Why I LOVE Rick Perry

I want Rick Perry to run for President. Really. Because he’s not afraid to tell the American people exactly what he believes. So, I’ll share a few of Rick Perry’s publically stated beliefs with you.

Here’s GOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry on global warming: “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects.” Rick Perry obviously doesn’t believe in manmade global warming, calling it a scientific theory that has not been proven, demonstrating to anyone with at least an average IQ and a half-way inquiring mind he fails to understand high school science. Those statements earned Rick Perry Four Pinocchios in the Washington Post’s Fact Checker section, the lowest rating possible, meaning Perry’s statements have no association with verifiable evidence. What? Truth matters?

Rick Perry also believes that “almost weekly or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.” That claim was also awarded Four Pinocchios in the Washington Post’s Fact Checker section.

Rick Perry believes that federal programs for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schools, Pell Grants, and clean air laws are unconstitutional.

Not only that, Rick Perry said that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are Ponzi schemes, meaning they are felonious criminal conspiracies operated by the federal government.

Oh, yes, Rick Perry also thinks Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid should be dismantled. How does that sit with all you people who are 55 and older and are looking at retirement?

Rick Perry doesn’t believe in the loyalty of the Federal Reserve System, stating categorically that if the Federal Reserve puts more money in the U.S. financial system, such action could be considered treason.

Rick Perry doesn’t believe in the debt-ceiling compromise Congress just passed and would have voted against it.

Rick Perry believes the U.S. government simply has to quit spending money. But, in 2009, while Rick Perry was Governor, Texas took more than $17 billion in federal stimulus money that Rick Perry used to balance a badly out of whack State budget. Hello hypocrisy.

Rick Perry believes it may be possible for the Great State of Texas to secede from the Union. Is that Dixie I hear playing in the background?

Rick Perry believes in marriage and the traditional definition of the union as between a man and a woman. Rick Perry is also for an amendment making that definition part of the U.S. Constitution.

Rick Perry believes public schools should bring prayer and the Ten Commandments back into the classrooms.

Under the leadership of Rick Perry, Texas has achieved some of the lowest high school graduation rates and highest poverty rates in the country. Hip, hip . . .

Rick Perry was so happy with Texas’s high school graduation rate (62.6 percent or 43^rd lowest out of the 50 states) he rewarded that outstanding educational achievement by cutting $4 billion in State aid to K-12 public schools, Texas’s first per-capita decrease in public education spending since World War II, despite official State projections that the public school population will grow by over 160,000 new students in the next two years.

Rick Perry has said, "Everyone in this country has access to health care." Really? According to the Texas Department of State Health Services thousands of Texans sometimes wait more than a year to get medication, therapy, substance abuse care, and other services from clinics and community centers. Among them are 6,800 adults and children with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and severe depression — two-thirds of whom are currently receiving no services.

Rick Perry believes the rest of the nation should admire Texas for its record of accomplishments. Here are a number of those outstanding achievements gained under Rick Perry’s sterling leadership:

Texas has the fourth-highest poverty rate of any state.

In 2010, Texas tied Mississippi for the highest percentage of workers in minimum-wage jobs.

Texas leads the nation in the percentage of children who have no medical insurance.

Twenty-six percent of Texans have no health insurance — the highest percentage of medically uninsured residents of any state.

Texas has an inordinate number of employers who provide no medical insurance to their workers.

As a percent of the total state budget, Texas spent 7.5 percent on Medicaid, 49^th out of 50 states.

Texas ranks first in adults without high school diplomas.

That’s why I love Rick Perry. His mouth is as big as the Lone Star State and that’s what will run him smack up against the Great Wall of independent voters who sit in the middle of American political ideologies and dislike extremists from either side. Here’s hoping Rick Perry keeps spouting his right-wingnut, wacko, half-baked ideas on the campaign trail. Because that’s exactly the kind of candidate the Democrats are desperate to run against in 2012.

Here’s a recent quote from Dick Wadhams, a former Republican chairman from Colorado who as of mid-August 2011 is not committed to any GOP hopeful in 2012: "We need to be able to appeal to those independent voters who will not vote for a Republican who they consider to be extreme. We cannot beat Barack Obama if our candidate becomes the issue."

Good luck, Rick, with winning the GOP nomination for President. You’re the Democrats’ best hope.