Gov. Perry Running Hard Right Against Sen. Hutchison

Texas Gov. Rick Perry's (R) 2010 primary election strategy against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) seems to be to court early and solid support from hard-right evangelical conservatives to scare Hutchison out of filing in December for the governor's race. Or, failing that, by moving so far right himself that by comparison it positions Hutchison as a Washington lefty in what promises to be a real rock'em sock'em Texas saloon brawl for the GOP primary in March 2010.

Perry's recent, repeated appeals to the conservative hard-right include high-profile support for a "Choose Life" license plate favored by those who oppose abortion, high-profile criticism of "Washington" and federal bailouts, refusal of federal stimulus money for jobless benefits and an invitation to conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh to move to Texas.

Perry, who strongly supports teaching only "abstinence" sex education in Texas schools, appointed young earth (earth age only 6,000 years) creationist Don McLeroy as chairman of the Texas State Board of Education to oppose teaching evolution in public schools. Perry has also promised to prevent stem cell research in Texas and touts his record for passing more restrictions on stem cell research than any previous governor.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry so incited participants of three conservative anti-tax (and largely anti-Obama) "tea party" rallies on April 15th with his anti-Washington and states' rights rhetoric that the audience began to shout, "Secede!" Perry told the crowd,

"I believe the federal government has become oppressive. It’s become oppressive in its size, its intrusion in the lives of its citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state. Texans need to ask themselves a question.

Do they side with those in Washington who are pursuing this unprecedented expansion of power, or do they believe in individual rights and responsibilities laid down in our foundational documents.

Where’re you gonna’ stand? With an ever-growing Washington bureaucracy, or are you going to stand with the people of this state who understand the importance of state’s rights. Texans need to stand up. They need to be heard, because the state of affairs that we find ourselves in cannot continue indefinitely..."

Perry also told the crowd he didn’t believe they were all “right-wing extremists,” as others portray them. “But if you are, I’m with you!” he shouted.

QUESTION: Do you approve or disapprove of Gov. Rick Perry's suggestion that Texas may need to leave the US?
	Approve	Disapprove	Not Sure
ALL	37	58	5
MEN	42	54	4
WOMEN	32	62	6
DEMOCRATS	16	80	4
REPUBLICANS	51	44	5
INDEPENDENTS	43	50	7
Daily Kos/Research 2000 Texas Poll

Perry further sparked approval of the hard-right with his secessionist talk and fiery anti-Washington rhetoric in support of a Texas sovereignty resolution in the Texas legislature.

Perry's anti-Washington secessionist rhetoric and pandering on right-wing social issues is clearly working with the Texas Republican base Perry is trying to woo away from Hutchison.

An internal poll from Texas Gov. Rick Perry's (R) camp finds Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) beating him in a Republican primary, 45% to 39%.


A new just released Rasmussen Reports poll supports Perry's internal poll showing that in a primary match up, Rick Perry now holds the edge at 42%, over Kay Bailey Hutchison's 38%.

Both polls indicate a heavy erosion of support from polls taken in 2008 indicating Hutchison held a strong lead over Perry in a 2010 primary match up by more than 20 points.

If Hutchison does beat incumbent Rick Perry in the Republican primary, her Democratic opponent, whoever that turns out to be, will have a tall challenge to beat her in the November 2010 general election.

On the other hand, if Perry does manage to edge Hutchison in the primary, he will have positioned himself so far right he will have irrevocably alienated himself from about two-thirds of the overall Texas electorate. This will give Perry's general election Democratic opponent, whoever that turns out to be, a real advantage.

Remember during the 2008 Texas primary race between Obama and Clinton Rush Limbaugh urged his Republican and Conservative listeners, in what he called "Operation Chaos," to vote for Hillary Clinton in the open March 4, 2008 TX Democratic Primary to defeat Barack Obama. . . I'm thinking, just maybe, Democrats should return the favor in the March 2010 GOP primary and vote for Rick Perry to put him rather than Hutchison on the November 2010 general election ballot.

Obama's 2010 Budget Eliminates Federal Funding For Abstinence-Only Sex Ed

The Obama Administration today released its 2010 budget that eliminates federal funding for a range of abstinence-only sex education programs.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy organization immediately released a statement on the news that President Obama proposes ending federal government funding of abstinence-only sex education programs:

President Obama released his FY 2010 budget today and called for at least $164 million in funding for a new teen pregnancy prevention initiative. This includes competitive grants for evidence-based programs, research and evaluation, and an authorization for $50 million in new mandatory teen pregnancy prevention grants to states, tribes, and territories. The budget eliminates funding for Community-Based Abstinence Education and the mandatory Title V Abstinence Education program.

-- Texas has received more federal abstinence-only education funding than any other state,yet Texas has the nation’s third-highest teen pregnancy rate. Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry supports the existing abstinence-only sex ed policy encoded in Texas law. What will Perry say in response to the news that Obama's 2010 budget eliminates federal funding for abstinence-only sex ed?? --

HuffingtonPost.com - Shelby Knox writes about her experience with abstinence-only education in Lubbock, Texas high school:

Every year when I was in high school in Lubbock, Texas, we were herded into the auditorium for a lecture from a local youth pastor about the birds and the bees. At the culmination of every presentation, the pastor pulled a girl up onstage, produced a dirty, dingy toothbrush from his pocket and asked if she would brush her teeth with it. When she invariably said no, he pulled out another toothbrush, this one in its original box, and repeated the question. When she said yes to that one, he brandished the rejected toothbrush above his head and announced to the audience, "If you have sex before marriage, you are the dirty toothbrush." A report recently released on the state of sex education in Texas [by the Texas Freedom Network (TFN)] details other bizarre things students are taught in the classroom about sex, contraception and their bodies, all subsidized by federal dollars. One skit, titled "Jumping Off the Bridge," concludes that giving a condom to a teen is like saying, "Well if you insist on killing yourself by jumping off the bridge, at least wear these elbow pads." Another presentation equates pre-marital sex with instances of marital murder-suicide. Still another compares women's sexuality to crock pots that take awhile to get warmed up, and men's to microwaves that are ready to cook at a moment's notice. An entire generation of American teens has been confused, misinformed and endangered by abstinence-only-until-marriage programs like these. They are not just paid for by the federal government; states can't use these dollars for anything else. In the past 15 years alone, more than a billion taxpayer dollars have been doled out to every state to teach curricula that often contain factual inaccuracies about condoms and contraceptives, generalizations about sexuality that are based on biases about gender and sexual orientation, and religious messaging that probably violates the U.S. Constitution. The programs were a pet project of the Bush administration, and key to attracting votes and contributions from the religious right. Now, much of the money is still being doled out to faith-based organizations and crisis pregnancy centers, the latter often stating as their sole purpose the convincing of pregnant women, including ten and twelve year-olds and their families, that having an abortion will mean a lifetime of regret. Unbelievable as it may sound, there is no federal law mandating or supervising the medical or scientific accuracy of information taught in schools or given out in tax-exempt pregnancy centers, a loophole used to tell young people that condoms don't work, homosexuality is never part of normal human behavior and sexuality is the one academic subject in which students will be rewarded for lack of knowledge. In fact, abstinence-only sex education is so damaging that 25 governors, Republicans and Democrats, have refused abstinence-only funds. [Republican Gov. Rick Perry has said he supports the the existing abstinence-only policy. "The governor is comfortable with current law and supports abstinence programs," said Perry's spokeswoman, Allison Castle.] Rising rates of sexually transmitted infections, unwanted teen births and an increased need for abortion have dramatized the inefficacy and danger of such programs. And last year, the Journal of Adolescent Health published its opinion that abstinence-only funding may constitute a human rights violation. The huge majority of Americans agree. 88% think teens should receive information about condoms and contraception as well as abstinence in the classroom. Yet, no moves have been made in Washington to make good on these convictions.

President Obama's 2010 budget does move to bring an attitude of realistic common sense to sex education. Obama's budget proposal invests in programs that are effective and based on sound science. Obama's approach is reminiscent of the Clinton Administration's teen pregnancy prevention programs, initiated shortly after he took office in 1993, that resulted in a decade long substantial drop in teen pregnancies across the U.S.

After falling steadily for more than a decade, the birth rate for American teenagers again started to increase in a sharp reversal as the Bush Administration and Republican controlled congresses increased federal funding and focused emphasis on abstinence-only sex education programs across the U.S.

The teen birth rate rose by 3 percent between 2005 and 2006 among 15-to-19-year-old girls, after plummeting 34 percent between 1991 and 2005, according to National Center for Health Statistics. After the teen birth rate rose sharply between 1986 and 1991, hitting an all-time high of 61.8 births per 1,000 girls, a massive comprehensive sex education campaign countered that trend and teen pregnancies plummeted between the 1990s and 2005.

Texas has received more federal abstinence-only education funding than any other state in the country, yet Texas has the nation’s third-highest teen pregnancy rate. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS) a Texas teen gets pregnant every 10 minutes.

According to a report (PDF Full/Summary) released in February by the Texas Freedom Network (TFN) a majority of Texas schools use scare tactics and teach false information in their sex education classes. TFN's two-year study of education materials from 990 Texas school districts showed that about 94 percent of public schools use abstinence-only programs that usually pass moral judgments while giving inaccurate information on contraception and health screenings or ignoring the subjects altogether. (Watch TFN's "Sex Ed...Texas Style" videos)

A large 2008 federal study,confirmed several previous studies in its finding that abstinence only sex eduction is not as effective as comprehensive sex education. "Taking an [abstinence] pledge doesn't seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior, but it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking," according to Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Ms. Rosenbaum's report, that appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics, highlights that:

Teenagers who receive abstinence-only sex education and pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a large federal survey released last month.

Ignoring all facts and evidence that the "just say no" abstinence-only sex education approach does not stop or even reduce the numbers of teens who have sex, Texans for Life Coalition representative Kyleen Wright gave testimony before the Texas House Public Education Committee on March 31, 2009 making a "full court press" for the position that only "abstinence-only sex ed" should be taught in Texas schools. It was Wright who successful lead the fight to keep any medically accurate information about contraception and disease prevention out of new Texas high school health textbooks in 2004.

The House Public Education Committee was taking public comment on HB 741 (by State Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio) that would end a requirement that Texas public schools devote attention to abstinence-only sex education. The House Bill, HB 741, if passed, would remove much of the controversial and unsound language from the Texas Education Code that places abstinence education above responsible instruction about sex education and sexually transmitted diseases.

The fact that abstinence-only sex education translates to a higher tax payer burden to support teen mothers and their babies was all but ignored. Texas Medicaid paid for 17,322 deliveries to teen mothers aged-13-17 last year at a cost of $41 million. That $41 million is on top of the many millions of dollars tax payers are spending on a government sponsored abstinence-only public school sex education program that is a proven failure!!

Republicans Gear Up To Say NO To Healthcare Reform

HuffingtonPost.com: A memo from Republican strategist Dr. Frank Luntz lays out plans to dismantle any effort to give all Americans access to quality health care. Dr. Luntz, the man who developed language designed to promote preemptive war in Iraq and distract from the severity of global warming, is at it again -- this time with a messaging strategy designed to sink our historic opportunity for health care reform.

Sidebar - Democratic strategist Paul Begala “is circulating a point-by-point rebuttal of GOP consultant Frank Luntz’s widely read strategy memo on health care.” The memo urges “congressional Democrats to push back hard against ‘Republican Orwellian rhetoric.’” “Because they know they cannot win the argument honestly, Republicans are resorting to mendacity,” Begala wrote in the memo. “Democrats must not let them get away with it.”

Not surprisingly, since the American public is strongly in favor of fixing the broken health care system, the Luntz strategy is predicated on deception. In his memo, Dr. Luntz lays out multiple ways that opponents of health care reform can trick and manipulate the American public.

One strategy that stood out to me is to call efforts to reform our broken health care system a "bailout for the insurance industry." This is ridiculous. This statement is developed to serve the same interests who stopped at nothing to derail health care reform in the 90's, who blocked health care coverage for low-income children, and whose top Medicare priority for 15 years has been transferring money from seniors and taxpayers to the insurance industry.

When support for a prescription drug benefit in Medicare became too powerful to ignore, President Bush and his allies created the convoluted system we now have. Rather than simply add a prescription drug benefit to the tried, true, and popular Medicare program as Democrats wanted, they devised a giveaway for insurance companies. For years Dr. Luntz's clients have virtually abdicated health care policy making to the insurance industry; the last thing it needs is a bailout.

Today though, even the insurance industry is engaged in constructive negotiations about how to repair the health care system. Unfortunately for the vast majority of Americans who support reform, however, Dr. Luntz's new game plan to stop change is being embraced by leaders in the Republican Party. In a briefing where Dr. Luntz presented his strategy to Republican House members, Rep. Mike Pence from Indiana, the chairman of the House Republican Conference, made it official by saying, "Frank is back."

So expect a massive misinformation campaign coming to a health care debate near you. Opponents using Dr. Luntz's doublespeak will argue for a "balanced, common sense approach" to health care but what they really want is to keep the system the way it is. They'll say that a public plan will not be "patient centered," but their real goal is to block accessible health care for every American. They'll say reform will deny Americans "choice" even when every American will be allowed to keep their health insurance and their doctor. They'll claim that the "quality of care will go down," while callously ignoring the fact that millions of Americans have no health care at all and millions more are denied the medications and procedures they need.

More - GOP Wastes No Time Embracing Frank Luntz’s Vapid ‘Patient-Doctor’ Health Care Rhetoric

When The Environment Changes - Adapt Or Die

Time magazine's cover story on how the Republican party -- with no new ideas and a lack of leadership -- is struggling to find its way as the political environment is rapidly changing around the one time Grand Old Party:

Twenty thousand years ago, when climate change dramatically altered the woolly mammoth's environment, they had to resort to eating their own dung to stave off extinction. -- It didn't work then either.

"As the party has shrunk to its base, it has catered even more to its base's biases, [by continually re-ingesting old talking points] that the New Deal [banking regulation and stimulus spending] made the Depression worse, carbon emissions are fine [as in beneficial] for the environment and tax cuts actually boost [tax] revenues -- even though the vast majority of historians, scientists and economists disagree.


The RNC is about to vote on a kindergartenish resolution to change the name of its opponent to the Democrat Socialist Party. This plays well with hard-core culture warriors and tea-party activists convinced that a dictator-President is plotting to seize their guns, choose their doctors and put ACORN in charge of the Census, but it ultimately produces even more [party] shrinkage, which gives the base even more influence -- and the death spiral continues."