Ysengrin Blackpaw's Journal

A recent Public Policy Polling survey found that 32% of Republicans polled believe that the federal government is about to try to take over Texas via Jade Helm 15. This rises to 50% of self-identified Tea Party members, to 56% of those who say they would vote for Ted Cruz for president in the Republican primary, and to an astounding 76% of those who would vote for Rick Perry. Sample size was 685 Republican primary voters.

A bit of background; Jade Helm 15 is a two-month long military training exercise in the American southwest. Texas governor Greg Abbot fluffed up the conspiracy theories about this being a cover for a military coup directed at Texas a couple of weeks ago when he directed the Texas State Guard to monitor the exercise.

It should be noted that the percentage believing in an impending coup were similar between those identifying as very liberal (43% coup, 1% of responders) and very conservative (46%, 37% of responders); compare to those who identified as moderate (17% coup, 21% of responders).

Those identifying as Democratic were asked a different set of questions, not including the Texas one.

Shorter Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) over the last few days: ( short politics under the cut )

At least she does say she doesn't intend to take up twerking.

Nobody has said anything, but I'll voluntarily roll out the "politics" screen for posts like this, so folks on my friends list who don't want to read 'em don't have to. This post is to pass along a list of seven constitutional amendments that Rick Perry has published and apparently stands behind as part of his campaign.

Presented without commentary. ( Poltics news under the cut )

Presidential canidate Mike Huckabee on Christianity and the American Constitution:
( Behind the cut for those who want to ignore it )

Frank McKenna, Canada’s former ambassador to Washington, referred to the United States on Friday as "a theocratic state" ...

"Right now the United States is in many ways a theocratic state, not dissimilar to some of the other religious states in the world where religion has a huge part to play in government ... Canada is truly a secular state. Religion and politics do not mix in this country."

Article here.

Here's a resolution proposed by Don Larsen, District 65 Chairman for the Utah (county, not the whole state) Republican platform:

Resolution opposing Satan's plan to destroy the U.S. by stealth invasion. [...]

Whereas, all polls show that the American people overwhelmingly want limited immigration, reform and control of our borders as mandated by the Constitution. But many do not realize the extent of the dangers ahead because of the lack of accurate media coverage ... that the powerful commercial, political, ethnic, and the godless globalist elites who control the major media do not want the issues of illegal immigration to come to national attention.

Whereas, it is obvious that most promoters of massive immigration and open borders do not like the ideas of patriotism, national identity, sovereignty, our Christian culture and freedom ... Their religion is atheistic humanism. They are found primarily among the elite of foundations, universities, big business, left-wing politicians, Hollywood, ACLU (Anti-Christian Lawyers Union), CFR (Council on Foreign Relations), the American power elite and the liberal media. They prefer a world without borders ruled by a one world tyrannical government.

I call 'em as I see 'em - this guy is a loon.

Apparently the resolution has little chance of passing as-is and being made part of the Utah county GOP platform, let alone the state or national platforms.

Senator James Inhofe (Rep, OK) came up with a real winner on Friday while talking to the press about the war in Iraq:

"The whole idea of weapons of mass destruction was never the issue, yet they [Democrats] keep trying to bring this up ... The media made that the issue because they knew Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction. So we knew that they were there. But that was incidental to the fact we were going after terrorist camps."

So, we were never going to war over WMD (or to spread Democracy, a later rationalization); that was all made up by the (liberal?) media. Gee, I remember this:

"After eleven years during which we have tried containment, sanctions, inspections, even selected military action, the end result is that Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. And he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon ... Saddam Hussein must disarm himself -- or, for the sake of peace, we will lead a coalition to disarm him." -- George W. Bush, October 2002

President Bush mentions "supporting terrorism" very briefly in that speech - but it's a tiny whisper drowned out by the WMD talk. We were going to make war on Iraq before Iraq could make a "mushroom cloud" somewhere in the US, or so Bush said.