Just sorta political: when public servants said stupid things

[Kasey Chang]

Secretary of Energy Rick Perry told an audience at an Axios/NBC event that fossil fuel will prevent sexual assaults in Africa.

"... But also from the standpoint of sexual assault. When the lights are on, when you have light that shines, the righteousness, if you will, on those types of acts. So from the standpoint of how you really affect people's lives, fossil fuels is going to play a role in that."

[Moliere]

Of course the article's title is click bait and ammunition for random Twitter users.

The full quote:

I just got back from Africa…I think I heard a lady say that there are people dying. Let me tell you where people are dying…in Africa because of the lack of energy that they have there. And it’s gonna take fossil fuels to push power out to those villages in Africa, where a young girl told me to my face ‘One of the reasons that electricity is so important to me is not only because I won’t have to try to read by the light of a fire, and have those fumes literally killing people, but also from the standpoint of sexual assault.’ When the lights are on, when you have light, it shines the righteousness, if you will, on those types of acts. So from the standpoint of how you really affect people’s lives, fossil fuels is going to play a role in that. I happen to think it’s going to play a positive role.

Obviously he's correct that bringing electricity to rural Africa would decrease sexual assaults. We just can't let that goal get in the way of the Climate Change talking point since the real complaint seems to be that he said "fossil fuels" instead of some political correct climate change affirming term like solar/wind power.

[Isgrimnur]

That point and the study link are made in the linked article. But since you avoided the clickbait and didn't read the article, you didn't know it.

[Moliere]

That point and the study link are made in the linked article. But since you avoided the clickbait and didn't read the article, you didn't know it.

Actually, I did read the article. That's where I got my link. I posted here for people who didn't want to click on the original article. If you read my post, instead of jumping to conclusions, you will notice I critique the article's title, and not the article itself. I also critique the Twitter users who used the article's title without context. But thanks for restating what I already said.

[Isgrimnur]

Apologies for my misunderstanding. However, critiquing Twitter users here and excusing the word choice of fossil fuels here does little to address those against whom you are railing.

[Moliere]

The title of this thread is "Just sorta political: when public servants said stupid things". Rick Perry has said a lot of stupid things over the course of his political career. I don't consider this to be one of them.

[Isgrimnur]

Fair enough.

[Jaymann]

How about this one by Ted Cruz:

Yes, my dad killed JFK, he is secretly Elvis, and Jimmy Hoffa is buried in his backyard.

[Kraken]

Can we agree to exclude Trump from this thread right up front? Because he's the king of stupid and he already fills a dozen threads with stupidity.

[Holman]

If this thread is open to R&P types in general and not just public servants, we can just pin a link to Right Wing Watch.

Some of today's headlines there (usually with video):

--Mary Colbert: Trump’s Use of ‘Rough Language’ Is Just Like Jesus

--Steve Strang: The Firing Of Anthony Scaramucci Is A Sign Of Trump's Deepening Christian Faith

--Laura Loomer Goes Ballistic In Anti-Muslim Twitter Meltdown

--Pat Robertson: Trump Should Issue A Blanket Pardon And Shut Down Mueller Investigation

--Liz Crokin: The Hillary Clinton Sex Tape Will Finally Prove That Pizzagate Is Real

--Trump-Allied Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne Says The CIA Controls ISIS And Vaccines Are Population Control

--Sandy Rios: Calls To Move ‘Forward Together’ After NYC Terror Attack Come From Communist Playbook

[Max Peck]

Is Rick Perry really a "public servant" though? I wouldn't say that he's serving the public, in any conventional sense (although I'll grant that he's servicing the public).

[Holman]

Incoming EPA Adviser Thinks Air Is Too Clean.

The Onion is still bringing it!

Spoiler:

Not The Onion. Newsweek. For real.

Robert Phalen, an air pollution researcher at the Irvine campus of the University of California, said in 2012 that children need to breathe irritants so that their bodies learn how to ward them off.

“Modern air,” he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science, “is a little too clean for optimum health.”

[Daehawk]

Why are the people in charge so stupid?

[Kasey Chang]

Why are the people in charge so stupid?

Because we vote them into office who brings more cronies.

Nobody in Trump's administration would ever get another job in politics ever again. So they are going to incur as much "goodwill" to certain industries as they can so they can "consult" later.

How's this: "Ben Carson, the HUD secretary, said he doesn't need to know anything about housing policy. He just need to be able to bully those who do." (Yeah, another Boing Boing clickbait)

[Kasey Chang]

If this thread is open to R&P types in general and not just public servants, we can just pin a link to Right Wing Watch.

The problem is Public Servants can actually do some damage by (dis)serving the public. The kooks on rightwing watch can only do brain damage to their followers.

[Isgrimnur]

Rick Perry

At the annual CERAWeek energy conference in Houston, Texas on Wednesday, reporter Lisa Friedman asked Energy Secretary Rick Perry about certain countries’ plans to stop using coal. Mocking the decision, Perry responded, “I think it’s a fool’s errand to stand up and say ‘by 2030 we’re going to be done with fossil fuels’ … and what? Go back to living like we were living in the mid-1800s?”

Perry seemed to ignore the fact that he runs a department that oversees many of the federal government’s renewable energy programs. Experts in Perry’s own department have made clear that, not only are coal and nuclear uneconomical, but renewable energy keeps getting cheaper and more reliable.

A draft Energy Department study that Perry requested last year concerning whether EPA regulations and renewable energy deployment were a threat to grid stability undermines Perry’s core position. The draft study found that, far from threatening grid reliability by forcing some baseload fossil fuel and nuclear plants to go offline, deploying more renewable energy to the grid actually helps the grid become more stable.

The final results revealed that renewables were a minor contributor to the trend of closed-down coal and nuclear plants, if at all. The real cause was cheap fracked gas.

[hepcat]

Ever since he left Journey, he's just been getting crazier and crazier.

[gameoverman]

I think the stupid part of what Rick Perry said in that story was the 'righteousness' word. It sounds like a moral thing, and what he's talking about is a criminal thing(sexual assault). Either your actions are legal or they are not, righteousness is irrelevant. If it's a public safety problem, poorly lit or even completely unlit areas enable crime, then keep the wording in the public safety realm. It always rubs me the wrong way when public servants try to work their personal beliefs into their statements. They can speak about law and public safety issues while only using statements that apply to everyone. "Fossil fuels are an energy source that could provide light to communities that need it to help reduce crime", there's a statement that applies to anyone regardless of their morals or ideas of what, if anything, is 'righteous'.

Not every public statement needs to be milked for maximum promotion of the public servant's personal views.

[Kraken]

Depends upon whom your audience is. "Righteous" is a dog whistle word.