2016 GOP Presidential Hopeful Rick Perry Indicted -- OOPS!

by Sunnyjane

Breaking News: Rick Perry's Glasses Plead Guilty to Aiding and Abetting a Dunce

With the recent indictment of Alaska's little sister's chief executive, Greg Abbott has to be praying that Perry will step down so he can take over and act all, you know, governory until the November election.  Gov. Goodhair might want to be very careful from whom he takes, um, friendly advice.

The new West Coast Metrosexual, so named by a fellow Texas Republican, is charged with trying to coerce a Democratic District Attorney, Rosemary Lehmberg, into resigning by threatening to veto funding for the Public Integrity Unit in her office.  Lost in this story of DUIs and whether he was on solid legal ground for withholding funding is exactly why Perry wanted her gone so badly.  Seems he might have been trying to put the skids on an investigation into the possibly hinky grant awarding going on over at his pet project, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, whose chief has already been indicted; he will stand trial in December.  The entire scientific review team at CPRIT resigned because millions of dollars were being awarded for political favoritism.  But if Perry could get Lehmberg out, he could put a Republican in the District Attorney's office who would then be in a position to call a halt to the CPRIT situation that could prove very damaging to the governor's bid to become the GOP presidential nominee -- if he doesn't end up in prison first.  Perry's indictment caused one Texas Democrat to opine, It’s a reminder that there ain’t no cowboy that can’t be thrown. 

This is going to be big, and it's going to be ugly. 

In her book on George W. Bush, the late Molly Ivins advised that, when judging a Texas politician, one should do three things: The first is to look at the record. The second is to look at the record. And third, look at the record.

So let's do a little of that, OK?

For the Record: Fourteen Years as Governor of Texas 

He's just pissed 'cause I've ruined his opportunity for a photo-op at the border.

-- The Gov has been trying to make up for his 2012 primary gaffe when he told his fellow wannabes that if they didn't approve of his granting illegal immigrants in-state college tuition, they had no heart.  Well!  That simply would not do!  So he walked that comment back, calling it an error to insult his fellow GOPers, and then he had to go all out on his war against child immigrants surrendering themselves at the border this summer.  Royally pissed at the President's refusal to be taken in by his obvious attempt to make political hay out of new-found toughness, Perry sent a thousand Texas National Guard troops to the border to...do nothing except cost his state's tax payers $12M a month plus $1.3M a week in other assistance in that little border security charade.

-- Perry badly wants creationism taught in public school classrooms.  He wants it so badly, in fact, that during the 2012 campaign, he told an audience in Iowa that Texas schools were teaching creationism and evolution side-by-side.  Like in, um, science class.  Fortunately, that's not true; doing so would violate the Constitution's Establishment Clause.  What, the governor doesn't even know what's really going on in his own schools?  Texas already boasts one of the highest high school dropout rates in the country; it is dramatically failing its Black and Hispanic students, who make up an overwhelming majority of dropouts; and the state is rated 35th in education standards in the country.  So sure, let's make the curriculum even worse by teaching creationism as science.

-- Before the infamous Texas-based Enron scandal came to light, every Republican politician in the state had benefited from the corporation's largesse.  In one particularly obvious bit of backdoor payments, Enron pressured Perry to appoint one of its former executives to head the Texas Public Utilities Commission.  Governor Perry did exactly that, and very soon afterwards received a $25,000 check from Enron CEO and Chairman Ken Lay.  There was a big hoohah about it, but Perry blew it off by saying that it was coincidental.  Uh, huh.

-- Even though Texas has the highest rate of uninsured in the country (25%, or three million), Perry refused to authorize a state-based health insurance exchange for Affordable Care Act enrollment.  Using the Health and Human Services website, however, more than seven hundred thousand uninsured citizens of the Lone Star state signed up before the deadline and are enjoying affordable healthcare -- many for the first time in their lives.

-- After a U.S. District Court judge overturned Texas's ban on same-sex marriage -- calling it unconstitutional -- in February, Perry vowed to continue to fight because Texans ain't gonna be ruled by no stinkin' U.S. Constitution!  Or words to that effect.

Some record, eh?     

Onward to Uproot and Overhaul Washington

And find my coyote-killer weapon!  I can do that "stand your ground" thing, right?

Perry can don his spectacular spectacles and trade in his cowboy boots for wingtips, but those don't make him presidential material.  Remember, special glasses and naughty red pumps did not catapult the 2008 GOP vice-presidential candidate to victory.

But Ricky's trying.  He's spent the last two years attempting to erase his deplorable performance in the 2012 primaries, when he ultimately come out looking like a parody of an arrogant ignoramus.  Which, of course, was well deserved.  He's been making trips abroad to Israel and London -- and plans more of the same -- to introduce himself to the wider world.  Now that's a good thing, because in 2012 he was sure American troops were fighting in Afghanistan and Iran.  Close, but no cigar.

Rick Perry can change his footwear, introduce himself to world leaders, and confer with all the advisers he wants to.  There's no way he'll ever be President of the United States.  I hope.

End Note