Texas Relevancy? Never Mind

A few days back I posted a discussion of how some people in the Republican Party of Texas wanted to change the rules in regard to how presidential delegates are allocated in the Republican Primary.

See, there was this concern that because the Democrats howled and moaned about how the 2011 redistricting was unfair, and this caused our state primary date to be moved way back, that Texas would not be relevant in the 2012 primary.

Besides, polls had Rick Santorum beating Mitt Romney by 8 points.

Changing the rules to winner-take-all would make Texas, and by the way, Rick Santorum, relevant.

But what a difference a week makes. Republicans who were simply trying to make the Texas Primary relevant, and that’s it…they promise…have backed down.

Instead, they say that the rule change will be something that the delegates at their state convention will get to vote on.

Leaving out the fact that the Romney-backing mainstream Republicans of the RNC has made it abundantly clear that they will not allow Texas to change their rules so close to the primary date.

Leaving out the fact that the chief reason for their movement was to get more delegates in Rick Santorum’s column, a moot point now that he withdrew from the race last week.

I love Texas Republicans. Their disingenuousness and their transparent motives make things so entertaining that it adds to my list of things that are cool about Texas. A list of three things: 

1. Bluebell Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream
2. Barbecue
3. Republican hypocrisy

Relevant or Recalcitrant?

Let me tell you a sad tale of woe. Texas’ primary has been attacked by the lefties and the US Supreme Court had to put a stop to them. When our glorious state legislature passed by a vast majority, redistricting plans that made complete sense, the liberals tore their clothes and threw ashes in their hair. No fair, they cried. Our Mexicans won’t be able to vote for a Mexican candidate. Our minorities will be denied representation in the legislature.

So they went to court, as is their want, since they can’t win at the polls, and got a federal district court, probably left-leaning despite the two Republican justices on it, and put a halt to their plans. But then the US Supreme Court in all of its wisdom and conservative views to keep federal hands off of local politics overturned that court’s decision.

But now Texas’ primary won’t happen until the last week of this month, after 43 states have had their primaries and caucuses.

See? The liberals made Texas lose its relevancy. The relevancy that would have helped Texas Republicans be the ones who could actually be a deciding vote in who will run against that…that…Muslim.

Texas cannot be irrelevant, you see. Cannot.

So here’s the plan. The SREC, the executive committee that runs the Republican Party, will call an emergency meeting to change the party’s primary policy from one that awards delegates proportionately to each candidate’s polling, a very regressive policy, to a winner-take-all policy where the majority candidate gets to rake in every delegate in the Texas delegation.

That makes Texas relevant, you see.

Aren’t we clever? Oh, that and Rick Santorum, who trails Mitt Romney badly in the delegate count is ahead of Romney in the Texas polls by 8%. But the one thing has no relationship with the other. Texas conservatives just want their relevancy stored. That’s all.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Still Not Mad at Anyone

Day Two of not being angry at anyone or anything.

Well, OK, this really pisses me off, but Nick Anderson summarizes it so well. A picture is worth 10,000 words.

See, Texas has discrimminated against a women's health care provider. You know, the people who provide free services to women who can't afford our high-priced medical care - the highest priced medical care in the world. Cancer screenings. Contraception. Counseling.

Things that prevent abortions from happening.

Oh and they also provide abortion services, but these are taken care of on a different set of books. Totally unrelated to the other services.

Nevertheless, the Texas Legislature, in its infinite stupidity, has written Planned Parenthood out of the equation, violating federal rules. You can't discrimminate between these healthcare providers. So Texas has lost all federal funding for women's healthcare. No funding, no women's healthcare.

The GOP is in open warfare against women. Open warfare. Not only do they demand that women not use contraception to avoid getting pregnant, but to use it solely for the other benefits that are known to exist, but they also demand that women submit to sexual congress only when they want to conceive a child. I think that women should comply with that latter wish, if her significant other holds to that belief.

Want to see GOP-Crazy? Withhold sex from these sex-possessed people.

New Jersey Assembly OKs Gay Marriage Act

Well today the state of New Jersey became the latest state to join the exclusive club  of states that permit gays and lesbians to marry one another. This Reuters piece affirms that the vote was decisive at 42 for and 33 against. The bill awaits Governor Chris Christie’s signature, one that won’t be forthcoming, and the vote margins in either of New Jerseys houses are insufficient to override his veto.

Chris Christie, a self-avowed anti-big government governor, apparently isn’t anti-big government when it comes to legislating morality. When it comes to deciding that the love of one’s life cannot visit their loved one in his or her hospital room, or be included on his or her health insurance policy.

But Christie is clever. Or so he thinks. Christie wants to put the question to a popular vote. That is, representative government is not qualified to decide what the people want – a key principle in representative democracy. This issue, it seems, is so important to Christie that he thinks it should be put on a referendum.

Christie thinks it’s clever because he can duck out of being the Republican governor who bent to the will of the people by signing this legislation into law. But here is the key flaw to his logic.

New Jersey residents overwhelmingly support gay marriage. It’s in all the polls. Passage of a referendum on this issue is all but assured. But here we have Chris Christie on the one hand complaining about excess government spending and on the other demanding additional expense of public funds to hold a referendum on a settled issue.

An issue whose only additional expense, at this point, is the price of the ink that would have been used to sign the bill into law.

Chris Christie is rapidly becoming a poster child for Republican hypocrisy.

Off With Her Head

Heads need to roll.

Yesterday, a spokesman for the Susan G. Komen for The Cure foundation announced that it was not going to continue to support Planned Parenthood with continued funding for breast cancer screening, a popular and necessary function of the group that saves women’s lives on a daily basis. The reason, as found here, is that one of the foundation’s directors, and who knows, maybe others, bent to the pressure of conservative congressmen who have been trying to drive Planned Parenthood out of the healthcare business for a couple of years now. Their sin? A small portion of the services that they provide to women is the performance of D and Cs. Abortions.

Komen foundation senior vice president and self-avowed lifelong Republican, Karen Handel, made a “retweet” of a Twitter posting by an anti-choice advocate “Just like a pro-abortion group to turn a cancer orgs decision into a political bomb to throw. Cry me a freaking river.” Obviously a reaction to the tremendous backlash reaction among pro-choice advocates upon hearing of the policy change.

The reaction was swift and angry from people of all political persuasions, and donations to Planned Parenthood came pouring in from all over. How, some asked, can the Komen foundation advocate for cancer prevention and cure when they withhold funds from one of America’s main healthcare provider to women who ordinarily cannot afford it?  Today the Komen foundation backpedaled and announced that they would continue to support Planned Parenthood.

And that’s fine. But it sounds really hollow. This reversal lacks sincerity. It is more in the nature of covering their collective behinds than being really and truly repentant. It’s more about image than a substantive change in policy.

That’s why Senior Vice President Karen Handel must lose her job. Karen Handel needs to go. And to make it sweeter, former Komen foundation director of community health programs, Mollie Williams, who resigned in protest of the new policy, should be rehired to replace Handel.

Do that, and I am a believer.

Cain Isn’t Able

You want a working definition of a zombie? Herman Cain.

Zombies are the walking dead, and Herman Cain qualifies as a classic example of someone who is dead but doesn’t know it or want to admit it. Today Herman Cain tried to lay off the allegations of his former mistress on (probably) some white guys who want him out of the race.

Now, it’s probably true, in Republican politics, that white guys want Herman Cain to be out of the race to the nomination. He has become an embarrassment, much like Newt, Mitt, Ron, Rick, Rick and Michele, but Cain has the unfortunate reputation, now of making moves at white women. Republicans will forgive a lot. They will, for instance, forgive a man who fooled around while his wife was being treated for cancer, and divorced her when she didn’t have the courtesy to die real soon.

They won’t forgive a black man for making moves on white women who are asking for a little help.

They won’t.

So Herman Cain is about as dead as Marley’s Ghost.

Deader.

He’s as dead as the skunk that I ran over on the way to work today.

And the stench in Cain’s case is even deeper.

But he just doesn’t know it. Or maybe he does, but still hasn’t sold as many books as he wanted to.

They Have Womanizing in Common, But Newt’s Up and Cain’s Down?

OK, now I have to ask this question. Newt Gingrich is well-known for his sexual dalliances with women not his wives, 3 at last count. And wife number two was on death’s door when Newt divorced her so he could marry the woman he was fooling around with at the moment, his present wife.

And Newt, supposedly because of this and other issues, like his flip-floppiness on the issues and his massive spending, is now up in the polls, beating Mitt Romney in a primary election by several percentage points.

Yet Herman Cain, equally a womanizer who has gotten several accusations of sexual harassment, and today, an announcement of a 13-year affair with another woman, who volunteered the information, is way down in the polls, in the low teens.

What’s with that?

Why do Republican voters love them some Newt despite the fact that he cheated on two wives, most recently when he was trying to get Bill Clinton impeached for the same thing, and turn their backs on Hermann Cain for his sexual misbehavior?

A double standard exists, I think.

Gee, I wonder what it is…

Gaddhafi Gets a Bullet: Congratulations President Obama

Well if no one else will say it, I will say it. Were it not for a singular military policy of President Obama, the news today that Muammar Gaddhafi’s life has finally ended would have never seen the light of day. As a matter of fact, the news today could have been about the hundreds or thousands of Libyan rebels being executed as punishment for being on the wrong side of a revolution when the world allowed the mad dictator of Libya to wage war on his own people.

When the US and its allies stepped in to provide material support and air cover for the Libyan rebels, Gaddhafi’s army was set to invade rebellious Benghazi, level it, and murder its citizens. That didn’t happen.

And where were the Republicans on this? As usual, either ignoring it completely or casting disparaging remarks on Obama’s policy, a policy that worked. A policy that worked without the loss of a single American life.

Senator Richard Lugar is famous for his immediate poor opinion of US involvement in the Libyan revolution. In March, when the conflict broke out, he is famously known for saying this. From CNN:

“I do not understand the mission because as far as I can tell in the United States there is no mission and there are no guidelines for success.”

To which we can now say, nothing succeeds like success.

Then there was The Newt on Meet the Press:

“I think that now the -- let me draw a distinction. I would not have intervened. I think there were a lot of other ways to affect Qadhafi. I think there are a lot of allies in the region that we could have worked with. I would not have used American and European forces.”

Let me finish for him: “I would have allowed thousands of Benghazi citizens to die at the hands of a government that is supposed to protect them.”

Truth is, this has been a policy that worked a whole lot better than the removal of the Iraqi government.

And now I am listening for the plaudits and praise from Republicans over yet another Middle East success story. And what am I hearing?

Crickets.

There, You Got Your Federal Dollars, Now Shuddup

I heard this morning from Congressman Lloyd Doggett that President had signed a disaster declaration for the burning counties in Texas. Now I see that this is definite as discussed in this article in the Chron.

Now Governor Rick “Fed Up” Perry and Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst can finally stop their whining. And the Senate-hopeful Lieutenant Governor can stop trying to reap political capital on the backs of now-homeless Texans.

But I wonder where is Eric Cantor in all of this? Aren’t we supposed to pay for this federal aid somehow? Maybe we should defund NOAA. Maybe paying for all those prescription drugs to keep our aging society out of the grave needs to be reconsidered. They’re really old, you know, and don’t pay any taxes.

One thing I am sure of, though. It is very probable that Rick Perry didn’t pray to Jesus for the President to sign the declaration. Because we know very well what happens when Rick Perry prays to Jesus for anything. Like the last time Rick Perry prayed to Jesus for Him to bring rain, Texas caught fire instead.

And Now David Dewhurst Asks for Federal $$$

Now if it weren’t for the fact that thousands of families in Bastrop County – and elsewhere – have been burned out of their houses I would be laughing aloud over this. Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst has sent not one, but two letters to President Obama asking that the burning counties in Texas be declared a disaster area.

Thus qualifying Texas for federal assistance.

Like taxpayer dollars.

Dewhurst sent the 2^nd letter because he says that there has been no reply from President Obama.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

"Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who attended the briefing, said that he wrote a second letter today to President Barack Obama, asking for aid. An earlier one was not answered, he said."

Dewhurst is obviously ignorant of the fact that there is a process and the President has people who handle this and make recommendations to him. Then he declares disaster areas.

Either that, or, more plausibly, David Dewhurst is trying to make political capital over the misfortunes of Texas homeowners who have lost everything in these fires.

He’s running for Senate, you know.

There is nothing lower than someone who tries to grab the microphone for a publicity moment my standing on the shoulders of these poor unfortunate ones. Not even a snake in a ditch is lower than that.

Debt Ceiling Vote Passes. (Groan)

News Item: Debt Ceiling Vote Passes the House 269 to 161.

Now, just what went into their ruminations over this? Matson has it about right I think.

Rick Perry's Illegitimate Love Child

My friend Susan was quoted in "The Nation" this week.

This is an impressive feat for a blogger, or even a not-a-blogger as Susan claims, and I am glad to write that I know her and she has helped me become a better blogger over the years. And yes, while Susan is "not a blogger" I am because only 6 people read my blog and none of those 6 take any of my advice or suggestions.

Here is what "The Nation" quoted Susan as writing in her not-a-blog with regard to Texas' new spending levels for public education.

"Texas is setting a new standard by setting new lows."

I quite agree and have stated and restated my case on this here over and over again in recent weeks. It is, in fact, the number one subject that has occupied my mind since we all found out that the GOP-run state government has been spending more than it was taking in, and doing so in proportions that can only be described as "Californian." In California they have a law that says that the budget must be passed by a 2/3ds majority so you don't even have to be in the majority in California to run its economy into a ditch.

In Texas, you still do.

So I think this cartoon by Nick Anderson published last Friday in the Houston Chronicle has some bite to it and I wanted to post it here in case any of my 6 readers missed it.

 

Perry's Feud With Feds Serves No One But Perry

Rick Perry is in it for himself.

That was a tagline for the last election when Texans decided that they would rather have a low brow governor backed by Chuck Norris than an intelligent (but bald) successful businessman and ex-mayor of a large metropolis.

So when Rick Perry decides to deride the federal government over their handouts, and takes those handouts whenever he can - except the ones meant to ease the pain of the unemployed - but then co-authors a book (because he didn't write it himeself) called "Fed Up" he wonders why, why oh why doesn't he get federal disaster dollars for the fires in drought-striken West Texas.

One reason: the Feds are fed up with Rick Perry. And guess who suffers? Rick Perry? No, he is making hay on being stiffed.

Texans and Texas are suffering for Rick Perry's antics.

Elections matter.

On Being Unconstitutional

FortBendNow is running a piece today about the $830 million that is coming to Texas via the feds now that the Doggett Amendment has been repealed and Texas state leaders no longer have to guarantee that education funding in Texas won’t go below the allocation that education got in the last budget.

Recall that this amendment, special to Texas, was so that Governor Perry won’t take the Texas allocation that goes to education, put it in the education budget, and then extract $830 million from it to be redistributed to places he likes.

Like he did with $3 billion last time Texas got federal dollars for public education.

Tracy Hoke, Chief Financial Officer of Fort Bend ISD is taking a wait and see approach to see if this infusion of federal money will affect the school district’s budget over the next two years.

From FortBendNow:

“It is our understanding that the federal education funds will be applied to the shortfall this biennium,” said Hoke. “The district is unsure of how the allocation of the award will impact the state funding allocation to public schools during the upcoming biennium—so it is just too early to tell.” 

My guess is that the CFO is not willing to bet that the federal dollars will do anything, anything at all to improve the situation that public education finds itself in, in Texas for some of the same reasons that I wrote about in this blog posting.

When there is that kind of free money out there, count on Rick Perry to perform an encore to his 2009 performance and play a shell game with this $830 million. Now you see it, now you don’t. Hey presto, 16,000 more teachers to the unemployment lines.

All of this because Rick Perry, a constitutional scholar, said that it was unconstitutional for him, as governor, to make any guarantees about how the education budget will look like in the next biennium.

Well, how about this, and speaking of the constitution. What about the part of the Texas constitution that speaks to funding of public education. Specifically this from Article 7, Section 1:

“SUPPORT AND MAINTENANCE OF SYSTEM OF PUBLIC FREE SCHOOLS.  A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”

Yeah, that one.

Is what Governor Perry and the Republican-dominated legislature are doing unconstitutional? Why does Governor Perry cite the constitution for what he can’t do on one hand, yet blithely ignores the constitution in doing (or in this case, not doing) something else on the other?

Hypocrisy? Greed? A desire to end public education as we know it?

You know, there is precedence in the law about this. Judge John Dietz, who became the thorn in the side of the legislature in 2004 when he found the massive under funding of public education to be unconstitutional, was the main cog in the machine to change the way education was funded. However, because property values were on the rise, the taxation rate on property tax was decreased by the Republican-dominated legislature from $1.50 per $100 assessed valuation to $1.00 per $100, with school boards allowed to raise that rate to $1.04, which most of them did.

Then property valuation dropped after the great recession of 2008-2009. And so did revenue.

But no corresponding rise in taxation rates, because, oh no, can’t do that during a recession.

Judge Dietz, where are you now? Does someone need to file another lawsuit?

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that State Senator Debbie Riddle, she of ‘Anchor Baby’ fame on AC360, had filed yet another anti-immigrant bill. But this one, I said at the time, Republicans have no intent on its successful passage.

This is because it hits hard right at the center of the illegal immigration problem: employers actively seek out illegal aliens so they can pay them miserably and keep them under their thumbs. Big money donors to the Republican Party make heavy use of illegal labor. This is common knowledge and it sweetens the sheer hypocrisy that pervades the anti-immigrant rhetoric spewing forth out of Republican mouths.

Making it a felony that includes a $10,000 fine and jail time if an employer knowingly hires an immigrant in the country without a work permit punishes the true criminals in this issue: American citizens, not illegal immigrants who are only here because there is so much money to be made here as opposed to their own countries it far outweighs the risks involved.

I still think Republicans have no intention of passing this bill, but while there seems to be  even more reason to think so because it reeks of the hypocrisy that the bill was meant to correct, there may yet be another agenda playing out here. An agenda based on greed.

The hypocrisy is that is because, come to find out, there is one exception to not being able to hire illegal aliens, and that is that private citizens who hire domestic help can still hire illegal aliens without penalty.

This is such a glaring loophole, termed the “laundry loophole” by Back to Basics, that it clearly indicates complete insincerity. And it seems to be unconstitutional to boot. Individuals who own companies are liable for prosecution and punishment if they hire an illegal, but a private citizen would get off scott free.

So Maria would be a problem for the owner of a meat packing company, but not a problem for Debbie Riddle if she works as Riddle’s housekeeper.

That’s how you solve a problem like Maria.

But who knows. The other agenda that may be behind all of this is that when illegal aliens can no longer find jobs chopping up chickens at Tyson, they will have no problem finding a job as a gardener or a nanny. An artificial domestic labor market is created where there are no alternative jobs available to drive up the competition -  and wages. Cheap domestic labor becomes even cheaper domestic labor.

Either way. This bill reflects on the one hand Republican hypocrisy and on the other hand, Republican greed.

Take your pick.

So Be It

Republicans must be dancing in the street.

Republicans were swept into office in 2010 with two promises, repealing “Obamacare” and restoring jobs to unemployed Americans.

So how are they doing?

Well, on one happy note, Republicans in the lower House voted to repeal the law that the Democratic House and Senate passed last year to put affordable health care out of the reach of millions of Americans . . .again.

That is, they voted to restore the old broken system that drives some Americans to bankruptcy, and other Americans to their early graves.

Not bad, not bad. All except for the fact that the same bill hasn’t a gnat’s chance in a hailstorm of passing in the Senate let alone getting a signature from my President.

And now we see that they have rolled up their sleeves to attack the number two item on their agenda: getting Americans back to work.

Oh, except if you work for the federal government. If you work for the federal government then you face a dim future indeed, courtesy of John Boehner and the Republican majority in the House. As a matter of fact, according to this story, you might as well just pack it in and get some of those unemployment insurance applications ready to fill out. Stick a fork in you, you are done.

John Boehner says so. As a matter of fact, he is quoted as saying that if federal workers are going to be out of a job, then “So be it.”

From the Washington Post:

“House Speaker John Boehner expressed little sympathy Tuesday for federal workers who lose their jobs as the result of Republican budget cutting.”

“‘In the last two years, under President Obama, the federal government has added 200,000 new federal jobs,’ Mr. Boehner told reporters Tuesday morning during a press conference in the lobby of the Republican National Committee, according to various news outlets. ‘If some of those jobs are lost, so be it. We’re broke.’”

Nice, huh?

And then I had to wonder where the Speaker got his facts from, from the prize in his box of Cracker Jacks? 200,000 jobs?

Figures lie and liars figure.

According to the federal government’s central clearing office for federal workers, the Office of Personnel Management, the HR Department in other words, that’s just not so.

“According to Office of Personnel Management statistics, 82,692 full-time federal workers left the federal government in fiscal 2009 and agencies added 142,687 new hires, for a net gain of 59,995 jobs.”

But mark my words you 59,995 workers, even if you are not 200,000 strong, John Boehner has it out for you. And you and your families can just kiss his orange butt. Because if you are going to get the axe on his watch, so be it.

And next time, try and vote for the party that cares about whether or not you have a job, OK?

Riddle Lives Up to Her Name

State Rep. Debbie Riddle (R-Tomball) has filed another anti-immigrant bill.

Now normally this would be non-news on a no news day because Debbie Riddle always likes herself some anti-immigrant legislation. And it would appear that she didn’t get the memo that was going around that Hispanic voters were going to be a force to be reckoned with in the very near future.

Voters who you don’t want to hack off by being . . . well . . . anti-them.

But when I looked in this a little deeper, I realized that Debbie Riddle was herself posing a riddle:

Q: What do you call a Republican-sponsored bill to assess fines and imprisonment on American citizens for hiring illegal aliens and in so-doing, paying them significantly lower than legal residents?

A: A bill destined to die in committee, even with a Republican super-majority.

Cutting to the chase, so as not to bury the lead as I usually do, there is no way Republicans are going to allow this bill to pass. Texas’ economy, particularly in the areas of agriculture and construction, depend on illegal immigrant labor to keep profits up and prices down. And nothing has changed except for the fact that the economy is hurting more than not, so actually passing this bill will make things worse, not better.

Everyone knows this, including Rick Perry, who until just recently was on the side of looking the other way when an illegal alien got a job in Bob Perry’s (no relation) home building firm.

So when we saw Debbie Riddle file HB 17 which allows state law enforcement to arrest those who are in the country in violation of federal criminal immigration laws, I said, yes, that makes sense – except it is going to cost state law enforcement agencies an extra bunch of money to carry out that mandate, funds that aren’t forthcoming from the state.

And when we saw Debbie Riddle file HB 18 which would deny state funding to so-called “sanctuary cities,” I said yes, this is where we get the money to fund HB 17.

And when we saw Debbie Riddle file HB 21 which requires state agencies to report the cost of services the agency provides to illegal aliens, I said yes, this would be the best way for state agencies to refuse service to illegal aliens, or to people who may look or act like them – and that saves money for HB 17 as well.

And finally, when we saw Debbie Riddle file HB 22 which requires schools to report the citizenship and immigration status of students to the Texas Education Agency, I said yes, that makes sense just like HB 21 does. We’re going to have a student:teacher ratio crisis here in Texas very soon. What better way to cut down on the student numbers than to refuse to admit illegal aliens, or anyone who may look or act like them?

So all of that made perfect sense to me, in a vile Voldemortesque vision, that is.

But this bill, HB 1202, makes no sense at all. True, Rick Perry asked for such a bill in his “State of the State Address,” but I’m pretty sure that he had his fingers crossed behind him as he made that request, just as Debbie Riddle had hers crossed when she filed that bill.

Republicans have not been, are not, nor ever will be serious about true immigration reform because illegal alien labor is what makes Texas’ economy tick just as surely as black slave labor made the economy of the Antebellum South possible for a couple of centuries.

Submission of this bill is nothing less than a callous bone thrown to Teabaggers. No serious Republican will vote for it, and really I doubt it will ever see the light of day on the House floor.

But I really do look forward to hearing a debate on this bill. And a vote. I’d love to see Republicans put their money (literally) where their mouth is.

I just don’t think it will ever, ever, happen.

Why California is Eating Rick Perry’s Lunch

It probably really helped Rick Perry in the last election when he made the bold, and up to this time, unchallenged assertion that ‘Texas is Eating California’s Lunch.’ It gave him credibility, and it gave the pro-business sensible conservative approach to governing a lot of credence.

It’s true. Take a look at how Perry crowed and bragged about how he was leading Texas to a rompfest last October.

From Rickperry.org:

“But most impressively, the state goes out of its way to recruit businesses to its precincts. Governor Rick Perry famously takes “hunting trips” in California for businesses sick and tired of our deadly combination of high taxes and absurd regulation. Even Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband recently moved workers from the Orange County office of his CB Richard Ellis real estate company to Dallas. According to the Claremont Institute’s William Voegeli, between 2000 and 2007, California lost 1.1 million people while Texas absorbed 500,000 new arrivals.”

But now that Texas is reporting somewhere between a $15 and $27 billion dollar revenue shortfall, putting it in the same league as California and other cash-strapped states, it seems that the worm has turned. And now that people are looking a little closer to these bold and brash claims, they are finding that Emperor Perry indeed has no clothes on.

From the LA Times:

“Even Perry's claims of companies that have decamped from California to lay down roots in Texas appear to be overblown. When the Austin American-Statesman looked into the Texas governor's boast that there were 153 such companies in 2010, reporters found the claim included California firms that stayed put but maybe opened a Texas branch. The newspaper concluded that Perry's figure was grossly inflated.”

Yikes, et tu American-Statesman?

California dines on Rick Perry’s fine taxpayer-paid cuisine and fine wines, while Rick Perry dines on a  fresh steaming

A World Without “Obamacare”

I like this Op/Ed piece by Matt Miller at the WaPo. It was a rather brilliant article , news coverage of the signing of a bill to bring National Health Insurance to America. And I like it because it makes two very valid points: by voting to repeal the Affordable Health Insurance for America Act, the Republicans have not opted to replace it with anything.

Anything.

Instead, they have opted to return to the same old way. A way, the piece points out, that is surely taking us down the road to medical and economic crisis as quick as you can whistle “I Shot the Sheriff.”

“Meanwhile, as you know, Brian, health costs kept soaring, employers kept dropping coverage they could no longer afford, and by the 2016 campaign, with 70 million Americans uninsured, something had to give. It was Hillary Clinton's moment, Brian.”

The second grand point is that Republicans are using this very serious issue as a political football. They are just playing a game. They had no concern for public welfare or the health of their constituents, not as long as they had their own government-paid health insurance coverage, that is. And in making their petty political points while America crashes and burns, it is quite possible that this will open the way, as Dennis Kucinich claims, to bring about true health insurance reform: Medicare For All.

“That's right, Brian. Obama modeled his reform on Mitt Romney's in Massachusetts. It had an individual mandate because of something Republicans privately understood: The only way to reach universal coverage through private health plans that cover folks regardless of health status is to require everyone to be in the insurance pool. If people are free to wait until they're sick to buy in, premiums soar and coverage erodes. Republicans who knew better assailed the mandate not because they really cared about some constitutional defect - after all, that could have been fixed easily by structuring incentives to buy coverage as opposed to a mandate. They did it because it was a way to take a bite out of Obama. In the near term, it worked. In the long term, they lost the chance to preserve the private-sector role they claimed to cherish in health care.”

It’s obvious to me or to anyone who has thought about this at any great length that our health insurance system is absolutely broken and the Affordable Health Care Act was only a start. This piece makes it crystal clear that if we cannot get health insurance reform now, ahead of the curve, the curve will surely catch up with us.

Hocus Pocus You’ve Lost Your Focus

What happens when you get 80 new Republicans in the US House of Representatives and have lost 63 Democratic seats in the same body? Well, it seems to be the same thing that happens when you get a super-majority of Republicans in the Texas State House.

You get out your top hats, handkerchiefs, cards, wands and rabbits because its time to deflect everyone's attention from what is important with smoke, mirrors and sleight of hand.

In congress, Republicans are making exactly the same mistake that the Obama Administration did in 2009.

In 2009, when Americans asked where were the jobs Obama gave them healthcare reform. Not a bad deal, but Republicans spun up such a festival of lies about it that it was easy to alarm and enrage voters that this was something that they didn’t want, and where were the jobs?

In 2011, Republicans are busy trying to pass legislation to undo the undoable, to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act. Next they want to go after abortion. Their second favorite topic: taxpayer funding of abortions.

From NPR:

“At the federal level, anti-abortion forces scored significant gains in the House of Representatives, and majority Republicans introduced two bills Thursday to toughen restrictions on taxpayer funding of abortions. One is aimed specifically at Obama's health care law; the other would establish a permanent, government-wide ban on federal subsidies for most abortions.”

Taxpayers pay for abortions? Since when?

Nevertheless, this is truly magical because these are two red meat issues with the conservative base, and this will convince them that they did the right thing last November when they sent some pretty interesting characters to Washington to legislate.

But Americans will still ask the important question: Where are the jobs? What are you doing to bring the jobs back?

And Austin mirrors DC like nothing before.

In Austin Governor Perry has just designated legislation to require a photo ID for voters to gain access to polling places be an “emergency item.” An emergency item so that they may start the voting process before the mandatory 60-day waiting period.

An emergency item.

So. . . the $27 billion deficit is not an emergency then? Is that what Governor Perry is saying? That he’s got it handled?

Not when you ask the hundreds of school boards across the state, all of which are looking at a bare cupboard when it comes to state funding.

But there it is, in black and white, in the Austin American-Statesman:

“Gov. Rick Perry designated the legislation known as voter ID as an emergency item, meaning the Legislature can take it up within the first 60 days of its 140-day session. Hours later, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst told state senators that they will consider the bill next week — a highly unusual move less than two weeks into a session.”

State Rep Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio has it exact when he said this:

“Things apparently are all shiny and bright in Rick Perry's world. For the rest of Texas, we want to take some serious emergency action on the budget.”

Because while Governor Perry and his conservative clique fiddle with voter ID legislation, Texas surely burns with the possibility of thousands of state workers and teachers taking on the new roles of unproductive non-tax-paying citizens.

But it makes for a great magic act, doesn’t it?