Schooling Betsy

From The Atlantic:

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos faced an unwelcome reception Wednesday as she delivered the commencement speech at Bethune-Cookman University, a historically black college in Daytona Beach, Florida. As the university’s president, Edison Jackson, began to award DeVos an honorary degree, many students in the crowd started to boo, while faculty applauded. A mere seconds after DeVos began speaking, the room erupted in shouts. A number of students turned their backs on the speaker, who attempted to elevate her voice above the crowd’s for the majority of her time on stage.

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They can’t decide whether to wear black capes or white hoods!

From POLITICO:

As they fleshed out the budget blueprint released Thursday morning by the White House, Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney said officials from the administration of President Donald Trump asked themselves: Can we ask the taxpayer to pay for this?

For a dramatic uptick in military funding, Mulvaney said, the answer was yes. For a wide array of domestic programs, it turns out, the answer was no.

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Branding Iron(y)

From THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR:

Eric Cantor, the often combative second-ranking Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, sought on Tuesday to rebrand himself and his party, voicing hope that they can work with President Barack Obama for the sake of all Americans.

While not wavering from his conservative principles and desire to tame the record U.S. debt, Cantor expressed a new eagerness to help the needy in such areas as education, health care, immigration and moving up the economic ladder.

“Over the next two years, the House (Republican) majority will pursue an agenda based on a shared vision of creating the conditions for health, happiness and prosperity for more Americans and their families,” Cantor said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank.

Because Widdle Ewic and his merry band of Ayn Randian teabaggers are all about health, happiness, and prosperity for everyone [insert eyeroll here].

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(From Left to right in back, top row: Paul Broun, Trent Franks, Joe Wilson. Bottom row: Louie Gohmert, Steve King)

Ass Warfare

President Barack Obama:

Either we ask the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share in taxes, or we’re going to have to ask seniors to pay more for Medicare. Either we gut education and medical research, or we’ve got to reform the tax code so that the most profitable corporations have to give up tax loopholes that other companies don’t get. We can’t afford to do both. This is not class warfare. It’s math.

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Theocrazy

From Dana Milbank at POST OPINIONS at The Washington Post:

Yes, [Rick] Perry is passionately anti-government, or at least anti-this-government. But the man who suddenly tops the Republican presidential polls is no libertarian. Rick Perry is a theocrat.

And he’s not the only one.  I’m lookin’ at you Botox Batshit Michele Bachmann and Princess Sarah Palin!

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A Tale of Two (P)Ricks

From THINK PROGRESS:

Yesterday, ThinkProgress caught Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) on video threatening Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke during a trip to Iowa. Perry, the latest Republican to announce a campaign for the White House, called any effort by the Fed to provide monetary stimulus “treasonous in my opinion” and added that he would treat Bernanke “pretty ugly down in Texas.” On CNN this afternoon, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), another candidate in the race, slammed Perry’s comment and said any suggestion of treason is pure politics:

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Separation of Brain and State

From El Paso Times:

HOUSTON — Spotlights shined on a stage that seemed set for a massive rock concert.

Three 18-by-24-foot projection screens allowed an estimated 30,000 people to watch and pray, sometimes on their knees, as Texas Gov. Rick Perry and other speakers took the stage and called on God to lead “a nation in crisis.”

Attendees at The Response, a Christian prayer event and brainchild of Perry, at times appeared as if they were at a rock performance: raising their arms in the air, weeping and singing along to lyrics that included “God end abortion.”

And, like a rock star, Perry, 61, beamed as he twice walked on stage to adoring fans or, in this case, the conservative Christians he eagerly hopes to woo as he weighs his national political aspirations.

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It’s Burnt and Made With Devilled Ham

From The Guardian:

It was easy wandering round the corridors of Congress yesterday to spot who had won the debt standoff. In huddles with party colleagues or heading off to caucus meetings to discuss the details of the deal or standing in front of TV cameras, it was the Republicans who had all the smiles.

Democratic members of Congress looked uneasy, at times shifty; and some downright were angry. “If I were a Republican, this is a night to party,” Emanuel Cleaver, a Democratic member of the House from Missouri, told MSNBC. Cleaver, a Methodist pastor and chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, which met to discuss its reaction to the deal, dismissed it as a “sugar-coated Satan sandwich”.

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