The Texas GOP held its convention in Dallas on Friday and as we suspected, the Party continues to be pathetically bereft of fresh ideas and viable and concrete solutions for the challenges that face the state. Rick Perry beat on the same tiresome, unproductive and worn out drums of anti-Washington everything, anti-tax, anti-immigration and pro-states rights rhetoric. The tea party secessionist faction continued to call for secession. It seems that states rights and secession are the only concepts that Republicans are for. The tea party wing of the GOP showed up in full force with all of its John Birch paraphernalia, too. Lovely. What viable solutions do Birchers have to offer other than burning everyone who does not agree with them at the stake?
The conservative wing of the GOP demands a new era of fiscal responsibility, according to the attendees. Aside from uttering the words "fiscal" "conservative" and "responsibility" no one said how Rick Perry should make up his $18 billion budget shortfall. How will he do it? Apparently no one brought it up and on one asked.
Cross posted on Texas Kaos and The Burnt Orange Report.
What are Perry's plans to make up the shortfall? Does he have one at all? Maybe he intends to rob a few banks to deal with the issue. Perry would likely rather do that instead of increasing taxes, as long as someone else is doing the actual robbing of course.
Maybe Rick Perry's highly paid PR strategists and spin doctors forgot to include a major talking point in his fired up hate talk rhetoric. Like, people need well paying jobs and benefits.
How will Rick Perry create new jobs in Texas? How will Governor Rick Perry cover his $18 billion budget shortfall?
Why do crickets continue to chirp all of the time in Rick Perry's Texas?
Naturally Rick Perry preferred to talk about the big bad and ever expanding federal government and its deficits while ignoring his own self-made fiscal mess. He certainly did not want to remind folks that short of robbing banks to cover the gap, budgets might have to be cut, as might state salaries, benefits might be slashed and taxes may be increased significantly. Everyone knows by now that it is typical for Republicans to blame everyone under the sun except themselves for their irresponsible and reckless policies and decisions. It will be interesting to see what target of blame Perry will seek for the $18 billion humdinger.
Rick Perry must be afraid to debate Bill White because he is terrified of being questioned and held accountable for his whopping budget shortfall. And Rick Perry knows that he can't blame his mess on Bill White.
Honestly, I think the Republican's only viable solution for our states difficult and challenging woes would be secession. By secession I mean the problem solving challenged Republicans should secede themselves to another place. Such would be far more productive for those of us who strive to move into the 21st century and actually, ahem, solve our current problems. It sure would be helpful for the solutions free obstructionists and anti-everything folks to march off into a nirvana of their own. The Party of No, Never, Ever have no serious or viable ideas and they certainly have problems with anyone who is not a carbon copy of themselves. Fleeing to a secessionist gated community might offer an excellent alternative option for the right. Alaska would be an ideal location for Rick and Sarah's secessionists could form their very own nirvana in an oil addicted and loving Alaska. Rick, Sarah and its right wing groupies would live happily ever after forever with others just like themselves. There will be a beautiful and brilliant rainbow at the end of every wonderful and perfect day.
The Republicans will not need their social security checks or medicare benefits in nirvana. Nor will they need FEMA to bail them out when volcanoes erupt. Sarah and Rick can do that single handedly by waving a magic wand. They won't need a military to defend them from foreign invasions because Rick and Sarah will shoot and kill the enemies all by themselves with a little help from the NRA wing of the secessionists.
Nor will FEMA or the EPA be needed to help clean up the oil gushers that will spew from the coast of Alaska. Sarah and Rick can throw bombs at the gushers from Sarah's helicopter when she and Rick are hunting wolves. Everything will be perfect in secessionist nirvana every day all of the time. Everyone will have a high paying job with no worries whatsoever. No one will need health insurance because no one gets sick in nirvana. The magical local witch doctors have miraculous potions for all ailments. Faith healers step in if the potions don't do the trick, especially with more challenging mental disorders. Schools will be deemed unnecessary because every child will be home schooled by their mother. The main source of knowledge will be the bible. The study of science will be banned b/c understanding the sciences is not necessary in nirvana. Rick and Sarah know everything that is needed to be known about everything scientific. History will not be included in the curriculum as no one will care about the past when the present is so blissfully perfect. Rick, Sarah, BP, the oil companies and Wall St. will take care of the people of secessionist nirvana all of the time. Gold will line the pavements of every neighborhood.
I wish y'all the best up there in your newly found paradise.
Meanwhile down in the lower states of reality the rest of us will cope with, find solutions for and clean up the outcome of decades of Republican control of the federal and state governments. We have plenty of mops, buckets, brooms and disinfectant. Unlike Rick Perry and his complaining, the NO, NO, NO all of the time, bellyaching Republican Party, Bill White and the Democrats are not afraid of really hard work.
Lord knows we have our work cut out of us.
Meanwhile Pete Olson (R-Sugar Land) and the Texas Republicans continue to howl their heads off (yes, they're bellyaching yet again) about the temporary ban on offshore drilling. It is apparently lost on the whiny boys that the BP oil gusher is still spewing uncontrollably. Things have gotten so bad in Louisiana that BP has blocked the media from taking photos of birds, wildlife and from talking to clean up workers in the devastated area.
CNN.
CBS.
The AP.
I guess the drill, baby, drill crew, whiny boy Pete Olson and the Texas GOP support BP's media blackout, too.
I bet they also support BP's efforts to limit the claims they pay out to those who have been impacted by the gusher. So much for the veracity of BP's CEO Tony Hayward's promise to pay every legitimate claim.
The more we learn about BP the more we understand that BP is a perfect clone of Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity all rolled into one. All talk out of all sides of their mouths and lie 24/7/365 while stuffing their self-serving greed infested pockets. All belong in their self-contained secessionist nirvanas b/c they sure as hell are useless tools and self-serving opportunists that are ethically bankrupt, reckless, irresponsible and incapable of cleaning up after themselves.