work with, the political process, her creator John McCain is practically begging these individuals to stop being assholes and do their damn jobs!

I certainly hope the American voter is paying attention to this ridiculous spectacle, and taking note of who is watching out for them, and who is trying to grab the reins of power to steer this country back to a horse and buggy days of yore.

I am really trying not to make any more comparison's to the rise of the Nazi party here, but with the obvious attempts to undermine the government, the vilification of the Muslims, and the Youth for Hitler Palin website it is getting harder and harder all of the time.

I mean for God's sake just listen to the emotionless voices on this video.



If that does not make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, I don't know what would.

Now I still do not think that Palin can get anywhere near the White House, but it is abundantly clear that her deleterious effect on this nation, though minimized, still continues.

Essentially she, and others like her, just need to be stopped completely. And the best way to do that is to keep exposing the truth about them, the truth concerning the reasons behind their support of the Tea Party, and the truth about what their goal is for the United States of America.

I am doing my part, but I certainly won't turn away any help from others.

A graph that every Teabagger needs to see.

Courtesy of Ezra Klein:

What’s also important, but not evident, on this chart is that Obama’s major expenses were temporary — the stimulus is over now — while Bush’s were, effectively, recurring. The Bush tax cuts didn’t just lower revenue for 10 years. It’s clear now that they lowered it indefinitely, which means this chart is understating their true cost. Similarly, the Medicare drug benefit is costing money on perpetuity, not just for two or three years. And Boehner, Ryan and others voted for these laws and, in some cases, helped to craft and pass them.

To relate this specifically to the debt-ceiling debate, we’re not raising the debt ceiling because of the new policies passed in the past two years. We’re raising the debt ceiling because of the accumulated effect of policies passed in recent decades, many of them under Republicans. It’s convenient for whichever side isn’t in power, or wasn’t recently in power, to blame the debt ceiling on the other party. But it isn’t true.

This is the main reason I have NEVER taken the Teabaggers seriously because they are so clearly resistant to recognizing that the tremendous economic problems facing our country have virtually NOTHING to do with President Obama and EVERYTHING to do with George W. Bush, the fake president who came before him.

Let's face it, if the Teabaggers were serious about "taking their country back," they would have been Democrats or even true Independents, not obviously transparent covert Republicans.

Oh, and they NEVER would have been ignorant enough to call themselves the "Tea Party" either.

Just a taste of what this country is in for if Rick Perry miraculously made it into the White House in 2012.

"You know thinking makes my head hurt. That ever happen to you?"

Courtesy of the Huffington Post:

Texas lawmakers cut sex ed from two six-month courses to a single unit of "abstinence only" education. But early indications showed that the program wasn't working. In fact, teens in almost all high school grades were having more sex after undergoing the abstinence only program. By 2007, Texas had the highest teen birth rate in the nation.

Nevertheless, the program continued. By 2009, 94 percent of Texas schools, which at the time were educating more than 3.7 million students, were giving no sex ed whatsoever beyond "abstinence only," a curriculum that includes emphasizing that birth control doesn't work.

Instead of providing fact-based information, the programs use fear and Jesus -- over-emphasizing the risks of sexually transmitted diseases leading to cervical cancer, radical hysterectomy and death, together with Christian morality.

One Texas public school district's sex ed handout is entitled "Things to Look for in a Mate:"

I. How they relate to God
A. Is Jesus their first love?
B. Trying to impress people or serve God?

Another public school district uses this:

Question: "What does the Bible say about sex before marriage/premarital sex?"

Answer: Along with all other kinds of sexual immorality, sex before marriage/premarital sex is repeatedly condemned in Scripture (Acts 15:20; Romans 1:29; 1 Corinthians 5:1; 6:13,18; 7:2; 10:8; 2 Corinthians 12:21; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 5:3; Colossians 3:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:3; Jude 7).

The results? Teen pregnancy in Texas went up -- higher than before "abstinence only," and more than 50 percent higher than the national average. Even more troubling was that repeat teen pregnancy went up -- to the point that it, too, led the nation. It turns out that Texas kids thought that "if birth control doesn't work, why use it?"

But none of this seems to matter to Gov. Rick Perry. When confronted with the dismal statistics during an October 15, 2010 televised interview with Texas Tribune reporter Evan Smith, Perry's response was to reaffirm that "abstinence works."

The audience laughed and Smith pointed out the state's abysmal teen pregnancy rate. "It works," insisted Perry. "Maybe it's the way it's being taught, or the way it's being applied out there, but the fact of the matter is it is the best form of -- uh -- to teach our children." Smith asked for a statistic to suggest it works, and Perry replied that "I'm just going to tell you from my own personal life, abstinence works."

Like somebody suggested on an earlier thread, if Palin decides to pass on a Presidential run this time around, Perry has to be on her short list of those to endorse. 


Of course we have already seen what a Rick Perry presidency would look like during the eight years that George W. Bush ran this country into the ground.  I said once before that a Rick Perry candidacy really concerned me, and it does, but I cannot imagine the American people not getting a raucous case of deja vu every time this poor man's version of Jethro Bodine opened up his mouth.


That alone should be enough to doom his chances.

At least that is the hope I am hanging my hat on.