This Could Explain It

This short excerpt from an interview with Governor Rick Perry could go a long way toward explaining why he has been so illogical and hard to reason with lately (although I can't say I blame his poor wife):

“Abstinence works,” said Governor Perry during a televised interview with Evan Smith of The Texas Tribune.

“But we have the third highest teen pregnancy rate among all states in the country,” Smith responded.

“It works,” insisted Perry.

“Can you give me a statistic suggesting it works?” asked Smith.

“I’m just going to tell you from my own personal life. Abstinence works,” said Perry, doggedly.

Governor Flees Texas Cold For California

Up here in Amarillo we normally have worse winters than the rest of Texas. We'll get our share of ice and snow several times in a winter, so the city knows how to deal with such weather. Amarillo even owns some snow plows -- and regularly uses them. So while we got snow, ice, a brisk wind and below zero temperatures (we set a city record at -5F a couple of nights ago), the schools and businesses remained open and life went on pretty much as usual -- and there were no "rolling blackouts".

But much of the rest of Texas was hit hard by the ice and snow and frigid temperatures, and since they don't get this weather very often, life was severely disrupted all the way down to South Texas. Schools and businesses were closed and the roads were very dangerous (since no Texan really knows how to drive on ice). But perhaps worst of all, many areas (Houston, Austin, Dallas-Ft.Worth, etc.) were hit with rolling electrical blackouts. Consumers were left without electricity for 30 to 45 minutes at a time, sometimes several times a day. And in homes heated by electricity, that can be very uncomfortable.

The electric companies are saying that that didn't have enough natural gas pressure to handle the increased demand. That sounds more than a little fishy to me, since Texas is one of the largest natural gas producers in the world (and production has skyrocketed enough to put over $9 billion in the state's "rainy day fund"). This is precisely the kind of thing that needed some attention from the governor's office.

Sadly though, Texas' governor was not even in the state. Governor Rick Perry was in sunny Southern California. Perry left Texas on Wednesday, just as the crap was starting to hit the proverbial fan (and returns on Sunday). Perry's excuse for leaving was to celebrate the 100th birthday of former (and dead) president, Ronald Reagan. Of course, Reagan's birthday is not until Sunday (February 6th), so it seems like he would have had time to put some pressure on gas and electric producers and deal with the blackouts before traipsing off to California.

But that would assume he possesses a minimum level of competence -- something he could never be accused of. I think Democratic Party spokeswoman Kirsten Gray probably put it best when she said, "While we endured a power grid breakdown that literally left us in the dark and looking for answers, the governor not only offered no leadership -- he was nowhere to be found."

The governor's office has been held by Perry (and before him -- George Bush) for so long, I've forgotten what it's like to have competent leadership in that office.

Corporations Pay $2M For Access To Governor

It's official now.   Rick Perry has been sworn in for his third term as governor of Texas.   This time the governor tells us that he scaled back his inauguration because of the continuing recession.   Although what the Republicans call "scaled-down", the rest of us would label as ridiculously expensive.   This inauguration only cost about $2 million.

Republicans are quick to point out that the $2 million did not come out of state funds -- it was donated to the governor by corporations -- each of which donated between $5,000 and $100,000.   But these donors didn't supply that money out of the goodness of their hearts (and if you believe they did, I have some nice ocean-front property here in Amarillo I'll sell you real cheap).   They were buying good will and access from the governor, and they've already received the first installment -- getting face-time with the governor prior to his ceremony.   You can bet they'll expect more when any bill comes up that affects them.

Frankly, I don't understand why so much money needs to be spent on the inauguration of any governor (or president for that matter).   All that's really needed is a public swearing-in ceremony (which without the balls, dinners, barbecues and other hoopla could be done for next to nothing).   Why must we sell governmental access to the corporations so the elected official can throw a huge party for his/her followers?   Is this really necessary, especially in the middle of a recession where millions of ordinary citizens are hurting (and that governor is fixing to preside over cuts to services that will make that even worse)?

The Dallas Morning News has done us all a favor by printing a list of the corporate donors who have now bought access to the governor's office -- access that no ordinary Texas will have.   Here is the list of the new owners of Texas government:

2011 PLEDGED LEVEL CONTRIBUTOR
in-kind Bronze The Finkelstein Family
in-kind Bronze McAllister & Company
$100,000 Platinum AT&T
$100,000 Platinum BJ McCombs
$100,000 Platinum Madeleine and T. Boone Pickens
$50,000 Gold Exxon
$50,000 Gold Farouk Systems
$50,000 Gold Mindy & Jeff Hildebrand
$50,000 Gold Mickey Long
$50,000 Gold Plains Exploration & Production 
$50,000 Gold NuStar/Bill Greehey
$25,000 Silver Altria
$25,000 Silver American Electric Power
$25,000 Silver Anheuser Busch
$25,000 Silver Barry and Lana Andrews
$25,000 Silver Centerpoint Energy, Inc.
$25,000 Silver Chesapeake Energy
$25,000 Silver Chevron
$25,000 Silver Dell 
$25,000 Silver Devon Energy
$25,000 Silver Energy Future Holdings
$25,000 Silver HCA
$25,000 Silver Hewlett Packard
$25,000 Silver Marathon Oil
$25,000 Silver The Gallagher Law Firm
$25,000 Silver Nabors 
$25,000 Silver Nextera
$25,000 Silver Novartis
$25,000 Silver NRG
$25,000 Silver Oncor
$25,000 Silver Ryan, LLC
$25,000 Silver Stan and Linda Harper/ Alan and Patti Harper
$25,000 Silver Time Warner Cable
$25,000 Silver Xcel Energy
$10,000 Bronze Aetna
$10,000 Bronze Amerigroup
$10,000 Bronze Andrews Kurth
$10,000 Bronze Bell Helicopter
$10,000 Bronze Bobby Stillwell
$10,000 Bronze Comerica
$10,000 Bronze Conoco Phillips
$10,000 Bronze Dick Scott
$10,000 Bronze MCNA Dental
$10,000 Bronze Fry's Electronics
$10,000 Bronze Sarah & George Seay
$10,000 Bronze Glenda and Sam Kane
$10,000 Bronze Gulf States Toyota
$10,000 Bronze HEB
$10,000 Bronze Honeywell
$10,000 Bronze Iris and Ardon Moore
$10,000 Bronze John & Bobbie Nau / Silver Eagle Distributors
$10,000 Bronze Kaplan Higher Education
$10,000 Bronze Kim and Chuck Watson
$10,000 Bronze Koch Industries
$10,000 Bronze Lockheed Martin
$10,000 Bronze Maxor
$10,000 Bronze Microsoft
$10,000 Bronze Natasha and Michael Bleyzer
$10,000 Bronze Oracle
$10,000 Bronze Alejandra & Paul Foster
$10,000 Bronze PNM Resources
$10,000 Bronze Property Casualty Insurance
$10,000 Bronze Raytheon
$10,000 Bronze Reed Elsevier
$10,000 Bronze Republic Beverage/Alan and Barbara Dreeben
$10,000 Bronze Spark Energy
$10,000 Bronze Tenaska
$10,000 Bronze Texas Civil Justice League
$10,000 Bronze Texas Credit Union League
$10,000 Bronze Texas Gaming Association
$10,000 Bronze Toyota Motor Manufacturing of Texas
$10,000 Bronze Travelers
$10,000 Bronze United Technologies
$10,000 Bronze UPS
$10,000 Bronze USAA
$10,000 Bronze Wholesale Beer Distributors
$10,000 Bronze Lilly
$10,000 Bronze Margaret and Jim Perkins
$5,000 Friend Ramona & Lee Bass
$5,000 Friend Nesa and Larry Anders
$5,000 Bronze Wind Energy Transmission Texas

Perry Throws Children Under The (School) Bus

Governor Rick Perry (pictured) and the Texas State Board of Education can brag all they want to about how wonderful Texas schools are, but there are a couple of statistics that show what a big lie they are telling. First, Texas ranks near the bottom of all the states in funding its public education.

The second statistic shows the result of that underfunding. Texas schools only graduate 65.3% of high school students. That's right. Of all the students that enter a Texas high school, more than a third of them will not graduate. This means Texas is dumping hundreds of thousands of uneducated (or minimally educated) students on society every year. This has to have a deleterious effect on many social problems like crime, poverty, unemployment, etc.

But among the Republican leadership in Texas, politics is much more important than educating children or solving social problems. Consider the purely political move made by the governor this last week (he is up for re-election this year and has a strong opponent in the Republican primary). In a move designed to appeal to his ultra-right-wing-teabagger base, Gov. Perry has turned down $700 million dollars from the federal government for Texas schools.

That money would have been Texas' share of the $4.35 billion Race To The Top funds provided by the federal government to improve schools nationwide (Alaska has also refused to apply for their share of the funds). Perry said the funding program "smacks of a federal takeover of our public schools" because it would mean Texas would have to adopt federal standards for schools.

This, of course, would appeal to the nutty teabaggers that make up a majority of the Texas Republican Party. These people oppose all federal government programs except for the military -- they do love their obscene little wars. So to get the votes of these nuts, Perry has shown he is willing to throw Texas school children under the proverbial bus.

Even more shocking is the fact that the Republican-dominated State Board of Education supports Perry's political move in rejecting the $700 million. These board members, who are tasked with providing Texas children with the best possible education, are also willing to put their personal politics above helping the school children of the state.

The State Board of Education has now passed a resolution supporting Gov. Perry which says, "The State Board of Education opposes any effort to implement national standards and national tests and believes the authority to determine what Texas students will be taught in Texas public schools should reside with the State Board of Education."

It is ridiculous to think that Texas is afraid of having to meet national school standards -- standards that will be met in 48 other states. We should not be afraid to meet these standards because we should have already adopted standards that exceed those national standards. But we haven't, and it shows in our schools.

The board is afraid that those standards would prohibit their efforts to inject their religious and political beliefs into the school curriculum. The board is currently only one vote away from requiring the teaching of creationism in science classes, and they hope to get that vote in the next election. Science barely won the last skirmish, but the battle is far from over here in Texas.

Currently, the board is in the process of trying to install a revisionist view of history into the school curriculum. They want to make heros out of zeros such as "Tail Gunner" Joe McCarthy, anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly and ethically-challenged ex-Speaker Newt Gingrich, while minimizing the contributions of true heroes like Cesar Chavez.

With people like Gov. Perry and the current State Board of Education in charge, is it any wonder that Texas schools are in trouble?

Cheerleader vs. Cheerleader

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has been on the campaign trail for a while now trading barbs with current governor Rick Perry. But yesterday, she made it official. From her old high school in LaMarque (40 miles SE of Houston), Hutchison announced that she is an official candidate for the office of governor in the 2010 Texas Republican primary.

That means the Republican primary will be between former University of Texas cheerleader Hutchison and former Texas A and M cheerleader Perry. And it's shaping up to be a very expensive and nasty primary campaign. Experts believe that Hutchison and Perry will break all previous records on campaign expenditure by a large margin.

Both candidates have been making accusations aimed at the other, and we are still at least seven months from the primary voting. Some Republicans are even afraid the primary fight will get nasty enough to split the Texas Republican Party. It would not take many of the loser's supporters staying home to throw the general election to the Democrats.

As for the Democrats, so far there is only one announced candidate -- Tom Schieffer, who served as an ambassador to both Australia and Japan during the Bush administration. Humorist, singer and author Kinky Friedman is currently raising funds, and will probably announce his candidacy soon.

Some Democrats are also urging former Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle to enter the race. There are two drawbacks to an Earle candidacy -- he may not have enough name recognition to defeat Schieffer or Friedman, and he is the DA who filed charges against Tom Delay, causing his fall from power. An Earle candidacy could bring the two warring factions of the Republican Party back together again.

Some media members have tried to paint the Republican primary as a right-winger (Perry) against a moderate (Hutchison). That simply is not true. Both are hardcore right-wingers. All you have to do to know this is to look at a couple of Hutchison's most high-profile supporters -- Dick Armey and Phil Gramm. You can't get any further to the right in Texas than these two nuts.