[Kerrigan]

You heard it hear folks.

Feel free to dig this thread back up if this prediction is wrong.

Until then, this is the official Perry discussion thread.

Considering that he's further to the right than W, this prospect must not sit well with leftists.

[Lateralus]

I wouldn't be surprised to see him run toward the nomination if he gets in, as the Republican field at the moment leaves a lot to be desired. It actually reminds me of the 2004 Democratic field where Kerry wound up getting the nomination because everybody else came across as too risky, boring or crazy. As the field stands now, Romney is obviously Kerry.

I don't agree with most of what comes out of Perry's mouth, but he has some appeal as a candidate. He strikes me as somebody who looks and acts presidential, or could be perceived as having the potential to. He is quite a good communicator and he's just far enough outside of the Tea Party fringe that I think he could do decently with Independents.

[Big Mac]

It's an interesting thought, but it seems like Romney's really picking up steam. I suppose there's still quite a lot of time for other challengers to get in.

[Kerrigan]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

It's an interesting thought, but it seems like Romney's really picking up steam. I suppose there's still quite a lot of time for other challengers to get in.

Romney can kiss his candidacy goodbye with his global warming stance. Mark my words!

[Lateralus]

LOL. 'Stance' - like acknowledging that half of Arizona is on fire, the country is experiencing record heat, and half of the midwest just got wiped off the map by more tornadoes that stay on the ground longer than any ever recorded.

Damn that crazy Romney!

[Kerrigan]

Doesn't matter, Romney lost the nomination with those remarks.

Romney is the "Do I have to vote for this guy?" candidate. Perry will energize the base and bring momentum to his party.

[Waragainstsleep]

You should all vote for Luke Perry.

[Dork.]

Since I'm already in the tank for Steve Perry (from my Newt thread), I'll let Luke be his VP for a Perry/Perry ticket.

[turtle777]

I'd vote for Matthew Perry.

-t

[ghporter]

Today's San Antonio paper has a front page story about Mr. Perry. The headline:"Perry has not overburdened the collection plate". It seems that, with all the use he's put the Religous Right to, including the wonderful Medina Valley graduation/prayer fest, he has donated "less than the American average" to church groups. His underwhelming performance in so many things keeps stacking up. While I can see the GOP nominating him in 2012, I can see the Democrats having a whole lot of "he led Texas this badly for over 10 years, why would we want him to lead the nation?"

In 2008 the GOP practically gave the race to the Democrats with their candidates. If Rick is their pick next time, I can hardly wait to see who he's paired with; the Republican trend to go WAY overboard and cater to the extremists among the Tea Party movement makes it likely they'll run someone with even less chance than Sarah as their VP pick...

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

LOL. 'Stance' - like acknowledging that half of Arizona is on fire, the country is experiencing record heat, and half of the midwest just got wiped off the map by more tornadoes that stay on the ground longer than any ever recorded.

I had no idea AGW was predicting more careless campers starting fires.
What's AGW predicting for hurricanes these days? Increase or decrease in frequency? Increase or decrease in strength?

[Dork.]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

I'd vote for Matthew Perry.

-t

Commodore Perry would have made a fine President, if he didn't die in 1858.

[Kerrigan]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Today's San Antonio paper has a front page story about Mr. Perry. The headline:"Perry has not overburdened the collection plate". It seems that, with all the use he's put the Religous Right to, including the wonderful Medina Valley graduation/prayer fest, he has donated "less than the American average" to church groups. His underwhelming performance in so many things keeps stacking up. While I can see the GOP nominating him in 2012, I can see the Democrats having a whole lot of "he led Texas this badly for over 10 years, why would we want him to lead the nation?"

Heaven forbid! His donations to church groups is below the national average? He's lost the nomination! This is way more important than his track record on job creation.

[stumblinmike]

This is the guy who wanted to secede from the Union, right? And you're picking him to win?

[imitchellg5]

I don't want a President called "Rick."

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by stumblinmike 

This is the guy who wanted to secede from the Union, right? And you're picking him to win?

As always, you're stumblin'.

What could help Texas more to secede than to have a President in the White House ?
It's all part of the plan.

-t

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Kerrigan 

Heaven forbid! His donations to church groups is below the national average? He's lost the nomination! This is way more important than his track record on job creation.

Have you noticed what actually gets press about politicians here? Not their actual job performance, that's for sure. However, Rick's performance on job destruction is pretty impressive; he's presided over the worst action taken against Texas school children in several decades, with the current special session of the Lege cutting $4B from school funding over the next two years. Many Texas business leaders have publicly denounced the Legislature and the governor for this.

Oh, and he included in "emergency" legislation stupid stuff like "eliminating 'sanctuary cities'" and a really cleverly designed law that requires physicians to perform an ultrasound on any woman requesting an abortion and detailing the fetus' physical development...as if we all couldn't tell it's designed to prevent as many people as possible from getting abortions.

Here's the point: he's good at helping victimize the young, the poor, and the non-white. Finding something more to use against anything he might do, even if it's "he donates less than others," is a good thing; it may just get the radical, extremely Religious Right to think he's not their guy.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Have you noticed what actually gets press about politicians here? Not their actual job performance, that's for sure. However, Rick's performance on job destruction is pretty impressive

Really ? Doesn't line up with other facts. Actually, Texas is the state with the most newly created jobs in the union. By far.

Using straight nonfarm payroll employment, Texas accounts for 45% of net U.S. job creation.
[...]
Texas is also among the few states that are home to more jobs than when the recession began in December 2007. The others are North Dakota, Alaska and the District of Columbia. If that last one sounds like an outlier at first, remember the government boom of the Obama era, which has helped loft D.C. payrolls 18,000 jobs above the pre-crisis status quo. Even so, Texas is up 30,800.

Review & Outlook: The Lone Star Jobs Surge - WSJ.com

-t

[hyteckit]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Really ? Doesn't line up with other facts. Actually, Texas is the state with the most newly created jobs in the union. By far.


-t

But how much did it cost to create those jobs?

According to turtle logic and his previous post.

http://forums.macnn.com/95/political...-borrowed-get/

Texas is actually doing worst than the US overall.

Texas GDP/GSP

2008 1,223,511
2009 1,244,695
2010 1,153,100

2008 - 2010: down $70 billion. -$70 billion
Texas 2 year deficit: $27 billion

So if US spends $7 to gain $1, Texas is spending $27 to lose $70.

[ghporter]

As hytekit notes, the WSJ article does not address the quality of those new jobs. Toyota's major manufacturing plant here in San Antonio is one of the few "good" job creators, with plenty of skilled trade and semi-skilled manufacturing jobs. But Toyota had to build the workforce, and the percentage of local hires is disappointingly low. This can be blamed on the already poor level of education provided to populations that could benefit most from a decent, effective basic public education.

The WSJ article points out how many "business" sector jobs were created-those are, in large measure, call center and other lower level support jobs. Again, this doesn't require highly educated or prepared workers, and these jobs don't pay a whole lot. Does anyone have numbers over the same period for per capita income in Texas compared to other states? If such numbers indicate more than a really modest increase in per capita income, I'll be very surprised. From my observation of how so many people's standard of living has fared, I think those numbers will be worse than they were before the recession officially kicked off.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

As hytekit notes, the WSJ article does not address the quality of those new jobs. [...]

The WSJ article points out how many "business" sector jobs were created-those are, in large measure, call center and other lower level support jobs.

hytekit is on my ignore list, so I didn't read and respond to it.

However, re: quality of jobs, I share your concern.
This is a structural problem that the US had for a long time. There are many facets to this issue, and I would say it's just fair to blame it both on the States and the Federal government.

IMO, this doesn't take away from Perry's achievement, even though I wished it were more manufacturing jobs.
You might wanna look at it this way: ALL States destroyed jobs, and Perry was the one hat destroyed the LEAST. Either way you look at it, compared to the other States, he's been doing something right, because the other States were not even able to create those "low quality" service sector jobs.

I still think Texas is very competitive. To give you an example: my company has decided to expand a manufacturing plant in Texas, creating hundreds of skilled jobs. In the decision process, the Texas plant beat out one other plant in the US and two plants in Mexico. We are even going to move production back from Asia to this Texas plant.

Originally Posted by ghporter 

From my observation of how so many people's standard of living has fared, I think those numbers will be worse than they were before the recession officially kicked off.

Again, I agree. This is a big concern. But even more than the low quality jobs, I pin the loss of standard of living mainly on Federal policies. There are many culprits, but chief among them is the loose money policy of the Federal Reserve, which has been devaluing the USD for the last 40 years. There is very little the States can do to keep Washington from going into ever more debt and printing money out of thin air.
Sure, Perry could have been a even more vocal opponent, but I would not say he has been particularly bad either.

-t

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

You should all vote for Luke Perry.

[Laminar]

[Shaddim]

I don't care anymore, let the next idiot swing the hammer and try to win a prize.

Me? I'm looking at housing prices in Bermuda.

[Doofy]

Right then. We all know that whoever is the next prez will be elected on the strength of having good hair or not. Perry seems like he has good hair, so he's in with a chance.

[Shaddim]

How tall is he?

[ort888]

Does he have a Twitter account?

[nonhuman]

As I hear it from Texan friends, the position of governor in Texas is little more than a figurehead with the legislature running the show. If that's the case, Perry shouldn't be receiving any credit (or blame) for anything that's happened in Texas lately.

Any Texans want to step in and educate us on this?

[turtle777]

Glenn blamed him

-t

[subego]

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Glenn blamed him

-t

Hence my request for clarification from someone who's more familiar with the situation than I am.

[OAW]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

As I hear it from Texan friends, the position of governor in Texas is little more than a figurehead with the legislature running the show. If that's the case, Perry shouldn't be receiving any credit (or blame) for anything that's happened in Texas lately.

Any Texans want to step in and educate us on this?

The Texas governorship is a "weak governor" position for sure. Having said that, it still managed to launch G.W. Bush into the White House. If Rick Perry gets into the race I certainly wouldn't sleep on him. Being the GOP governor of one of the largest states in the country while the economy is undergoing a tepid recovery at best under a Democratic President's watch is an enviable position for any Republican contender to be in.

OAW

[ghporter]

The governor of Texas is more than a figurehead. He/she can call special sessions of the Legislature, and is empowered to appoint a whole raft of bureaucrats and functionaries, along with appointing people to fill vacancies until the next election and/or legislative session. But our legislature is both constrained from being effective and conspicuously interested in looking good to campaign supporters (by design of our 1876-vintage State Constitution for the former and the nature of "non-professional politicians" for the latter).

We NEED a completely revised Constitution for Texas, because the current one was written to prevent politicians from causing too much mischief back when Reconstruction was winding down and Carpetbaggers had made a complete mess out of the state's government. 135 years later, we need a Constitution that makes the state's chief executive responsible, the Lt Governor less of a "behind the scenes manipulator" (the Lt Gov is the real power in state government, because he controls operations in the Senate and can quash a bill by simply not scheduling it), and unplugging the state's historical "support road buiders, railroads and other specific business on the backs of just about everybody" permanently.

Helpful?

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Helpful?

No. We still don't know how tall he is!

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

The governor of Texas is more than a figurehead. He/she can call special sessions of the Legislature, and is empowered to appoint a whole raft of bureaucrats and functionaries, along with appointing people to fill vacancies until the next election and/or legislative session. But our legislature is both constrained from being effective and conspicuously interested in looking good to campaign supporters (by design of our 1876-vintage State Constitution for the former and the nature of "non-professional politicians" for the latter).

We NEED a completely revised Constitution for Texas, because the current one was written to prevent politicians from causing too much mischief back when Reconstruction was winding down and Carpetbaggers had made a complete mess out of the state's government. 135 years later, we need a Constitution that makes the state's chief executive responsible, the Lt Governor less of a "behind the scenes manipulator" (the Lt Gov is the real power in state government, because he controls operations in the Senate and can quash a bill by simply not scheduling it), and unplugging the state's historical "support road buiders, railroads and other specific business on the backs of just about everybody" permanently.

Helpful?

Indeed, thank you!

[Lateralus]

Originally Posted by mduell 

I had no idea AGW was predicting more careless campers starting fires.

Sorry, but that was a ****ing stupid thing to say.

Try moving here and telling people that this is strictly from 'careless campers'. We're pretty sure it has more to do with the devastating drought we're in the middle of, higher than average temperatures and lower than average humidity levels...

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

Try moving here and telling people that this is strictly from 'careless campers'. We're pretty sure it has more to do with the devastating drought we're in the middle of, higher than average temperatures and lower than average humidity levels...

WIldfires have been going on for thousands of years. Yet all of a sudden it's "global warming". It's BS.

[Lateralus]

Right. So because we're not experiencing any never before seen natural disasters, climate change is a bullshit theory? Frequency, intensity, duration and convergence mean nothing? Amazing.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

Right. So because we're not experiencing any never before seen natural disasters, climate change is a bullshit theory? Frequency, intensity, duration and convergence mean nothing? Amazing.

Climate change now is a BS theory. Climate change throughout history is normal - otherwise we'd still be in an ice age, wouldn't we?

Communism failed. AGW is the new red.

[screener]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

hytekit is on my ignore list, so I didn't read and respond to it.

Priceless, hear no evil, now you have to work on the other two.

[screener]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Climate change now is a BS theory. Climate change throughout history is normal - otherwise we'd still be in an ice age, wouldn't we?

Communism failed. AGW is the new red.

Let's all do a turtle.

[hyteckit]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

hytekit is on my ignore list, so I didn't read and respond to it.

However, re: quality of jobs, I share your concern.
This is a structural problem that the US had for a long time. There are many facets to this issue, and I would say it's just fair to blame it both on the States and the Federal government.

IMO, this doesn't take away from Perry's achievement, even though I wished it were more manufacturing jobs.
You might wanna look at it this way: ALL States destroyed jobs, and Perry was the one hat destroyed the LEAST. Either way you look at it, compared to the other States, he's been doing something right, because the other States were not even able to create those "low quality" service sector jobs.


-t

Of course I'm on your ignore list. I dispel all turtle logic and the turtle wants to stay in its fantasy world shelled off from the real world.

But I thought government jobs don't count?

From 2001 to 2010, Texas has the most increase in government jobs. Talk about big government.

Guess everything is bigger in Texas. Even the government.

Texas added 286,800 government jobs.
California added 23,100 government jobs.

Texas, Florida lead in government job growth | The Business Journals


And how many jobs were created from the $18 billion federal stimulus money that Texas took?

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

LOL. 'Stance' - like acknowledging that half of Arizona is on fire, the country is experiencing record heat, and half of the midwest just got wiped off the map by more tornadoes that stay on the ground longer than any ever recorded.

Climates vary. Natural disasters are a feature of our ever-changing earth. Wildfires happen. (Anecdotally speaking I have vivid memories of the serious Malibu wildfires of 1993, which rocked CA years before Al Gore global warming hysteria.) But while greenhouse gas emissions have been higher than even the UN projected, there has reportedly been no significant global warming over the last decade. Inconvenient truths.

[hyteckit]

Wow. Texas loves big government.

Texas:
1,888,000 government jobs for a population of 25,145,561.
75 government jobs per 1000 people.

California:
2,430,800 government jobs for a population of 37,253,956.
65 government jobs per 1000 people.

[hyteckit]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Climates vary. Natural disasters are a feature of our ever-changing earth. Wildfires happen. (Anecdotally speaking I have vivid memories of the serious Malibu wildfires of 1993, which rocked CA years before Al Gore global warming hysteria.) But while greenhouse gas emissions have been higher than even the UN projected, there has reportedly been no significant global warming over the last decade. Inconvenient truths.

Haha.. stupid blogger.

From NASA.

Climate Change: A WARMING WORLD

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/509983main_a...s%20_final.pdf

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/509796main_G...es_running.pdf

NASA finds 2010 to be the warmest year on record, tied with 2005.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/fea...mest-year.html

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by screener 

Let's all do a turtle.

Be correct, you mean? I wish you would.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by hyteckit 

Haha.. stupid blogger.

From NASA.

Climate Change: A WARMING WORLD

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/509983main_a...s%20_final.pdf

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/509796main_G...es_running.pdf

Yes. We keep forgetting that history started in 1880. Silly us.

The argument you guys present is somewhat akin to "my new diary was only started at noon today and I haven't had sex since 11pm last night so I must be a virgin - my diary says so!".

[hyteckit]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Yes. We keep forgetting that history started in 1880. Silly us.

It was in response to your post from a stupid blogger who claims no global warming in the last 10 years. Don't change the argument. Silly you.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by hyteckit 

It was in response to your post from a stupid blogger who claims no global warming in the last 10 years. Don't change the subject. Silly you.

What does Rick Perry think of global warming?
Didn't we already change the subject? Wait, no, it was Lat who changed it and he's a mod, so it's OK.

Here we go:

Originally Posted by NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory

Over the past century, global average surface temperatures have warmed by about 0.75°C. Much of the warming occurred in the last half century, over which the average decadal rate of change was about 0.13°C, largely due to anthropogenic increases in well-mixed greenhouse gases. However, the trend in global surface temperatures has been nearly flat since the late 1990s despite continuing increases in the forcing due to the sum of the well-mixed greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, halocarbons, and N2O), raising questions regarding the understanding of forced climate change, its drivers, the parameters that define natural internal variability, and how fully these terms are represented in climate models.

[screener]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Be correct, you mean? I wish you would.

Right, retreat into your shell, do an ostrich etc. and all will be well.
Priceless.