About Rick Perry: Cronyism, Corruption, Cracked Ideas and Cracked Foundations (links)

highplainsdem

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Mon Aug-15-11 12:06 PM
Original message

About Rick Perry: Cronyism, Corruption, Cracked Ideas and Cracked Foundations (links)

I think the compilation topic about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) worked pretty well, as a place to compile lots of information, and links to more information, on that group.

So I'd like to do the same thing to bring together information on Governor Goodhair, the name Molly Ivins pinned on him.

Molly Ivins also called him the Ken Doll, though I'm not sure she was the first one to call him that.

Some gems from Molly's columns about him have just been excerpted by the Charlotte Observer:

The late Molly Ivins, on Rick Perry
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/08/14/2526469/the-late-molly-ivins-on-rick-perry.html

Jan. 16, 2003

Gov. Goodhair Perry has already earned himself a new nickname after a stunning interview with the Austin American-Statesman in which he noted that Texas has two very serious problems that he, Rick the Reluctant, plans to do exactly nothing about.

"Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday that Texas is burdened by an outdated, out-of-whack tax system and a public education finance system that has to go," reported the paper. "But the state's top elected leader also said Texans shouldn't expect the upcoming legislature to do anything about either. Perry said tackling the dense issues is too much to ask of new leaders." That's leadership!

Jan. 12, 2006

The governor of Texas is despicable. Of all the crass pandering, of all the gross political kowtowing to ignorance, we haven't seen anything this rank from Gov. Goodhair since ... gee, last fall.

Then he was trying to draw attention away from his spectacular failure on public schools by convincing Texans that gay marriage was a horrible threat to us all. Now he's trying to disguise the fact that the schools are in free fall by proposing that we teach creationism in biology classes.

There are countless examples of Perry's cronyism, corruption, and cracked ideas. I posted two recent topics with links to information on the cronyism and corruption.

One recommended the Back to Basics PAC for their main website and their Rick's Dirty Deals site:

For more background on Rick Perry, check out Back to Basics PAC and Rick's Dirty Deals

linking to http://www.backtobasicspac.org/ and http://www.ricksdirtydeals.com/

The other was about the very questionable Perry Super PACs

Rick Perry Super PACs Raise Issues of Coordination, Collusion

and linked to this HuffPo article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/13/rick-perry-super-pacs-rai_n_925943.html

Perry needs those Super PACs to raise funds for him from unlimited donations because that's the way he funded his three gubernatorial races in Texas -- half of the over $100 million he raised came from 204 donors who gave $100,000 or more.

And his main donor has been Houston home builder Bob Perry (no relation), whom the Homeowners of Texas call "the Godfather of Texas."

http://www.homeownersoftexas.org/Bob_Perry.html

See that page for a long list of articles on Bob Perry's political influence.

Bob Perry's homes are known for -- among other flaws like windows installed upside down -- cracked foundations.

Which is one reason the subject line refers to cracked foundations.

But that's also an apt metaphor for Rick Perry's political career, and his newly launched Presidential bid.

There are so many cracks in Rick Perry's record and belief system, and it's time to take a good look at them.

For instance, the fact that the "Texas miracle" that Perry boasts about is a myth, as has been explained by a number of people, including Paul Krugman:

The Texas Unmiracle

-snip-

So what you need to know is that the Texas miracle is a myth, and more broadly that Texan experience offers no useful lessons on how to restore national full employment.

It�s true that Texas entered recession a bit later than the rest of America, mainly because the state�s still energy-heavy economy was buoyed by high oil prices through the first half of 2008. Also, Texas was spared the worst of the housing crisis, partly because it turns out to have surprisingly strict regulation of mortgage lending.

-snip-

In June 2011, the Texas unemployment rate was 8.2 percent. That was less than unemployment in collapsed-bubble states like California and Florida, but it was slightly higher than the unemployment rate in New York, and significantly higher than the rate in Massachusetts. By the way, one in four Texans lacks health insurance, the highest proportion in the nation, thanks largely to the state�s small-government approach. Meanwhile, Massachusetts has near-universal coverage thanks to health reform very similar to the �job-killing� Affordable Care Act.

-snip-

What Texas shows is that a state offering cheap labor and, less important, weak regulation can attract jobs from other states. I believe that the appropriate response to this insight is �Well, duh.� The point is that arguing from this experience that depressing wages and dismantling regulation in America as a whole would create more jobs � which is, whatever Mr. Perry may say, what Perrynomics amounts to in practice � involves a fallacy of composition: every state can�t lure jobs away from every other state.

-snip-

It's been disappointing to see some in the MSM rave about the "Texas miracle" and Perry's miraculous job-creating abilities in recent weeks. But this fallacious, pathetic myth can be stomped into the ground like the noxious weed it is if Democrats attack it every time it's mentioned. For the sake of your friends and neighbors, make sure they don't stay deluded enough to believe there's been a "Texas miracle" during the years Rick Perry has mismanaged the state. He's been harmful enough as Governor of Texas. He'd be even more disastrous as President.

Still, with his ego and the encouragement of rich donors who've found him a willing tool, he wanted to throw his hat into the ring.

So it's time for us to point out that Rick Perry is, as they say in Texas, "all hat and no cattle."

And by the way, DU's Texas forum also has a wealth of material on Perry:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=180

But we need to take a good look at him in GD, too, and it will help to compile links to articles and websites about him.