Republicans.
For a party that claims to be “pro-life”, they sure do love executions.
[Rick] Perry’s opposition to the provisions, while not surprising, angered Democrats and community health advocates in Texas. According to the Texas Medical Association, 25 percent of the state’s population lacks health insurance — 6.2 million people, including 1.2 million children — the highest rate of any state. In Houston, the state’s biggest city, 30 percent of the population is uninsured, while the rate is 34 percent to 37 percent in Brownsville and other cities near the Mexican border, according to the medical association.
“Rick Perry could’ve brought billions in federal dollars to Texas, reduced the rate of the uninsured and improved the quality of life for Texans,” Rebecca Acuña, a spokeswoman for the state Democratic Party, said in a statement. “Rick Perry’s Texas solution is to let Texans stay ill and uninsured.”
The response from Mr. Perry and the governors of Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana seems strikingly, blatantly uncaring for the many uninsured people in their states. It also seems irresponsible. Could someone explain why people like this get elected?
gaffe-prone Rick Perry continues to focus laser-like on what really matters to America by speaking out in support of Pink Slime. Some of its main manufacturers are also big Republican party donors but that’s probably just coincidence.
Speaking of slime…that’s a good description of Rick Perry…a big bucket of Republican slime.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry was operating under the influence of painkillers during Republican presidential debates earlier this election cycle, a new e-book by Mike Allen and Evan Thomas claims.
It “became an open secret that he was using painkillers in sufficient dosages to keep him standing through the two-hour debates,” according to “Inside the Circus,” which was released on Tuesday.
The Daily Caller first relayed the book’s report of an incident, presumably prompted by pain medication, in which the “manager of a rival campaign” supposedly witnessed Perry belting out the lyrics to “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” during a trip to the bathroom before an October debate.
“Wondering who was making all the noise, the campaign manager turned his head and saw, to his surprise, the governor of Texas,” the book states. “Perry came down the row of about twenty urinals and stood companionably close by.”
The authors continue: “Nonplussed, the campaign manager made a hasty exit; as the bathroom door closed, he could hear Perry still merrily singing away: “I-I-I’ve been working on the ra-a-i-i-l-road, all-l-l the live-long day.”Not to say “I told you so,” but I totally called this shit back in October.
Yet another death row inmate in Texas may in fact not be guilty of the crime that put him there. Robert Gene Will was convicted in the 2000 slaying of Deputy Sheriff Barrett Hill in Harris County, Texas. Will and another man, Michael Rosario, were caught trying to break into a car in December 2000. Both men fled, but Will says he was apprehended and placed in handcuffs by police. That’s when someone shot Deputy Sheriff Hill.
Will says that the shooter couldn’t have been him, on account of his hands literally being tied behind his back. And his lawyers argue that Rosario, the accomplice in the attempted car burglary, has admitted to at least five people that he was the one who pulled the trigger that morning. And now, Will’s case is attracting even more attention after a U.S District Judge voiced his own reservations about the initial conviction and the appeal that was conducted. The Houston Chronicle reports:
“The questions raised during post-judgment factual development about Will’s actual innocence create disturbing uncertainties …,” [Judge Keith] Ellison wrote in a Jan. 17 memorandum. “On top of the considerable evidence supporting Will’s innocence and the important errors in the trial court, there must also be addressed the total absence of eyewitness testimony or strongly probative forensic evidence. With facts such as these, and only circumstantial evidence supporting Will’s conviction and death sentence, the court laments the strict limitations placed upon it.”
Judge Ellison was limited in his ability to hear new evidence before making a decision on whether to grant an appeal to Will, and despite his expressed dismay over the lower court’s verdict, was forced to deny the appeal on a technicality. But Will and his defense attorneys still have avenues open to them, including a recent Supreme Court ruling that allows for convicted criminals to, in some cases, challenge the competency of their state-assigned appeals lawyers. For Will, whose appointed attorney filed a legal brief that copied extensively from one he filed previously for a completely different case, the Supreme Court decision offers a ray of hope.
Texas has a well-earned reputation for unsympathetic governors who are undeterred at overseeing more executions than any other state in the country. Current Gov. Rick Perry presided over 235 executions during his time in office, by far the most of any governor in the modern era. This despite several questionable convictions that call into question the use of the death penalty at all.
This week, several states gained a shitload of points, typically thanks to either having a “Stand Your Ground” law that can result in assholes like George Zimmerman not getting tried for their crimes, or to being a former state of the Confederacy who feels the need to celebrate that fact in April … or both.
Case in point, Texas, which joins Tennessee in the 200 Club in large part thanks to both of the above. Tennessee, shockingly enough, does not celebrate Confederate History and Heritage Month, but still stayed comfortably in front thanks to some acts of police brutality and legislative assaults on education and church-state separation. Arizona crept close to joining the 200 Club thanks to a racist education law and the embarrassing results of said law, as well as the fact that its Republican lawmakers just can’t seem to shut the fuck up.
Several other states, as a result of “Stand Your Ground” and the Confederacy glorification thing also broke into the triple digits, or came close to that, ahem, “milestone.”
On the other end of the spectrum, kudos to Vermont, which reclaimed its status as most progressive state with knowledge of a lot of awesome laws protecting against discrimination and paying attention to women’s health care and contraception coverage. The fact that Oregon for whatever reason has a “Stand Your Ground” law created more separation there.
Now onto the standings, and if you need to report any misdeeds (or good deeds) of a state that aren’t accounted for, you know where to send it.
If all you know about healthcare “death panels” is what you heard on a talk show, then you must think the feds will pull the plug on patients.
News bulletin: Texas already has death panels.
A Houston man’s life was ended last week.
A leukemia patient identified only as Willie was denied nourishment and died, according to Texas Right to Life.
Since 1999, Texas has given hospital “ethics panels” the authority to end care even if the patient or family wants to continue.
It’s called the Texas Futile Care Law. The Texas Senate bill passed in 1999.
Back then, the Senate’s presiding officer was Lt. Gov. Rick Perry.
Yes, the governor who says, “I always stand by the side of life.”
Willie went to the hospital a few weeks ago with chest pains, according to Texas Right to Life’s Elizabeth Graham.
Doctors found pneumonia and leukemia, Graham wrote. After Willie underwent surgery and chemotherapy, his family asked about another hospital or hospice care.
Though he had plenty of insurance, no other facility would accept him. After the legally required 10 days, the hospital ended nourishment.
He was “dehydrated and starved to death completely against the family’s desire,” Graham wrote.
If arrested you are arrested for protesting in Dallas specifically, call: 972-642-1274. You will be bailed out in 4 hours and receive free representation.
From the Occupy Dallas facebook.
Protesting what they call corporate greed and corruption,people gathered at Austin City Hall Thursday morning. It’s all part of the larger Wall Street “occupation.
So very proud.
^.
It is quite epic:
Just to recap, in less than two months Rick Perry has:
- Suggested that maybe Ben Bernanke should be lynched.
- Declined to back off his contention that Social Security is an unconstitutional Ponzi scheme.
- Called climate change a “contrived phony mess” that was cooked up by scientists who have “manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling in to their projects.”
- Pissed off the conservative base by defending his decision to (in Michele Bachmann’s immortal words) give “government injections” to “innocent little 12-year-old girls.” Said Perry condescendingly: “What I don’t get is what parents don’t understand about an opt out.”
- Further pissed off the conservative base by suggesting that if you disagree with his policy on in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, “I don’t think you have a heart.”
- Mangled a prepackaged debate attack on Mitt Romney so badly, and then followed up with a statement on Pakistan so inscrutable, that even his supporters started to wonder if he has a three-digit IQ.
- Proposed that U.S. troops should be used to fight Mexican drug lords. In Mexico.
- Had to defend himself against revelations that his family leases a hunting spot called “Niggerhead.”
Should we start taking bets on how much longer Rick Perry lasts? I think he’ll hold out until the first primaries, personally. What’s shocking to me is the defense of the Perry family from supporters. From the original Washington Post article:
“It’s just a name,” said Haskell County Judge David Davis, sitting in his courtroom and looking at a window. “Like those are vertical blinds. It’s just what it was called. There was no significance other than as a hunting deal.”
If Perry continues, I have a feeling he’ll be just a name shortly as well - some failed governor that flamed out spectacularly while running for the presidential nomination.
