Rick Perry: MIA

OK, as you may know I live in Texas (Houston, TX, to be exact) and with the exception of Florida, geographically speaking, Texas is about as far south as you can get, within the continental United States.  I mean we are usually hot and humid down here in this part of Texas, at least.   Now Texas is big and the extreme northern part of the state is used to fairly extreme winter weather, but the vast majority of the state is not.  And certainly, we are not used to rolling power outages in the middle of the coldest winter weather in over a decade!  (Remember, we were the home state of Enron, they did that to other states.)  So, don’t you think that our Governor should stick around just in case he might be needed?  Instead, the day the blackouts began he left the state and flew to California for Ronald Reagan’s 100^th Birthday Celebration, which is not even until Sunday!  Even I knew from news reports from early that morning to expect the blackouts, so Governor Perry cannot very well claim ignorance of the situation before leaving the state.  All of this re-enforces his image of not caring about the people Texas.  While pipes were bursting, Governor Perry was in California.  While the City of Houston had city buses stationed throughout the city so people who needed a warm place to go could just go get on one, Governor Perry was in California.  While cars and trucks were sliding all over our streets and highways from Brownsville to Corpus Christie to Houston to Austin to El Paso to Dallas to Tyler to Amarillo, Governor Perry was in California. 

Governor Perry will return to Texas Sunday night, after we have all thawed out, to once again show his broad shoulders and good hair to the Legislators that will be back at work the next morning. 

The Beginning

A quick word about where the power in the state of Texas really lies.  It is not with the Governor.  It is with the Lt. Governor and the Speaker of the House.  The only time the Governor gets to pretend he or she has power is in the first days of a new Legislative session.  Our constitution prohibits legislation to come to the floor for debate or consideration, much less a vote in the first 6o days of its 140 session unless the Governor declares it an “Emergency Item.”

The state of Texas  (my state, mind you!) is facing a $27 Billion Budget short fall and our Governor calls for Emergency Legislation to deal with abolishing Sanctuary Cities; Eminent Domain; requiring Voter ID; an amendment requiring the Federal Government to balance its budget, and requiring Sonograms for women getting abortions?  All of these so-called "emergency issues" are beyond the pale! 

Local police forces have quite enough to do without checking the immigration status of every person they meet in the course of their duties.  No, sorry: it will not be everyone they run across… It will only be people with nice tans, dark hair, and that speak with an accent instead of a twang. 

Women seeking abortions should not have to go through the extra steps Senator Dan (Should-Have-Stuck-To-Sports-Announcing) Patrick thinks is necessary just because he does not think a woman has the right to an abortion in the first place.  To require a woman who has made the very difficult decision (despite what abortion opponents want to believe) to undergo a medical procedure to have to jump through extra hoops is just maliciousness on Senator Patrick’s part.  The last I checked, abortions were still legal in the United States.  The Supreme Court, to the best of my knowledge, in Roe v Wade did not exempt the State of Texas from any of its ruling (Especially since it originated in Dallas!).

We should not have to present papers to vote, this is not a totalitarian country, it is a Democracy! 

After Governor Perry's history with the Trans-Texas Corridor, I really do not believe he is the least bit sincere about protecting an individual's property rights, so this Imminent Domain issue he has brought up is really going to have to be looked after closely.  Perry is slimy.  He is going to figure out a way to make it look like property rights are being protected when they are actually being stripped away.  Am I being paranoid?  Doubt it.

A state amendment requiring the Federal Government to balance its budget?  Really?  Seriously?  Not to sound redundant, but the last time I checked… the pecking order of governments begins with local city, then county, then state, then FEDERAL!  So, the State Governments really don’t get to tell the Federal Government anything about its budget. 

Get over it Perry and on to the things that really matter in this state.  And, no, that is not trying to dismantle the benefits of the Health Care Bill, nor trying to circumvent the EPA, nor saddling our already incredibly struggling education system with over a third of the state budget cuts.  Now is the time we should be spending more on education. 

One last thing, the man who won re-election by espousing secessionist BS, and basically giving his middle finger to the United States Federal Government and their subsidies and grants (on the campaign trail) turns out to be the Governor with the largest hands for catching Federal Stimulus Monies.  http://www.txstatedemocrats.org/?p=1634  Can you say hypocrite?