Sarah Palin's Ridiculous, Pointless, Rambling Trump Endorsement

Herself, also too. Image from source, MSN.

Sarah Palin is the ultimate symbol of the current Republican Party. She has a cult of personality. She has no particular political talents, no particular base of knowledge. She has shown little interest in becoming any "better" at being this weird type of celebrity she epitomizes. No need for book learnin' or basic sentence construction. She's just Sarah Palin, and no matter how ridiculous she appears to most of the world, inside the conservative base bubble, she is awesome.

If Palin is the ultimate, Donald Trump is whatever comes after ultimate. He's the male version of Sarah Palin. So, naturally, the two are teaming up. There are three or four takeaways from this momentous occasion:

- Palin is one of the few personalities capable of shutting up Trump. For a long period of time. And at his own event.
- It says something really sad about the GOP that its two leading contenders--Trump and Ted Cruz--actually wanted Palin's endorsement.
- Palin truly outdid herself, spewing forth a word salad of head-scratchers, run-on sentences (and paragraphs), non-sequiturs, mangled clichés; served alongside a stew of mistruths, distortions, bad conclusions, inapt analogies and downright lies. This was Palin on eleven. [Story continues below]

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All of this was carried LIVE!!! on all of the cable news channels, even the "liberal" ones. What made this a newsworthy, live, prime-time event? Who is Sarah Palin today, exactly? She served as the mayor of a small town, then a governor--for half a term--of a small state. She campaigned for all of a couple of months as John McCain's running mate, and that's it. That's the sum-total of her political oomph. As already amply spelled out (and if you check my archives, there are loads more examples), she's little more than a celebrity. Less than that, she's a celebrity has been, who has failed to parlay her fame into anything beyond a few short-lived reality series, a couple of short-lived stints on FOX "News," opining on every subject with the depth of knowledge of your dotty Aunt Gertrude.

Ann Coulter is backing Ted Cruz. It must be killing her that she got barely a whisper compared to this. Poor old gal. But don't you have to ask yourself (for me, it's with open-mouthed astonishment) why either of those women would be considered a positive endorsement? Something you'd tout as a plus? What the hell is wrong with the Republican Party? What is wrong with its base? How can they criticize absolutely every action or inaction by Democrats with the air of superiority of a serious party, when they're this deeply unserious?

PS: Anyone calling Hillary Clinton shrill? STFU.

[Excerpt]

Sarah Palin Endorses Donald Trump, Rallying Conservatives
 
Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice-presidential nominee who became a Tea Party sensation and a favorite of grass-roots conservatives, endorsed Donald J. Trump in Iowa on Tuesday, providing Mr. Trump with a potentially significant boost just 13 days before the state’s caucuses. . .

Read more at: MSN

Oregon Refuge Standoff, and the Derp of Knee-Jerk Politics

Well, the fifth day of the year is almost over, and I've yet to blog once! I guess that tells you about my waning desire to blog of late. Utterly committed to keeping it going, but very low on the blogging bug. Too bad I never managed to monetize the thing, that might have done the trick! Annnnyway. . . .

The one thing capturing my attention (especially with sheer boredom setting in with the pre-Iowa, post-never-ending-months-of-campaigning 2016 battle) is the Oregon standoff. It's funny. It's stupid. It's absolutely larded with misinformation, complete with a compounding and conflicting back-story. And the best part is, this is the best they could do.

Don't believe everything you read. Particularly in a Facebook meme.

For years now, the fringy-fringe of the increasingly mainstream fringe of the conservative-Republican-Libertarian side of politics have been threatening revolution. Whether it's over legal gay marriage, abortion, gun "grabbing," government overreach, race wars. . .pick one or all. They've been threatening "2nd Amendment Solutions." The loons over at FreeRepublic have been itching for Civil War for at least since Obama was elected, probably as far back as the Clinton years. And it was easy to laugh, conjuring images of obese, older white men (and a few women) riding their hover-rounds in formation, with big old guns strapped across their backs to compensate for. . .shortcomings.

They're always a combination of vague on reasoning and solutions, and OCD-levels of detailed on their conspiracy theories. They can belch out long strings of data about what the government has done that aggrieves them. It's barnacled with half-truths, supposition, illogic, lies and loads of Alex Jones' InfoWars tinfoil-hat conspiracy crap. Do you see the meme posted here? It's culled from the Facebook page of one of my mother's conservative friends. It has more than a half dozen errors in it. Here are the ones I'm aware of:

- The Bureau of Land Management was created by FDR in 1946, which pre-dates 1964 by 18 years.
- The Hammonds were accused of setting at least one of the fires to cover up poaching crimes.
- Their fires spread to federally owned land. Which is. . .federal land. . .even if portions of it were being leased by the Hammonds.
- The charge was arson, not "terrorism."

That gun is pointing at the Feds. No one was shot. Isn't that something?
Image from Business Insider.

- They weren't charged with "terrorism" again, or ever.
- The BLM didn't send them to prison, a judge did, after a jury found them guilty.
- They were sentenced to complete their original mandatory minimum sentence, as the original judge didn't follow the correct sentencing guidelines.

To top it all off, the Hammonds themselves willingly turned themselves in. They don't support these yahoos in their "freedom fight." The Bundy family and their allies are not from Oregon, either. In fact, it would seem that the Bundy family--not content with their conservative fame when they held of the Feds at gunpoint and miraculously weren't fired upon--is simply spoiling for a fight. They're looking to start that insurrection the conservative whack-a-doodles have been promising for so long. By taking over a closed bird sanctuary. Ooh, how daring. But they are armed and dangerous, I suppose. Idiots strapped to the tits with weaponry usually are. And one can't help but wonder if they would even still be breathing if they were any other group, taking over a government installation with weapons. Any other color, specifically, but I imagine even any other religion, any other political ideology, any other kind of lethal weapons, rather than guns. I suspect we'd have nuked the site from orbit, metaphorically speaking.

But the meme above is eaten whole by people like my mother's friend. They'll immediately believe anything that seems to comport with their politics. They'll somehow blame it on Obama. And they'll insist Trump is the answer. And I'm sure The Donald would insist that he is too! Because he's just as vague but certain as they are.

[Excerpt]
 
Bundy Boys Promise To Hold Refuge Until People 'Claim It'



Wow, talk about a nanny state. For all the proclamations about liberty and freedom, Ammon Bundy is behaving like a protective grandma. . . Read more at: Crooks and Liars

Rick Perry Angry that Eric Holder Wants to Prevent Discrimination in Texas

"Don't mess with, uh. . .oops."
Image from HuffPo.

Okay, so Texas wanted to pass some new voting rights restrictions a while back (Why? Because it's a good way to suppress Democratic votes, that's why.) And because of the Voting Rights act, they couldn't get away with it, because the restrictions were deemed to be discriminatory against minority voters. Then, the Supreme Court hobbled the Voting Rights act, for reasons that are baffling. Within a couple of hours, Texas is there waving their already-declared-discriminatory restrictions, and insisted they're going to ram them through.

To me, this just confirms that the Supreme Court's decision was wrong, and that without the Voting Rights Act, some states will act in a discriminatory way. I mean, Texas just proved it, showing no restraint whatsoever. The Justice Department reacted by trying to find another way to prevent discrimination. And Governor Herp Derp Goodhair has whipped out his can of "Don't Mess with Texas" stupid ass whoop ass.

[Excerpt]

Rick Perry Slams Eric Holder, Department Of Justice For 'End-Run Around The Supreme Court'

Gov. Rick Perry (R) criticized a decision by the Obama administration to pursue legal action against the Lone Star State to place Texas back under preclearance, requiring federal approval for any changes to voting laws. . .

Read more at: Huffington Post