When Rick Perry finally gets around to jumping into the rat race for the Republican presidential nomination — which should be any day now that the Texas legislature is finally done destroying the state for another two years — you will be hearing a lot about how Texas has led the nation in job creation during his time as governor. What you will not be hearing is how and at what cost all those jobs were created. That’s why you should take a moment and read:
Having a governor who does whatever businesses want — including appointing compliant judges who will freely disregard the law to serve the interests of large corporations regardless of what they do to people like Cathie Williams makes Texas extremely attractive to business. Corporations don’t generally care about miscarriages of justice. They care about being given free passes so they can earn more money. So Perry has made Texas a state with lots of new jobs because it has a court system weighted in favor of corporations against its citizens.
Rick Perry’s secret to job creation is no secret at all: It’s the same recipe used in places like Mexico and Malaysia. Here, companies save millions they would otherwise have had to spend on responsibility. It’s a tradeoff: Give up on public schools, healthy air, and your Constitutional rights and you can have a job.
Oh, and P.S. — All those jobs were not actually “created.” They are jobs that were moved here from other states. So for every job gained in Texas, a job was lost in another state. Tough luck on you, huh?
Posted by Len on Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 at 10:50 pm CT in Politics
Can you imagine a reception at the White House honoring Gay Pride Month with a Republican president in residence? Neither can I. Yet that is exactly what happened this evening. Here is video of President Obama’s remarks to those gathered…
Transcript follows the break.
(I have been told that the correct term is LGBT Pride Month, not Gay Pride Month. Either one works for me.)
Posted by Len on Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 at 3:08 pm CT in Politics
President Obama held a press conference this morning. You may have missed it. Here locally, it was carried in full by our CBS and ABC affiliates. NBC and FOX chose not to interrupt regular programming. There is also a chance you may have been at work. If you did miss it, here it is in full.
Here’s our friend Rachel Maddow at what just may be her best. She’s talking about the lengths to which Republicans will go to hurt the Obama administration, including destroying the economy and opposing their own policies.
It’s a bit long, coming in at about 16 minutes, but it’s well worth your time — especially if you want to understand a lot of the crap you’re going to seeing and hearing from our Republicans in the coming 16 months or so leading up to the 2012 elections.
Posted by Len on Monday, June 27th, 2011 at 11:00 am CT in Politics,Republicans
It’s official — The Flake (a.k.a. Michele Bachmann) has announced her candidacy for the 2012 Republican nomination for the presidency of the United States of America. It now does not matter what the Tea Party Queen (a.k.a. Sarah Palin) because the Tea Party Princess (Bachmann) is in. The entertainment value of the race for the Republican nomination just went up about 200%.
While we’re at this, let’s correct some vocabulary here, shall we? All these Republicans — Romney, Gingrich, Bachmann, Pawlenty, Santorum, etc. — are not running for President of the United States. They are running for the Republican nomination to run for President of the United States. Only one of them will actually run for the presidency. The rest of them right now are only running for the opportunity to be the one who loses to President Barack Obama.
And, given the current state of the Republican party, I do not in any way discount her chances of winning the nomination. The general election, however, will be a different story. She will lose to Barack Obama in a landslide.
Posted by Len on Saturday, June 25th, 2011 at 10:48 am CT in Politics
“Strengthening America by Investing at Home”
From the White House weblog:
Speaking from Carnegie Mellon University, President Obama discusses the vital role advanced manufacturing will have in strengthening our economy and creating good, middle-class jobs.
Click below to listen to the audio only:
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Posted by Len on Friday, June 24th, 2011 at 9:32 pm CT in Politics
By a vote of 33 to 29, the Republican-controlled New York State Senate just passed that state’s marriage equality bill. Since the bill had already passed the Assembly, it now goes to Governor Andrew Cuomo for his signature and will take effect in 30 days.
Congratulations, New York!
UPDATE: Republican State Senator Mark J. Grisanti explains his vote:
But this is a story with which you should be well familiar by now. You know it’s the red liners — the top 1% — that the Republicans are fighting so hard to protect. Even if they have to destroy the country to do it.
