Shocking Sexual Assault at CPAC 2020

Serial adulterer and habitual flag molester Donald Trump forcibly assaulted Old Glory in full view of the entire 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference at a Maryland casino-hotel on Saturday. He unconvincingly murmured “I love you, baby” into to the flag’s field of stars. This is a clear violation of the U.S. Flag Code and common decency but, once again, the GOP failed to call SVU.

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Serial Flag Molester In 2-Hour Hostage Situation

On Saturday, a 72-year-old flag molester held a crowd of conventioneers hostage for over two hours at a Maryland hotel while he delivered an expletive-laced rant. The situation concluded without casualties, and the perpetrator’s unhinged utterances were fact-checked. The miscreant had been observed groping the national banner three years ago in Florida and at a meeting last year where he boasted of separating children from their mothers.

There is no national registry for violators of the Flag Code of the United States.

More:

“The 7 most bizarre moments from Trump’s long-winded CPAC rant,” Amanda Sakuma, Vox

“The 7 Most Bewildering Moments From Trump’s CPAC Speech,” Andrew Kragie, The Atlantic

“15 Claims From Trump’s Speech to CPAC, Fact-Checked,” Linda Qiu, New York Times

“Trump’s unhinged CPAC speech should concern us all,” Eugene Robinson, Washington Post

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NRA speaks 7 Days After Florida School Shooting

The National Rifle Association has been silent on Twitter since the Parkland school shooting, but NRA VP Wayne LaPierre is listed as a speaker at this week’s Comic-Con for Conservatives, the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference. CPAC is being held at the Gaylord Convention Center at National Harbor, near DC but closer to a casino. While Mr. LaPierre is a staunch foe of gun-free zones, the Gaylord is one.

Wayne LaPierre isn’t on the CPAC agenda, but since the NRA is CPAC’s biggest sponsor and the biggest donor to GOP campaigns, he’s certain to deliver his usual demagoguery. There’s a half-hour slot on Thursday’s agenda at 10 AM marked “Special Programming,” so that’s our bet. Mike Pence will bless the gathered wingnuts afterwards, at 10:30.

The rest of the 2018 CPAC is a cavalcade of conservative celebs, not just The Apprentice‘s Donald Trump, but disgraced former Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr., talk radio ranters Dana Loesch and Mark Levin, Fox flakes Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, and Sebastian Gorka, and that guy from Pawn Stars.

But CPAC 2018 is not all “America First.” France’s holocaust denier and National Front pin-up person Mademoiselle Marion Maréchal-Le Pen and the UK Independence Party spokesmodel, and Brexiteer Nigel Farage will add European élan to the conservative conclave.

More:

“Less Intellectual and More Salacious”: Commercialized, Trumpified, CPAC Is Adrift.” Tina Nguyen, Vanity Fair

Related:

“Five types of gun laws the Founding Fathers loved,” Saul Cornell, The Conversation

“The NRA’s step-by-step playbook for responding to a mass shooting,” Heather Timmons, Quartz

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Dr. Ben Carson at CPAC

Ben Carson MD addressed the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) this weekend, formally announcing that his presidential campaign is definitely deceased, passed on, is no more, has ceased to be, has expired, is bereft of life, has kicked the bucket and shuffled off this mortal coil, has run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.

Dr. Carson has accepted a job as chairman of a new group practice, the Christian Catatonic Conservative Congregation, and will urge inert evangelicals to go out and vote. And buy his books.

CPAC 2015

The 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is underway at National Harbor, near the casino construction site, and would-be GOP presidential candidates are trying their luck. CPAC is sometimes called Comic-Con for Conservatives, and there’s certainly lots of fantasy-and-science-fiction role-playing:

John Bolton: “I feel I have a civic obligation to escort Hillary and Bill Clinton to the exit door of American politics.”

Brent Bozell: “Cultural fascism has arrived in America.”

Jeb Bush:  “Our position needs to be to re-engage with a strong military and a strong presence. We can’t disengage in the world and expect a good result. As we pull back, voids are filled. Iraq is the best example of that.”

Ben Carson: “What am I ready for? I’m not ready for Hillary. But what am I ready for? I’m ready for a country who puts our constitution on the top shelf.”

Chris Christie: “Sometimes people have to be told to sit down and shut up.”

Ted Cruz: “We all know that in a campaign, every candidate comes up and tells you, ‘I’m the most conservative guy that’s ever lived,’ that’s just what they say. I’m pretty confident you haven’t seen any speakers come up yet to say, ‘I’m a squishy moderate who stands for nothing.’ … Every one of them will say, ‘You betcha, hoo diddly, I’m as conservative as all get-out.’”

Nigel Farage: “Every time we do these things we’re told by our leaders that it’s to make the streets of London and New York safer. I would claim that we’ve actually enflamed and stoked the fires of militant Islam.”

Carly Fiorina: “Hillary may like hashtags — but she does not know what leadership means.” “I know Bibi Netanyahu” “I know King Abdullah of Jordan”

Sean Hannity: “I can look out in the crowd, I kinda have Fox X-ray vision, and I can see that some of you women, you don’t even know it yet, but you’re pregnant. It’s not your fault. It’s not his fault.”

Laura Ingraham: “Why don’t we just call it quits, and Jeb and Hillary can run on the same ticket.”

Bobby Jindal: “We must repeal every single word of Obamacare.”

Rick Santorum, GOP Martyr

Evangelical Christian billionaire Foster Friess introduced Rick Santorum to the CPAC congregation as the most persecuted Tea Party Saint in the room. Mr. Santorum, former Republican senator, failed presidential candidate, and erstwhile Pope of Pennsylvania, didn’t follow that with a Sermon on the Mount. He sounded more like Jeremiah, excoriating the assembled for espousing heathen beliefs like “tolerance,” “inclusion,” “birth control,” and “helping the middle class” in futile attempts to get elected.

Mr. Santorum urged the conservative congregation to chase the moneylenders from the GOP Temple with scourge and torch. Presumably Foster Priess bought a Pennsylvania Papal Indulgence with the millions he spent on Rick Santorum’s failed 2012 presidential campaign. Rick Santorum has not ruled out another Crusade for Christian Theocracy in 2016.

More:

“The Pope of Pennsylvania,” Marie Burns, NY Times Examiner

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Paul Ryan, School Lunch Expert

Yesterday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan (R, WI-1) addressed the faithful and told them of his new platform. He wants to steal school lunches from poor kids.

Mr. Ryan told a story he says he got from Eloise Anderson, but the story was stolen, too.

“She once met a young boy from a poor family. And every day at school, he would get a free lunch from a government program. But he told Eloise he didn’t want a free lunch. He wanted his own lunch—one in a brown-paper bag just like the other kids’. He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown-paper bag had someone who cared for him.”

“The left is making a big mistake …. What they’re offering people is a full stomach and an empty soul. People don’t just want a life of comfort. They want a life of dignity, they want a life of self determination.”

Mr. Ryan’s policy is neatly summed up by Paul Krugman: “Let Them Eat Dignity.” Oh, and the book the story was swiped from? A portion of sales goes to a campaign that “connects kids in need to effective nutrition programs like school breakfast and summer meals” and opposes Ryan’s cuts to food stamps.

Mr. Ryan knows nothing about lunches for the poor, but he’s an authority on a poor lunch. Nutrition-poor, anyway. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “One of his summer jobs in college was as an Oscar Mayer salesman in Minnesota, peddling turkey bacon and a new line called ‘Lunchables‘ to supermarkets.” He once drove the Wienermobile for Oscar Meyer, and that was his last honest job. He’s peddled his bologna as a DC political hack ever since.

More:

“Paul Ryan accidentally makes the case against means-testing,” Ned Resnikoff, MSNBC

“Paul Ryan’s Soul Food,” Ed Kilgore, Political Animal

“A story too good to check: Paul Ryan and the story of the brown paper bag,” Glenn Kessler, Washington Post Fact Checker

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Rick Santorum Aspires to Higher Office

Former Senator Rick Santorum delivered a rousing sermon to the CPAC congregation on Friday. He was quite emotional, upset over his failed Christian Theocracy campaign for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination and his defeat in this week’s election in Rome. Mr. Santorum had done quite well in the papal primaries but lost to fellow Italian American Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

So Rick Santorum will continue doing the Lord’s work as lobbyist for spiritual advisor to America’s corporate masters. Until the next conclave or election, anyway.

 Related:

“The Pope of Pennsylvania,” Marie Burns, NY Times Examiner

“Rick Santorum’s son defeated in (class) presidential campaign,” Kristen A. Lee, New York Daily News

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Romney Remaindered

CPAC is under way, the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual carnival of costume-wearing Tea Party loons, gun-waving paranoids, anarchists libertarians, and bombastic demagogues conservative intellectuals. Last year, when Willard Mitt Romney was running for president, he told CPAC that he was “severely conservative.” This year CPAC is telling Mr. Romney that he’s a severe loser. He will be delivering his first public speech since the election, but CPAC scheduled him at a marginal Friday session. Even Sarah Palin and Donald Trump are getting better slots.

But which is more irrelevant, Mitt Romney or CPAC?

J the P @ CPAC

Republican celebrity Joe the Plumber, who isn’t a licensed plumber and whose name is really Sam, seeks the trust of the people of Ohio. He says he wants to run for Congress there, so naturally he’s campaigning in Washington DC. He’s at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference. Of course, nobody cares. And by “nobody,” we mean Herman Cain.

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