WingRight
Rick Perry
Counting win before chicks are hatched.
If Ted Cruz wins Presidency, it leaves a huge blank if Cruz resigns before Obama is out.
A special election will be called for the next uniform election day or 32 days after election is called.
We’ll need Cruz to resign as soon as elected or wait until inauguration to prevent aggression by the “Office of the Lame Duck President.”
Posted from WordPress for Android. Typos will be corrected!
Texas Governor Greg Abbott endorses Cruz for President
Huge endorsement from Texas’ Governor Greg Abbott. This is one I had been wondering about.
In a video announcing the endorsement, Abbott said,
“Unlike far too many in Washington, the Ted Cruz we’ve seen in the Senate is the same Ted Cruz we elected and he’s the same Ted Cruz I served with when I was attorney general,” Abbott said.
I was very impressed and very proud of Ted Cruz back in 2009, on the day when Kay Bailey Hutchison announced that she would run one more time as Texas’ Senator. Within minutes, Cruz withdrew his bid for Attorney General, rather than run against General Abbott. Although later I became opposed to his campaign tactics, that moment showed integrity.
( I’m just barely cynical enough to think it also showed good political sense. In fact, that only just occurred to me. Doggone it! I want to believe it was character, not simply savvy politics.)
Cruz needs mentoring – to *accept mentoring* – from both Governor Perry, who has also endorsed Cruz, and from Governor Abbott. I hope that he will.
Perry endorses Cruz for 2016
I still haven’t made up my mind and I’m waiting to see how those objections and lawsuits concerning whether Cruz qualifies as a “Natural Born Citizen.” However, the endorsement from Governor Perry is a strong mark in Senator Ted Cruz’ favor:
“I wanted to talk about him, who he was, see if I could get a handle on Ted Cruz the man, not Cruz the caricature I’d seen through the political lens. What I found was a very different person than what I had been led to believe.”
******
“Quixotic crusades over substantive victories”
Today, the Conservative grassroots are shouting raw emotions, masses feeding off headlines, “Shares,” and “Likes,” rather than the meat of the story.
Paul Waldman, in “Why have so many GOP governor’s fizzled out in the 2016 race?”online at “The Week,” astutely describes the insanity that has gripped the Party formerly consisting of Conservatives, but which is now infested with destructive anti’s.
From the article,
”
Over the past few years, the party’s grass roots have been gripped by an anti-politics fervor that values quixotic crusades over substantive victories, and equates actually accomplishing anything through ordinary political processes with betrayal.”
He continues…
“That’s why someone like Ted Cruz, a senator who has never written a law and who, if you ask him what he has accomplished, will tell you about the times he “stood up” and failed to stop Barack Obama and his own party’s leaders from keeping the government open or not defaulting on America’s debts, can still be considered unsullied and thus potentially worthy of the nomination. And those like Donald Trump and Ben Carson, their minds uncluttered by even the remotest understanding of how government works, are the most popular of all.”
Brutal. Truth. Insanity, where failure equals stature and inexperience and ignorance are lauded as qualifications.
Can we re-use the Know Nothing name for our party?
Once upon a time, the grassroots of the Republican Party, especially Conservatives, were researchers, well informed, and capable of reason. It was a joke among us that the real news was hidden in the penultimate paragraph of any news story.
Yet, 14 years of Governor Rick Perry’s Conservative leadership in Texas is mocked amid comments about glasses and his performance over a few months in 2011. Governor Scott Walker won and re-won elections in a Blue State and braved for-hire Union mobs willing to break windows in the Wisconsin State Capitol, but he was simply ignored. Each were treated more seriously by crooked Dem Prosecutors than by Conservatives.
There’s no way this latest crop could have exposed the Clinton’s of the 1990’s – or will be able to do so in the last half of the 2010s. Sticking out the month long re-count in Florida, or defending the Governor’s Mansion in Austin?
Not while dragging that couch they supposedly got off of in 2009 and Tweeting about the “Establishment.”
I’m not being flippant when I say, God help us!
Focus on National Security As A Whole
Ding Dong, the witch is dead – Texas Public Integrity Unit victim acquitted
The final – or at least the penultimate, if you count the Perry case – death knell has rung for the Public Integrity Unit in Travis County. Jurors have found a state employee charged with felony fraud not guilty.
This was another case of Travis County DA attempting to embarrass Governor Perry and the Legislature. One of the rumors whispered about to justify the indictment of Governor Perry for abuse of power by vetoing State tax funds for the PIU was that he was trying to squelch this indictment and trial.
The Unit was based in the office of the Travis County District Attorney’s office, but funded by State taxes and part of our biennial budget. Back in the ’80’s, Travis County DA Ronnie Earle convinced the State Legislature to fund it, although other PIU’s in other counties exist, but aren’t funded by the State. This is the State agency that indicted and convicted Tom Delay for breaking a law that didn’t exist, only to have the case overturned by the State Appeals Court — after 9 years.
Earle also tried to convict Kay Bailey Hutchison, way back in 1993, after a failed attempt to become Senator in her place. That case was handled so badly by DA Earle that the judge ordered the jury to acquit on the first day of trial.
Just last year, the State Legislature removed the ability to oversee Legislative and political matters from the Travis County DA’s office and moved it to the Texas Rangers’ purview.
Just to be sure which agency we’re talking about and because no story about the PIU is complete with out it, here’s a pic of the DA that was the second person to head the Unit and who was convicted of drunk driving. Although she certainly threatened and abused the law enforcement officers and staff, for some reason the PIU never indicted her for abuse of power. 
The Reporter’s the Story
Shame on Breitbart Texas and Bob Price for this luke-warm, back-handed slap at the Governor. Reality isn’t based on media wish lists or election cycles.
The report is a report on reporter’s association of events with election cycles, which completely disregards the actual legislative cycle. There is no mention of our State’s biennial budget cycles. And not one word about the necessity of the Governor or any leader to win the support of Legislators or the austerity imposed by our State’s Constitution when we had to balance the budget in spite of the 2003 and 2011 budget crises. 
We learned that reporters were concerned that two of Texas’ law enforcement surges focused “only” on the Del Rio sector, but Mr. Price couldn’t spare the words to mention that the sector is the southern-most region of the Texas-Mexico border and includes the cities of McAllen-Pharr, Harlingen, Mission, Brownsville, and Corpus Christi – and close to half of Texas’ international bridges.
And second h
ighest in both border miles and apprehensions.
Security of the international border is a Federal responsibility. The Feds refuse to allow States to turn back illegal immigrants at the border or round up people who over-stay their visas. They sue us for any effort they deem to encroach on ICE or Border Patrol, while burdening us with the consequences of their failure to secure the border or track visas.
It’s true that we in Texas, led for 14 years by Governor Perry, did not “secure the border.” However, we – and he – did everything we could, including using Texans’ taxes to back up what the Feds were doing, even when we faced cuts elsewhere.
Edited to add second figure – BBN
False “leaders” call for martial law
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/50158577
Occasionally speaking of herself in the third person, Joann Fleming, the self-proclaimed head of an East Texas “Tea Party” group, led a press conference at the Texas State Capitol on Wednesday. The Fleming gang demanded that Governor Rick Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott order a Special Session of the Texas Legislature (cost: well over $1 Million) in order to spend the Rainy Day Fund (cost: up to $4 Billion) and that the Governor declare martial law (cost: immeasurable).
Fleming (“. . . if you’re like me, your brain will be screaming to you . . .”) shrilly stated that the Federal government has no right to tax Texans “except when they have declared war or a state of emergency” and that “Maybe we can’t count on our State officials to protect us, either.” Calling Texas a “sanctuary State,” Fleming ignored the fact that Governor Perry “alienated some potential supporters after his push to ban so-called “sanctuary cities” in Texas.”
Failed 2014 Republican Congressional candidate, Katrina Pierson, who once called a US Marine Captain “deformed” because of his war injuries, took the stage to complain that 50% of Texas’ budget comes from Federal dollars! Where does she think “federal dollars” come from? In fact, through 2010, Texas was a “donor State. Since then, Texas received a bit more than Texas taxpayers sent to Washington – if you count Medicare, Social Security and the money that supports the military in our State. Sounds like pay back to me.
Another member of the gang, a lawyer, said that the Governor (and Attorney General?) had been getting bad legal advice. When asked what difference this plan would make, since Texas can’t legally deport illegal aliens, the lawyer suggested that the Governor should ignore the law, order the Guard and DPS to deport illegal aliens, and bypass Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He said that the worst that could happen is that President Barack Obama and Holder could sue.
Article 1, Section 10 of the United States Constitution:
“No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”
Under the usual circumstances, the National Guard is under the command of the President of the United States, rather than control of the Governor. As explained by the (far-right wing) Red State last year, the National Guard is not the “militia” of the several States. Instead, the men and women serving in the Guard are considered ‘troops.”
It is true that in times of “imminent danger” the Governor may declare a state of emergency and call up the Guard for duty within the State. You may even remember that in 2010, then-US Attorney General Napolitano told Governor Perry that if he wasn’t happy with the 250 troops sent to the Texas border, he was welcome to call them up himself and pay for it. Unfortunately, the current US Attorney General is Eric Holder.
The emotional demand by one woman, Alice Linahan of Women on the Wall, that Governor Perry and General Abbott “Show us that you’re actually different from Obama,” sums up the cognizant dissonance of the entire press conference. The gang seems to have no understanding of how quickly President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder ignore the law, at the same moment that they condemn it.
Don’t you believe the rumors- Gov. Rick Perry & California
Media tripe:
Asked about the possibility that Perry could be mulling the opposite move, spokesman Travis Considine noted his comment to the magazine came after Perry was asked where he would live if he could live in any state other than Texas.
“I would live in California if I could afford it,” Perry said according to a partial transcript of the interview with Leibovich, which Considine provided Tuesday. “Why wouldn’t you want to live out here? Seriously?”
Considine added that Perry “posed a rhetorical question, which he has answered many times by noting how California’s high cost-of-living is a contributing factor to why people move away from such a beautiful state.”
via Could Texas Gov. Rick Perry be mulling move to … California? | Dallas Morning News.
@GovernorPerry: Supreme Court Declining to Block HB 2 | Texans for Rick Perry
This is great news!
Government, as a tool of and with the consent of the governed, has one job: to protect the inalienable rights of humans. If some – the powerful, the ones with the most votes or most guns – can decide that some humans aren’t human enough to have the right not to be killed, then no one is safe. Our state has determined that we will license doctors and medical technology — therefore, we must restrict the single instance where one human being may decide that another is not human enough and enlist the aide of our licensed doctors and technology to end a life.
AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry today issued the following statement regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to allow Texas abortion restrictions to remain in effect:
“This is good news both for the unborn and for the women of Texas, who are now better protected from shoddy abortion providers operating in dangerous conditions. As always, Texas will continue doing everything we can to protect the culture of life in our state.”
via Statement by Gov. Perry on Supreme Court Declining to Block HB 2 | Texans for Rick Perry.
Christian Medical Association on HB2
Here’s my piece for the Christian Medical and Dental Association’s “The Point,” a weekly newsletter on current events. (This isn’t a 250 word discussion — I snuck in 275 words!)
“At what point do humans become human enough to have the right not to be killed? How should society balance protection for women who choose to abort their children with the burden imposed by that protection?
“While 62 percent of Texasi and 59 percent of U.S. votersii support a ban after 20 weeks, opponents of the bill stormed the Capitol, disrupted hearings and threatened lawsuits that will likely decide whether the law is enforced. In the middle of the noise, both sides told legislators painful stories about the effect of abortion on their lives.
“Texas’ new law bans abortion after 20 weeks, based on the possibility that the fetus can feel pain at the lower limit of viability since the lower brain structures are in place, the thalamo-cortical connections are developing and primitive memory and learning have begun.iii There are exceptions for life and permanent injury for the mother and severe fetal anomalies. The law also requires that abortion facilities meet guidelines required of facilities that do similar procedures like D&Cs. Doctors performing abortions must obtain hospital privileges within 30 miles of the facility and follow FDA guidelines for medical abortions.
“Christian doctors are in a unique position to guide the public conversation toward one of ethics, rather than popular opinion, science or law. We must also demonstrate Christ’s healing love and forgiveness to those who are in pain because of abortion.”
Texas DPS director on “Tampon Gate”
Evidently, there were men who tried to enter the Senate Gallery ith tampons. Sounds suspicious to me!
“The possession of these and other items is not a crime, and therefore, there was no basis to arrest and detain visitors who possessed such items; however, they were denied access unless they discarded the items,” McCraw wrote. “The Department never took possession of these items and had no justification to do so.”
No officer questioned by the San Antonio Express-News or the Texas Tribune could confirm they had confiscated feces or urine or that they had any knowledge of such items being in the Capitol.
McCraw explained the basis for which officers did not allow feminine hygiene products including tampons and sanitary napkins into the gallery.
“The arbitrary prohibition of feminine hygiene products, for example, on its face would seem absurd,” McCraw wrote. “However, the Department received reports that some visitors planned to throw feminine hygiene products onto the Senate floor. One woman attempted to enter the Senate gallery with approximately 100 feminine hygiene products and she was denied access, as were two men who possessed approximately 50 feminine hygiene products each.”
He also said names of visitors with “suspicious jars or other items” were not documented because they did not commit a crime by possessing them and ”it would be unreasonable to document names of visitors based on what they might or might not do.”
Howard responded to McCraw’s with “disappointment with the lack of clarity that he provides.”
“At the end of the day, we are still left with unsubstantiated claims, allegations of suspicious jars but no actual evidence,” she said. “The lack of onsite documentation or eyewitnesses — either from officers or members of the public — seems to undercut the assertions laid out in DPS’ original press release and now their response letter. To be frank, it doesn’t pass the smell test. ”
McCraw added to the list of items that were confiscated and discarded by police including ”paint, confetti, glitter, bottles of bubbles, bags of balloons (not inflated), handheld air horns, a bag full of tomatoes” and two bricks, which were being used to prop doors open and were not going to be used as projectiles, he said.
The Express-News has requested records from the Department of Public Safety regarding the July 12 searches and items discarded.
“Planned Parenthood web ad blurs distinctions” (DMN Fact Check)
So, after telling us all these years that they don’t spend money from tax funds for their abortion business, Planned Parenthood is now saying that their facilities are often in the same buildings as the “separate” affiliates that don’t do abortions and that meeting the standards of an ambulatory care center will shut down both businesses.
Planned Parenthood operates 10 abortion clinics in the state that would be mandated to raise to the new standards. The abortion clinics, by law, are separate entities and must be separately funded from health centers where cancer screenings take place.
Planned Parenthood officials acknowledged that, but said some abortion clinics and health centers are housed within the same buildings. She suggested that if it were too expensive to upgrade the abortion clinics, then it could also force a shut-down of the health care clinics in the same building.
Officials could not say how many of the 10 abortion clinics are adjacent or within the same building as health care centers.
Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, responded by email and cited 55 health care centers already have been shuttered in Texas.
That assertion is based on legislative funding cuts from two years ago and is not related to the pending legislation.
And the previously closed health centers are not related to the assertion made in the advertisement.
Health centers that do not provide abortions would not be affected by the legislation.
via Fact check: Planned Parenthood web ad blurs distinctions | Trail Blazers Blog.
Scientific Huffington Post (!) Poll: Ban Abortion After 20 Weeks
20 week ultrasound
#Stand4Life across the US: 59% support a Federal ban on abortion after 20 weeks, even though the question didn’t include an exception for the life of the mother!
Remember that University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll that showed that 63% or 62% (depending on whether the question mentioned pain or not) of registered voters in Texas wanted a ban on abortion after 20 weeks? Well, it seems that most US voters agree.This poll found that 59% of voters would support a ban, while only 30% oppose it.
The Huffington Post, not a conservative website at all, solicited a scientific poll by the same group that did the UT/TT poll, YouGov. These results agree with last month’s Gallup poll revealing that 64% of Americans believe that abortion should be illegal in the second 3 months of pregnancy and 80% would make it illegal in the last 3 months.
The HuffPost isn’t making a big deal out of the poll, focusing on the conflicting views of the public rather than on the results of the poll itself. In fact, from my GoogleNews search, it doesn’t appear that (as of 7 AM today) anyone other than a couple of blogs (at the Washington Post and the Weekly Standard), National Right to Life, and LifeNews.com are reporting the poll!
Planned Parenthood, big abortion and the battle to save lives in Texas | Fox News
[R]emind me again why pro-abortion activists want healthy five-month pregnant women to abort their healthy child in dirty, unsafe abortion clinics?
via Planned Parenthood, big abortion and the battle to save lives in Texas | Fox News.
Davis for governor of Texas? Don’t mess with it, Wendy
This op-ed from Britain’s Guardian has some very good information and I like the conclusion:
Texas is a strongly conservative Republican state and will remain one for the foreseeable future. Davis’ feat of talking for 11 hours got great press, but it’s not going to create a new Texas.
Skewed world view or just politics? @GovernorPerry #SB5 #TxProlife
“Who are we to say that children born into the worst of circumstances can’t grow to live successful lives?” he said, adding that even Davis “was born into difficult circumstances.”
“I know she’s proud of where she has found herself in life,” Perry told reporters after his speech. “I’m proud that she has been able to take advantage of her intellect and her hard work, but she didn’t come from particularly good circumstances.”
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is the source of these quotes, which they call a “swipe” by the Governor toward Senator Davis. Radio Fox News called it “Slut Slamming.”
How sad that the editors who wrote these titles cannot see these statements as compliments.
Update: fixed the links. BBN
@GovernorPerry: “This is a human rights issue.” #TxProlife #TxLege
My children, the Governor’s children, and all children of human beings are also humans. The question in the mind of some people is, “when are they *human enough* for the advocates of elective abortion on demand?”
The Governor and Texas law affirms that it’s from the moment of fertilization. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with us.
The Governor spoke in support of the right not be killed for every one of our children today, at the National Right to Life National conference in Dallas. You can read his speech at his website, here.
I’m especially proud of the way he praised our pro-life Texans and commended the work we do to support women and girls who find themselves pregnant but are afraid that they aren’t ready, can’t afford the child, or just didn’t want to be pregnant at that time in their lives.
The Governor is taking heat for his comments about Senator Windy Wendy Davis’ history. This is a woman who should know as well as any of us that an unplanned pregnancy is not the end of plans for the future and should be counted as “unplanned joy.” (That phrase is one of the themes of Feminists for Life.)
Here’s to our Governor Rick Perry!
@GovernorPerry: Gov. Perry Calls Special Session to Begin July 1
AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry today announced a Special Session of the Texas Legislature will begin at 2 p.m. Monday, July 1.
“I am calling the Legislature back into session because too much important work remains undone for the people of Texas. Through their duly elected representatives, the citizens of our state have made crystal clear their priorities for our great state. Texans value life and want to protect women and the unborn. Texans want a transportation system that keeps them moving. Texans want a court system that is fair and just. We will not allow the breakdown of decorum and decency to prevent us from doing what the people of this state hired us to do.
The special session will consider the following issues:
• Legislation relating to the regulation of abortion procedures, providers and facilities.
• Legislation relating to the funding of transportation infrastructure projects.
• Legislation relating to establishing a mandatory sentence of life with parole for a capital felony committed by a 17-year-old offender.
via Office of the Governor Rick Perry – [Press Release] Gov. Perry Calls Special Session to Begin July 1.
Office of the Governor Rick Perry – [Press Release] Statement by Gov. Rick Perry on the Kermit Gosnell Verdict
Gov. Rick Perry today issued the following statement on the Kermit Gosnell verdict:
This trial and verdict shed light on a detestable and gruesome industry that takes the lives of hundreds of thousands of babies every year in communities across our nation. Those of us who believe in the sanctity of life will continue to fight for the day when abortion is nothing more than a sad footnote in American history.
Texas Tops Site Selection’s Most Competitive States of 2012 (from @GovernorPerry)
Texas has taken the top spot in another of Site Selection Magazine’s annual rankings – this time in the magazine’s ranking of the most competitive states in 2012. Earlier this year, Texas was awarded Site Selection’s 2012 Governor’s Cup for the most new and expanded corporate facilities announced over the year.
The magazine highlighted Texas’ commitment to maintaining a strong job creation climate and reducing the tax burden on employers, specifically through Gov. Perry’s $1.6 billion tax relief proposal.
Site Selection considered a number of criteria for the ranking, including total new and expanded facilities in 2012, total new jobs created in 2012, rank in the corporate real estate executive portion of the 2012 Site Selection Business Climate Ranking, state tax climate as ranked by the Tax Foundation, performance in the Beacon Hill Institute’s State Competitiveness Index, and the number of National Career Readiness Certificates per 1,000 residents aged 18-64.
To view the full article, please visit http://www.siteselection.com/issues/2013/may/top-comp-states.cfm.
Obama Gives $13 Million Grant to Texas Planned Parenthood! @txprolife
We’ve all been hearing about the supposed “War on Women” by Conservative law makers – and, by extension, voters – in Texas. Well, President Obama and Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebellius just fired another shot in the war against Texas and State’s rights.
UPDATE: In an emailed statement, Texas Department of State Health Services spokeswoman Carrie Williams says that the agency just received notice that it will lose the Title X grant and is “reviewing the information to get a sense of the full impact.” The agency hopes the transition is smooth and the provider base remains strong, she wrote.
EARLIER: The federal government has pulled from the state of Texas millions in family planning funding, granting the money instead to a coalition led by the Women’s Health and Family Planning Association of Texas, which says it can serve a greater number of women with the available funds.
For more than four decades, federal Title X funding has been dedicated to funding family planning services and covering clinics’ infrastructure costs. The funds are generally granted to providers (like Planned Parenthood) and/or to state health agencies. In Texas since 1980, the majority of the funding has been administered by the Department of State Health Services — roughly $18 million in 2012, for example; since 2009, DSHS has been the sole grantor of Title X funds.(Edit, maybe it’s only half of that.)
A Little History
Before this year, Federal tax dollars came back to Texas in two major funds: the Women’s Health Program and Family Planning, or Title X funds. Texas “matched” a certain amount and the Texas Department of Health and Human Services administered the dispersion of the money. Because the money paid for or freed up other funds for staff, marketing, and “infrastructure” or office overhead, PP was helped to keep their abortion clinics running. The overall effect was that State matching tax dollars helped PP to funnel patients, if not dollars, to their abortion clinics.
Texas was forced to make severe Budget cuts across the board in 2011, including Family Planning funds. This led to prioritizing what little money we had:
“State lawmakers cut funding for family planning services by two-thirds in the last legislative session, dropping the two-year family planning budget from $111 million to $37.9 million for the 2012-13 biennium. They also approved a tiered budget system for family planning funds, which gives funding priority to public health clinics, such as federally qualified health centers and comprehensive clinics that provide primary and preventative care over clinics that only provide family planning services.”
Texas will pay for destructive human embryo cloning at Texas Universities
The Committee Substitute was passed this afternoon with 9 yes votes in the House State Affairs Committee. The Chairman of the Committee, Byron Cook voted “yes,” after assuring the Committee that the Bill (which is not available online or in the Committee) will not outlaw human cloning at Universities.
Voting “no” were four brave Republicans – I’ll list them all as soon as I can verify and make sure I don’t miss anyone. Unfortunately, some of our conservative members weren’t present. I will also name them when I can do so without missing anyone.
I worked with Representative Raymond’s office to come up with good definitions, but I don’t know how much of those definitions made it into the final Bill.
Luckily, in spite of the lies we’ve read over the years, no one has yet been able to clone a human embryo.
What is now encouraged is the purposeful creation of a human embryo by cloning. The embryo may never be implanted, but the Bill declares that the nascent human should be killed and broken up
Senate panel OKs abortion bill requiring stricter standards – Houston Chronicle
One woman claimed that the standards shouldn’t be the same as an ambulatory surgical center because they do abortions on 9 year olds!
Minimal standards are considered too much by the abortion industry. They’ve fought every move to keep women and girls safe, and whip out those coat hangers every chance they get.
Women who have D&C’s after a miscarriage have them at a hospital or surgical center, not at in an office setting. But according to the abortionists, healthy mothers having abortions – or 9 year old girls – should be happy with a clinic setting.
AUSTIN – Abortion clinics would be required to meet stricter standards under a bill approved 5-2 by the Senate Health and Human Services Committee Tuesday after emotional testimony over whether the measure would protect women’s health or risk it by causing clinics to close.
“My intent in filing this bill is only to protect Texas women who undergo this procedure,” said Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, who authored the measure with two fellow doctors, Republican Sens. Donna Campbell of New Braunfels and Charles Schwertner of Georgetown.
Planned Parenthood called the measure, Senate Bill 537, a “back-door abortion ban.”
via Senate panel OKs abortion bill requiring stricter standards – Houston Chronicle.
Rick Perry Slams McCain, Romney At CPAC, Says They Aren’t Conservative – Patriot Update
Y’all have got to watch @GovernorPerry at CPAC this afternoon!
“The popular media narrative is that this country has shifted away from conservative ideals, as evidenced by the last two presidential elections. That’s what they say. That might be true if Republicans had actually nominated conservative candidates in 2008 and 2012,” Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas) said in his address at CPAC this afternoon.
via Rick Perry Slams McCain, Romney At CPAC, Says They Aren’t Conservative – Patriot Update.
Office of the Governor Rick Perry – [Press Release] Texas Ranked Top Exporting State for 11th Consecutive Year
Texas is ranked as the number one exporting state for the 11th year in a row, according to 2012 annual trade data released today by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
“The fact that Texas is ranked the nation’s top exporter for the 11th year in a row further demonstrates that our strong economic climate provides a broad range of opportunities for businesses to succeed,” Gov. Perry said. “Our longstanding commitment to holding the line on taxes, keeping our workforce strong, and maintaining reasonable regulations and fair courts has led to more than a decade of leading the nation in exports.”
and …
Texas was recently named the top state to do business by Area Development magazine, and Business Facilities magazine awarded Texas as the “State of the Year” for the aggressive economic development strategies that have helped attract jobs and investment. Texas governor Rick Perry was awarded the “Governor’s Award 2012” by fDi Magazine for being the most successful in attracting new investments to the state.
Gov. Perry Reappoints Seven to Texas Institute of Health Care Quality and Efficiency Board of Directors
Gov. Rick Perry has reappointed seven members to the Texas Institute of Health Care Quality and Efficiency Board of Directors for terms to expire Jan. 31, 2017. The institute improves health care quality, accountability, education and cost to the state by encouraging health care provider collaboration, effective health care delivery models and coordination of health care services.
. . . Beverly Nuckols of New Braunfels is a board certified family physician. She is a member of the Texas Medical Association, Texas Academy of Family Physicians, Comal County Medical Association, and Texas Physicians Resource Council. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, and a board member and secretary of Texas Alliance for Life.
Rick Perry via USAToday editorial: ‘Another federal power grab’
Governor Rick Perry explains why Texas won’t create a State Obamacare health insurance exchange:
Setting aside the obvious fact that health insurance is readily available under current conditions — the problem has been price, not availability — these exchanges represent nothing more than another federal power grab in the guise of a supposedly free market.
States were given the option to set up and execute their own exchanges — at their own expense. The fine print, however, specified that the exchanges would have to follow all rules and guidelines imposed by the federal government, with little to no flexibility. The kicker: Many of these rules and regulations are unknown.
Again, this is par for the course as we continue down the road to fiscal disaster at the hands of ObamaCare.
In Texas, Medicaid spending already accounts for nearly 25% of our general revenue spending, and its costs are only expected to continue skyrocketing.
While the president has promised to subsidize states for Medicaid costs in the near term, in the long term, states are going to be on their own.
ObamaCare has already begun to affect many companies, too, with some publicly announcing plans for layoffs in order to make up for increased insurance-related costs.
Office of the Governor Rick Perry – [Press Release] Gov. Perry: Texas Will Not Implement State Insurance Exchange Under Obamacare
Governor Rick Perry wrote a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sibelius:
Gov. Perry’s letter said. “It would not be fiscally responsible to put hard-working Texans on the financial hook for an unknown amount of money to operate a system under rules that have not even been written.”
Medical Regulation, Texas Style
The Texas Institute for Health Care Quality and Efficiency Draft Report is posted for public comment.
You only have a day and a half to comment, since the next meeting of our Board of Directors is Thursday, November 15th. All comments should be sent by 1 PM on Wednesday, November 14th.
The following downloads are available:
Report 2012-001: 2012-001-Draft-Report.pdf
Appendix E: AppendixE.pdf
Appendix F: AppendixF.pdf
Instructions on submitting your comments are here.
Now, for a few comments on my observations as a Board member:
Believe it or not, the time frame from the passage of the legislation in SB 7 last June, 2011, to today and in anticipation of preparing for legislation beginning in January, 2013, is too tight. The Institute’s staff and coordinators did a good job of herding cats in the Board. In addition, the Board members worked hard to make all the meetings, to participate, and to contribute. We have met at least once a month, sometimes more than twice, since our appointment. The Board isn’t paid or even reimbursed for expenses by the State, and many gave up work in order to attend meetings far from their homes.
I haven’t commented on the draft until now, because the Board received our first full copy for review and comment on November 2, and comments were due by 5 PM, Election Day, November 6th. We’re all appointed by the Governor — it stands to reason that a few of us would be actively involved in the election and campaigns. I didn’t even open the email until Nov. 7.
I’m not happy with the length of the report, but I guess the nuances of our discussions over the last few months needed to be documented somewhere. Go to the page 34 in the pdf, numbered “26” in the Draft, for the actual recommendations made by vote in the Board meetings.
Finally, my main concern has been with the bureaucracy and regulation that the members of the Board have sometimes appeared to support. In the end, I believe that we have limited recommendations for regulation and “hassle factors” more than some would like. My hope is that the Legislature will decide to focus initially on implementing any new measures in our own State health plans and not interfere directly in private health care practice and systems, except where and when the State foots the bill.
Since President Obama won reelection, I believe that the ability of the 83rd Texas Legislature to adapt and react to Federal Regulations – Obamacare – will be improved by the work of the Institute.
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