The Republican presidential hopefuls plunged with wide smiles and barbecue aprons into the melee of the Iowa State Fair here yesterday hours after squaring off in a tumultuous televised debate that at times was more undignified playground brawl than polite policy discourse.

Who was hurt the worst may become clear today, when Republican voters from all corners of the state are bused by the candidates to the college town of Ames, which also hosted the debate, for a first straw poll on which of them they favour for the party nomination. While the atmosphere will be carnival-like and the results non-binding, the poll traditionally begins the process of separating the weak from the strong.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/republican-hostilities-break-out-as-candidates-spar-for-nomination-2336882.html

People like Perry are turncoats and their religious credentials should have been checked by the Al Gore machine...

Sarah Palin has stolen the spotlight from Republican presidential hopefuls at the Iowa State Fair as speculation mounts she will make a tilt at the White House.

Confirmed Republican presidential hopefuls, eager for media attention, found themselves competing with Ms Palin, who insists she is not trying to steal the limelight and says she is still undecided about running in 2012.

But mobbed by the media and supporters, Ms Palin arrived at the fair looking and sounding every inch the candidate.

For 45 minutes she revelled in the attention, signing autographs and answering reporters' questions.

The former vice-presidential nominee says she will make a decision in September on whether she is going to run.

"I think there is plenty of time to jump in the race," she said.

"Watching the whole process over the last year certainly shows me that, yes, there is plenty of room for more people.

"I don't think I'm stealing any spotlights. We're very thankful to have been invited by friends and I'm glad we could make it."

If Ms Palin does not run, it has been speculated she would support Texas governor Rick Perry, who will announce his campaign tomorrow.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-13/sarah-palin-presidential-speculation-heats-up/2837704

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Gov. Rick Perry of Texas announced Saturday that he was running for president, declaring it was “time to get America working again” as he sought to offer the Republican Party a well-rounded candidate who appeals to fiscal conservatives and can also rally the evangelical base.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/us/politics/14perry.html?_r=1&hp

As expected, Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, has announced that he is running for president. And we already know what his campaign will be about: faith in miracles.

Some of these miracles will involve things that you’re liable to read in the Bible. But if he wins the Republican nomination, his campaign will probably center on a more secular theme: the alleged economic miracle in Texas, which, it’s often asserted, sailed through the Great Recession almost unscathed thanks to conservative economic policies. And Mr. Perry will claim that he can restore prosperity to America by applying the same policies at a national level.

So what you need to know is that the Texas miracle is a myth, and more broadly that Texan experience offers no useful lessons on how to restore national full employment.

It’s true that Texas entered recession a bit later than the rest of America, mainly because the state’s still energy-heavy economy was buoyed by high oil prices through the first half of 2008. Also, Texas was spared the worst of the housing crisis, partly because it turns out to have surprisingly strict regulation of mortgage lending.

Despite all that, however, from mid-2008 onward unemployment soared in Texas, just as it did almost everywhere else.

In June 2011, the Texas unemployment rate was 8.2 percent. That was less than unemployment in collapsed-bubble states like California and Florida, but it was slightly higher than the unemployment rate in New York, and significantly higher than the rate in Massachusetts. By the way, one in four Texans lacks health insurance, the highest proportion in the nation, thanks largely to the state’s small-government approach. Meanwhile, Massachusetts has near-universal coverage thanks to health reform very similar to the “job-killing” Affordable Care Act.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/the-texas-unmiracle.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry has been criticised across the political divide over remarks he made about the head of the US central bank.

The Texas governor said on Monday he would view it as "treasonous" if Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke printed more cash between now and the 2012 election.

The White House and ex-Bush strategist Karl Rove denounced the remarks.

Mr Perry entered the race on Saturday for next year's Republican nomination to challenge President Barack Obama.

The 61-year-old, who succeeded former President George W Bush as Texas governor in 2000, has been tipped as a strong contender to be the party's nominee.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14553127

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In his campaign kickoff last Saturday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry burnished his conservative credentials by attacking the idea of deficit stimulus spending. “Washington’s insatiable desire to spend our children’s inheritance on failed stimulus plans and other misguided economic theories have given us record debt and left us with far too many unemployed,” he said.

But twas not always so for Perry. Back in 2003, lobbyists under Perry’s direction went to Capitol Hill to lobby the Republican Congress for more than a billion dollars in federal deficit spending on “stimulus.” And they won. A 2005 report (pdf) by the Texas Office of State-Federal Relations boasted of “$1.2 billion in temporary state fiscal relief to Texas” through Medicaid that Perry’s lobbying operation had secured.

And that was just the beginning. The same report details millions more that flowed from the federal treasury into Texas as a result of the official state lobbying campaign, which was overseen by Perry, a Republican Lt. Governor and the Republican speaker of the state house between 2003 and 2005. In several cases, the Texas lobbying campaign won funds for programs that Perry now says he opposes as fiscally irresponsible intrusions on state responsibilities.

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/08/17/rick-perry-aggressively-pursued-federal-aid-he-now-decries/#ixzz1VHleiuU9

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One should hope that perry doesn't get the gig of leading the world... to oblivion...

Even me, who is not an economist and has no sense of the value of money, guess that if five people share one hundred dollars, they all have 20 dollars each. If the numbers of sharers increase say by one, the pool has to increase by 20 dollars to keep the shares on an even keel — and this without any gain. This is basically the way it works in any population. 

As the number of people increases, the central bank has to increase the pool of cash so to speak otherwise some people will miss out, especially when the conmen and the rich are able to increase their share of the loot, often to the detriment of others... The trick of intelligent economists is to know how much to increase the loot by, so the rich do not feel their stack is being devalued and the poor can survive — and inprove their way of life... But increase of the cake size is unavoidable unless there is a reduction in the population. 

All this basic economic 101, explained here without introducing an ounce of greed — or "interest" — or profit — or international relation...

What Perry said shows he is either a ningnong or a populist idiot — a bit like our Abbott...

Two years ago, John McHale, an entrepreneur from Austin, Tex., who has given millions of dollars to Democratic candidates and causes, did something very unusual for him: he wrote a $50,000 check to a Republican candidate, Rick Perry, then seeking a third full term as governor of Texas. In September 2010, he did it again, catapulting himself into the top ranks of Mr. Perry’s donors.

Mr. McHale, a Perry spokesman said after the initial donation, “understands Governor Perry’s leadership has made Texas a good place to do business.”

Including, it turned out, for Mr. McHale’s business interests and partners. In May 2010 an economic development fund administered by the governor’s office handed $3 million to G-Con, a pharmaceutical start-up that Mr. McHale helped get off the ground. At least two other executives with connections to the firm had also given Mr. Perry tens of thousands of dollars.

Mr. Perry leapt into the Republican presidential primary this month preceded by his reputation as a thoroughbred fund-raiser. But a review of Mr. Perry’s years in office reveals that one of his most potent fund-raising tools is the very government he heads.

Over three terms in office, Mr. Perry’s administration has doled out grants, tax breaks, contracts and appointments to hundreds of his most generous supporters and their businesses. And they have helped Mr. Perry raise more money than any politician in Texas history, donations that have periodically raised eyebrows but, thanks to loose campaign finance laws and a business-friendly political culture dominated in recent years by Republicans, have only fueled Mr. Perry’s ascent.

“Texas politics does have this amazing pay-to-play culture,” said Harold Cook, a Democratic political consultant.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/us/politics/21donate.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

If the same process happened in say Afghanistan, we'd call it corruption...

The late and hardly lamented demagogue pioneered the political use of the concocted statistic. In his case, it was communists, and they were, literally, everywhere. There were some, of course, just as there are some scientists who are global-warming skeptics, but these few — about 2 percent of climate researchers — could hold their annual meeting in a phone booth, if there are any left. (Perhaps 2 percent of scientists think there are.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/rick-perry-should-stop-and-think/2011/08/22/gIQAsF2NXJ_story.html?hpid=z2

The science of global warming is overwhemingly accurate.

So is the science of evolution. Yet morons like Rick Perry — contradictorily Christian and death penalty supporter, ignoramuses of scientific evidence — are somewhat corrupt (doing borderline favors for election support) and cunning enough to place themselves at the helm of society... Should evolution not be, then medicine would not work, IVF would be useless, GM would be impossible and without science cell phones would not work.

The Republican presidential contenders regard global warming as a hoax or, at best, underplay its importance. The most vocal denier is Rick Perry, the Texas governor and longtime friend of the oil industry, who insists that climate change is an unproven theory created by “a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects.”

Never mind that nearly all the world’s scientists regard global warming as a serious threat to the planet, with human activities like the burning of fossil fuels a major cause. Never mind that multiple investigations have found no evidence of scientific manipulation. Never mind that America needs a national policy. Mr. Perry has a big soapbox, and what he says, however fallacious, reaches a bigger audience than any scientist can command.

With one exception — make that one-and-one-half — the rest of the Republican presidential field also rejects the scientific consensus. The exception is Jon Huntsman Jr., a former ambassador to China and former governor of Utah, who recently wrote on Twitter: “I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.” The one-half exception is Mitt Romney, who accepted the science when he was governor of Massachusetts and argued for reducing emissions. Lately, he’s retreated into mush: “Do I think the world’s getting hotter? Yeah, I don’t know that, but I think that it is.” As for the human contribution: “It could be a little. It could be a lot.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/07/opinion/in-the-land-of-denial-on-climate-change.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

Idiots...

WASHINGTON

THERE are two American archetypes that were sometimes played against each other in old Westerns.

The egghead Eastern lawyer who lacks the skills or stomach for a gunfight is contrasted with the tough Western rancher and ace shot who has no patience for book learnin’.

The duality of America’s creation story was vividly illustrated in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” the 1962 John Ford Western.

Jimmy Stewart is the young attorney who comes West to Shinbone and ends up as a U.S. senator after gaining fame for killing the sadistic outlaw Liberty Valance, played by Lee Marvin. John Wayne is the rancher, a fast-draw Cyrano who hides behind a building and actually shoots Marvin because he knows Stewart is hopeless in a duel. He does it even though they’re in love with the same waitress, who chooses the lawyer because he teaches her to read.

A lifetime later, on the verge of becoming a vice presidential candidate, Stewart confesses the truth to a Shinbone newspaperman, who refuses to print it. “When the legend becomes fact,” the editor says, “print the legend.”

At the cusp of the 2012 race, we have a classic cultural collision between a skinny Eastern egghead lawyer who’s inept in Washington gunfights and a pistol-totin’, lethal-injectin’, square-shouldered cowboy who has no patience for book learnin’.

Rick Perry, from the West Texas town of Paint Creek, is no John Wayne, even though he has a ton of executions notched on his belt. But he wears a pair of cowboy boots with the legend “Liberty” stitched on one. (As in freedom, not Valance.) He plays up the effete-versus-mesquite stereotypes in his second-grade textbook of a manifesto, “Fed Up!”

Trashing Massachusetts, he writes: “They passed state-run health care, they have sanctioned gay marriage, and they elected Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Barney Frank repeatedly — even after actually knowing about them and what they believe! Texans, on the other hand, elect folks like me. You know the type, the kind of guy who goes jogging in the morning, packing a Ruger .380 with laser sights and loaded with hollow-point bullets, and shoots a coyote that is threatening his daughter’s dog.”

At a recent campaign event in South Carolina, Perry grinned, “I’m actually for gun control — use both hands.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/opinion/sunday/dowd-egghead-and-blockheads.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

Dangerous idiot...

As a child in Paint Creek, Texas, Rick Perry was not great at clod fights, the rural Texas version of snowball fights that involve throwing clumps of dirt at one another. “He couldn’t hit the side of a barn,” his fellow Boy Scout Riley Couch told the San Antonio Express-News in 2001. But, “Tricky Ricky,” as he was often called in his hometown (that and “Pretty Ricky”), was a master practical jokester. His fellow Scouts suspected it was Perry who left a dead snake in their clubhouse.  And on a troop trip to Dallas, Perry squeezed toothpaste into sleeping boys’ hair.

Fast forward 50 years to CNN’s Las Vegas GOP presidential debate Tuesday night and Perry, the impish trickster, has reemerged. For the last four debates, everyone has been waiting for Perry to show a pulse. On Tuesday night he did. Perry launched a double broadside against front runner Mitt Romney.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-02/rick-perry-drunken-video-goes-viral/3614180

see toon at top...

The historic drought that has devastated crops and forced millions of Texans in small towns and large cities to abide by mandatory water restrictions has had at least one benefit: As lake levels have dropped around the state, objects of all kinds that had been submerged for years, decades and even centuries are being revealed. Some of the discovered items are common debris like computer monitors, tires and sunken boats. But much of it has attracted the attention of historians, anthropologists, criminal investigators and, in one case, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/us/texas-drought-is-revealing-secrets-of-the-deep.html?_r=1&hp

See toon at top...

When asked if the United Nations had plans to invade Texas, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon's spokesman, Martin Nesirky, said that was "absolutely ridiculous".

He later added: "No one, not even the United Nations, would ever mess with Texas."

He was responding to comments from Tom Head, a county judge in Lubbock, who told a local Fox News station on Monday that taxes needed to be raised so the county could prepare for contingencies if Mr Obama was re-elected for a second term.

"He (Obama) is going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the UN. What's going to happen when that happens? I'm thinking worst case scenario - civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe," Mr Head said.

"What's going happen ... if the public decides to do that? He's going to send in UN troops, I don't want them in Lubbock County. I'm going to stand in front of their armoured personnel carriers and say 'You're not coming in here'."

Mr Head told Fox News he has the backing of his local sheriff.

"I've already asked him 'Are you going to back me?' and he said 'Yeah I'll back you'."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-25/un-scoffs-at-27ridiculous27-texas-invasion/4222310

remembering the texan: see toon at top...

How is denying health services to the poor ‘a win for women?

The Planned Parenthood clinics enrolled in the Women’s Health Program don’t provide abortions, as state law has long forbidden the allocation of public funds to abortion providers. The state, however, has argued that since the Planned Parenthood brand encompasses other abortion-providing services — even ones that have no legal or financial ties to the clinics concerned — the clinics are ultimately “affiliated” with them and are thus liable to be cut. Never mind the nature of the services they actually provide or the number of women they serve.

Let’s consider what this ruling will mean. While it’s true that Planned Parenthood clinics are only a small percentage of those associated with the Women’s Health Program, they account for a strikingly disproportionate share of the health services provided. In fiscal year 2010, for instance, approximately 106,000 women received care from the program. Almost half of them — 51,953 — were treated at Planned Parenthood clinics. The vast majority of the other health-care providers in the program served just 10 patients or fewer. When Texas defunds these clinics, where are these women going to go? Will other providers be able to expand their capacity fivefold at the drop of a hat, especially in a time when grant funding for family planning in general is on the decline?

Texas in particular can’t afford to scale back on the services Planned Parenthood provides. The state has one of the highest rates of cervical cancer in the nation and the highest percentage of uninsured women. Texas lawmakers have let politics distract them from their obligation to some of their poorest citizens.

This is not, as Mr. Perry said Tuesday, a “win for women.” In fact, it’s the most aggressive advance in the so-called “war on women” we’ve seen all year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/denying-health-care-to-the-poor-is-no-win-for-women/2012/08/24/a60b48ea-ed6d-11e1-a80b-9f898562d010_print.html

Remember him? see toon at top...