Why you shouldn't consider a President Perry if you really care about small government!

Forget the abysmal environmental record, the rigged numbers regarding employment, and the shallow demagoguery that should shame every decent Christian who sees it. The real reason you can't call yourself a small government conservative and work or vote for a President Perry is his record regarding guilt and innocence under his administration. It is a model of corruption, incompetence, and dangerous abuse of power that no sane person would wish to apply to the Federal government!

The Death Penalty is probably the most egregious act of power a State, any State, can commit. Never is the collective will of a tax-funded bureaucratic collection of insulated tyrants more naked than when it chooses to extinguish a human life. And I have been on both sides of this issue. I can completely empathize with the outrage of the family of a murder victim and cannot say that I wouldn't join their ranks if something horrible like a murder took away someone close to me. But I also do not approve when the State commits the exact same crime. What's more (I know I'm going to sound like a Libertarian saying this, but I'm not), when the cruel brute force of something like the State takes an innocent life, it shows all of us what an unthinking monster deserving of restraint it truly is.(Now the question of whether or not Private Enterprises display the same characteristics is one for another day)
The administration of the State of Texas by Rick Perry provides us with a textbook example of how this unthinking monster needs to be restrained when it comes to not only the Death Penalty but the protection of the well connected and guilty.

In 2004, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed by the State of Texas for alleged arson in a fire which took the lives of his three daughters in 1991. The evidence that the fire was arson were based on the techniques used by the local authorities in Corsicana, Texas. While he was on Death Row, a fire science expert got a chance to look closer at the case and determined that there was no evidence for arson. The report was sent to Rick Perry's office and the request for a 30 day stay so the evidence could be reviewed was denied. Cameron Todd Willingham was executed as a direct result of this inaction.

Texas Forensic Science Commission was formed by the Texas legislature to investigate bad science in murder investigations and abuses of power. They hired two independent experts and determined that there was no evidence for arson in this case.

Perry's response?

In October 2009, when the commission was about to accept a verbal report of one of these scientists, Perry removed Commission members and canceled that presentation.

I don't know about you, but I don't need to go any further!.Turning a blind eye to that inaction and coverup by Rick Perry, while at the same time mouthing Fox News talking points about “freedom”, railing against “Obamacare”, and listening to a carefully rehearsed Heritage Foundation presentation about Liberty makes a joke out of anyone who supports Perry. That's because that kind of behavior is exactly the kind of abuse of power that the Founders wanted to prevent. And turning a blind eye to it can only bring about a tyranny by empowering people like Perry more.

But wait, it gets worse! We've seen how a State headed by Rick Perry treats the innocent, how does it treat the guilty?

The legal tradition of Separation of Church and State usually receives lip-service and derision in far right circles. And to be fair, it is a good idea made of legal precedent, not actually in the Constitution. The Constitution only mentions religion twice and neither mention is a positive one. The State of Texas recently experienced a national headline making case that illustrates the need to separate Church and State.

FDLS leader and convicted child molester Warren Jeffs was recently sent away for life in spite of Rick Perry's actions not because of them. The members of the FDLS church were in charge of many aspects of life in those small rural towns. Call the police on Warren Jeffs? Hah! That's just not going to do a lot of good when then the judge, the sheriff, the deputies, the administrators are all members of the FLDS.

In an upcoming book-Profit's Prey (as of this writing it is available for e-book release) by private investigator Sam Browers (the lead investigator who is responsible for bringing down Jeffs), it is revealed that the initial 2008 raid of the FDLS's YFZ ranch resulted in every Texas Child Protective Services official that had anything to do with the case being either fired or reassigned. The molested child “wives” were then returned to their molesters. If that action did not come from the Governor's office then it can not be an excuse that he knew nothing of it. Complicity or Ignorance-both are equally as foul when dealing with the raw power of a State!

I've seen in my own line of work accused thieves and accessories to theft be fired just for proximity to a case. The reason is usually that they were either participants or too stupid to see the obvious. Either way, they don't belong in that position. The same thing standard has to be applied to Rick Perry when it comes to firing public servants so as not to embarrass well connected supporters.

The returning of molested children to their molesters is flat out inexcusable! Government small enough so it can't enforce the prosecution of institutionalized child rape is nothing to be proud of!

With Rick Perry's Texas, we have a proven record of the innocent being persecuted (and in this case killed) and the guilty being protected. That is exactly the kind of behavior that we never want to see in an elected official. And now we have him being endorsed as a “Tea Party” candidate? We can expect exactly what we got from the last Texas governor to be installed in the White House if we turn a blind eye to this proven record of State abuse.

Oh and come to think of it, the last time we believed a Texas Governor who promised a small government we had -

A CIA agent exposed for blatant petty political revenge. And a presidential pardon of the political hack responsible.

Voter Machine Fraud in the reelection campaign that was never completely investigated.

An attempt to privatize Social Security that was followed by an admission that privatization would do nothing to help solvency.

Money delegated to fix the levies in New Orleans after decades of crumbling diverted to foreign affairs. Then we had Hurricane Katrina flood the city who then had to endure two weeks of anarchy, death and sewage water.

A National ID act passed so as to take Driver's License standards away from the states.

A politically motivated firing of US Attorneys who were prosecuting Republicans while at the same time ignoring prosecutor misconduct against Democrats!

An expanded deficit three times (a lot of which is no-bid military contracts) that of what Obama spent to deal with the mess he inherited.

Private contractors murdering civilians in an occupied territory.

Appalling conditions in Walter Reed hospital. It shows the degree to which people like our Texas Governors actually “Support the Troops”.

Torture at Ahu Grahib and other shadow facilities that did not reveal any worthwhile information. (They are brazenly lying when attributing this to finding Bin Laden). This was followed by no prosecution for the bureaucrats in charge.

The ignored warning in August 2001 that there was an attack planned by Bin Laden in the USA.

A projected tax surplus spent and this country needing China in order to keep our economy going.

The record of ex-Texas Governors in the White House actually being small government speaks for itself. And Rick Perry is so “small government” that he-

Took Texas from $49 billion in spending when he entered office to $90 Billion in spending now.

Maintains a higher Debt to GDP ratio than California-Perry's Texas rate is 22.9% with debt per citizen at $10,645 and Left Coast California (Pelosi's home) is 18.7% with $9932 in debt per citizen.

Has doubled the state debt. Can you imagine what the US debt will look like if he gets a hold of it?

Has spearheaded efforts to lease roads to foreign corporations. That means taking something the taxpayer paid for and giving it to a foreign corporation so they can charge a toll on something that used to be free and was paid for by the taxpayer.

So, Rick Perry is small government in talking points and campaign slogans only. And he has a proven record of covering up for the guilty if they are well connected while ignoring the victims and killing the innocent then covering up his actions.

Are my fellow Americans that easy to mislead that they can seriously consider this man as a potential president? This kind of political monster is so evil that I could find myself voting for Obama just to keep him out of office.

And I think that is just what Obama is counting on. A national replay of Reid vs Angle.

Well, Mr. Santelli..., Are YOU listening?

In a recent interview, Rick Santelli made the assertion that it was because of the Tea Party the USA wasn't downgraded to BBB status by the same geniuses at Standard and Poors who saw Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns as solvent companies worthy of high ratings. In the middle of another vanity rant in front of CNBC's cameras (this time filled with meaningless sports metaphors) Mr. Santelli tells us "Don’t get caught up in the minutia. All this BS." Well one man's minutia is another man's important detail. When confronted with the Conventional Wisdom world of pundits that is run by vain rants in front of cameras using focus group tested sound bites, the details have never been more important.

But this time, there is a reason that the vain elitist pundit does not want us looking at the details. According to Standard and Poors' Research Update- they lay the blame at the Republican Congress specifically the Gang of Twelve. They site failure of Republicans in Congress to raise revenues as a cause for concern that the Bonds may not be paid. In Standard Orwellian Doublethink he turned the situation on its head with an exact reversal of the facts and claimed the Tea Party was to be thanked for avoiding a BBB rating. And typical of a concise TV pundit presentation, no evidence is ever presented to back that up (although I'm sure mises.org is busy cherry picking those facts right now).

As I mentioned in my Where are we on the Deficit Football Field piece-we are nowhere near default. You can go to the CIA World Factbook and look at what our external debt is is in relation to our GDP. You can compare this with other countries. There are countries with higher ratios of external debt to GDP and they have no run on their bonds. This was an entriely contrived crisis (the goal of which is not fiscal solvency but killing socially beneficial programs) which Standard and Poors reacted to by correctly saying whom was at fault.

And if we were to go in the other direction, we could immediately do something direct about unemployment (Government workers and contractors do spend money and there is a multiplier effect). We could put people back to work repairing our infrastructure. We could eliminate many states deficits and have adequate fire, police and schools. Rick Santelli would throw a fit. But look at his behavior in February 2009 when a meager stimulus was being pushed through Congress to deal with the worst financial crisis in recent history. Mr. Santelli and others like him are going to throw fits no matter what is done (especially when cameras are present). As we recently saw in the "debt crisis" debate, there is no appeasing him or those like him, so it should not even be attempted.

At the time where Mr Santelli did his famous "Well, Mr. Obama..." schtick in front of the CNBC cameras, the think tanks that spread a message similar to his were busy rebranding the policies that had brought us to this point, and part of that playbook was saying "Failed" Stimulus instead of Stimulus especially when there were cameras shooting video. It was February 2009.

There are problems with taking the Dow as an indicator of economic health, but as a general yardstick, I'll use it now merely because it is so widely used. In Feb 2009, the Dow was at 7,600 approximately. The Stimulus failed so much that the Dow turned around and headed up to 12,500 in the space of two years. Unfortunately, it was not enough to deal with unemployment. Unemployment and underemployment are the true bites, the true measure of human misery. of any recession. To Mr. Santelli it is merely a number on a page and a higher ration of impoverished souls he must look at on his limo ride to and from the Chicago Board of Trade. He has a very important job of investing people's money until it is all gone, so I'm sure that added stress on his limo ride is very harsh on him!

But let's put a move like that in historical perspective, The Dow was at 7,600 in November 1997 and passed 12,600 in February 2007. That's some failure! Ten years (with wartime and deregulation caused housing bubble stimulus) worth of stock improvement in just 2 years is impressive. If it had been big enough to put people back to work, the Democrats would never have had to give away my Medicare benefits to Washington elitists in order pay for the Afghan and Iraq occupations.

So now, The Dow has dropped down to where it was last December. That's all the value and economic progress of this entire year evaporated because no one stood up to the "Gang of Twelve" freshman Republicans. And as a quick History lesson, didn't they welcome Obama into office with a cry of "I hope you fail!"? Regardless of the Unemployment, Underemployment and misery of their fellow citizens, they want Obama to face reelection with a poor economy even if they have to be the ones who kill the recovery personally.

As of this writing, I can't say how low it is going to go. No one can! I think I can say with some accuracy, that just as these creatures of publicity were using "Failed"Stimulus just as the stimulus was, in fact, succeeding...they will refrain from using Failed Austerity just as the Austerity they recommend is in the process of failing. It is the nature of the hypocrite.

And one doesn't have to dig far to find hypocrisy behind these loud narcissistic buffoons. Going beyond Mr. Santelli, the leader of Tea Party Nation, Judson Phillips, just revealed to the world something he believes would solve our economic problems-shovel ready projects! That's right, when confronted with the possibility of going from 11 to 9 carrier task forces, Mr. Phillips turns Keynsian! He said, "Thousands of employees would be hired for the steel mills that would provide the steel for the hull and various sub contractors would hire thousands. Do you know what that means?It means they would receive paychecks and go out and spend that money. That would help a recovery. That is a shovel ready project!"

So applying that proven form of economic cure to something that helps people instead of killing them and protecting our oil empire is Socialism and we can't have that, because we'd wind up like the victims of Stalin?

Actually repairing our infrastructure so we can compete with other countries is unthinkable as long as we have this deficit?

I have to compromise my Medicare in my old age with a worthless private voucher so Defense Contractors get to keep raking in millions, while killing civilians in other countries and drinking vodka out of each other's butt?

I have to say enthusiastically and loudly HELL,NO!!

And just to put things in perspective about just how contrived this crisis and these cuts really are-Look at this breakdown of the deficit

Obama and his "out of control" spending at a time when most of nation desperately needs that spending, is $2.4 Trillion. The incompetence and failure of George W. Bush (Iraq and Afghan wars, tax cuts for the rich, Housing bubble) account for $6.1 Trillion. If we absolutely HAD to cut the deficit (we don't) we could easily cut from the Bush part and still have enough money left over to put paychecks in Americans hands again and reclaim our place as the greatest nation on Earth.

Rick Santelli won't like it. Neither will Judson Phillips. But until I see them behave like loud narcissistic buffoons when a Defense bill is being considered or when a proposal to raise taxes on the people and entities who actually have money, there is zero reason to give them ANY credibility!

All revolutions provoke reactionaries. The Left should have realized this and not let them rebrand their failed policies so fast!

If Mr. Santelli wants to use Sports metaphors, here's one that should be considered. The Boston Red Sox went from being the losers everyone joked about to winning two World Series in the past 7 years when they embraced William James' Sabremetrics. It was a revolution in sports statistics that is still being felt. When Grady Little, their manager failed, they brought Bill James into the organization embraced his philosophy and have not looked back!

Mr. Santelli, Judson Phillips, Grover Norquist and others are the Grady Littles who screwed up and now feel entitled to have thier jobs back even as the market is getting massacred immediately after getting precisely what they wanted!