Trump’s Secret Saudi Nuclear Tech Transfer

Secretary of Energy Rick “Oops” Perry secretly authorized seven U.S. companies to export nuclear energy technology and services to Saudi Arabia. This came to light last week when Mr. Perry testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Trump Adminstration has been working on these deals in secret for over a year, without consulting Congress, which is not pleased.

Hey, what could possibly go wrong?

More:

“Trump administration authorized nuclear energy companies to share technological information with Saudi Arabia,” Steven Mufson, Washington Post

“If You Cannot Trust Saudis With Bone Saw, Says US Lawmaker, ‘You Should Not Trust Them With Nuclear Weapons,'” Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams

“A Saudi nuclear deal is causing lawmakers from both parties to worry,” Rachel Oswald, Roll Call

Updates:

“Report: Saudi Arabia Making Brisk Progress on Experimental Nuclear Reactor,” Tom McKay, Gizmodo

“Why Is President Trump Attempting to Build Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear Energy Program?” Kate Wheeling, Pacific Standard

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Rick Perry Named Secretary of ‘Oops’

President-elect Donald Trump nominated former Texas governor Rick Perry as Secretary of  Energy, a department GOP candidate Perry would have abolished if he could have remembered what it was:

Rick Perry Heads for the Bunkhouse

Republican Rick Perry left the campaign trail and headed back to his Texas bunkhouse on Friday. There’ll be an empty place ’round the CNN warm-up debate campfire this Friday. Adiós, pard.

More:

“Rick Perry’s Ride Into The Sunset Comes Before High Noon,” Ron Elving, NPR

“Rick Perry Meets His Alamo,” Gail Collins, New York Times

“Adios, Mofo: Perry Cashes Out,” Christopher Hooks, Texas Observer

Related:

“Rick Perry, George W. Bush, and the death of the cowboy conservative,” Matt K. Lewis, The Week

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Pataki Joins the Umpteen Other Contenders for the 2016 GOP Nomination

Last week former New York Governor George Pataki announced that he is running to be the 2016 Republican Presidential candidate. He’s got three big problems. Number three is the big crowd of contenders ahead of him. His second-biggest problem: Since he left office in 2006 the Republican Party has run away from his social positions, veering quite far to the Right. His number 1 problem? No one knows who he is anymore.

Saint Ronald

Rick Perlstein wrote a book about Barry Goldwater in 2001; William Buckley praised it. George Will praised Perlstein’s 2008 best-seller Nixonland. Today’s conservatives are not fond of Perlstein’s new publication, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan.  They’re attacking it, and its author.

“What changed?” asks David Weigel. “This time Perlstein is writing about Ronald Reagan. Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan—Perlstein has moved from covering a minor saint, to a martyr, to God.”

Besides this charge of blasphemy,  conservatives chastise Pearlstein for paying attention to the facts and not making up his own, like they do. How unoriginal. He must be a plagiarist.

More:

“It’s Not Rick Perlstein’s Scholarship that Seems to Be in Question. It’s His Politics,” Peter Charles Hoffer, History News Network

“A Question of Character: Craig Shirley’s Scurrilous Attack on Liberal Historian Rick Perlstein,” Adele M. Stan, The American Prospect

“Rick Perlstein: ‘Ronald Reagan absolved America almost in a priestly role not to have to contend with sin. The consequences are all around us today,’” David Dayen, Salon

 

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Rick Perry Picks a Running Mate

Texas Governor Rick Perry used the occasion of the Republican Presidential Debate & Quiz Show to announce his running mate:

“The idea that we would put Americans’ economy at . . . jeopardy based on scientific theory that’s not settled yet, to me, is just nonsense I mean . . . and I tell somebody, I said, just because you have a group of scientists that have stood up and said here is the fact, Galileo got outvoted for a spell.”

— Rick Perry, via ABC News.

This is a controversial position for a Tea Party Republican in these sceptical times. It might even be taken to mean that Mr. Perry actually believes that the Earth revolves around the Sun, when anyone can plainly can see it’s the other way ’round. The Perry campaign has not responded to questions about those provocative implications.

Rick Perry, Economic Genius?

Governor Rick Perry thinks he got hisself a big ol’ “Texas Economic Miracle,” and he’s aimin’ to bring it to the rest of the country as U.S. President. How’s he gonna do it? Simple: discover oil and gas in the other 49 states, open more military plants and bases everywhere, encourage more US investments by drug lords, and increase public sector employment by 19%, just like he did in Texas.

But just why does the Governor think there is a “Texas Miracle,” anyway, when unemployment in his state is about the same as that of, oh, New York? Maybe because economic genius Rick Perry got a “D” in Economics at Texas A&M.

Rick Perry Throws His Stetson in the Ring

Rick Perry is bored being governor of Texas and is seeking the Republican presidential nomination. Lately, the Governor has spent lots of time praying for rain, so he waited until he could rain on Michele Bachmann’s parade before entering the race. Rep. Bachmann’s landslide win in the Iowa Straw Poll (152 more votes than Ron Paul!) was forgotten in the media rush to photograph Mr. Perry, who has much better hair.

If at First You Don’t Secede ….

Last Wednesday, Governor Rick Perry told a group of teabag-wielding Texans that the state might secede from the Union again. This won him cheers from the crowd — unsurprising, since Mr. Perry is a former Aggie cheerleader. Now that we think about it, that appears to be his major qualification for public office.