Washington Post

Washington Post attacks Life via Texas

March 9, 2016 Republican Delegate Count – UPDATE

Hawaii is in. Look here – or here – for updates.Further breakdown of allotments is available at the Washington Post website.  (UPDATE) The New York Times also has clear graphics (and faster) here:

NYT Delegate Tracker

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Washington Post Delegate Tracker

Holder blocks Texas ID Voter law

The Constitution does not mandate that all the big decisions will be made by the Courts and bureaucrats and only the inconsequential will be made by the Legislature.

Wonder how many photo ID’s Holder required in the “Operation Gunwalker” he enabled?

Breaking news this morning (Texas Tribune here, Washington Post story, here)  is that the Obama Administration has refused to allow — under the 1965 Voter’s Rights Act – the implementation of the Texas voter ID law passed by our elected  Legislature last May!

This is overreaching and poor (pointed, result-driven) use of statistics.

How many “Hispanics” don’t have “Spanish surnames?” How many with Spanish surnames don’t consider themselves disadvantaged?

Why is there no mention of the traditional racial minority, African Americans, in so many of the news article quotes from Holder?

I needed a photo ID to pick up a FedEx shipment. I can’t use my credit card without a photo ID. College and High School students get photo ID’s at school.

Good grief, I need a photo ID and to allow a stranger to grope me if I want to go on an airplane.

And last week, at the Nation’s Capitol, I had to submit to scanning to enter any of the Federal buildings!

And I needed that photo ID to check into my hotel.

The Voting Rights Act is 40 years old and was in reaction to the abuses of Democrats. Most of the subsequent 40 years, Democrats held the power in Texas and in the US House and Senate. Why is this considered a Democrat cause? (In my opinion: because they are *not* in power at the moment, at least to the extent they want it.)

Larry and I heard snippets of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Lincoln Memorial Speech, yesterday. The crowd sang, “We shall overcome.”

I wonder whether we will ever get to that point where anyone feels that we have overcome?

Would Rick Perry Repeal the 16th Amendment?

Governor Rick Perry has repeatedly said that Government shouldn’t “spend all the money,” that the Federal government is too big and replicates what the states do and usurps the authority of the the States to decide what to spend or not to spend.

There’s a lot of comment these days about Herman Cain’s “999” tax plan, in which he prioritizes raising revenue by taxes that will cover spending. His staff and advisers are currently defending their calculations to raise $2.3 Trillion a year with his plan. With the “empowerment zones” meant to make the tax less regressive, he’s already increasing the complexity of the plan – along with the bureaucracy.

(To be fair, the WaPo article seems not to notice that Mr. Cain’s plan would end payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, lowering the burden for many workers, and I believe that the nay-sayers under estimate collections from “the wealthy.”)

In contrast, Governor Perry’s priority has always been to cut spending first, and to cut the influence of the federal government in our lives. I tend to agree: My preferred “plan” has always been to cut spending, now.

Here’s what he’s said in the past:

“In the wake of the New Deal, We have allowed Progressives to successfully frame the debate. Republicans constantly allow themselves to be trapped into thinking they are against people if they oppose certain programs.” (p. 55,location 945 kindle)

“First, we must restrict federal spending. Rampant and wasteful spending in Washington is an affront to both freedom and federalism. The most important thing we could do is amend the Constitution — now — to restrict federal spending. There are generally thought to be two options: the traditional balanced budget amendment or a straightforward spending limit amendment, either of which would be a significant improvement. I prefer the latter. It is imperative that we establish a constitutional requirement that the federal government live within its means like states and most American households must do—but I don’t want the Washington establishment to hide behind tax increases to balance the budget. Let’s use the people’s document—the Constitution—to put an actual spending limit in place to control the beast in Washington.” (p.181)

“Second, we should restrict the unlimited source of revenue that the federal government has used to grow beyond its constitutionally prescribed powers. One option would be to totally scrap the current tax code in favor of a flat tax, and thereby make taxation much simpler, easier to follow, and harder to manipulate. Another option would be to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution (providing the power for the income tax) altogether, and then pursue an alternative model of taxation such as a national sales tax or the Fair Tax.” (p.182)

Perry, Rick (2010-11-15). Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington. Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

The Plot Against Perry – Patriot Update

I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, but I do think Governor Perry is red meat for the controversy-hungry media and that he scares the dickens out of RINO’s.

And now, we’ve got the Washington Post literally turning over rocks to turn up scandalous words. (That rock never belonged to him or his family, although the reports say they repeatedly tried to hide the word.)

Here’s someone who does see conspiracy:

There are three reasons why these groups are plotting against Perry.

First, he hails from Texas and they claim he is “soft on illegal immigration.” I will set the record straight on Perry’s immigration policy. Second, he’s not a “silver tongued” public speaker — as if that should be a qualification anyway. We all know what the last “silver tongued” orator has done to our country. Actions, my fellow citizens, speak louder than words. Third, Governor Perry is a Christian Conservative.

via The Plot Against Perry – Patriot Update.

Spin on Spin (What Sarah Palin’s supporters are saying about Rick Perry)

I could be writing funny jokes about President Obama missing the bus under which he intends to throw America.

Instead, I got side tracked by a tweet claiming that Governor Perry is not honest.

“A Time for Choosing” is a pro-Sarah Palin blog that published an August 29, 2011 post titled, “Perry Campaign: Everything in “Fed Up!” Was Meaningless BS,”

Needless to say, no Perry staffer said such a thing. Instead, the author takes a mish mash of articles from the Los Angeles Times, the Hill, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal  and builds himself a strawman.

He claims the Governor lies because he repeatedly told us he had no desire to run for President, ignoring the fact that the Governor told us that conversations with his wife in June of this year led him to have a change of heart.

As for the rest of the piece, A Time for Choosing’s author, who claims to have read the Governor’s book, Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington, echoes the claims that the Perry campaign is denying the book has any relevance, and that the Governor is “walking back” or has “tempered” his stand  on the strong views expressed in it.

Perry told a Wall Street Journal reporter to read the book when the reporter repeatedly insisted that Perry

 “. . . suggested the program’s creation violated the Constitution. The program was put in place, “at the expense of respect for the Constitution and limited government,” he wrote, comparing the program to a “bad disease” that has continued to spread. Instead of “a retirement system that is no longer set up like an illegal Ponzi scheme,” he wrote, he would prefer a system that “will allow individuals to own and control their own retirement.”

However bad it is for SS to be “at the expense of respect for the Constitution,” nowhere in the book does it say that Social Security violates the Constitution.The reporter suggests that the Governor “suggests.”

The author quotes the Hill referring to the Washington Post’s comments on an email from Perry staffer, Mark Miner:

The 16th Amendment instituting a federal income tax starting at one percent has exploded into onerous, complex and confusing tax rates and rules for American workers over the last century. The need for job creation in the wake of the explosion of federal debt and costly entitlement programs, mean the best course of action in the near future is a simpler, flatter and broader tax system that unleashes production, creates jobs, and creates more taxpayers. We can’t undo more than 70 years of progressive taxation and worsening debt obligations overnight.

Here’s what the book actually proposes:

“Second, we should restrict the unlimited source of revenue that the federal government has used to grow beyond its constitutionally prescribed powers. One option would be to totally scrap the current tax code in favor of a flat tax, and thereby make taxation much simpler, easier to follow, and harder to manipulate. Another option would be to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution (providing the power for the income tax) altogether, and then pursue an alternative model of taxation such as a national sales tax or the Fair Tax. The time has come to stop talking about fixing the broken and burdensome tax code and to take bold action to replace it with one that is not a burden for the taxpayer and that provides only the modest revenue needed to perform the basic constitutional functions of the federal government. America needs a fairer, flatter, and simpler system, one which working families can complete without having to hire a bevy of professionals to assist them.”   Perry, Rick; Newt Gingrich (2010-11-15). Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington (pp. 182-183). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle PC Edition. (accessed 8/29/11)

I want to believe that the bloggers’ problem is using interpretations/spins from several reporters, on a book they evidently either didn’t read or didn’t understand to build your premise on. If that is the case, though, why would he a headline that appears to be a quote from a staff member when it’s an obvious, biased interpretation by the blogger?