Well, it looks like advisers of Newt Gingrich took a vote of no-confidence as most of the aides walked on the former House speaker and current candidate for GOP presidential nomination. Since two of the aides have what The Texas Tribune calls “extensive links” to our good-haired Gov. Rick Perry, the star-powered non-profit Web site puts A + B together to get a capital C, which rhymes with P and that stands for Perry. (With apologies to Meredith Wilson, even though he’s been gone for quite awhile now.)
Don’t get me wrong. I think Jay Root, former Associated Press and Fort Worth Star-Telegram capitol reporter, is one of the best state government reporters and definitely one of the best writers covering the subject. I just think it’s a little weak to make such speculations.
Maybe Good Hair, after this and perhaps more Special Sessions of the Texas Legislature this year, will decide to throw in his hat. It just musses up that purty coiffure anyway. But I don’t think such a leap as is being made due to the Newt-fection, which Root tags as “speculation” in any event, is warranted at 4:01 p.m. CDT, June 9, 2011. Or 4:02 p.m. CDT, …
It does not take much of a hop, skip or jump to surmise that the mass defection might have had more to do with Newt being a weak, turned weakened and particularly unattractive candidate. That also is not to say Rick Perry would be a stronger or particularly appealing Republican presidential aspirant. As a matter of fact, I can’t think of two more less appealing candidates for president or even dog catcher to represent any party.
So at least for the moment, I would say the tote board shows: Gingrich defection 1, Perry probably < 1. But, I live in Beaumont and not Austin, so what do I know?
Oh, and speaking of another possible GOP hopeful — this one actually makes me feel sorry for the Republican Party — former Sen. Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum declared today that climate change is “junk science.” That’s not so surprising especially since Rush Limbaugh — on whose show this “great man of science Santorum” made such a proclamation, has a jihad against the scientific notion of climate change. However, GOP candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney told a town hall meeting in New Hampshire last week that he thinks the Earth is warming and as a result of human activity. I suppose the GOP has got that “big tent” thing working.
And, I take it back, I can think of an equally unappealing candidate for president as Rick Santorum. Move over Newt and Good Hair.
“From Boston this is Dan Dominguez, on the Action 5 News Horse.”
Or how about a news zeppelin?
It makes about as much sense having a news zeppelin as it does having Palin Kool Aid drinkers making history fit her words. Isn’t it bad enough that the almost one-term Alaska governor completely makes up something that seems to be made whole cloth from a NRA advertisement?
Palin and Gov. Rick “Good Hair” Perry — with his fantasy Texas is permitted by U.S. law to secede — need to team up. They could be the Never-Never Land Party Candidates.
To be perfectly frank, I don’t really know what these bird-brains were thinking, what it was they would accomplish by changing Revere’s story in Wikipedia? The source, Wikipedia, is a great one as a directory of sorts but I would never trust anything of substance from the site without checking other sources, or unless I wrote the entry. Even in the latter case, I would be ‘a checkin’.
I likewise can’t understand all the attention given the Palin “mystery” bus ride. She is playing a game with the media with a wink and hardly a nod. The media people eat it up and I want to upchuck just thinking about it.
It makes one wonder what kind of history Palin will make (up) this week.
BACK IN TEXAS — Coy seems to be the watchword these days among the growing crowd of would-be candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry gets ready to lead the secession
These GOP politicians who otherwise take up valuable air on this planet are, of course, joined by declared candidates his Mormonesque Mitt Romney, his Newtwitishness Newt Gingrich, his Weirdness Ron Paul and other well and less well known Republicans such as pro-Pot former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and pro-anything that works at the time former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
Coy. The rest are being coy. Coy can be cute. But it’s not so much in this case.
Soon you will need a program for the players. And, I am not talking about a television program hosted by his Donaldness Donald “The Donald” Trump.
Such a wide-open field makes for a more-interesting race sometimes. In this case, the race might evolve into a contest in which of the biggest harebrain crackpots might be nominated rather than the traditional GOP “good party man.” If this next presidential challenge doesn’t finish off the Republican Party as we know it, then I don’t know what will.
But what if the dog actually catches the car? What will Fido do with it?
My prediction is that a Republican president taking office in 2013 will not be the cure-all for all those, supposedly, long-suffering GOP and/or Tea Party boosters. An example is the furor over the state of Texas failing to receive a major disaster declaration from Spring wildfires.
FEMA rejected a request earlier this month by Gov. Good Hair for a declaration that would help reduce the state and local fiscal burden for those wildfires that have scorched more than 2.2 million acres across Texas. Perry said at the time of the rejected request: “It is not only the obligation of the federal government, but its responsibility under law to help its citizens in times of emergency.”
This is the same governor who shocked millions of Americans by saying Texas could secede if it wanted to do so.
“We are very proud of our Texas history; people discuss and debate the issues of can we break ourselves into five states, can we secede, a lot of interesting things that I’m sure Oklahoma and Pennsylvania would love to be able to say about their states, but the fact is, they can’t because they’re not Texas,” Perry said.
The governor must have been tossing back cold Lone Stars at the Dixie Chicken when Texas History was being taught during his college days at A & M.
An 1845 joint congressional resolution annexing Texas allows, theoretically at least, the state to divide itself up into five states. That doesn’t mean Texas would leave the United States. The Civil War took care of that notion. That was after Texans turned their back on one of its most revered figures, then-Gov. Sam Houston. The leader whose troops defeated Mexico at San Jacinto and who was later president of the Republic of Texas and a U.S. senator for Texas — before Texas he also served as governor of and a U.S. representative from Tennessee — was removed as governor because of his strong opposition to secession.
In addition to the millions already granted to Texas, federal help has come in the form of wildland firefighters from 35 states. Many of those who have helped battle fires across the state are from so-called “hotshot” crewswhich come from three federal agencies, Native American tribes as well as from the states of Alaska and Utah. The U.S. military has likewise lent assistance in the form of helicopters and air tankers.
Having the federal government take an additional burden of the funding for fighting these fires would be welcome and might have been readily deliverable to the state. Unfortunately, Perry and his faux secession act as well as a number of Texas congressional members made that declaration a non-starter.
An increasing number of Republicans were elected to the U.S. House from Texas over the past decade. Yet, few of them have found access to power and have spent more time obstructing and less time working with the administration. Congress members from the state with more tenure and more oomph might have grabbed the president’s ear or found ways to, as that great scholar Larry the Cable Guy says: “Git R Done.”
It seems cruel to say that voters who think the federal government should fork over millions every time their governor says: “Go,” only have themselves to blame. But that is about the gist of it. People who want ideologues in office and get them are often disappointed. Life isn’t easy to stand for your principles unbending. I have seen the word politics defined as “the art of compromise.” Perhaps it is more an inexact science. Although, “compromise” remains an essential particle.
When it comes to picking the next nominee to run against President Obama, perhaps something more substantial than nice hair and a pretty smile might be entertained by Republican voters.
More and more nowadays the Tea Party seems as if its prime target is the Republican Party. Sooner or later the GOP faces possible vaporization of the Whig Party type if the TP frustration with the Republicans finally reaches a China Syndrome phase.
“Mr. Gingrich, who seems not to mind “radical change” in his domestic life, is simply wrong about the Boehner-Ryan Medicare plan,” Temple says in a press release.
Boom goes the dynamite.
Temple goes on to criticize Gingrich while damning Ryan and Boehner with faint praise:
“It is not “radical. It is tame as a pussy cat,” says Temple. ” The Boehner-Ryan Medicare plan is to fix Medicare and Medicaid sometime way off in the future, in the sweet bye and bye. While Obama, Gingrich, Romney, Pelosi and Reid favor the essential tyranny behind ObamaCare – forced purchasing of a product – Boehner and Ryan have, up to now, been content to fiddle while Rome burns with regard to Medicare.”
Great stuff. With friends like Temple, the Republicans sure don’t need enemies although they’ve got them up the yang.
So, let the political allies tear themselves to shreds. I’m going fishing. Well, maybe not. Here is why.
Scott Jennings, a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game warden, responded to a call back in March that a commercial fishing boat had pulled into Freeport with an 8-foot, short-fin mako shark. A Game Warden field reportstates that the crew told the Jennings that the shark had jumped into the boat’s stern as they were weighing anchor.
Yeah, right.
Incredibly, the shark flipped over the crewmen’s heads and landed forward beside the center console of the boat. The crew told the game warden that at one point, they had seriously considered abandoning the boat to the shark.
The report goes on to say that the shark couldn’t be removed from the boat without it being harmed so the game warden called up National Marine Fisheries Service agent Charles Tyer, who arranged the purchase of a “federal highly migratory species permit so that they could legally land the shark.”
Now that’s one hell of a fish story and a lot more fun to relate than the continuing soap-opera-like squabbles between the Republicans and the Tea Partiers.
The machinery of the federal government is gearing down toward a halt. I know this from personal experience, but I will not go into it just because. No, I could relate some of that familiarity but I see no reason to, it being fairly pedestrian. Besides, we still have more than eight hours to go even though I don’t believe in miracles — at least when the federal government is concerned. By federal government, I include Congress.
Give us your tired, your poor and your idiots, the latter of whom will make our laws.
“Hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be required to work during a shutdown, and there’s no guarantee that Congress will keep the administration’s promise to pay those employees once the shutdown is over,” AFGE National President John Gage said.
The suit charges that the Obama administration is violating the Appropriations Clause and Thirteenth Amendment by requiring federal civilian employees to work without pay during a period of lapsed federal appropriations.
Interesting.
Really, there isn’t anything to do but sit back and watch all the foolishness and silliness in this gargantuan soap opera played out by the people who govern the “greatest nation on Earth.”
For a little insanity not directly related to the government shutdown: BP has bought an eastern-facing beach of Cat Island, a barrier island in the Mississippi Sound. The part of the beach is the top of the “T” of the T-shaped island that is about eight miles south of Gulfport, Miss. Parts of the island were long in private hands. So, says a BP press flak, it would be easier for the company to clean up the beach, due to the massive Deepwater Horizon explosion-caused oil spill which happened one year ago this month, than to have to deal with the regulatory niceties of cleaning up private property. You break it, you buy it, I guess. Candy, I bet. S**t, I reckon.
On that note, I know I am off from my part-time job until at least Tuesday. We shall see if it is longer than that, and if I will be back to begging for donations on the blog if the threatened shutdown materializes.
