Sarah Palin: Rick Perry has partcipated in "Crony Capitalism"

Fox - via RealClearPolitics ^ | 9/12/2010 | N/A

[af_vet_rr]

He said he got $5000.00 .....BFD!

You're not getting the point she and many FReeepers have made, or you're deliberately ignoring it.

The point is that Merck hired Perry's good friend and former chief of staff, who then lobbied Perry. This isn't about $5,000, this is about a company giving a good friend of Perry's a very cushy job and that friend turning around and lobbying Perry.

Perry has a history of this kind of stuff. The most prominent would probably be Rudy Giuliani's lawfirm working on the TTC for Cintra and then Perry campaigning for Giuliani for President or Perry spending years supporting illegal immigrants (whoops, "guest workers", wouldn't want to offend Perry or his staff in case they read this because we all know illegal immigrants aren't really criminals, they are "guest workers"!) because his biggest donors (homebuilders in Texas) benefit from illegal labor.

The most recent would be Convergen Lifesciences where they falsified an application to Perry's office in order to get millions in taxpayer money. They deliberately used names in their application of people who had ties to Perry's staff, even though those people admitted that they had nothing to do with Convergen. Perry, Dewhurst, and Straus even defended it after the public found out about the application.

I'm not a fan of Palin, but I'm impressed that she'll set friendships aside to point out the negatives.

[af_vet_rr]

If he has broken laws, he needs to be prosecuted.

It's not a legal issue, it's a moral issue. In the instance that Palin cited, Perry's good friend and former chief of staff was given a cushy lobbyist job at Merck and then he turned around and convinced Perry to issue the order without discussing it with parents or the legislature.

Had Perry openly discussed it with the legislature or parents in Texas, as soon as people saw Mike Toomey was working with Merck, they would know that Perry didn't arrive at this position on his own (And why he thinks he has that power is just as bad as his friendship with Toomey).

If Obama issued an order about a vaccine, and it turns out a good friend and former chief of staff of his was employed by the vaccine company to lobby Obama, people would be flipping out.

[af_vet_rr]

If Obama issued an order about a vaccine, and it turns out a good friend and former chief of staff of his was employed by the vaccine company to lobby Obama, people would be flipping out.

Well if Obama issued an order about such a vaccine, regardless of his or his friends ties to the company, people would flip out anyways :) But the point stands, if we would have a problem with Obama issuing an executive order for a vaccine made by a company that employed a good friend and former chief of staff of his to lobby him, we should have a problem with Rick Perry doing it.

[2nd Amendment]

I concede. Good point and good logic. I have been an unabashed Palin supporter. But the stakes and the pressure apparently got to me. I honestly think the country would be far better off with ANY of the republican candidates. It may already be too late, but I cannot stand the thought of 4 more years of socialism, overegulation, overtaxation, class warfare, anti Isreli bashing, pro-muslim, anti-Christ behavior of this obomination-in-chief!