Governor Glasses Lands In Ebola Soup

Clark Kent 'Glasses' Perry to far right

Lucky Texas received the first diagnosed intercontinental case of ebola virus in the US (Liberia to Dallas). Governor Rick "Glasses" Perry promptly jumped on the case as an opportunity to display his Great Leader skills, issuing statements intended to calm the population.

Playing the typical Republican game that views every tragedy as an opportunity, Perry is betting that Texas has the skills and resources to handle the case without facing a serious outbreak of the disease that is by now rampant in part of western Africa.

Perry is probably right: ebola can be successfully combated, and Texas has medical resources comparable to those anywhere in the country and the public health expertise to mount a successful effort against an admittedly terrifying infectious agent which is nonetheless spread only by direct personal contact.

Will Weissert at TPM has an outline of the political dimensions of the "opportunity." If Perry is good at anything, he is good at political opportunism; whether it can take him to the White House is questionable, but it should be entertaining as we all remind ourselves, per Donald Trump, not to shake hands.

Goodhair Announces New Obstruction Of Obamacare Signup

Dylan Scott of TPM, yesterday:

Joining a growing conservative movement around the country, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) made a move Tuesday that's likely to impede efforts to sign up the uninsured for health insurance under Obamacare starting next month.

Perry sent a letter to the Texas Department of Insurance outlining new rules for Obamacare's so-called navigators, organizations assigned to help people sign up for coverage, the Texas Tribune reported. Those rules include: 40 hours of mandatory security training on top of federally required training. He also wants navigators to pass a state-administered exam and be subjected to background checks.

...

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lambasted Perry's move as a transparently political attempt to impede Obamacare's implementation...

In fact, an HHS official told TPM, part of Perry's guidance — which requires navigators to retain information about consumers who sign up for coverage — would actually violate the privacy regulations established for navigators by HHS.

"This is blatant attempt to add cumbersome requirements to the Navigator program and deter groups from working to inform Americans about their new health insurance options and help them enroll in coverage," HHS spokesman Fabian Levy said in a statement. "This is clearly an ideologically driven attempt to prevent the uninsured from gaining health coverage."

...

(Bolds mine. - SB)

Bad-faith actions by state-level executive branches can effectively throw a spanner in the works of a federal system like ours. It is increasingly obvious that this is the intention of the GOP in Texas and other Republican-dominated states regarding Obamacare. Who would have thought that a GOPer would operate in bad faith... [/sarcasm]

Goodhair Will Not Seek Re-Election

So he announced:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) announced Monday that he would not seek an unprecedented fourth full gubernatorial term. He previously served as George W. Bush's lieutenant governor for the state, taking over the governor's mansion in 2000, when Bush resigned to become president. He has since been elected for the state's top post three times.

But Perry, who made an unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, left the door open Monday for a 2016 presidential run, saying that he would spend the remainder of his term leading "this great state" and praying and reflecting to "determine my own future path."

"I will arrive at that decision appropriately," he said.

Right. Translation: tha muthahfuckah is goin' ta run fer preznit.

Gov. Goodhair Goes Nuts With Vetoes

Look what I can do
with my veto pen!

In a post-regular-session veto frenzy, Gov. Perry (R-TX) axed 26 bills from the regular session and several line items (yes, the Texas Guv can do that). Notable are line items providing funding for Travis County (i.e., Austin) public corruption investigations and prosecutions, and the Lilly Ledbetter act aimed at providing equal pay for equivalent work by women. (In Texas in 2012, women earned 85.6% of men's wages on average... earning Texas a fairly high rank nationally, but considering the difference ought to be zero, it's still hard to justify.) Other Perry vetoes included women's health and women's rights bills, as well as several education funding bills.

None of this will cost Perry politically. He and his wealthy handlers have a veritable lock on the Governor's Office. Don't expect any inroads to be made against corruption anytime soon.