My other Guv.
Posted on 08/25/2011 12:37:24 AM PDT by hocndoc
Kinky Friedman once ran against Rick Perry for the Texas governorship. So would the singer and writer vote for him for president? Hell, yes! The world’s most famous Jewish cowboy on why he wants to live in Rick Perry’s America. by Kinky Friedman | August 24, 2011 7:45 PM EDT
Rick Perry has never lost an election; I’ve never won one. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with the world. On the other hand, I’ve long been friends with Bill Clinton and George W., and Rick Perry and I, though at times bitter adversaries, have remained friends as well. It’s not always easy to maintain friendships with politicians. To paraphrase Charles Lamb, you have to work at it like some men toil after virtue.
I have been quoted as saying that when I die, I am to be cremated, and the ashes are to be thrown in Rick Perry’s hair. Yet, simply put, Rick Perry and I are incapable of resisting each other’s charm. He is not only a good sport, he is a good, kindhearted man, and he once sat in on drums with ZZ Top. A guy like that can’t be all bad. When I ran for governor of Texas as an independent in 2006, the Crips and the Bloods ganged up on me. When I lost, I drove off in a 1937 Snit, refusing to concede to Perry. Three days later Rick called to give me a gracious little pep talk, effectively talking me down from jumping off the bridge of my nose. Very few others were calling at that time, by the way. Such is the nature of winning and losing and politicians and life. You might call what Rick did an act of random kindness. Yet in my mind it made him more than a politician, more than a musician; it made him a mensch.
These days, of course, I would support Charlie Sheen over Obama. Obama has done for the economy what pantyhose did for foreplay. Obama has been perpetually behind the curve. If the issue of the day is jobs and the economy, Rick Perry is certainly the nuts-and-bolts kind of guy you want in there. Even though my pal and fellow Texan Paul Begala has pointed out that no self-respecting Mexican would sneak across the border for one of Rick Perry’s low-level jobs, the stats don’t entirely lie. Compared with the rest of the country, Texas is kicking major ass in terms of jobs and the economy, and Rick should get credit for that, just as Obama should get credit for saying “No comment” to the young people of the Iranian revolution.
More to the point, could Rick Perry fix the economy? Hell, yes! Texas is exhibit A; Rick’s fingerprints are all over it. He’s been governor since Christ was a cowboy. The Lone Star State is booming. The last time I checked, Texas is kicking in a hell of a lot of the U.S. GDP. Unemployment is lower than the vast majority of the other states. Hell, we could probably even find a job for Paul Begala.
As a Jewish cowboy (or “Juusshh,” as we say in Texas), I know Rick Perry to be a true friend of Israel, like Bill Clinton and George W. before him. There exists a visceral John Wayne kinship between Israelis and Texans, and Rick Perry gets it. That’s why he’s visited Israel on many more occasions than Obama, who’s been there exactly zero times as president. If I were Obama I wouldn’t go either. His favorability rating in Israel once clocked in at 4 percent. Say what you will about the Israelis, but they are not slow out of the chute. They know who their friends are. On the topic of the Holy Land, there remains the little matter of God. God talks to televangelists, football coaches, and people in mental hospitals. Why shouldn’t he talk to Rick Perry? In the spirit of Joseph Heller, I have a covenant with God. I leave him alone and he leaves me alone. If, however, I have a big problem, I ask God for the answer. He tells Rick Perry. And Rick tells me.
So would I support Rick Perry for president? Hell, yes! As the last nail that hasn’t been hammered down in this country, I agree with Rick that there are already too damn many laws, taxes, regulations, panels, committees, and bureaucrats. While Obama is busy putting the hyphen between “anal” and “retentive” Rick will be rolling up his sleeves and getting to work.
A still, small voice within keeps telling me that Rick Perry’s best day may yet be ahead of him, and so too, hopefully, will be America’s.
My other Guv.
or u will be condemned to eternal damnation dear
l but....more importantly...feel free to excerpt Wardaddy's (3rd person..means Im important).....grand and all knowing totally relevant utterances whenever youd like....free of charge....acute insight and wisdom like mine should be available to everyone...like condoms
"And I thought the Libertarians were against border control." That's an error but I can see why you might think that. Our Texas state platform is for secure borders (national is different but we can't control that). I was elected our nominee with 77% of the delegate vote on a strong platform to secure the border with our State Guard. Of the five candidates for the Libertarian nomination, NO ONE ran against secure borders, and no active nominee in the general election did so either. In our first debate (we had five), Bill White tried to pin that taint on me, but I handed him his head.
"The Texas Border Volunteers were in our town this month and couldn’t say enough about the hard work, tenacity and good results from the Rangers and DPS." Nothing against these folks and their efforts, but anyone who says we have had good results in securing the border is not being accurate.
"There are 181 people (more, if you count the Legislative Council, and I would) that you have to talk into any bill. You can’t go ‘round castrating them and expect anything to happen." The governor of Texas has enormous power if he/she wants to use it. He/she is the Commander in Chief of our Texas military and can send the State Guard done to the border without any co-operation from the legislature or anyone. That's why I can say without qualification or contradiction that if I had been elected governor, our border would be secure now.
"Please see the history of CD 22, in DC, when Sekula-Gibbs’ staff quit. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1739784/posts."" That sounded "arranged" to me -- like when Newt's staff quit and went to work for none other than Rick Perry. It had Rick Perry's MO written all over it. But as I have said, if you are governor, you need NO ONE ELSE to get the border secure. You have the Texas and American people totally on your side, and that's all you need. If the troublemakers want to quit, then that's all to the good. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. As to castration, you can't remove what's not there to begin with.
"First, you’d need at least a good number of Libertarian House members and the cooperation of the Speaker and 16 of the Senators." No, see above. One riot, one ranger. One border, one State Guard, one governor. If people wanted to oppose me, they expose themselves and will be defeated in the next election. So, it's all good.
"The line item veto power is very limited. The Governor may delete the large blocks of the budget, but he can’t reassign any moneys. He can say not here, not there or even how. See Talmidge Hefflin’s review - http://www.texaspolicy.com/pdf/2006-04-PP-GovBudget-II-th.pdf. “”The Texas Constitution gives the governor sole line item veto discretion to prevent widespread redistribution within the state due to political power within the Legislature. Under the current budget pattern the governor is nearly powerless to prevent wasteful spending once the funds are committed in an appropriations bill.””" I disagree -- it's not difficult IF you have no masters to answer to and you really don't care about your political future, as I do not.
"It’s also unwise to spend the money and political clout that is required to hold a special session. Were you in Austin Friday June 24th or Monday the 27th? Admittedly, there were whiners who complained of being tired, but the real purpose was to stop bills they didn’t want to vote on." Special sessions are necessary to correct decades of bad laws and constant overreaches by the federal government. Once the legislature comes to understand that they will be in detention hall unless they get their school work done during school hours, they will get down to work. Those whiners about spoke about knew that Rick Perry is not serious about things like nullifying TSA gropes and so why should they be? That special session was just a kabuki(sp?)dance to try to fool the voters. Rick Perry could only go through one special session because he had to get out on the campaign trail. With a different leader, the result would be totally different.
I have to run now, so if you post more insightful questions, I will have to answer some other time.
Thank you. I signed up during the campaign because someone started a thread about me. Let me tell you, it's really a rush to see a thread about yourself on FR! But I didn't want to wear out my welcome. It's only that I thought that I had something to say about Rick Perry that Freepers ought to at least know about that brought me out of lurker mode.
What would you do as Governor of Texas to secure that border? (Perry hasn’t ready done)
What would you do as Governor of Texas to secure that border? ( that Perry hasn’t already done)
As I understand it, a law (or change to the law) passed in 2007 gave the POTUS the the last say-so in deploying the Guard (especially on an international border)
I’m I wrong about that and what do you think Obama would say if we tried?
That’s cute! I quote my mama, too. Her wise sayings.
First off, “naive” is not a bad thing. It means unexposed, new, not educated or unsophisticated.
Second, where in life did your method work for you? Did your mama teach you to cook or did she turn on the gas and give you a box of matches?
Did your method work for driving a car?
It wouldn’t work as Governor of the State of Texas, that’s for sure.
The State Guard is under the total control of the governor. It can never be nationalized or made to leave the state. The President, Congress, even the Texas legislature cannot assert control over it or take it over. I specifically ruled out the National Guard because it could be nationalized (hence the name). You could be doing well on this mission only to have them sent who knows where -- maybe because they were being successful. Or Obama could take them over and then ruin the mission -- like saying you can't use force/have guns/ have bullets in your guns, etc.
The State Guard is ideal for this purpose, like it was made for this mission, which of course it was, long ago.
He wouldn't like it and would say really, really bad things about Texas, its crazy people, and that hardheaded, naive lady governor who just doesn't get it that she cannot do what she is actually doing and refuses to listen to people who have been in government since she was playing with dolls and have all told her that she simply cannot do what she is doing. We would ignore him, laugh at him, verbally attack him back, whatever was needed, and keep doing what we were doing.
He would then sue us for a variety of reasons, like he did to Arizona. We would be in much better shape because we would not be enforcing federal immigration law -- we would just be enforcing Texas state law re: trespass and other acts of violence using the State Guard which is authorized by not only state but federal law. But if we lost -- and this is key -- we would ignore it, laugh at it, verbally attack, whatever was needed, and keep doing what we were doing. Because you do not start down this path unless you are determined to see it through no matter what they throw at you. The other side is deadly serious about their goals, and we have to be just as determined to stop them.
A standard phrase in my campaign was: "we are in a battle for America, and Texas is the battleground, but we are not battle ready -- because we have no leaders." That is more true now than then and will be even more true in days to come.
It's not that you don't pay attention to the experience of others, it's that you refuse to accept their approach as the only one or even a good one when the evidence is that it is a sure loser. You take what you can learn from them knowing that we wouldn't be in the mess we are in if their methods worked.
Oh, and my mother tried to teach me to cook, but I was not interested -- until I moved to Texas from Georgia on 7/7/77. When we had our family I had to learn and found that I enjoyed it. I learned about the gas and matches all by myself because Mother always cooked on an electric stove (and of course she advised me about cooking and children by phone).
"It wouldn’t work as Governor of the State of Texas, that’s for sure." We'll have to disagree about that until we can test the theory by electing me governor. ;<) You may see this as a kind of "hail Mary" pass (I don't because I see it as well thought out, logical, and prudent), but the time may come when most agree that a radically different approach is the only thing that will save us.
It is a lie that we don’t have leaders.
Governor Perry led in defending life, marriage, and religious freedom, every session he’s been in office. He has also led in State’s rights and the 2nd amendment.
He did not have to champion the ultrasound bill, the voter ID bill, or the Sanctuary Cities bill this year, much less put them on the emergency, fast track, list. He could have backed out of The Response prayer meeting.
Even the lefty “Texas Observer” http://www.texasobserver.org/lalinea/perry-breaks-with-big-bidness-tx-republican-party-and-his-former-sel (whose authors evidently can’t discern between the Arizona Bill and Texas’ version) noted that the Governor put the Sanctuary Cities bill on his emergency list and added it to the agenda for the Special Session. The Governor sent Armbrister to the Senate to “twist arms” during the Special Session.
Unfortunately this was a subject that Strauss was not willing to move to the right and there was opposition over language changes made by Attorney General Abbott to make the Bill Constitutionally sound under Federal law. That led Steve Hotze and Norm Adams http://www.texastribune.org/texas-legislature/82nd-legislative-session/gop-boosters-urge-a-no-vote-on-sanctuary-cities/ (in addition to Charles Butts and the other Perry, Bob) to oppose the Bill at the last minute.
You were trained as a trial lawyer, and I’ll bet that you’re better than you were the day after you passed the bar or even the year after your first case. You admit to requiring a period of time to learn to cook.
If we’ve learned anything from Barack Obama (besides how to eat ice cream and how not to buy jeans or throw a baseball), its that President is not a place for learning on the job if you’re starting from scratch.
Neither is Governor of Texas. My advice to you would be to run for State Senator or Rep. (Are you in Wentworth’s Senate District 25, by any chance?)
They sound more like emergency support teams.
They're volunteers who don't get paid, buy their own uniforms and pay for their own transportation and meals.
I also see you yourself didn't agree with the way the AZ law worked? Care to elaborate?
Yes, they are volunteers, but I like that. They only "answer the call" if they believe in the mission. They believe in the mission of securing the border.
How long is boot camp? In a couple of months, my uncle was brought from someone with an 11th grade education to a medic in the 82nd Airborne who died caring for wounded soldiers in the D-Day invasion. If we need to take a month or two to get our act together, we can do that. But get our act together WE WILL, and then things will start to change. As to Arizona's law, I defend the right of any state under the 10th Amendment to defend its border as it thinks best. But I think that my approach is better. If we want to secure the border - and we do! -- then secure it at the border, not after the border has been breached and people have come across and become intertwined in our society.
I hope never to lie. In any event, I stand by my belief that we do not have the leaders we need in Texas in the battle for America. I dispute that Pery has done anything for our Texas sovereignty.
Perhaps in a post-Perry Texas we can talk about what we need to do instead of everything being about what Rick Perry did or did not do. Hard to realize, but there was a Texas before Rick Perry and there will be one after him.
I totally agree that Strauss must go and that Steve Hotze and Norman Adams are big disappointments, to be kind. Bruce Hotze and his mother have been stalwarts in the liberty movement -- I don't know what they must think about Steve now.
I think I have it right on this because Strayhorn was known as a Republican and when you add the numbers-the Dem and Kinky get 42 percent and Perry and Strayhorn get 57 percent of the vote.
That looks like a typical Texas general election breakdown with the GOP up over 55 percent and the Dems in the 40 to 45 percent range.
Kinky split the Dem vote so Perry could win the four way race with 39 percent.
“Obama has done for the economy what pantyhose did for foreplay”
If Perry wins, Kinky should be press secretary
I guess the Texas Ranger and DPS elite teams ,who actually do have the proper skills, weren’t good enough for you?
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