I Say it Here it Comes Out There

That’s a quote from one of my all-time favorite films “Broadcast News.” It seems that the character that Robert Brooks plays, Aaron Altman, has been left out of a weekend news special when a Libyan air force pilot attacked an American base. He was singularly qualified to be involved in this, having interviewed Moammar Ghadaffi but was stuck at home watching the broadcast on TV. Every once in awhile he thought of something and called his friend who was producing the show, and tell her something that would be immediately relayed to the news anchor. Then he’d watch in amazement as the news anchor repeated what he just said.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that I just posted the other day that Rick Perry was making noise about running for re-election in 2014 and then maybe back for another try for the presidency in 2016. A statement that made me sit back in my chair in utter disbelief.

Clueless Perry had no idea what he had done to Texas and Texans in his abortive attempt to reach way beyond his qualifications to become president. He made himself, Texas, and Texans a laughingstock of the nation. Of the world. There was no way he would ever be re-elected and probably would not survive a primary challenge, I wrote.

Well the Austin American-Statesman just came out with a new poll and guess what. Perry has a lower approval rating in Texas, in TEXAS mind you, than President Barack Obama.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“Almost 1 in 3 Texas Republicans said Perry's performance on the national stage dimmed their view of the governor, and 40 percent said he should not seek re-election in 2014, the survey found.”

And I’m not saying that what I wrote influenced thousands to change their minds about Rick Perry. And a little further down: 

“‘But probably the greater sin is he made Texas look bad to other Americans,’ she said. ‘There were an awful lot of people who said he made the state look bad, and they were unhappy about that.’”

But it sure good and well feels like it.

Super PAC Polls Democrats for Jim DeMint

Ha.

Not 5 seconds after hitting "Publish" on my Blogger edit page for the posting that appears below, the phone rang, and Caller ID said it was from Washington DC. It was one of those "smart" robocalls that record "yes" or "no" answers.

From the tone of the voice I assumed it was a Republican political call - sounded a little like an automaton - and I was not disappointed.

So I lied mostly.

Then after confirming that I was a Republican they asked me whether I would support the candidacy of "a true conservative" Senator Jim DeMint. And of course I told them "Yes." Jim DeMint is arguably the most right wing conservative in the Senate. An uberconservative. What better way to scare the moderates and Independents than run this turkey against Barack Obama?

So heads up, the final four isn't necessarily final. If this PAC gets a go from its poll, who knows, DeMint may just enter the four-ring circus and make it five.

State of the Union is Tonight

President Barack Hussein Obama’s 3^rd State of the Union speech will be delivered tonight to a joint congress, the Justices of the Supreme Court, his cabinet and invited guests. Watch parties have sprung up everywhere but it’s a school night and I rarely venture out on a school night, so I will pop my popcorn, get into my “Snuggie,” and watch the proceedings from my cold dark living room.

I wonder what they are going to pull tonight. Will we get another belligerent shout out from the floor from some sleazoid Republican with no manners at all? Will one of the SCOTUS Justices shake his head to indicate that what the President was saying wasn’t true?

Now we know the truth of President Obama’s remark about Citizens United. We are now witnessing the fruits of the Supreme Court’s worst decision in the history of history. Super PACs are pouring millions into campaigns. Ironically, it is affecting the Republican primaries more than anything else, creating chaos as one of the final four rises to the lead, allowing them to be clawed apart by PAC money ads spreading lie after lie. Or sometimes, the truth which for some of the candidates, is not a good thing.

What else? What other truth will be completely denied by the professional liars of the right?

Guess I’ll take a tally.

Jessica Farrar to Perry: Reimburse the Taxpayers

Oh isn’t it sweet irony when our governor, who is a self-professed fiscal conservative, gets called out on the carpet by a Democratic state representative, State Rep Jessica Farrar, a true fiscal conservative, about his not so conservative policies with regard to his abortive run for the presidency.

It’s here at the Chron. Today Rep Farrar sent to Rick Perry a letter kindly requesting reimbursement for expenses incurred in having a state-paid security detail while campaigning for the Republican nomination in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. In a separate issue, it seems Ms. Farrar objects to Governor Perry’s double dipping ways, collecting both a governor’s salary and a state pension.

Perry spokesman Lucy Nashed countered that Perry, as governor, rates a security detail at all times, even when traveling out of state.

Yeah, maybe so, but when traveling out of state with a security detail, Perry must be on state business. He wasn’t. He was on the personal business of seeking higher office. That’s not state business. I recall in times past that Perry’s people justified the security detail’s use that Perry was promoting Texas everywhere he went and spoke. Yeah, except that’s not exactly what happened was it? As a matter of fact, Texans have egg on their faces over the fact that they elected this turkey once, and then re-elected him two more times. This dolt is the longest sitting governor in the state’s history.

This makes Texans look like the idiots that they are. And I’m not saying all Texans are idiots, lots and lots of us did not vote for Perry, ever. But we are all painted with the same broad strokes, so we are all tainted.

Perry. Pay us back. You didn’t promote anything but yourself and you did such a bad job at that that you are out of the race and Ron Paul – who can never win – is still in it with money to spend.

It's The Newt in South Carolina

Newt Gingrich had his way against Mitt Romney last night in the South Carolina primary. Pols were saying yesterday morning that it would be Newt by as much as 6%. Now, as I type this, it’s Newt by 12%. So, Okay, Santorum wins Iowa, Romney wins New Hampshire, and now Newt wins South Carolina.  This has not happened in living memory. Republicans are in complete disarray.

Fact: Mitt Romney has something to hide in the way he has paid his taxes or in the way he has hidden his assets in offshore banks. This is doubtless what was going through South Carolinians’ minds in the run up to the election.

Fact: Rick Santorum has ethics problems. While serving in the Senate, he received a mortgage loan at a preferred rate from an exclusive bank run by campaign donors. One requirement for participating in these preferred loans was investment in the bank, something that Santorum has not done. Santorum was also behind a federal earmark for an $8 million to a contractor who also donated to Santorum’s charity.

Fact: Ron Paul is a closet Libertarian who will never, not in a hundred lifetimes, be electable.

And finally, fact: Newt Gingrich is a big-government mainstream conservative. Fact: Newt Gingrich was rejected by his own party and hounded out of office. And fact: Newt Gingrich’s family values should make social conservatives cringe. I am guessing we will be seeing this and similar images on the internet and on TV more than a few times.

You might just now say that this election is Barack Obama’s to lose. Republican candidates can’t have done a better service to the Democratic cause.

Supremes Shaft Texas Primary

Well it isn’t like I didn’t expect it.

When it was announced early today that the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the district maps drawn up by the San Antonio federal court were not going to be used in 2012, I was not surprised. I am fair-minded from time to time and I can see how completely redrawing all of the districts instead of the areas most affecting Hispanics and African-Americans might be seen as unreasonable.

The court ordered the 3-judge panel to follow the template set up by the state legislature and only tweak the areas that were clearly designed to marginalize minority voting strength.

So it’s still a big mess because none of that can be accomplished until the DC court rules, and that won’t be for another 3 weeks or so.

Talk about a mess. Talk about a huge box of tangled hangers. I guess we all get to thank the Supremes for moving our primary date after our scheduled early June state convention dates.

Perry’s In…Then Perry’s Out…Then He’s In Again…Then He’s Out…And He’ll Be Back

Did you hear? Rick Perry finally pulled the plug on his presidential campaign, recognizing what was painfully obvious to every election watcher out there. After “Oopsing” on a nationally broadcast debate, this paper tiger nincompoop governor’s numbers went further south than Tierra del Fuego.

And not a single citizen who watches Perry’s antics were surprised when he imploded.

Again, and again and again.

So after coming in 5^th place in Iowa, Perry flip flopped on pulling out, apparently resigned to the fact that 5^th place was no place to be, but reversed himself on a morning run, an endorphin-induced euphoria I would imagine. Then in running behind “Others” in New Hampshire, Perry shouts for on high “On to South Carolina!” Insanity at its best.

Or maybe his war chest wasn’t empty yet and he had more loot to spend with his friends.

See, it was very telling that in announcing his exit from the election that a major factor in making this final decision was the fact that his campaign donations were off and funds were running low. It became obvious that his continued presence was due to the fact that he had campaign cash and needed to spend it on his friends and consultants, because that is what Rick Perry does. With Perry, one hand washes the other.

So…no more money, no Perry. For now.

Later today we get a Terminatoresque statement from Perry’s communications director:

“Running for re-election as Texas governor ‘is certainly a strong option as would be maybe doing this again in four years if the president wins,’ communications director Ray Sullivan said after Perry’s announcement.”

Get that? He’ll be back.

But here’s what I am wondering. I am wondering if Rick Perry can even draw enough votes to survive a primary challenge in 2014. He has made a mockery of himself to the nation and the world, and a mockery of Texans who are apparently too stupid to notice that the man they elected to that office three times is dumber than a bag of hammers.

Perry: Turkey is a Terrorist State

Oh I love it when my governor, Rick Perry, exposes himself as a complete ignoramus. Actually I hate it. It exposes Texans as even greater ignoramuses for electing him to a third consecutive term – the longest in Texas’ history.

In a recent Republican primary deb ate event in South Carolina, Rick Perry was asked about America’s support of the country of Turkey, mainly in view of the fact that people of the Muslim faith seem to be running it.

Perry wasted no time, characterizing Turkey as a country ruled by “Islamic Terrorists” and not the NATO ally that existed at a time that he was stationed there as a Air Force freight pilot.

An amazingly poorly thought out characterization, as explained by the Turkish Ambassador to the United States.

“Turkey is a secular democracy that has for decades been an essential and trusted partner of the U.S. Our bilateral relations are based on the common values of democracy and respect for human rights, rule of law, and free market economy. Whether in the fight against terrorism or violent extremism, in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria or against the proliferation of WMD, we stand side by side to tackle the many common threats and challenges of our times. Through NATO and bilaterally, Turkey and the U.S. will continue to cooperate day in day out to establish peace, security and prosperity around the world. Contrary to statements during the debate, Turkey receives no significant sums of foreign aid dollars from the U.S. Indeed, Turkey is a strong and growing trading partner with the U.S. in general, and with Texas in particular creating thousands of jobs throughout that state.”

Ouch.

And I have to wonder how Rick Perry ever arrived at the conclusion that Turkey was a terrorist state and all I could find was Rick Perry citing the rate of domestic violence toward Turkish women. Terrorist violence I would guess.


Now, make no mistake, I consider violence toward women like I consider violence toward all people – there is no excuse for it. But equating domestic violence to Islamic Terrorism is just wrong.

And amazingly enough when I googled it to find out what the heck Rick Perry was talking about, using the search terms “Turkey attacks against women” I did come up with an amazing plethora of search results. One of which I embed below for your edification.



Sign the CREW Petition. Clean Up the FEC.

The Federal Elections Commission is broken. Three commissioners, Republicans all, absolutely refuse to enforce our campaign laws, laws that are meant to keep our elections from turning into auctions, where government offices are sold to the highest bidder.

Six commissioners still serve on this supposed watchdog organization despite the fact that their terms have expired.

And now with Citizens United virtually guaranteeing an election cycle where money does all the talking we cannot afford to let the FEC remain a dysfunctional government entity.

So CREW and other public watchdog organizations have started a petition on the White House’s petition website. They need to have 25,000 signatures by February 10^th in order for the president to respond to the petition. At this writing they are 10 percent of the way there.

Go there and sign the petition. You will have to register at the White House website if you haven’t already. But most importantly, if you haven’t yet registered there why are you even reading this?

Whoa. Waitaminute. A June Primary?

There is no one who thinks that the Texas Primary will be held on April 3^rd.  No one. I was at a Democratic Party meetup yesterday and we heard directly from the director of elections for Fort Bend County exactly what would be the timeline should the Supreme Court of the United States deign to come to a decision before February 1^st 2012. The timeline is nightmarish.

The things that they have to fulfill statutorily will be squeezed into a schedule so tight that no way, no how, will it ever happen.

Taking me back to learning of the discussion of a Texas June primary among the Justices.

That would be bad.

Guess what. The Texas Democratic Party’s state convention is scheduled to convene on June 6^th 2012. Lots of stuff has to happen before a state convention can occur, including the primary, the precinct caucuses to happen on Primary Day, and the Senate District/County caucuses to happen after that.

Delegates to the state convention are picked at the Senate District/County caucuses.

And, OK, on top of that, all of the venues for the state convention have already been contracted to the tune of a half a million dollars in commitments. Commitments that the TDP must fulfill even if it cannot meet those commitments.

SCOTUS, in its infinite wisdom to completely screw up the Texas Primary has also put the Texas Democratic Party between a rock and a hard place financially. This is a story that just does not end, and just does not get better.

Federal Judge Rejects Perry/Gingrich Lawsuit Against Virginia

In an exquisite stroke of irony, federal district judge John Gibney rejected Rick Perry’s argument that Virginia’s state law governing the requirements for qualification on their presidential primary ballot were unconstitutional. This means that Rick Perry will not appear on the Virginia primary ballot, nor will Newt, Huntsman and Santorum be listed.

In his decision, this is what Judge Gibney had to say about Perry and others’ sense of timing:

Perry, ironically, sought an activist federal judge to overturn a state law, arguably a very restrictive law, so he could game the system and gain a place on the ballot. In his own state, his attorney general, Greg Abbott, is decrying the very same behavior of three federal district judges who redrew district maps to be used in this year’s primary election in Texas.

In Virginia, apparently, it is OK to trample on state laws and local policies, but in Texas it is treasonous.

“They knew the rules in Virginia many months ago. ... In essence, they played the game, lost, and then complained that the rules were unfair.”