ThinkProgress filed this report from The Response rally in Houston, Texas.

On Saturday, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) held a prayer rally with an assortment of right-wing pastors in Houston, Texas. ThinkProgress attended the supposedly “nonpolitical” event, and noticed a parade of Republican politicians and consultants milling about backstage. To our surprise, we encountered former House Majority Leader Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), who told us that he was attending as a private citizen.

We spoke to DeLay about some of the issues in the news, including the possibility of another government shutdown next month when the continuing resolution budget expires. DeLay, who helped manage the Gingrich government shut down in 1995, said this time Republicans should refuse to negotiate and should close the government “until they get what they want.” He also said he is “always praying” for reducing the size government, even if that means a closure of federal agencies:

FANG: Regardless of the current leadership of Congress in the House, how do you think Congress should proceed in general as the C.R. runs out next month? There could be a government shut down–

DELAY: They’re going to face another shut down. And hopefully this time they’ll let it shut down until they get what they want. Everyone points to the shut down we had in ’95 and says it was a horrible thing. The horrible thing was when Bob Dole walked out on the Senate floor on Sunday afternoon and re-opened the government. Including in President Clinton’s own book, that if we’d had held out for one more day, we’d have won. […]

FANG: Were you praying today for reducing the size of government even if it comes to a government shut down?

DELAY: I’m always praying for reducing the size of government!

Watch it:

DeLay wouldn’t comment directly on the leadership of his successors in Congress, like current House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA). But he did say he hopes they take a harder line against Obama to defeat him in 2012.

A new CNN/Opinion Research poll released today finds Republicans’ popularity badly bruised by the bitter debt ceiling debate, with the GOP’s unfavorable ratings climbing to an all-time high of 59 percent. The party’s favorable ratings, meanwhile, dropped eight points over the past month to just 33 percent. “The Democratic party, which had a favorable rating just a couple of points higher than the GOP in July, now has a 14-point advantage over the Republican party,” said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

The network brought on RNC Chairman Reince Priebus this afternoon to respond to numbers. While saying he hadn’t studied poll in depth, Priebus embarked on stunningly brazen spin, blaming the drop in Republicans’ approval on President Obama. Despite host Brooke Baldwin’s repeated attempts to get Priebus to address the GOP’s unpopularity, the chairman kept going back to Obama:

BALDWIN: To what do we attribute this? Fallout from the debt ceiling debacle?

PRIEBUS: First of all, I haven’t really looked at it too deeply, other than the fact that I think it’s true that people are frustrated with a lot of what goes on in Washington. I think, most of all, people are frustrated with the president who continues not to lead during the most important in our country. But it’s not just a matter of leadership, Brooke, it’s a matter of what this president has put in place when he’s had the opportunity to lead. [...] He put in Obamcare.

BALDWIN: Hold on, Reince Priebus. [...] You see the numbers right there. Now versus July.

PRIEBUS: Okay, Brooke, and I told you, I think people are frustrated with politics in general. But the reality is we have a leader in Washington –

BALDWIN: Well, you mentioned the president, but I’m asking you specifically about your party.

PRIEBUS: I think people are frustrated with a lot of people in Washington. [...] And we have a president who is not a willing partner.

Watch it:

Party chairmen are expected to present news in the most favorable light for them and their party, but blaming his party’s unpopularity on the head of the other party is comical. And CNN’s poll is not the first to show that Republican congressional leaders’ intransigence and hostage on the debt ceiling hurt them politically. Americans overwhelmingly disproved of the GOP’s handling of the debt negotiations, and 74 percent of even Republicans thought revenue increases should have been part of the final deal.

Priebus’s comments once again show here’s nothing conservatives aren’t willing to blame Obama for.

In the current era of Islamophobia, anything remotely “Muslim-ish” touches off paranoid delusions of impending jihad, particularly when it involves American emblems — like Whole Foods. Last week, the suburban staple decided to tout “Saffron Road,” a new line of Halal-certified frozen food, to coincide with the Muslim holiday of Ramadan. Halal foods are items permitted under Islamic dietary guidelines. In a post on the company’s website entitled “What’s this halal about,” Whole Foods offered a chance to win free samples because “whether you eat halal because of your religious dietary guidelines or you simply prefer to choose food that’s made with high-quality, responsibly farmed ingredients, then Saffron Road has some tasty offerings for you.”

It seems that a “very small” contingent of consumers and right-wing bloggers simply preferred to throw an apoplectic fit. Thus, in apparent genuflection to this bloc, Whole Foods sent an email to all its U.S. stores specifically telling the franchises not to promote Ramadan this year. The Houston Press obtained a copy of the email:

“It is probably best that we don’t specifically call out or ‘promote’ Ramadan,” reads a portion of that email. “We should not highlight Ramadan in signage in our stores as that could be considered ‘Celebrating or promoting’ Ramadan.”

This reversal marks “a significant departure from years past, when Whole Foods has promoted its halal items during Ramadan with small signs that displayed a crescent moon, the symbol of Islam.” What’s more, the move is hardly likely to placate the small number of fringe bloggers who are already boycotting the chain for “pimping and promoting–’Canaan Fair Trade’ and ‘Palestinian Fair Trade’ Olive Oil.” But given the conservative credentials of Whole Foods owner John Mackey, perhaps its surprising the company even considered recognizing Islam in the first place.

Whole Foods responded that the company has not stopped the campaign. It states it is still highlighting halal but also maintained it is still “not specifically [promoting] #Ramadan after some negative comments.” In any event, as Gawker notes, the whole episode does serve as a kind of flow chart for future faux-controversies: “Are you a racist xenophobe who dislikes anything at all for any arbitrary reason? Simply complain loudly on your blog, and Whole Foods will obsequiously cater to your every last prejudice.”

Violent riots have swept London all week. The Washington Post reports that last night, “Rampant looting and raging fires engulfed swaths of London on Monday as the wave of civil unrest that has gripped this sprawling capital escalated sharply.” Tonight, 16,000 police officers will take the streets to try to control the situation.

This morning in the National Review, Stanley Kurtz suggests that President Obama privately supports the violent protesters. Here’s how Kurtz makes his case:

The London riots have already kicked off the latest version of the seemingly never-ending debate over whether such events should be seen primarily as political protests by the powerless, or as out-and-out lawbreaking and vandalism. Back in 1992, Obama clearly leaned toward the former.

I found the press release Obama issued to get Project Vote rolling, in the ACORN archives at the Wisconsin Historical Society… Said Obama in 1992: “The Los Angeles riots reflect a deep distrust and disaffection with the existing power pattern in our society.” That’s Alinsky-speak for “We’ve got to use the power of the angry underclass to put capitalism in check.” [...]

I certainly don’t think President Obama would openly speak about events in London the way he spoke about the L.A. riots nineteen years ago. What he thinks to himself is another matter.

What better way to figure out what Obama thinks about the riots in London than sifting through 20-year-old press releases in the ACORN archive?

Kurtz didn’t let the fact that nothing in the ACORN archive even begins to support the conclusion that Obama supports people who are burning down buildings and smashing store windows in London. He simply translates the press release into “Alinsky-speak” and the logic of his conspiracy theory is complete. The National Review antipathy toward Obama apparently runs so deep that no leap of logic is too great to support their contention that he is a secret “radical.”

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) has already made one slavery-related gaffe during her presidential campaign, signing a pledge produced by the Iowa FAMiLY LEADER that included language suggesting black children were better off under slavery than they are now. Bachmann offered half-hearted apology at the time, saying she had only signed the “candidate vow,” not the part that included slavery, and compared it to “economic enslavement” brought on by taxes.

But in his profile of Bachmann released yesterday, The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza revealed that Bachmann’s “worldview” on slavery goes much deeper. In 2002, then-state Sen. Bachmann’s campaign posted a “must-read” list of books on her web site. Included in the list were the Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, and a book titled, “Call of Duty: The Sterling Nobility of Robert E. Lee,” authored by J. Steven Wilkins. The Lee biography includes this apologetic passage:

Northerners were often shocked and offended by the familiarity that existed as a matter of course between the whites and blacks of the old South. This was one of the surprising and unintended consequences of slavery. Slavery, as it operated in the pervasively Christian society which was the old South, was not an adversarial relationship founded on racial animosity. In fact, it bred on the whole, not contempt, but, over time, mutual respect. This produced a mutual esteem of the sort that always results when men give themselves to a common cause.

The credit for this startling reality must go to the Christian faith.

Wilkins goes on to claim that slavery existed on a “relationship of trust and esteem,” that positive race relations may have progressed further if the pro-slavery South had won the war, and that Lee, despite being a slave-owner himself, “never held any animosity for blacks.”

After explaining the “cruelty and barbarism” of “pagan” Africa, he goes on:

The fact was (and is) easily demonstrable that, taken as a whole, there is no question that blacks in this country, slavery notwithstanding, were “immeasurably better off” in nearly every way [than they were in Africa].

In Lee’s view, however, emancipation could only be accomplished successfully if it was gradual. Time was needed for the sanctifying effects of Christianity to work on the black race and fit its people for freedom. [...]

Abolitionism was not the best answer.

The idea that the relationships between white slave owners and black slaves were not founded on racial animosity has no basis in history. Whites viewed themselves as inherently superior to blacks, who were bought and sold as property and, for population counts, were worth only three-fifths of a white person. The idea that sanctifying blacks through Christianity made them “immeasurably better off” than they would have been in Africa, meanwhile, ignores the utter loss of humanity caused by enslavement. It ignores the untold number of blacks who died on slave ships, the sale of blacks at auctions as if they were livestock, the families split up at an owner’s whim, and the loss of all basic human rights, not least of which was their own free will.

Bachmann has a history of using slavery analogies, and she has made multiple mistakes regarding American history already in her campaign. None, however, is nearly as disturbing as her love for a book that attempts to explain away the horrors of slavery by rewriting history to make it seem like it was a minor price to pay for the sanctifying favors whites did blacks by bringing them to America as slaves.

Today, Wisconsin voters will head to the polls for the special recall elections of six Republican state senators who supported Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) anti-union bill that stripped public workers of collective bargaining rights. While Walker can tread the recall backlash until January of 2012, Wisconsinites are forcing him to face the music now.

Last week, Wisconsin kicked off its 10-day state fair. It’s traditional for the governor to herald the fair’s opening day. But when Walker took the stage Thursday, he was met with a hail of boos and protests signs. “This is the one place where all across the state where people can actually come together,” he tried to shout over the crowd. “At least most people can.” As he walked off stage, the crowd chanted “Recall Walker.” Watch it:

Walker seemed to “ignore the jeers,” but whenever he graced the stage, the crowd met him with boos and chanting. After his attempt to speak, Walker tried “some chocolate-covered cranberries on a stick — in private.”