Republican

Perry in Dead heat with Obama in New Gallup Poll | KGNB 1420 AM

The Austin American Statesman reports that a new Gallup national poll of registered voters shows that if the 2012 presidential election were held today, it would be a dead heat between current President Barack Obama and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The poll shows that both Obama and Perry, when squared off against each other, would each garner about 47% of the vote. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney did slightly better than Perry against Obama, but Perry, who just joined the race a week ago, is already beating out most of the other Republican front-runners, like Michele Bachman and Ron Paul. Perry also led the poll among independents, a voting sector that will likely play a key role in the upcoming presidential race.

via Perry in Dead heat with Obama in New Gallup Poll | KGNB 1420 AM.

How Farm Subsidies Harm

Or: one of the things I learned while reading “Fed Up,” by Governor Rick Perry, leading me to find this article by the Heritage Foundation:

A recent Washington Post investigation discovered 75 acres of Texas farmland that had been converted into a housing development. Today, the homeowners on these properties (which are worth well over $300,000 each) are eligible for fixed payments for the lawn in their backyards because of its “historical rice production.” Residents never asked for these subsidies and have even stated that as non-farmers they do not want the government mailing them checks.[30] Over the past 25 years, rice plantings in Texas have plummeted from 600,000 acres to 200,000, in part because people can now collect generous rice subsidies without planting rice. If Washington insists on subsidizing farming, subsidizing actual farmland rather than residential neighborhoods that were once farmland would make more sense.

via How Farm Subsidies Harm Taxpayers, Consumers, and Farmers, Too.

Rick Perry’s Pro-life Record in Texas

The various pro-life groups all over Texas have affirmed the Governor’s record of pro-life advocacy. Read the article at LifeNews.com for concrete examples and testimonies from Texas Alliance for Life, Texas Right to Life, and many more.

The long record of pro-life accomplishments will serve the Texas governor well should he decide to seek the Republican nomination. He would face off against other candidates who are equally committed to pro-life values, but his pro-life track record will give him a chance to gain positive support from voters in places like Iowa and South Carolina. Should he ultimately become the nominee, Perry, like other Republicans seeking the nomination, would present a clear pro-life versus pro-abortion contrast with Obama that would rally the majority of Americans who are pro-life to his side.

Rick Perry Becomes Latest Pro-Life Republican 2012 Hopeful | LifeNews.com

Pro-life groups around Texas all confirm the strong pro-life record of Governor Perry. Read the article for the examples of his actions in the name of protecting innocent life at all stages and ages.

The long record of pro-life accomplishments will serve the Texas governor well should he decide to seek the Republican nomination. He would face off against other candidates who are equally committed to pro-life values, but his pro-life track record will give him a chance to gain positive support from voters in places like Iowa and South Carolina. Should he ultimately become the nominee, Perry, like other Republicans seeking the nomination, would present a clear pro-life versus pro-abortion contrast with Obama that would rally the majority of Americans who are pro-life to his side.

via Rick Perry Becomes Latest Pro-Life Republican 2012 Hopeful | LifeNews.com.

Doctors wary of Perry’s stem cell treatment – The Boston Globe

Yeah, Daley destroys human embryos to harvest stem cells, even made a few designer embryos with the intention of destroying them. The International Stem Cell Research group fawned all over the faux Korean cloner.

These people to be have no business talking about ethics or “wise decisions.”

[S]ome scientists are questioning the safety and wisdom of Perry’s treatment, especially because it was not part of a clinical trial in which unproven therapies are tested in a way that helps protect patients and advances medical knowledge.

Perry “exercised poor judgment’’ to try it, said Dr. George Q. Daley of Children’s Hospital Boston and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. “As a highly influential person of power, Perry’s actions have the unfortunate potential to push desperate patients into the clinics of quacks’’ who are selling unproven treatments “for everything from Alzheimer’s to autism.’’

Daley is past president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, a group of 3,000 scientists and others in the field. He favors stem cell research. But of Perry’s treatment he said: “I would never in a million years accept for one of my family members to undergo this.’’

via Doctors wary of Perry’s stem cell treatment – The Boston Globe.

Biased poll?

The “Azimuth Group,” a polling group from Texas, published results from a poll that appear to give Ron Paul a distinct advantage over Rick Perry in the Texas Republican Primary.

It’s important to note that this poll was conducted in late May and early June and was published in early July, before Governor Perry announced his entry into the race. For some reason, the results are getting re-posted on various Paul blogs and Facebook sites.

Moreover, look at the column on their methods:

Most importantly, they polled Texas Republican Primary voters, while our sample focused on highly involved Republican voters with clusters in the most politically active Republican areas of the state and using lists taken not only from voter rolls but also from  other sources likely to identify voters whose awareness of candidates and issues is substantially higher.  Basically, they polled voters and we polled more of the grassroots party activists who will influence those voters.

In other words, rather than choosing likely voters or even Republican Primary voters, they cherry-picked who they polled.

Another blog has this quote from founder Dave Nalle:

“In that poll,” he replied, “It was a mix of precinct chairs, campaign donors, and multiple-repeat voters in Republican primaries. So at the very least they were reliable Republican voters, but a majority of them, about 55%, were actively involved in party organizations, either in clubs or as precinct chairs. I was able to get lists because I have connections within the Texas Republican Party. I was able to get lists from local Republican clubs and from precinct chairs in those parties.”

In contrast, a poll of Republican Primary voters at about the same time showed that Perry would have received 31% of the vote.

The Facts on Gardasil and Perry: Right Wing vs. WingRight

Do you really want to frustrate me? Publish an opinion piece online, but restrict comments so that I can’t tell you where you’re wrong. Sure, it’s your site, and you make the rules. Well! Since I have my own blog  . . .

The mainstream media has rediscovered Executive Order RP65 that Governor Perry issued in February, 2007. I wrote a “A Dose of Reason, Perry and Gardasil” to answer some of the gobbledygook in the media.

Unfortunately, some of the pundits we normally consider conservative are just as mixed up and fail just as miserably in their research and conclusions.

Michelle Malkin (michellemalkin.com ) won’t take new subscribers or comments from the public at all. She has written a disorganized rant calling Governor Perry “Obama-like.”  She claimed that the Governor went over the heads of the Legislature, calls the opt-out clause “bogus,” without researching what it was before the Governor’s EO, and is evidently completely unaware of the funding of vaccines in the US.  I was able to comment at the column’s syndication site, Creators.com,   copying and pasting my coverage of these concerns in “A Dose of Reason, Perry and Gardasil.”

RedState’s  Bill Streiff and Erick Ericson have posted their own articles That site won’t take comments from new subscribers. Ericson reposted his 2007 missive that compared the Executive Order to eugenics and focused on the possibility of corruption due to Merck’s lobbying.

Streiff’s two pieces, here , and  here,  cover the de-bunked corruption charges and provide a succinct list of ethical objections that are less subjective and a bit more organized. Here’s my reply:

1. The recommendation did not include males, though males can carry and transmit HPV. This oversight made the creation of “herd immunity” impossible. This, definitionally, means the vaccine could have only a limited effect in combatting HPV.

The vaccine had not been recommended for boys at the time. The reasoning is that the vaccine prevented cancer. Society was not ready to talk about anal sex and males having sex with males, so there was a delay in adding boys. Since that time, the recommendations have changed to include boys.

2. Not all strains of HPV linked to cancer were affected by the vaccine. While doing something is better than doing nothing… generally… no one knows what the impact will be of creating a better evolutionary environment for the others strains by eliminating competing versions of the virus.

We knew at the time that the vaccines covered the viruses that caused 70% of cervical cancers (16 and 18) and 90% of the strains that cause genital warts (6 and 11). The preventive effect for these strains was 96% to 100%. according to the British Journal of Cancer article on the 5 year follow-up, published in December, 2006. (It was on-line November, 2006 and I accessed it for review today, August 18, 2011.)

We already had evidence, since confirmed, that there might be some cross-immunity for other strains.

3.Requiring people to receive a vaccine against diseases which they may very well never encounter is a very queasy ethical area. Unlike diseases like measles, whooping cough, etc., HPV is not spread through casual contact.

True. But 50% of people will be infected at sometime in their lives. The true cost is all of those abnormal pap smears – the cellular changes are all – 99.7% due to HPV.  It’s also true that we vaccinate for tetanus – what we used to call “lock jaw” – even though it’s not contagious, and for Hepatitis B, which is only spread through blood and body fluids.

4. Clinical trials were conducted on women aged 16-26 leaving everyone to presume that Gardasil was safe and efficacious in 10 year-olds even though there was zero data pertaining to that age group.

Completely false. Both the 2007 Gardasil insert (no longer available online, but I saved a copy on my computer) and the current insert contain information about early testing on boys and girls 9-15. 1122 girls ages 9-15 received the vaccine during trials to test the immunogenicity, demonstrating the production of antibodies.
There. I feel better, don’t you?

Debunking the Rick Perry “Pro-Sharia” School Curriculum Myth

Please read the whole column at CounterContempt. Note that the whole fuss began at lefty Salon.com as a (successful) attempt to bring out criticism of Governor Perry and to get inflamed people to make inflammatory remarks about Islam.

Much of the curriculum centers on very dry materials, presented with no editorializing – historical timelines, glossaries, the basic tenets of Islam (presented without either endorsement and praise, or denunciation and criticism), etc. Of interest to us, however, is the lesson plan that deals with Islam and the West, past and present. This is the lesson plan that mentions Sharia, al-Qaeda, Israel, Hamas, etc.

The lesson plan was written by Ronald Wiltse. Mr. Wiltse is a retired history teacher in San Antonio. He graduated from Pepperdine University in 1966, and received his MA from Middlebury College in 1982. For several decades, he taught world history at Edison High School, in San Antonio.

He is a Christian, and an ardent and vocal supporter of Israel.

via CounterContempt Debunking the Rick Perry “Pro-Sharia” School Curriculum Myth.

Of Ponzis and Predators, Perry outlines policies from Political Intelligence

From the Boston Globe:

But in a bold-yet-folksy way, the Texan also put his own spin on an array of questions from a crowd of more than 150.

Asked about how the country copes with the growing cost of Social Security and other entitlement programs, Perry said political leaders had to show “courage” especially in dealing with Social Security, which he labeled a “Ponzi scheme.”

He said: “I can promise you, my 27-year-old son, Social Security, under the program that we have today, will not be there.”

Perry, himself 61, pledged to back a base level of support for needy retirees, but he said calling the current retirement system a Ponzi scheme – in which contributions from one group is to pay immediate benefits to another group – is the first step in deciding how to alter it.

“I’m not afraid of having that conversation,” the governor said. “Do I have a plan yet to lay out and say here it is in black and white? I don’t. But I can promise you … these challenges are not overcomable, at all. We are Americans and we will find the way to do it.”

Perry tread more carefully around another issue that riled the party base for another Texas governor who ran for president, George W. Bush.

Perry said that before deciding how to deal with immigrants already illegally in the country, United States needed to secure its border with Mexico both to block new illegals and also to tamp down on drug-related violence.

Texas already spends $152 million on its own on that effort, he said, and the state’s governor called for both up to 1,000 National Guard troops and the non-lethal use of unmanned aerial vehicles to patrol and monitor the 1,200-mile-long Texas-Mexico border.

“You can secure it, and the way you do it is you put boots on the ground – substantial number of boots on the ground,” he said.

As for using aircraft such as Predator drones, Perry noted many unarmed aircraft are already flown in the area each day as practice for the Air Force pilots who will guide them overseas.

“Why not be flying those missions and using that real-time information to help our law enforcement?” Perry said. “Because if we will commit to that, I will suggest to you that we will be able to drive the drug cartels away from that border.”

Elsewhere on national security, Perry outlined a hawkish doctrine: “If you try to hurt the United States, we will come defeat you,” he said.

On budget issues, Perry said he supported a balanced-budget amendment “to clearly say, if it’s not coming in, we’re not going to spend it.”

More immediately, he pledged a series of executive orders to reduce government spending and regulation, as well as to halt implementation of the federal universal health care law enacted by President Obama.

via Of Ponzis and Predators, Perry outlines policies from Political Intelligence.

WILLisms.com: Texas’ Interest Payments On Government Debt: Third Lowest In America.

See more of this post at WILLisms.com: Texas’ Interest Payments On Government Debt: Third Lowest In America..

Texas also has the second lowest state debt as a percentage of personal income.

While it is true that voters in Texas have approved far more bond debt, mostly for roads, in the past decade (voters, even conservative Texas voters, tend to vote “yes” to almost any shiny objects on the ballot), those bonds are at least paid for with fees and assessments, and they are targeted and temporary, for specific purposes like infrastructure.

Texas has seen its non-self-supporting debt (the kind that gets you in trouble because the money is spent on who-knows-what and there’s no mechanism for paying back the borrowing) fall significantly in recent years, to the tune of roughly 16%.

Forbes ranks Texas number four (meaning, one of the best) on its debt weight scorecard, and gives Texas four stars out of four for avoiding a state debt disaster. All this, and Texas remains a donor state, contributing more in taxes to Washington than it receives back in federal benefits.

Moreover, while America got downgraded under President Obama, Texas got a credit upgrade under Rick Perry.

via WILLisms.com: Texas’ Interest Payments On Government Debt: Third Lowest In America..

Governor Perry wants to be President | Mark Halperin’s Interview with Rick Perry

Governor Perry says he wants to be President in video with Time’s Mark Halperin.

Perry says S&P downgrade of U.S. validates his approach | Texas Politics | a Chron.com blog

The National Conference of State Legislatures is a very good way to stay and/or get up to date on issues.

Perry says S&P downgrade of U.S. validates his approach

Sounding increasingly like a candidate for national office, Gov. Rick Perry told the National Conference of State Legislatures meeting in San Antonio this morning that Standard & Poor’s recent downgrade of United States investments validated his administration’s frugal approach to government.

The rating agency’s action came because of “a reckless culture” of out of control spending in Washington D.C. “piled on our next generation’s credit card,” Perry said. Referring often to the “economic turbulence” buffeting the country, he declared that the U.S. was experiencing “one of our darkest hours.”

“You can’t tax and spend your way to prosperity,” he said, hitting hard on the theme of his 2010 book, “Fed Up!”

In his most descriptive and passionate moment in the 20-minute talk, Perry noted that Texas has created 40 percent of the nation’s net new jobs, though it is home to only eight percent of the U.S. population. Job loss, he said, creates many social ills including “an entire generation losing faith in the American dream.”

Perry, who committed to speak to the group of about 1,300 legislators and their staff long before he began considering a presidential campaign, earned a standing ovation and moderate enthusiasm from the bipartisan crowd.

via Perry says S&P downgrade of U.S. validates his approach | Texas Politics | a Chron.com blog.

Office of the Governor Rick Perry – [Press Release] Gov. Perry: Fiscal Responsibility is Essential for Prosperity and Job Creation

Gov. Rick Perry touted Texas’ strong economy and job creation, and discussed the importance of fiscal responsibility at all levels of government. The governor delivered the keynote speech at the National Conference of State Legislatures Legislative Summit (NCSL).

“Jobs are the fundamental building blocks of any community, and over the last two years, 40 percent of the net new jobs created in the United States were created in Texas,” Gov. Perry said. “That’s why we continue to make the tough choices that all states and the federal government should be making. We passed a balanced budget while maintaining essential services, kept taxes low and preserved more than $6 billion in our Rainy Day Fund.”

Gov. Perry noted that government doesn’t create jobs, it creates the environment for jobs to grow. He credited Texas’ economic strength to our state’s low taxes, reasonable and predictable regulatory climate, fair legal system and skilled workforce.

“Employers fleeing the over-taxing, over-regulating and over-litigating atmosphere that has taken hold in so many other states come to Texas because we’ve cultivated a culture that rewards innovation without all the red tape,” Gov. Perry said.

via Office of the Governor Rick Perry – [Press Release] Gov. Perry: Fiscal Responsibility is Essential for Prosperity and Job Creation.

UPDATE 1-Republican tax hardliners on US debt super panel | Reuters

Pray for Texas’ Representative Jeb Hensarling. He will co-chair with Patty Murray.

In a move that could deadlock the 12-member panel over taxes, but perhaps set the stage for changes later, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell named Tea Party ally Patrick Toomey to the panel with Jon Kyl and Rob Portman.

The panel is known as the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction and was established to find $1.5 trillion in additional budget savings over 10 years, but markets have been looking for signs that it may be able to do more.

House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, appointed Dave Camp, who chairs the tax-writing House Ways & Means Committee, along with conservative “young gun” Jeb Hensarling and Fred Upton.

via UPDATE 1-Republican tax hardliners on US debt super panel | Reuters.

“D” is for Dereliction of Duty | Empower Texans / Texans for Fiscal Responsibility

Just enter your zip code here if you want to check out your Legislatures in the Texas House and Senate.

What’s disturbing is that of the 18 House Republicans who failed the Fiscal Responsibility Index with a “D” or lower, 9 of them were committee chairmen appointed by the Speaker. Put another way, half of the House republicans who failed the Index were in positions of leadership. This shouldn’t be all that surprising considering that overall Speaker Straus’ appointees as chairmen averaged a failing 63.3% on the Fiscal Responsibility Index.

As we’ve mentioned before, chairmanship and leadership matter. Committee chairmen have a great deal of influence over what bills are heard and when (if at all). Whether conservative initiatives are actually given the opportunity to be considered on the House floor (or even held for a vote in committee) is up to the committee chairmen.

For those freshmen on this list of failures who rode the “tea party wave” into office, conservatives should feel more bitterly a special sting. They failed to provide the leadership voters expected. Conservative voters are going to have to reconsider if this is the type of future leadership they wish to see in the Texas House.

The same can be said of the failing establishment. Voters will consider whether they would like a “Republican” status-quo to stick around, or work to promote a true conservative majority in the Texas House.

You can find out how your legislators performed on the Fiscal Responsibility Index HERE

via “D” is for Dereliction of Duty | Empower Texans / Texans for Fiscal Responsibility.

Doggett layoff author opposes Perry

Big surprise: Lloyd Doggett doesn’t like Perry. I guess he’s given up on winning his primary against one of the Castro twins (I can’t tell them apart), so he’s going to spend time campaigning against the Governor who wouldn’t lie for money.

ABC.news has a blog entry explaining the details, here.

Doggett’s the creator of the Doggett layoff, causing school districts all over the Nation to layoff teachers. Doggett was the author of the amendment to part of a stimulus bill, refusing money to Texas education by setting specific, individual requirements for Texas that no other State must meet and that go against Texas’ Constitution. Doggett repeatedly claimed at the time that claiming the Governor could lie and violate the State Constitution if he wanted the money badly enough.Doggett kept repeating that the requirements weren’t “unConstitutional.”

Last year, I met with this man with a group of doctors about graduate medical education, identifying as a doctor interested in primary care, not as a Republican. He assumed he could talk freely to us and literally shook with fury when he criticized Conservatives and the Tea Party. Claims Republicans don’t think for ourselves and only listen to Fox news and Limbaugh.

And yet, here I am reading ABC.news and there he is spouting his hate for conservatives. Well, he won’t be unopposed this election – and he’ll have a great panel of Conservatives vying to run against him on the Republican ticket, too.

Rick Perry is against embryonic stem cell research, but he wants Texas to be center of stem cell advances | Texas on the Potomac | a Chron.com blog

The Governor has always opposed unethical destructive stem cell research, but Representative Hardcastle changed his mind on embryonic stem cells and cloning this year.

Hardcastle said the governor’s office didn’t ask him to carry it — as the only member of the Legislature with MS, he said, it’s been on his mind for “a long time” — but one of the governor’s staffers did advise him on it. Somewhat involved, Hardcastle said, was Jones, who has already removed some of Hardcastle’s stem cells to prepare them for re-injection.

A spokeswoman with the Health and Human Services Commission said the agency is in the very early stages of considering whether to create the stem cell bank. A few weeks ago, the agency received a letter from Houston Reps. Beverly Woolley, a Republican, and Senfronia Thompson, a Democrat, expressing their “serious concern” with the measure, for fear it might hinder the work of public and private scientists.

Meanwhile, Texas Medical Board spokeswoman Leigh Hopper said the regulatory agency held a stem cell stakeholder meeting last week — “at the governor’s behest, via Dr. Jones” — to start dialogue about adult stem cell treatments in Texas. The question? If Americans are — like Jones — increasingly flying all over the world to get promising stem cell treatments, shouldn’t Texas be a scientific and economic center for it?

via Rick Perry is against embryonic stem cell research, but he wants Texas to be center of stem cell advances | Texas on the Potomac | a Chron.com blog.

Texanomics: Texas Wage Growth Faster than Other Big States and US

Pretty graph!

Texanomics: Texas Wage Growth Faster than Other Big States and US.

Debt ceiling: never lowered

That should be enough to make the people who holler, “The debt ceiling has been raised dozens of times over the decades,” reconsider.  But probably not.

The problem is not revenue. Revenue is high, but spending is higher!

Partisan disagreement over Health Care Law

Which way will those Independents vote in 2012?

Data Watch | Health Policy and Reform.

The Brief: Top Texas News for Aug. 4, 2011 — Texas News | The Texas Tribune

Governor Rick Perry is quoted as saying, “You know I don’t mind being the first. I like it.”

The Brief: Top Texas News for Aug. 4, 2011 — Texas News | The Texas Tribune.

Susan Combs: The TT Interview — 2014 Statewide Elections | The Texas Tribune

A change of heart? I certainly hope so,and she says that she and her husband have donated to the Austin Crisis Pregnancy Center. I thank her for this conversation and testimony, but I’d like to hear more. Texas Comptroller Susan Combs on “personal responsibility,” but not on the wrong of abortion itself:

Twenty years ago, I was pro-choice, not pro-abortion. I was pro-choice because I had concerns about the role of government. Here we are, you go to 2004, 5, 6, 7, 8, and I am actually stunned to find, in the 21st century, past the year 2000, that we are seeing abortion — which I really thought was rare — being used as a contraceptive. It’s just birth control. I spent some years that I am very proud of, being a prosecutor, handling child abuse and incest cases. And I saved kids. I really did save kids. I really think that I got them a better life.

I don’t know what you can call it but a lack of personal responsibility. If people are having abortions because they’re not taking personal responsibility, I find that just morally repugnant. It has reached such incredible numbers. I have been looking at studies and data and reading books and it is stunning to me. I say this with all seriousness. It is stunning to me that we are at the point in this country where in 2011, you have incredibly high numbers of women choosing to abort rather than have a baby or to have avoided the problem in the first place.

So I am unequivocal about it. I was wrong and it’s 20 years later, and I feel very strongly about it.

via Susan Combs: The TT Interview — 2014 Statewide Elections | The Texas Tribune.

Perry’s Surgery Included Experimental Stem Cell Therapy — Rick Perry | The Texas Tribune

I’ll admit it: this is just cool!  Notice the political and ethical comments from the Texas Tribune:

The governor’s procedure did not involve embryonic stem cells, which he and many other conservatives ardently oppose using for medical research on both religious and moral grounds. His treatment involved removing his own adult stem cells from healthy tissue and injecting them back into his body at the time of surgery, with the belief that the cells would assist tissue regeneration and speed recovery.

via Perry’s Surgery Included Experimental Stem Cell Therapy — Rick Perry | The Texas Tribune.

The FDA, which is in litigation over its authority to regulate new stem cell clinics, has not approved the use of adult stem cells for anything other than bone marrow transplants, which have been used for decades to treat cancer and sickle cell anemia patients. This has largely kept doctors from openly advertising these stem cell injections, but not from capitalizing on them by offering the therapy to their patients.

It also hasn’t stopped Perry from pushing for adult stem cell research and industry in Texas. During the governor’s 2009 State of the State address, he called on state leaders to invest in adult stem cell companies. Later that year, his Emerging Technology Fund awarded a $5 million grant to the Texas A&M Health Science Center Institute of Regenerative Medicine and $2.5 million to Helotes-based America Stem Cell to develop new adult stem cell technology.

Last month, three weeks after his adult stem cell treatment, Perry wrote a letter to the Texas Medical Board, which is considering new rules regarding adult stem cells, saying that he hoped Texas would “become the world’s leader in the research and use of adult stem cells.” He asked board members to “recognize the revolutionary potential that adult stem cell research and therapies have on our nation’s health, quality of life and economy.”

In the weeks since the procedure, the governor has traded his cowboy boots for orthopedic shoes and donned a back brace, raising questions that his recovery may be slow-going. Still, he has traveled extensively; in an interview with The Associated Press last week, Perry said he felt 80 percent recovered and was swimming and using the treadmill.

As for the high cost of such stem cell injections, Miner said that whatever health insurance didn’t pay for, “Perry did.”

In Perry’s procedure, his doctor, Houston orthopedic spine surgeon Stanley Jones, said he pulled stem cells from fatty tissue in the governor’s hip, left the cells to expand in culture for several weeks at a Sugar Land lab, then injected the cells back into the governor during his back surgery, into the spine and into Perry’s blood stream.

More de Tocqueville moments (yes, they want to tax and spend)

Last Friday, I was asked by the editors of the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, to write the “Counter-Point” to an essay by the Comal County Democratic Party chair (behind a pay-wall, here.) At the time, I didn’t know who the author was and only had a portion of the original to read, but the major points were that the debt ceiling debate was only meant to be used against President Obama and all due to “past policies.” Here’s my answer, along with the title given it by the H-Z:

“The Public Is Being Bribed”

Yes, the current problems with the United States’ budget are due to errors of the past, including those of the current Administration. However, the first author’s basic philosophy is wrong.

In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville observed, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

Last year, nearly half of the people in the United States didn’t pay income taxes. The top 50% paid 96% of the income tax revenues. The top 5% (those earning over $160,000) paid 55% of all income taxes, although they earned 33% of the gross income.

Congress and Federal bureaucracies have expanded the budget and the reach of government regulations. They heaped “ObamaCare”, on top of the “Stimulus,” on top of TARP bailouts, on top of earlier spending that made Conservatives angry enough to stay home in 2006 and 2008. The American voters didn’t like spending in November, 2010 and we don’t like it now.

Ronald Reagan convinced the Democrat-controlled Congress to cut tax rates along with tax deductions and loopholes, increasing Federal revenue. However, promised cuts in spending never materialized and the National debt exceeded $2 Trillion dollars in 1988. In 1995, Bill Clinton forced two government shut-downs, but the Republican House and Senate persisted until he signed  balanced budgets four years in a row.

Unfortunately, since 2001 both Parties have increased non-defense spending in addition to recovery from September 11, 2001, the war on the Afghanistan and Iraqi fronts, and the near-failure of the banking system in 2008. Attempts to decrease the rate of growth for non-essentials and bureaucracies were knocked down by histrionics from special interests and the media, even as new layers of tax credits and deductions were added, until half the country pays no taxes.

America was built on the dream that every child could grow up to be President or start a billion dollar business in the garage like the Wright brothers, Henry Ford and Bill Gates. I don’t remember hearing that if I worked hard, I could grow up to be middle class.

We Americans have a tradition of giving back, lending a hand up, and rescuing the helpless. Bloated Government bureaucracies divide families and force PC “separation of Church and State.” They’re poor substitutes for Churches and private charities that we choose as stewards for our duty to the less fortunate.

Yes, it’s important to think for ourselves and research the truth behind the latest controversies. I wouldn’t expect anything less from the people I know. However, we can learn from history. De Tocqueville also predicted, “”A democracy . . . can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”

Edited for spelling 3/28/2012 BBN

‘Civility’: The Denouement – WSJ.com

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal’s “Best of the Web, Today” talks about the other side of civility government, reviewing yesterday’s talking point that Republicans are terrorists when it comes to the debt ceiling.

He also may have picked up on the next talking point. I heard similar talk from a doc tonight, who (just before telling me that no one needs to earn more than $500,000 a year and that the rest should be taxed away) claims to have been a “conservative Republican” until recently. It seems that the Republicans have been creating “fear” about the failure of the Government.

“Now He Tells Us”

Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman weighed in late yesterday morning against the debt compromise:

What about the catastrophe that would result? Several thoughts.

First, what I keep hearing from people who should know is that Treasury won’t actually run out of cash tomorrow, that it still has a few more days.

Second, the people who claim that terrible things would immediately happen in the markets also claimed that there would be a big relief rally once a deal was struck. Not so much: the Dow is down 121 right now.

Third, the idea that a temporary disruption would permanently damage faith in US institutions now seems moot; if you haven’t already lost faith in US institutions, you’re not paying attention.

Isn’t his position the same as Michele Bachmann’s?

via ‘Civility’: The Denouement – WSJ.com.

The Undefeated: Sarah Palin Documentary

Sarah Palin “The Undefeated” Documentary

Did you know that there is a documentary movie, The Undefeated, about the life of Sarah Palin that outlines her political career before her nomination as John McCain’s running mate in 2008?

The movie opened July 15, 2011, in ten theaters across the Nation, with very little advertising other than word of mouth and some on-line buzz. Texas is a big State. Since the only Texas theaters were in Dallas and Houston, I didn’t think I’d get to see the movie until it comes out on DVD.

However, I was in Dallas, Texas for a medical conference last week and realized that I was closer than 250 miles. My sister lives in the Arlington area and we went to see the movie at the Grapevine AMC, near the DFW airport. The only 2 other people who were there bought their tickets after asking us what we were going to see. They had never heard of the movie, at all. Since they like Sarah, they were glad to hear about it.

I was worried that I would be disappointed in the movie since I don’t sit still very well, and rarely go to movies in the theaters anymore. I sure wouldn’t have ever guessed I’d volunteer to go see a documentary!  In addition, I’ve read Going Rogue, and just started America by Heart, so I knew some of the biographical information and feared I might be bored or offended by saccharine fawning.

However, after 2 hours in a darkened theater, the only complaints that I have about the movie are that some of the filler clips looked like cheap effects and that the movie was a tad too long.

The film included quite a lot of video documentation from the years that Sarah was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, from her time as Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and as Governor. There are videos and news clippings documenting long years under fire from both Republicans and Democrats and the fact that her family has spent years living life in the public eye. The real-time news footage and recorded speeches show a competent woman who understands the issues with which she is confronted and who has faced challenges as she tried to cut spending and waste. We learned about the law making Alaska’s natural resources the property of the State. The Governor fought old ways of making back room deals in order to maximize the oil and gas industry for the benefit of Alaskans and the Nation. Not only that, but there’s a couple of great bits of film showing a very pregnant Governor Palin!

Before seeing the movie, I was worried about the effect that running for President in 2011 might have on Governor Palin and her family. The movie convinced me that they have been seasoned as Sarah moved up through Alaska’s political ranks.  Should she announce for President, I believe that the Palin family would know exactly what they are getting into. I believe they can handle it.

How come we never saw all this film and real-time news footage about the Palin as Mayor, State Commissioner and Governor during 2008? The McCain for President and Republican National Committee powers-that-be must have been incompetent or actually wanted to lose the election.

McCain’s staff blew it worse than I thought!

One of the more powerful parts of the movie was the portion of an interview with Andrew Breitbart in which he called the men of the Republican party “eunuchs,” for failing to stand up for Governor Palin. I’ve been thinking about the men that I admire in the Party, and wonder why they have not defended the Governor. Could it be true that Sarah is a threat to the Republican old guard?

Sure, Sarah and the rest of us understand what it means to “fight like a girl.” She doesn’t need to be defended by a bunch of big, tough men. The point is that the men should have stood up for her, whether she needed it or not. That way, they’d have acted like we expect men to act.

Judge Tosses Suit Seeking to Stop Gov. Perry’s Sponsorship of Texas Prayer Rally – FoxNews.com

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit that sought to stop Gov. Rick Perry from sponsoring a national day of Christian prayer and fasting, ruling Thursday that the group of atheists and agnostics did not have legal standing to sue.

U.S. District Judge Gray H. Miller said the Freedom From Religion Foundation argued against Perry’s involvement based merely on feelings of exclusion, but did not show sufficient harm to merit the injunction they sought.

“The governor has done nothing more than invite others who are willing to do so to pray,” Miller said.

via Judge Tosses Suit Seeking to Stop Gov. Perry’s Sponsorship of Texas Prayer Rally – FoxNews.com.

The de Tocqueville Moment: will we endure?

Has the United States of America reached the Moment predicted by Alex de Tocqueville when,”The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money?”

Congress and the DC bureaucracies have expanded the federal government, increased regulations and permits, heaped ObamaCare —>on top of “Stimulus” —> on top of TARP and all of this —> on top of the other spending that made Conservatives angry enough to stay home in 2006 and 2008 is not the answer.  We didn’t like it in November, 2010 and we don’t like it now!

Edited for spelling 3/28/2012 BBN

Lame Duck President (From Sarah Palin)

Now the President is outraged because the GOP House leadership called his bluff and ended discussions with him because they deemed him an obstruction to any real solution to the debt crisis.

via Lame Duck President.

An Open Letter to Republican Leaders

Conservative Republicans from my home town of New Braunfels and all over Texas have made it a point to tell me that they are frustrated with you. Even as you begin asking for our support in next year’s election, y’all don’t seem to remember who brought you to the dance, and that we are supposed to lead.

You may have heard our Conservative song at times; even going so far as to dance all around your own Bills in order to appear in step with us. But you still dance to a beat we don’t like far too often.

We worked so hard last year to send a Republican majority to Austin and Washington, only to have the people we elected seem to pay little attention to us and our Party Platform.

In Austin, it was a compromise on the Speaker and toll roads. In DC, we’re watching this political theater about the budget and the debt ceiling.  Why are Republicans, with a majority in the House and a clear mandate from the voters, still getting bogged down in “negotiation?”

And don’t tell us how hard it is to hammer Bills into Laws. This is your job, the one you volunteered for. It can’t be any harder than what we did to get you there in 2010, and what you’ll ask us to do in 2012.  And we did it on top of our regular duties, not as a paid, full-time job!

After all the time and money we  invested in your campaigns before the primaries, some of us spent  thirteen hours working the polls on Primary Day and rushed from there to attend our Precinct Conventions.  Delegates to our Precinct and County Conventions gave up hours on Primary night and on a Saturday later in the month. Before these meetings, we reviewed the old Party Platform and carefully crafted new resolutions. Then we defended them at our Precinct, County and State Conventions. Some of us served on Convention Committees at the County and State level, giving more time to sift through the Resolutions, put them in order and finally come up with a Platform that our Delegates approved at the State Convention.

I’m sorry if this seems like I’m giving you a hard time, and I’d rather be spending my time encouraging you than griping. But, still,  if we can do all that, why can’t y’all cut spending in DC?