It is that time of year again when the things of nightmares haunt the days of the living. Of course I’m not not talking about Halloween, but the Values Voter Summit!

The Family Research Council’s annual fiesta of insanity once again featured the biggest names of the modern-day conservative movement: Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, Michele Bachmann, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, and the Duggar family!

As much as I would love to discuss how some dipshit from Duck Dynasty believed “the evil one” tried to destroy his duck show, I’ve chosen to focus on snowmobile party shit kicker, Sarah Palin and the Values Voter Summit’s 2014 presidential straw poll winner Ted Cruz.

After firing up the crowd and giving a shout out to the “mama grizzlies” (which are incredibly outnumbered by male grizzlies), Palin began launching zingers like she was pitching jokes in a sitcom writers room.

“In two years it’s going to be the end of an error, the Obama error.”

The biggest reveal of Palin’s appearance may be that Dr. Evil is her speech writer.

The former Alaskan Governor tackled the important issues facing our nation, specifically, the criticisms from liberal blogs: “The lies that they tell about you, calling you the intolerant one, the haters, the bigots?”

To be clear, this was said from the stage of a convention held by a Southern Poverty Law Center registered hate group.

“Oh, and that disgusting charge of being racist? You know, I’m speaking to the most slandered group in America today.”

Well, somebody has to stick up for the nation’s straight, white population.

Palin has her work cut out for her if she hopes to find a group at this convention that has been slandered more than that of the homosexual community by the Family Research Council. A quick sampling of the views of the FRC:

• 
Homosexuals have entered the Boy Scouts organization for predatory reasons.
• Homosexuals are more likely than heterosexuals to commit child sex abuse.
• Pedophilia is a homosexual issue.
• Same-sex relationships are more violent than heterosexual relationships.
• Homosexuals seek to abolish all age consent laws.

Palin, goes on to defend the conservative brand from racism by name-dropping former GOP Florida Representative Allen West. At this point, Palin has literally become that person who desperately claims they aren’t racist by saying “I have black friends.”

Later, Palin takes a moment to celebrate the veterans: “And for those of you who served, I love being able to point you out even if you get embarrassed, and I love to ask you to stand up, you vets, so that we can honor you – we can salute you and thank you, United States military. We love you!”

She loves them so much, she joined a rally against the closure of the World War II memorial during last year’s government shutdown. A government shutdown that she encouraged and cheered on from the sidelines.

Palin even supported an extended shutdown, telling Fox News’ Cavuto, prior to the memorial rally, to “let government chill for a little bit.”

Although Palin showed zero concern of the negative consequences of the shutdown, Veterans of Foreign Wars spokesman, Joe Davis, had a different outlook. “We have to be hopeful that Congress will reach some sort of compromise before millions of disabled veterans and survivors are financially devastated.”

Palin was joined at last year’s rally on the memorial by Texas Senator Ted Cruz, the man who spearheaded the shutdown resulting in the closure of the memorial in the first place. Cruz also appeared at the VVS the same day as Palin.

The Dr. Seuss aficionado spun his greatest hits like a junior high dance DJ, attacking the Affordable Care Act law: “And in 2017, with a Republican president in the White House, we are going to sign legislation repealing every word of Obamacare.”

Apparently Cruz hasn’t read the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office’s March 2011 findings on a repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

Responding to the effects of the Republican legislation, Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act, the CBO concluded: 

“…repealing the PPACA (ed. note: “Obamacare”) and the health-related provisions of the Reconciliation Act would produce a net increase in federal deficits of $210 billion over the 2012-2021 period as a result of changes in direct spending and revenues.”

Earlier this year, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf posted that the CBO stands by its original projections that the healthcare reform will reduce the deficit.

Just past his speech’s midpoint, Cruz mentioned the Little Sisters of the Poor case against the ACA’s contraception mandate: 

“Right now the federal government is suing the Little Sisters of the Poor to try to force Catholic nuns to pay for abortion-inducing drugs.”

There is SO much wrong in this one sentence, I’m not sure where to begin.

The government is not suing the Little Sisters of the Poor. The Little Sisters are actually the plaintiff in this case. Cruz was an Adjunct Professor at the University of Texas School of Law and he doesn’t know what a plaintiff is?

In my first piece for Drinks and Wings in 2012, I wrote about the contraception mandate under the ACA. The mandate originally exempted churches but not religious affiliated institutions (which is the category the Little Sisters fall under).

The White House reacted quickly to the concerns of these institutions and amended the mandate. Under the mandate, the cost of female contraception would fall to the insurance companies, not the employer.

All the Little Sisters have to do is fill out this 2 page form and they are free of any obligation to cover the costs of contraception coverage.

Cruz uses the word abortion when actually discussing female contraception, which prevents pregnancy. Does this guy even know how to tie his shoes?

Cruz and other speakers at the asylum, I mean Value Voters Summit, praised the Supreme Court Hobby Lobby ruling. The court’s decision ruled for-profit companies with religious owners could force their views upon their employees health insurance coverage. Of course, conservatives like Ted Cruz only saw a judgment that served his religious view against women’s healthcare.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s brilliant 35-page dissent from the court’s decision includes the new potential reality Ted Cruz is too foolish to recognize: 

“Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); anti-depressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations (Christian Scientists), among others?”

“I certainly respect the belief of the Hobby Lobby owners,” Ginsberg told Yahoo Global News‘ Katie Couric after the ruling. “On the other hand, they have no constitutional right to foist that belief on the hundreds and hundreds of women, who don’t share that belief.”

Cruz’s defense of the Hobby Lobby and Citizens United rulings are a couple steps closer to insuring that Mitt Romney was right when he claimed “corporations are people.”

One could simply look at the lack of arrests among the largest banks involved in the financial meltdown or the recent faulty ignition recall (accountable for 13 deaths according to GM) at General Motors to realize this isn’t the case.

While Cruz defends First Amendment rights for money (literally), he has no problem violating the First Amendment’s Establishing Clause by forcing his religious outlook on such issues as abortion and same-sex marriage.

While our nation engages in a middle eastern religious war, Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin spoke of a religious war occurring in the United States that no sane person can see.

“It’s not the economy, stupid. Rather, it’s the culture, stupid.” Louisiana Governor and part-time exorcist Bobby Jindal told his VVS audience. Sell that to the person still looking for a job, buddy.