The 2016 Texas Republican Party Platform Reads Like a Declaration of Independence

Texas Republicans held our State Convention this past weekend, and our delegates have written a platform for the ages.  If you have been worried, fearing you were alone in seeing the dangers we face from bad agendas our leaders have secretly put forward the past 25 years, this will encourage you, You can read it all at this link (PDF).

 Because it is based on unchanging and established principles, in large part this platform is almost word for word the same as the 2014 platform (PDF), saving only the defense against the most recent falsehoods being used to attack settled civilization.

But already, it looks like most of the standard media outlets continue their unserious approach to reporting: picking out a few of the hard-left's most violent depredations to tag in the headlines and ignoring the other items of primary importance to real American citizens.

Yes, we oppose child sacrifice and defend biological realism against wholesale distortion by government action, but the issues of abortion and open toileting are ultimately weapons of the hard-left. We do not spend our time "thinking about" those heartless weapons of misrule.

Instead, the ISSUES and principles of importance to us exist without regard to what the hard-left does. The genuinely important things are timeless and immortal, while the entropic manufactures of the hard-left fail without exception.

If the hard-left were healed tomorrow, finally outgrowing their boring obsessions and wasteful destructiveness, the same things would still be important to us (and would finally become important to them as well): Life, Liberty, and those bastions that make up "the pursuit of happiness" faith, family, work, self-reliance.

I've seen appalling results come out of various conventions before, but here is clear proof that the adults in Texas are not under delusion, that moral (and even written!) clarity is still possible.

This platform affirms the sovereignty of God over us and our nation, the primacy of our Judeo-Christian heritage and culture, urges elimination of a dozen Federal agencies, elimination of Congressional pensions and deposit of those funds into the Social Security Trust Fund, calls for elected officials and their staff to have no exemption from laws the rest of us must follow, elimination of gerrymandering, support for covenant marriage and eliminating "no fault divorce", sovereignty of parents to raise and educate their children, stronger penalties for sexual abuse of children by adults (up to and including the death penalty),  a hard line against illegal immigration (including visa overstays) restoration of the filibuster, elimination of "zero tolerance" policies in schools, and much, much, more.

The Platform also calls for allowing the local sale of raw milk, allowing cultivation of industrial hemp, legalizing prescription medical marijana, elimination of civil forfeiture, evicting the UN and opposing adoption of any of its programs, internet freedom, elimination of the draft, and protection of military personnel against liability for reasonable actions taken in the field.

I loved this:

 "Federal Reserve System- We believe Congress should repeal the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 thereby abolishing the Federal Reserve Banking System. In the interim, we call for a complete audit of the Federal Reserve System and its Board of Governors followed by an immediate report to the American people."

"Repeal Dodd-Frank- We support the immediate repeal of Dodd-Frank legislation and replace with the Glass-Steagall Act." [I wrote about this way back in 2010, Glad to see it finally being seriously discussed.] 

"Sound Money- We support the return to the precious metal standard for the United States dollar. "

Some of my favorite planks are those relating to taxation and spending. Here are some of those:

"Bailouts and Subsidies- We encourage government to divest its ownership of all business that should be run in the private sector and allow the free market to prevail. We oppose all bailouts of domestic and foreign government entities, states and all businesses, public and private. We oppose local government handouts to businesses and other private entities in the name of economic development. 

"Tax Burden - "....Furthermore, we believe that the borrower truly is a slave to the lender, and so long as we continue to increase our tax and debt burdens we will never be a truly free people. Towards these ends, we support the reformation of the current systems of taxation at all levels of government: federal, state, and local.
" Examples of these reforms include the following:
1. Eliminating the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
2. The “Fair Tax” system
3. A Flat Tax
4. The 1-2-3 No Federal Tax
5. Abolishing property taxes, but in the interim, property taxes should be paid on the
price of the property when it was initially purchased.
6. Electing appraisal boards
7. Exempting inventories from property taxes
8. Abolishing estate taxes or the “Death Tax” as it’s more commonly known
9. Abolishing capital gains taxes
10. Abolishing franchise and business income taxes
11. Abolishing the gift tax.
12. Discontinuing revenue generating licensing fee "

I have never been more proud of our delegates to the State Convention. All ~8000 of them stood up for scientific clarity, rational thinking, personal liberty, reality-based legal principles, classical education, proven morals and established ethics.

All of these planks are items that Mr Donald Trump supports or can support in his candidacy. Where we will be looking intently is at our representatives, both national and state, expecting them to actually introduce legislation to do these things and aggressively support their enactment (or elimination as the case may be).

A Factoid About Donald Trump and Infrastructure Building Projects

From an article about Donald Trump in the Oct 4, 1989 Issue of People Magazine:

"When the city of New York floundered for six years and spent $12 million trying to get the Wollman Skating Rink rebuilt in Central Park, Trump stepped in and did it in four months for $2.1 million,"

Sounds pretty effective to me!

A Little Fact About Social Security....

If you invested $360 a month starting at age 20 at 6% compound interest, by the time you are 65, you will have $1,000,000. 

In the same way, if you have paid in $180 a month in FICA tax for your Social Security (which your employer matches for a total of $360), starting at age 20, by the time you are 65, you could draw $1,000 a month for 83 years before the government had paid you a similar amount. 

None of us are going to get back anything like what we would have if our FICA had been invested where Congress couldn't steal it. Don't let any politician get away with claiming otherwise: Congress needs to stop spending our retirement savings that we have been paying in all of our lives.

Kevin Sorbo: A Note on the New Obamacare Taxes

Sharing this from Kevin Sorbo's FB page.  Remember this the next time our multi-millionaire President or a multi-millionaire Senator or Congresswoman carries on about "the rich", and claims to be a friend of the middle class.  Everyone with a 401K or an IRA will be paying those higher taxes on the savings we have made toward our retirement. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kevin Sorbo Official Facebook Page

50 mins · 

Just in case you didn't know....all you actual tax payers out there. A few of us left.

Here is what happened on January 1st 2014:

Top Income Tax bracket went from 35% to 39.6%
Top Income Payroll Tax went from 37.4% to 52.2%
Capital Gains Tax went from 15 % to 28%
Dividend Tax went from 15% to 39.6%
Estate Tax went from 0% to 55%
Remember this 'fact;' if you have any money, the Democrats in congress want it! All these taxes were passed with only Democrat votes. Not one Republican voted to do these taxes.
Remember this come election time. And make sure your friends and neighbors know this info too! Maybe we can get enough involved to get this country back next election cycle!!!
IMPORTANT NOTE-
These taxes were all hidden in the affordable care act, otherwise known as Obamacare.

/unquote

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Have you been to see Kevin's new movie "God's Not Dead"? It is still playing to packed houses here in the heart of Texas, and people I know who have seen it come away raving about how good it is. We will need to wait and buy it on dvd, as Paul is not able to be up long enough to see it in the theater, and we are really looking forward to it!

First Amendment Quote of the Day - February 25, 2014

" I mean these kinds of things keep on surfacing, in part because you and your TV station will promote them."

                  President Barak Obama, in an interview by Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, when asked about the 157 recorded visits to the White House by IRS Chief Douglas Shulman during the years that the  IRS Tea Party Targeting Scandal was occurring.  The 157 visits were officially listed on the White House Visitor Logs for the time period between October 2009 and December 2012. The IRS Scandal is still being investigated by Congress as of Feb 25, 2014.

First Amendment Quote of the Day - February 18, 2014

The Articles of the Warsaw Confederation, issued January 28, 1573 by a group of Polish and Lithuanian leaders, were an early written declaration of religious freedom in Europe, allowing all denominations to worship as they wished, without interference from anyone who did not approve or who professed otherwise, and without punishment, fines, or taxes from the government or King.

Excerpts:

"That, specifically, it is sworn to maintain civil peace among people who are differentiated by faith or religious practice, and that without a declaration of the sejm we never be forced across the borders of the realm by any royal action or request, not forced to pay five grzywna per shaft, nor shall there be a general levy called."

"Therefore we swear to rise up against anyone who would constitute or allow himself to be elected at a time or place other than that indicated, or who would desire to create tumult at the election, or who would accept bonded serving people, or who would dare to oppose an election concluded with complete assent."

"And whereas in our Commonwealth there are considerable differences in the Christian religion, these have not caused disorders among people, as detrimental as have begun in other kingdoms that we have clearly seen, we promise to one another, for ourselves and for our descendants, for all time, pledging our faith, honor and conscience, we swear, that we who are divided by faith, will keep peace among ourselves, and not shed blood on account of differences in faith or church, nor will we allow punishment by the confiscation of goods, deprivation of honor, imprisonment or exile, nor will we in any fashion aid any sovereign or agency in such undertakings. And certainly, should someone desire to spill blood on such account we all shall be obliged to prevent it, even if the person uses some decree as pretext or cites some legal decision."

"All ecclesiastical officials who enjoy royal benefits, such as archbishops, bishops, and all others similar, will be granted these prerogatives equally: to clergy of the Roman church and to those of the Greek church as both are by law Polish citizens."

"And so that peace may be broadly shared, and so that differences among the estates would be checked, and so that the differences in matters of temporal politics between the secular and ecclesiastical estates be small, we promise to coordinate all these matters at the next electoral sejm."

          The Articles of the Warsaw Confederation, issued January 28, 1573.  An English translation is at Reformation.org , and here is a link to the original text in Polish.

A Day in the Life of a Real Life Julia

President Obama's campaign film "Julia" is getting a lot of attention - and ridicule right now. Here's a true life parallel. Name/identification is of course omitted but this all really happened with one single woman - not a
"composite" or a "fictionalized representation".

Once upon a time I worked in the subsidized housing field, and we helped a lot of people have better living conditions - a private/public partnership that worked very well. But while we served many people who had been fully self supporting most of their lives, there were also other situations.

This event really happened:

A public housing tenant went out on a frosty morning very early, before the posted time when sidewalks would be de-iced, fell and hurt herself. It was what once would have been called "an accident".

Because she hit her head when she fell, she went to the doctor to be sure she didn't have a concussion.  Fortunately, she wasn't injured other than a couple of bruises.

But she called her lawyer anyway.

Now, this pleasant lady had serious health problems that prevented her from working, and her total income was from SSI. The health problems arose at a young age, and she had not paid in enough to draw Social Security Disability, which would have been an "earned" benefit in the same way we pay for our own Social Security or IRAs.  SSI, on the other hand, is a welfare program - necessary and important to help people - including this lady who really did need it - but not earned in any way.

She also lived in subsidized housing where her rent was based on her (government paid) income, and her utilities were included in her rent. The government paid the bulk of the actual cost of her apartment and utilities. And of course, she paid the rest with money the government gave her via SSI.

Being on SSI, this nice lady's medical needs were covered by Medicade, which at that time prohibited doctors from billing anything to their Medicade patients, so she had no copayment. Her doctor visits, tests, and medications were all free to her. The government picked up the cost for all of it.

To recap, the government gave her money, a place to live, food to eat, and  medical treatment. And now, she thought she'd see if the government would pay her even more money for being injured.

When I got the letter from her lawyer, I just picked up the phone and called him. I told him we were very glad this nice lady had not been hurt in her fall, that had occurred before daylight, before our posted ice-removal time, and that if he needed anything further to please contact me.

Never heard another word from him, and she and I continued to have a pleasant professional relationship.

She really was a very nice person, pleasant to talk with, kept her apartment clean, and got along with her neighbors. She didn't seem or act selfish or demanding. She was someone you'd never think of as milking the system.

But she didn't really comprehend that the government was paying for everything in her life. I really think she just thought she should take advantage of what was available since it would help her. She never thought
of herself as someone who would milk the system.

And I don't think she ever recognized that, despite the benefits coming from different agencies, the money all came from the same source: taxes paid by the rest of us.

 Many of the things President Obama wants to do are giveaway programs that will only benefit people who are already taking part in so many freebie programs that they can't keep up with them (like free internet & cable for kids getting free lunch, and free cell phones for medicade recipients), and other things are just gimmicks (like the free college tax credits) that will put tax dollars into greedy pockets without actually improving the lives of those who THINK they will be helped (like expanded food stamp programs). Still others are failed programs that exist only because they have been around so long (like Head Start)

It has to start stopping sometime, and that sometime is this November. When Barack Obama asks "Are you in?", just say no to "the In Crowd", and help America recover its self respect.


.

Thirty Pieces of Silver

President Obama and Kathleen Sebelius have set the value of human life at $1.00, and in the process, they have set the value of the US Dollar at 30 pieces of silver.

Congress passed this horrible bill over the citizens' objections, but at least they insisted on clauses to require that abortion coverage NOT be paid for by anyone other than people who wanted abortions.

President Obama and Kathleen Sebelius have now declared that they will instead require merely a token $1 premium for these abortion policies. 

They have chosen to claim to obey the letter of the law while thumbing their noses at the spirit of it, and in disdain of all  people who believe - for scientific reasons as well as religious, moral or ethical reasons - that abortion is the deliberate taking of human life.

Read the rest at Political Junkie Mom's blog, and others.

I am a Christian, I am an American, I am a mother and a grandmother. I don't see how I can buy the insurance this law says we have to buy. I will pay the penalty - the Religion Tax - if necessary, but I cannot participate in this.

No Taxes Required: Ramp Building and Fundraising the Old Fashioned, Genuine Grassroots Way

I wrote most of this post a couple of months ago, and fiddled around and never posted it. But Dr. Mabuse has a post up on Kraalspace that needs to be seen, about helping our neighbors ourselves, instead of relying on the government. It's a chilling reminder of how learned helplessness can become the order of the day, one tiny relinquishment at a time. Of how well-meaning committees inevitably engineer inescapable tyranny in reality. Of the good intentions that pave the road to hell.

In Dr Mabuse's post "Government Goliath, Local Davids", a man who went to hospital, had a leg amputated, and couldn't come home because his house didn't have a ramp, and the government agency tasked with paying for building ramps kept turning him down. So like Charlie on the MTA, he had to live at the hospital while waiting for Uncle Sugar to build his ramp. Until some good citizens got word of his plight, and in one weekend, built a ramp for his house.

A similar, but different thing happened two years ago in my little town.
A family man (with a child still in high school) lost his leg to complications of diabetes. Here's where his story differs from the one Doc shares: as soon as the surgery was scheduled, the Baptist Church sent out a flyer that the men of our town would meet at his house the next Saturday morning to build him a ramp.

And you know who built that ramp? The OLD MEN. Our young men are busy - they serve as our Volunteer firemen, coach little league, sit on the school board, and a host of other things. But our 70 and 80 year olds don't let any grass grow under their feet either. By the end of the day, the ramp was completed, and a good time was had by all. Just because it needed to be done.

It's just sad that the man Dr Mabuse writes about didn't have neighbors or a church to jump in and help him sooner, but ultimately it was people in his local community who took care of meeting his need. And that is how it should be.

From the post I started earlier, here are some more examples of how people take care of each other, and meet local needs, without government involvement or permission.

We went to a lot of fun local events this fall. Some were fairs where we were able to support local crafters, some were organizations doing fundraising, and  a couple were pure benefits for local individuals.

The town birthday celebration in October was a hoot. It started with a pancake breakfast to pay for new pew cushions in the Methodist church (they raised enough to "cover" the cost and then some).

The tractor show hinted at a distinct preference for "poppin' johnnies" all in their original John Deere green. I guess Farmall must not have been big around here.

We bought several pounds of stone-ground corn meal from this vendor with his old timey mill. The power source was simple and ingenous: a series of car batteries along the front side of the wagon.

We bought things from vendors who had booths set up: crafts, food, pretties.
We visited with neighbors, stuck money in the Volunteer Fire Department's "boot" (again), introduced our bunch and met new people.

The next weekend, we went to our church's Fall Festival & Car Show.   We ate barbeque, bought an amazing wall cross from a local man who makes things out of discarded tools, and picked out our favorite vintage jitneys.

Here, a home-made Carnival benefits a Christian K-12 school (and a winning 6-man football team).

This "Rattlesnake Roundup" game is perfect for Texas.

First the girl would toss the rubber snakes into the bag, then use the special snake-catching tool to grab them & take them out of the sack! It would be a more difficult game (and more realistic) if you had to use the "snake tongs" to throw them in, too.

Speaking of snakes, we saw this non-poisonous one playing dead and looking all dehydrated on Main Street outside the Lions Club BBQ Dinner & Auction. He stayed very still until he thought we weren't looking any more, then he took a deep breath and slithered away.

The dinner was great - it raised money toward the scholarships this group gives to local students each year, toward eye exams & new glasses and for Christmas food boxes for people whose hard work doesn't stretch far enough.
The auction raised a similar amount to directly help a local family that's in need right now.

We wrapped up a week or two later with a fish fry to benefit a hardworking young family in our midst. The father has cancer, and he's unable to work right now. This will help tide them over. They are good people and their neighbors love them - even the ones who don't know them.

Who benefited from all these things? Everyone. Everyone's kids or grandkids are eligible for those scholarships. Our VFD is here and prepared when we need them. Everyone will gather in the church on Christmas Eve. Everyone knows we could count on this community if we needed them: nobody who's done their part when they were able would be forgotten.

All in all, lives will be better for this community's generous heart.

And it was all done in fun and love. With no mandates, and no taxes, and no demands, and no protests. And no fraud, and no graft, and no entitlements.

Because that's how life works in a stable, healthy, Christian, traditional, American community.

Dear Mr. Cain

Dear Mr. Cain,

In the Methodist Church basement last night, a bipartisan group of older Texas ladies decided that we do not care who any candidate for President sleeps with. Or actual President for that matter. We are not interested. What we are interested in is the actual issues that affect the whole country. We expect the President to do his job without regard to his outside activities. And one of those jobs is cutting Federal spending.

Now, we probably aren't all fans of yours. We were too polite (and separated by political chasms) to discuss, there in the basement, which candidates we might support.  BUT whether Republican, Democrat or Independent, we do agree on those two points.

We would suggest that you, and other candidates, refrain from allowing the ridiculous "news media" to determine who We the People get to vote for. The only polls that will tell you whether the voters want you or anyone else to represent us, are the voting booths on election day.

I do not normally blog about things we discuss in church gatherings, so we won't mention any names or places, but I would be surprised if this opinion isn't also shared by many other "bipartisan groups" around the country.

Sincerely,

"Concerned Voter"

The Process Is the Thing: The Trans-Texas Corridor, Rick Perry & Good Governance

It's difficult, I think, to look at any politician and not be disappointed at some point. I always feel a little more comfortable when I know what the flaws are, where the weaknesses are likely, because then I can make a good judgmentcall on whether it's a flaw I can put up with.

Quite Rightly, of the compelling blog Bread Upon the Waters, made a comment that got me thinking about the now-cancelled Trans Texas Corridor and how things have changed since Perry proposed it in January 2001.

I replied briefly, but want to explore my thinking further on this topic, and why I think Perry's handling of the opposition and final public refusal of the project is a positive and healthy sign.


Rather than seeing it as a failed project or a bad idea, I tend to think of it as a model of how "big ideas" should be debated in a Republic: declared with detail in advance, wrestled over openly for a long time, in the
sunshine, with Texas/America's best interest the only goal, and all voices welcome and respected.

In fact, the way Governor Perry and our Texas Legislature handled the Trans-Texas Corridor was by a process exactly the opposite of how President Obama, Representative Nancy Pelosi, and Senator Harry Reid stage-managed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which was negotiated in secret, written in secret, voted on in secret, and shoved into place in the dead of night in a frenzied marathon after a six months reign of shrill tenor that misrepresented the bill, manipulated the facts, and maligned the
citizenry.

The changes to, and even avoidance of, the legislative process itself are among the most critical departures from normal that the Obama administration and Democratic Supermajority have done. When they abandoned the established rules of predictable governance and removed accountability for their decisions, they became unreliable. Methods used for corporate management or product marketing are not appropriate for effective governance.These new methods, regardless of outcome, are reason for concern: if we cannot trust the system of checks and balances, and the people who inhabit those roles within the system, what might happen next?

We can feel safer from even rotten ideas if we can somehow come back to a point where the process becomes trustworthy again. So, when I look at the political field, that capacity and determination to provide predictable, reliable governance is essential in a candidate. I believe that Governor Rick Perry has both the capacity and the determination, and that his handling of the Corridor project proves that.

Now, about that Corridor.

During the effective life of the Trans-Texas Corridor project, it was opposed mostly by rural land owners. As time passed and more disturbing facts about undercurrents in world events became known to our elected officials as well as to the public, others joined in opposing it. Eventually, the project was abandoned, and will not be resurrected. Governor Perry acceded to the will of the public, as is proper for an elected leader. And in the process, he did not cast undue blame, or dwell on the matter, or try to punish those who opposed it. Instead he behaved like a healthy adult.

To me, the Corridor was an idea of another time and place. America was different then, in January 2001 when the proposal was first announced as a vague idea, and even later, when we still thought perhaps we could "get back to normal". Texas was different, and honestly I expect that Rick Perry was different. He was a young Governor then. I know I've changed my opinions on a number of things as hidden things have come out into the open in the intervening decade.

In hindsight, the Trans-Texas Corridor is a big hurdle for a lot of people.  But Texas is known for our highways - we have the best roads in the nation, in part because of visionary planning. Heck, we have a constitutional amendment that protects our highway funds against being used for anything else. Texas has our own electric grid. Texas requires pipelines for water, oil, natural gas. Unlike other states, Texas infrastructure is NOT crumbling, because our leaders have maintained and constructed actively all along to plan for future health of the state and its people.

Horizons are not just something Texans aim for but something we move between.

So it's not hard for me to understand how a project like the TransTexas Corridor fit into the era in which it was first proposed - before Sept 11th, at the height of the tech revolution's wealth and optimism, still feeling the headiness of the millennium, back when most of us still thought most immigrants came here because they wanted to be Americans, and eBay let us trade with the whole wide world from our living rooms.

How many of us - including our leaders - knew in those "before the Fear" (ante-timorem?) days that within a decade we would be where we are now?

As an object lesson, the Trans-Texas Corridor is a good example of how a "Big Dream" should be wrestled with in a feisty democracy - exactly the opposite of how Obamacare was handled. The Texas process allowed everyone their voice and happened in the light of day over a period of years, so that the potential unintended consequences and "unknown unknowns" could come to light.

That's how it is with ideas: they all look like diamonds in the beginning - the fact that some prove to be rust when viewed more closely shouldn't keep our leaders from proposing more new ideas out in the honest open, or from engaging the debate in support, or from being willing to abandon a plan without looking back.

And if our representatives do the right thing, take the peoples' "No" for an answer, and abandon rejected ideas, we should appreciate that.

Just as we should appreciate our representatives who accept the peoples' "Yes" and enforce, fund and support those matters the citizenry have firmly demanded.

The failures, who need to be rejected and sent home as fast as their horse will carry them, are those representatives who refuse to abandon ideas the populous have rejected, and keep trying to sneak them in anyway; or who refuse to defend or enforce the law as it stands just because they personally or a coterie of interest groups don't like it.

We elect people to stand in our place, and look after our interests. In the process of doing that well, a good leader had better make a few errors or he isn't doing enough.

So, I say, let us respect the honest man who learns from his mistakes. Let's not browbeat anyone for being open minded enough to realize and admit when they were wrong.

The man who moves so carefully as to never get it wrong probably lacks the courage to ever get it truly right.



(PS, wanting to get this posted - I will be adding links along as I find them to flesh out the references)

Rick Perry is In: No More Vacuum on the Republican Side of the Presidential Race

There are a lot of people who make superior governors, congressional representatives or senators, but who are not presidential timber - at least not in the current climate. Tim Pawlenty has just stepped aside from the presidential race. I admire Herman Cain and hope he will do well this go round, perhaps building toward a successful candidacy later on (or a senate run - Cain would be a top notch Senator), but he's missing the crucial "head of government" experience that I believe voters will require for the next couple of decades.

Now that Rick Perry has stepped up to the plate, we have a candidate to get excited about. I'm thrilled, and yesterday was a zippity doo dah day here: we got 2 1/2" of glorious rain, and Governor Perry announced with an amazing and inspiring speech.

Perry has been a truly good governor. He represents everybody, and pretty much he's a WYSIWYG kind of man. He believes what he says, and he stands up fearlessly for what he believes. He has a sense of humor, and doesn't take himself too seriously. He can look after himself, and has no pity for evil men who harm innocent people.

He's an unapologetic Christian, and willing to show it.

He used to be a conservative Democrat, like me and a whole bunch of other Texans. In 1989, he walked over to the Republican bench. So did many of us in response when the Democrat Party finally went insane after the 2000 elections. He puts his values and his State before any party. [8/16 Correction: My badly constructed sentence originally implied Perry became a Republican in 2000. Edited to clarify.]

He knows there's a solution to every problem and thinks outside the box. Every once in a while he's had a boneheaded idea, but once the electorate clarified that for him, he was willing to take "no" for an answer from the citizenry. He's not still trying to sneak those things in under cover of something else, like so many politicians. That's humility at work.

Rick Perry really likes people, and has friends among all sorts. He can talk with anyone because he's really interested in the person. When he went to Los Angeles in June to speak at a "United For Life" event raising funds for a new women's clinic, the mostly Hispanic crowd of 5,000 gave him a standing ovation.

Rick Perry will be our next President. I've only one possible caveat, and that would be a Sarah Palin candidacy.

If Sarah Palin should decide to run this year, how cool would that be to have TWO fabulous candidates, both of whom would represent Real America, from which to choose?

That's what our elections are supposed to be about: about choosing the best of a great lot. It gives me renewed hope to know we still have such people with the courage to run.

Governor Palin is the only person who can compete with Governor Perry, but as I have posted elsewhere, I've long had a suspicion that she was waiting to make certain the candidate void was filled before issuing a final decision - and now that Perry has agreed to run, it may no longer be essential that she do so this year.

(In fact, and I have nothing to base this on but a gut feeling, I would not be surprised to learn years from now that Palin, Perry, and Trump have coordinated for some time.)

My thinking about Sarah Palin as a leader is that she works on the shortest distance between two points. I believe her current goal is to help us restore the US federal government on a broad spectrum to trustworthy representation for America's future wellbeing, and that doesn't stop with the presidency, in fact it doesn't even start there. As the debt limit capitulation showed, the rehabilitation of Congress has only just begun.

So, I believe that whether she decides to run for President or not will depend on whether she & Todd feel she can best accomplish these things from within the oval office, or whether with Perry firmly holding the fort there, she would then be free to turn her remarkable skills of influence toward other essential steps.

Sarah Palin's campaign has already started, and is moving along famously. The question now is which campaign it is!

~~~

8/16 UPDATE: I've added a few links to this post that lead to good information about important questions, and will add more from time to time.

Remember The Oil Bust! A Whole Bunch of Lessons Texas Learned From, and Washington Still Wants To Deny

Another post I never got around to putting up:

 Video News Report From 1986:



One reason Texas has done better than the general country , specifically in the housing and mortgage and banking mess, is because Texas went through some of this in the 1980s.

Darned near everyone in the state from suits to nuts went bankrupt and foreclosed in the Oil Bust. Unemployment went through the roof and the insane housing prices of the Boom fell through the floor.

Geologists hired on as janitors. Iowa filled back up when all its welders went home. Odessa looked like "The Day After" in large swaths for years, as empty apartment buildings and half-finished condos sat abandoned.. So many newcomers to the boom turned right around and left the state in the bust that it took decades before demand finally began catch up with the housing supply.

And good hardworking frugal people who had lost their jobs, also lost their homes and their cars and everything except all the things that matter.

What did the rest of the country do? Instead of supporting the need to free America from the tyranny of the Arab oil price manipulations, Congress levied Windfall Profits Taxes (actually Excise taxes - taxing not profit but production) on American oil producers, effectively making it impossible for them to compete with OPEC.


People think their mortgages are underwater now? Try that same mortgage with a 12% interest rate. All people could do, who wanted to keep their homes, was stay put and pay it down. And that took decades, because values were allowed to settle back to legitimate supply/demand pricing.

The govenment didn't come in and artificially prop up values, and taxing entities had no choice but to reduce their expenses and deal with it.

So those who could still pay their mortgage, because they were buying a home to live their life in - not an "investment" - paid it, and paid extra on the principle, and refinanced as soon as they could, and waited and waited and waited it out.

Those who couldn't pay their bills moved into rental housing, declared bankruptcy, wept, then wiped their tears and carried on their lives.

Then when things were better again, in 2000, Enron happened, and its retirees and employees, most of whom had their 401k's invested heavily in Enron stock, lost it all. Those still working lost their jobs along with all their retirement savings, of course.

They had to pick up and go on.

And they did.

And it was hard, but they never gave up.

That's what Texans do. That's what Americans do.

And that's what Americans are going to do now.



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"Tea Hatred": The Left's Reaction When Faced With Honest Politicians

In "Tea Hatred", Christopher Taylor rounds up heretofore-unimaginable quotations from the bizarre wilding mob that is speaking for the Democrat Party these days, then analyzes just why the progressives' communal reaction is so extreme.

His post opens with a solid reference list of dozens of outrageous statements by people who've dropped any attempt at pretense. There's also a marvelous snippet about the good character of the House Freshmen, and you can read it all at Word Around The Net.

When he gets to the meat and potatoes, his concise description of the tea party phenomenon is right on point - and both parties need to pay attention:

"And this was a major miscalculation by the Democrats, as I've written about in the past. They thought America loved them and their leftist extreme ideas in 2006 and 2008. They were wrong: America was sick of the Republican overspending, overextending the government, arrogance, and not listening to the voters. So what did the Democrats do when they got into power? Became even more arrogant, insulting the voters, expanding the government even more and spending even more. Finally the ordinary voter said "I've had enough, it didn't work to throw the GOP out of office, here's where I draw the line"

"And out came the tricorn hats, the Gadsden flags, the hand-made signs, and the grim determination to change it all. And that drives the left berserk."

Read the Rest...

Whom Would Jesus Sell into Debt Slavery?

Via The Kraalspace's (linked from my sidebar) own sidebar link to The Bovina Bloviator, who blogs about "Charity and Debt", this article by Dr. Timothy Dalrymple, who crystalizes the Washington Debt as immoral, and introduces Christians For A Sustainable Economy in his article "Whom Would Jesus Indebt?"

I haven't taken time this morning to research Dr Dalrymple or his group, but the points he makes here are crucial to understanding why the misplaced priorities in  social spending endanger the poor more than anyone. Excerpts (emphasis added):

"One of the gravest dangers of the Budget Control Act passed yesterday is that it could provide Americans with a false sense of security.  ...Not only are we deep in the dark heart of the forest, but we’re still walking in the wrong direction.  The pace may have slowed, but the trajectory has not.  The immediate cash-flow crisis has passed, but the long-term solvency crisis remains.

"We are still borrowing enormous amounts of money, still selling our children into debt slavery through our own spending insanity. ...

 "Too many anti-poverty programs are beneficial for the politicians that pass them, and veritable boondoggles for the government bureaucracy that administers them, but they actually serve to rob the poor of their dignity and their initiative, they undermine the family structures that help the poor build prosperous lives, and ultimately mire the poor in poverty for generations.  Does anyone actually believe that the welfare state has served the poor well?

"It is immoral to ignore the needs of the least of these.  But it’s also immoral to ’serve’ the poor in ways that only make more people poor, and trap them in poverty longer.  And it’s immoral to amass a mountain of debt that we will pass on to later generations.  I even believe it’s immoral to feed the government’s spending addiction....."

Go here and read it all.

Wanna See Leadership? THIS is Leadership

THIS is Leadership. Drjgarvin, sir, thank you!



via American Digest

Rick Santelli Offers Clarity on the Debt Ceiling

Via the Very Fun Blog Are We Lumberjacks?: Punches: unpulled, who says "I really like Rick Santelli. He's the guy I want sitting at my table when the waiter brings an unamusing bouche . "

My Regular Presidential Tax Speech/Tax Return Rant: Now with BACON...and Bono

Every so often I get indignant all over again at the President's eagerness to take all the tax breaks and loopholes he can find on his multi-million-dollar annual income - those same tax breaks he complains "the rich" are abusing. And every so often the media ignores the blatant contradictions of it and gives him a pass. Is that fair?

Now, U2's Bono is in the news because protesters are chastising him for legally avoiding paying maximum taxes.

Meanwhile, President Obama continues to sing the same song Bono sings, with nary a peep from anyone. He did it in April, taking a $22,000 Foreign Tax Credit while lip sinc-ing The White House Staff's latest Brand New Unprecidented Historic proposal to Take from the Rich and Give to the Poor by playing "Where'd Your Piggy Bank Go?".

And in a speech in Toledo in May, he did it again. Mr Obama had the audacity to say this: "We’ve got to live within our means, everybody’s got to do their part. Middle-class workers like you, though, shouldn’t be bearing all the burden. You work too hard for someone to ask you to pay more so that somebody who’s making millions or billions of dollars can pay less."  (see Page 13 at the link)

And so, once more, here's my same old hissy fit about it: Originally Posted 1/26/11:

Suppose I believe that it's a good thing to pay taxes in order for the government to provide services that make our society a better place, and that in fact it is the government's job to do this.

Suppose, theoretically, that I've decried special tax deductions loopholes & tax shelters for the wealthy to prevent them having to pay the full allotment of tax due on their income and assets. Suppose I have built a career on supporting this outlook.

Let's suppose that my income for one year is already $5.5 Million, and of that, I will pay about 33% in taxes (including Self Employment taxes), which is about the same percentage that nearly every self-employed person will pay on their income, even those who only made $50 Thousand. So while it looks like a lot to say I paid $1.5 Million in taxes, it's actually not any more, percentage-wise, than, say, Joe the Plumber pays.

What if I were to have a windfall of $1 Million, and the current tax laws (which I claim are unfairly tilted toward the wealthy) will allow me to shuttle that money into my favorite tax-free charities without paying any tax on it.

In the process, I don't get a "charitable deduction", but I get something even better: I get lots of priceless publicity as a benefactor to these charities, and I don't have to claim the windfall as income. So it looks like I am more generous than I actually am.

If I chose not to use the loophole (which I have despised), and did claim the windfall as income, and then made the donations directly, I'd have to pay an extra $14,700. But, instead, I redirect it and "save" the money for the charities, instead of "giving" it to the government.

So in this fantasy, I, a millionaire several times over, who is campaigning to close loopholes and raise taxes on "the rich", take the loophole and avoid paying any taxes at all on $1 Million dollars.

Now, pretend all that is true, and that it isn't me, but the President of the United States.

Welcome to reality.

That $1 million dollars bought a ton of PR for the man who is expected to spend a record One Billion Dollars running for relection.

You can read the rest here.

This isn't about a political changing of the mind, which anyone can understand even if they don't agree.

This is like if Donald Trump complained that the law allows companies to file for bankruptcy (no offense or criticism intended toward Mr Trump, just trying to present a sort of balanced comparison).

This is about saying one thing and deliberately doing the opposite. No matter whether it is a Democrat or Republican in the White House, no matter whether one agrees or disagrees with a president's policies, this kind of behavior is unacceptable from any elected official.

And especially from the President of the United States.

(HT Instapundit for many of the original links, and for a brilliant  proposal to elevate robust fairness in the tax system.)