RoR: Forum

Excellent blog! I have a raft of new confidence in the Trump transition team. And, I really like that blogger's work - I've saved his Blog address in my favorites and subscribed to it. Thanks.

Post 1

Saturday, December 17, 2016 - 6:47am

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/05/rick-perry-college-transcript_n_919357.html

The Department of Energy will not be run by a business, but by former Texas governor, Rick Perry, who did not display a good grasp of science while in college:

(The present Secretary has a doctorate in theoretical physics.)

As governor, Rick Perry pushed a $3-billion dollar state bond to finance cancer research. Predictably, the program was immediately subjected to questionable disbursements.

"Plagued by Scandal" (2015)

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2015/09/25/texas-cancer-research-agency-survived-a-scandal.-now-it-hopes-to-prove-it-s-working

"Widening Scandal" (2012)

http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-widening-scandal-surrounding-texass-cancer-fighting-agency/

"Tarnished by Scandal" (2016)

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/CPRIT-s-assault-on-cancer-sees-writing-on-the-wall-7939058.php

This is not an isolated example. Under Perry's administrations, the State of Texas has underwritten many "events" such as Circuit of the Americas by granting money up front to promoters against their promise of sales tax revenue. For CoA, the State of Texas reduced the subsidy from $25 million to $19.5 million this year. (http://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/14103308/us-gp-future-doubt-texas-cuts-state-subsidy) Again, it is just the most newsworthy, not an isolated example.

Say what you will about Elon Musk, the Texas Automobile Dealers Association has been successful in contributing money to the Republicans in the legislature who made it illegal to buy a car directly from the manufacturer.

Houston Chronicle 2016

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/explainer/article/texas-law-tesla-franchise-dealership-electric-cars-7940158.php

However, the state GOP at convention called for a change in the law. Whether that gets done -- and gets past the governor -- remains to be seen.

"Last summer, Gov. Greg Abbott told Bloomberg Radio that the state has “a very effective automobile sector that seems like it’s working quite well.”

When cars break down, they need repair, the Republican governor noted. Abbott questioned the ability of Tesla, maker of a niche product, to provide that service. Tesla wants to have regional service centers, saying its cars rarely break down."

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2016/05/20/texas-auto-dealers-receive-tesla-sized-dent-from-state-gop

I love living in Texas. It is the greatest state in the union. But it is not the government that makes it that way, it is the people, the common culture. You cannot bottle that or pass a law to make it happen. It evolved organically. It was unplanned. I am not alone in liking it that way. (But we do have planners.... and Rick Perry is one of them...)

I just caution readers here not to endorse the gang of the moment in Washington, just because they are beating up on the previous gang.

Post 2

Saturday, December 17, 2016 - 8:41am

Perry has never been a favorite of mine. He is a politician and pretends to be much more of a fiscal conservative than he actually is. His somewhat fundamentalist Christian religious beliefs bleed into politics - a social conservative. He talks more about small government than actually working towards it as governor. He is pretty much a traditional, social conservative who is open to a certain amount of cronyism and larger government (but no where as large as progressive would want, nor is he as ideological as progressives are).

He does have some good points. I lived in Texas in 2005, the year of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita which hit Houston, where I was managing a small marina. I saw, up close, the way Perry managed the crisis compared to how the politicians in Lousianna behaved. Perry was very effective. Ray Nagin (New Orleans mayor) and Kathleen Blanco (Lousianna Governor) were horrible. They did nothing that wasn't political, and they hid from doing much of anything when they could.

Perry should be reasonably good at managing a federal bueracracy and moving it in a better direction. Perry is very much a free enterprise person for the field of energy. He has wanted to see the department of energy eliminated (it is one of the three he tried to mention in his presidential debate screwup where he couldn't remember the third one... Energy :-) He is actually a pretty good pick if what you wanted to do was put a strong administrator in charge of that department for the purpose of getting government out of the energy business and closing the department.

Trump might just be putting in his gang to replace the previous gang. It is possible that we could see the greatest government-enabled theft ever witnessed, but I don't think so. We know that the previous gang was ideologically committed to Marxist principles (except where it involved cronyism or outright corruption). Trump, on the other hand, might want something more than money or power. His core drive might be to make the name 'Trump' live on in history as the man who 'made us great again.' If he nominates good Supreme Court justices, and doesn't go down the fascist road as his means of getting things done, we may be in for a very pleasant surprise. And at the very least, we have been spared Hillary Clinton who took Alinsky-style progressivism AND corruption to altogether new heights.

Post 3

Monday, December 19, 2016 - 7:38am

Rick Perry reverses himself, calls HPV vaccine mandate a ‘mistake’

Rick Perry has been known to change his mind:

Setting aside the silly religious objections, as one commenter put it, "The concern should be about forcing someone to inject something into herself against her or her parents' will."

Post 4

Monday, December 19, 2016 - 7:58am