Archive for the ‘Rick Perry’ Category

When President Obama essentially opened the border a couple of years ago, he did it with the intent of forcing Republicans into passing “comprehensive immigration reform.” President Obama’s plan caused tons of chaos, which was his plan. Rather than just watching Texas get overrun with illegal aliens, then-Gov. Perry stepped into the breach. He ended the chaos. He restored order. He earned praise from border security hawks for, first, filling the gap and, second, eliminating the chaos.

Donald Trump was nowhere to be found at the time. Perhaps he was too busy visiting one of his world-class golf courses. Perhaps he was putting together his next real estate deal. Wherever he was, he wasn’t interested in border security.

Recently, Trump has tried selling the image that he’s a border security hawk. He wasn’t one before. Why should we think that he’ll change into one now?

On the other hand, we’ve seen proof that Gov. Perry is a border security hawk. Gov. Perry’s statement this week highlights who’s qualified and who isn’t:

“Donald Trump continues to demonstrate his fundamental misunderstanding of border security. Make no mistake – border security is a federal responsibility, but when I met with President Obama last year and it became clear he would not act, I told him if he would not secure the border, Texas would. Rather than thanking Texas for stepping into a gap it shouldn’t have to fill, Mr. Trump has made clear that he believes the states should fend for themselves on border security. Not only is this wrong, it perpetuates the same failed policies that have left our southern border porous and vulnerable.

I have a message for my fellow Republicans and the independents who will be voting in the primary process: what Mr. Trump is offering is not conservatism, it is Trump-ism – a toxic mix of demagoguery and nonsense.

America doesn’t need another president who pays lip service when issues of national security are at stake. America doesn’t need another president who will pass the buck on border security. We need a president who will finally act to secure the border after decades of failed leadership in Washington, D.C. And Mr. Trump has done nothing to prove that he is the president America needs.”

It’s apparent to thoughtful people that Trump isn’t serious. He’s great at talking the talk. He’s terrible at walking the walk. Trump is all talk and no walk.

We don’t need someone that eccentric and that flighty in charge of border security. Trump’s dabbled in politics for years, mostly specializing in crony capitalism. America needs a president who will shut down the border and restore sanity.

That disqualifies Donald Trump.

This morning, Mitt Romney officially announced that he isn’t running for president:

Mitt Romney announced Friday he will not run for president in 2016, after briefly flirting with a third White House run — a decision that only slightly narrows the crowded field of potential Republican candidates.

“After putting considerable thought into making another run for president, I’ve decided it is best to give other leaders in the Party the opportunity to become our next nominee,” Romney said in a written statement. He also was announcing his plans on a conference call with donors Friday morning.

Though this is a bit of a surprise, it might be as simple as Mitt being unable to put together a national organization rather than him not wanting to run. It might also be that he’s finally accepted the fact that he’s history in the eyes of GOP activists.

Lots of people, myself included, think he would’ve been vastly superior to President Obama. Obama’s national security policies are a disaster. President Obama’s economic policies have revived terminology like new normal. President Obama’s economic policies haven’t revived talk about a booming economy.

Mitt won the nomination in 2012 against a weaker field than this year’s field of candidates. Adding to Mitt’s worries is the fact that he started talking like a liberal. That isn’t how to win the GOP nomination. Mitt was a compromised candidate in 2012, too. He couldn’t take the fight to President Obama on President Obama’s biggest failure, aka Obamacare. This time around, Mitt would’ve had to fight against the economic accomplishments and conservative reforms of people like Scott Walker and Rick Perry.

The simple fact is that Mitt couldn’t win.

Charlie Cook’s latest article on the state of the GOP presidential race has more than a few flaws in it. He got this part right:

First there is the establishment bracket, with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and possibly former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney competing for that semifinal slot.

Despite the MSM’s ‘reporting’, this isn’t where the action is. It’s mostly a sideshow that’ll keep the DC pundits entertained. Think of this as the ‘vastly overrated’ part of the race.

Cook didn’t get this part right:

Then there is the conservative governor/former governor slot—with, potentially, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker competing, all seeking to be non-Washington and non-Congress candidates, but each with more conservative, or at least better conservative, credentials than Bush, Christie, or Romney.

John Kasich lost his conservative credentials over the weekend when he fought for Common Core. That’s a deal-buster with conservatives. It isn’t likely that Rick Snyder and Mike Pence will run so they can be ignored. That leaves us with Rick Perry and Scott Walker. That’s the real bracket. Let’s call this the conservatives with credentials bracket.

The MSM is writing off Rick Perry. That’s a major mistake. He’s a much more serious candidate this time than in 2012. He’s got a lengthy list of conservative reforms under his belt. He’s definitely anti-Washington. He’s definitely pro-border enforcement, which plays well with conservative activists. He’s signed tort reform, which has led to a major influx of doctors into Texas. While most of the nation worries about doctor shortages, that isn’t a worry in Texas.

That leaves Scott Walker in this bracket. Activists see him as the giant-killer who took on the public employee unions and beat them. Then the PEUs got upset with him and tried defeating him in a recall election. The PEUs took another thumping in 2012. They didn’t have their fill so they returned for another shot in 2014. Gov. Walker’s Act 10 reforms were so popular that Mary Burke, the Democrats’ candidate, didn’t even mention the subject.

That’s one of the brackets where the excitement will be.

Then there’s the youthful senators bracket. This bracket features Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. I don’t know that any of these candidates will advance to the finals but they’ll generate lots of excitement.

At the end of the day, I suspect that the finalists will be Walker and someone else. I’d be surprised if that someone else is Jeb Bush. Bush is definitely more formidable with the media than with activists.

Steve Kornacki did his best to (somewhat) subtly accuse Republican presidential candidates as hating Hispanics in this interview:

The big takeaway from this interview is Kellyanne Conway’s statement that “Republicans aren’t afraid of running against Bill and Hillary.” Simply put, there’s more fear amongst Beltway Republicans and GOP consultants than there is with heartland governors.

At this point, Hillary will have a difficult time running as an agent of change or as the candidate of youthful vigor. Hillary has been a fixture in DC for a quarter century. She might’ve been young when she arrived but she isn’t anymore. Fair or unfair, the reality is that she can’t play the agent-of-change-card at this point. She’s reached her sell-by date.

Of course, that’s irrelevant to MSNBC. They’re fixating on Rep. Steve King and Hispanic voters. It’s predictable but it’s a fool’s errand. When the Republican National Convention is held in July, 2016, there’s a distinct possibility that the ticket will be Scott Walker as the nominee and either Marco Rubio or Susana Martinez is his running mate. It’s virtually guaranteed that Martinez, Rubio, Brian Sandoval, Mia Love and Tim Scott will deliver primetime speeches at the convention.

People won’t think “Ohmigod. Republicans are the party of Steve King. I can’t vote for Scott Walker.” Democrats will do everything to paint Republicans as the party that hates Hispanics. That’ll be a difficult task when each night, Republicans will feature a Susana Martinez or a Marco Rubio or a Brian Sandoval, who will likely be in the middle of a fight to unseat Harry Reid at that point.

The excitement in that building will be the buzz. The applause will be frequent, the emotions will be high.

If you want to know what the Republican National Convention will look like, just watch the speeches delivered by Ted Cruz, Rick Perry and Scott Walker. The enthusiasm during those speeches was noticeable and raucous.

Meanwhile, at the Democrats’ convention, the atmosphere won’t be electric. People will be able to contain their energy. The contrast between the two conventions will be stark. That contrast won’t put the Democrats in a positive light.

In the movie Rocky 3, Apollo Creed told Rocky that “When we fought, I trained hard but I didn’t have that look in my eyes. You had it and you won.”

I didn’t say that because I love the movie. I mention it because it’s a lesson between complacency and enthusiasm. There’s no question that, in 2016, the Democrats will work hard. There’s little question that Democrats will be a little complacent, too. If Republicans nominate one of their rising star governors, there’s no question that the 2016 Republican National Convention will be a great launching pad to a GOP victory.

After reading Daniel Halper’s article, it’s clear that there isn’t a clear Republican frontrunner. Still, the unscientific poll is helpful. Here’s the results of TWS’ unscientific poll:

Scott Walker-mentioned on 44% of the ballots as either first, second or third choice; first choice on 18%. Thus, 44/18.

Ted Cruz-35/16.
Ben Carson-26/10.
Mitt Romney-24/12.
Bobby Jindal-20/3.
Jeb Bush-18/8.
Marco Rubio-18/4.
Rand Paul-16/6.
John Kasich-15/4.
Rick Perry-15/3.
Mike Huckabee-12/3.
John Bolton-10/3.
Mike Pence-9/2.
Chris Christie-8/2.
Rick Santorum-7/2.

I don’t agree with Bill Kristol’s statement:

So the most important take-away from the poll is this, I think: not only isn’t there a clear front-runner, there’s not even a clear handful of front-runners.

I strongly disagree with that statement, though I agree that there isn’t “a clear front-runner.” I’d disagree that there isn’t a “handful of front-runners.” Clearly, there’s a handful of front-runners. That group is made up of Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, with Gov. Bush coming in with a lackluster finish.

At this point, it’s difficult to take Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie and Rick Santorum seriously. I’ll give Pence, Perry and Kasich a shot, though it’s clear they’re in a lower tier at this moment, because they can raise money and they have a compelling record to run on.

It’s impossible to picture a path to the nomination for Rand Paul, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie or Rick Santorum. Huckabee and Santorum won the 2008 and 2012 Iowa caucuses but their base of Christian conservatives isn’t their’s anymore. Scott Walker’s message will play well with Christian conservatives. Rand Paul’s libertarian message will appeal to voters in New Hampshire but it won’t play well in Iowa and Florida. Sen. Paul’s message definitely won’t play in South Carolina, with its military bases and its Bible Belt roots.

In 2012, Mitt Romney got trounced in South Carolina. It isn’t a stretch to think that he won’t do well this time.

It’s a million political lifetimes away but there’s already some voter sorting happening already. It’ll be interesting to see whether that stratification continues.

Technorati: Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Rand Paul, Rick Santorum, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Libertarians, Christian Conservatives, Republicans, Election 2016

Hillary and Jeb Bush need each other politically. Hillary can’t win the 2016 presidential campaign if Jeb isn’t the GOP nominee. She could defeat Mitt Romney or Chris Christie, too, but the only people taking them seriously work at East Coast newspapers.

Wes Pruden’s column hits on a point that the DC media hasn’t written about:

Hillary can’t win, and that’s why she won’t run. She may not know that yet herself, but a lot of Democrats want her because she’s all they’ve got. The Republicans are counting on her to run because they think she’s the candidate they can beat in what looks from here like it could be a Republican year.

I don’t agree with Mr. Pruden’s opinion that she won’t run. Hillary’s ego is too big to admit that she isn’t presidential material. She’s lived her life with the belief that she’s entitled to the job. She’s put up with Bill’s affairs, which she thinks, again, entitles her to her own presidential administration.

The point that I agree with Mr. Pruden on is that she’s the best the Democrats have to offer at this point. She’s mediocre but she’s at the top of the Democrats’ list. There aren’t any talented Democratic governors out there. On the Republican side, there’s an embarrassment of riches in terms of talented Republican governors. The top tier of Republican governors is filled with Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich and Mike Pence.

The next tier is still pretty talented. Nikki Haley, Susana Martinez, Brian Sandoval and Rick Perry inhabit that tier. Each these governors have a substantial list of accomplishments.

By comparison, Hillary’s top accomplishments are that she a) was a US senator from a state so blue that toxic waste would get elected if they had a D behind their name and b) did more travelling as the US Secretary of State than any other US Secretary of State. People can’t look at her and say what her defining policy accomplishment was. They certainly can’t identify something she did as Secretary of State that protected the US from terrorists or that helped defeat the terrorists.

In short, Hillary checked off the appropriate boxes, which qualifies her to get thumped in a presidential election.

Successful men and women are born with an instinct for politics, or they never have it. Bubba was born with it, along with the ability to change convictions like changing his pants. The politicians who have it have no shame exploiting it. If they have the ability to wink, smile and say the right thing they can get by with anything short of murder, and maybe that, too. What can you do with a good ol’ boy like Bubba? He only rarely hit a false note. Hillary never hits anything but.

She’s stiff and wooden as a public speaker, as if trying to prove Dr. Johnson’s famous aphorism that a woman preaching is like a dog trying to walk on its hind legs. Hillary is tone-deaf besides. She’s always starting on her “back foot,” as the English say, and she’s a mediocre campaigner, too.

Hillary’s book tour was a disaster. When Hillary’s history is written, most historians will say that Hillary’s book tour is when her presidential ambitions essentially died.

After John McCain lost in 2008, I spoke with a friend about senators becoming presidents. I half-kiddingly said that Republicans should pass a motion that senators should never be allowed to be the GOP’s presidential nominee. I know that such a resolution is impossible, which is why I said it in jest. That being said, senators don’t run things. They aren’t the decider. They’re the pontificators. Soon-to-be former Gov. Rick Perry, (R-TX), weighed in on the subject:

Perry, considering a repeat presidential bid in 2016, had just spoken at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library for an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of Reagan’s famous “A Time For Choosing” speech. Among his scalding criticisms of Obama, Perry explained the president’s failings as due to his background as a U.S. senator, something that happens to apply to several of his would-be challengers for the GOP presidential nomination.

“If you’re in the Senate or if you’re in the House, you can give a speech and then go home. Governors can’t. We have to govern,” Perry said, adding, “And the president of the United States, historically, has had to operate that way, too; the ones that were successful. And one of the reasons why this President is not successful is because he’s never had that experience.”

Asked if the next president will be a senator, Perry said, “No.”

It’s worth noting that the top-tier candidates on the Democratic side are both senators, too. But I digress.

Gov. Perry is right, though intentionally a bit oversimplistic. Legislators work hard if they’re doing their jobs right. That being said, their job is mostly debating legislation. Their work is done during scheduled sessions. Presidents and governors work during sessions, too, to get their legislative agendas passed. During sessions, though, they’re also called on to deal with crises, whether it’s a president responding to international hot spots or governors responding to public safety crises within their state or on their state’s borders.

Then, after the sessions are over, presidents and governors are essentially on call 24/7 the rest of the year. They’re never on recess, though President Obama certainly makes it look like he doesn’t take the White House with him.

It isn’t a stretch to think that Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz think they see the next president of the United States when they look in the mirror each morning. They don’t. What accomplishments do these men have? They haven’t implemented major reforms like Scott Walker, John Kasich, Perry and Bobby Jindal have. They haven’t revived their states’ economies like Kasich, Perry and Walker have. The best that Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz can say is that they prevented Sen. Reid and President Obama from doing awful things.

They shouldn’t be discredited for that. What they’ve done isn’t insignificant. It just isn’t nearly as significant as what Govs. Walker, Jindal, Perry and Kasich have accomplished.

Lest this be just about Republicans, let’s ask what Hillary or Elizabeth Warren has accomplished. Hillary’s staff noted that she traveled more flight miles than any other Secretary of State in US history. That’s nice. She can redeem those miles so she and Bill can take a nice vacation together.

In terms of actual policies implemented, she got 4 American patriots killed in Benghazi by being asleep at the switch. She ignored multiple pleas from Christopher Stevens for enhanced security for the compound in Benghazi. Then she the nerve to say she hadn’t heard of those urgent requests.

Nobody will buy that BS in 2016. They didn’t buy it in 2012 and they aren’t buying it now.

Her first ‘accomplishment’ was presenting Russia with a reset switch that Russia interpreted as meaning that they could do whatever they wanted in Ukraine and anywhere else in eastern Europe and the middle east. Coddling our enemies (Russia, Iran) and mistreating our allies (Israel, the British and Iraq) isn’t what presidential resumes are built on.

As pathetic as Hillary’s list of accomplishments is, Elizabeth Warren’s list of accomplishments is more pathetic. In fact, it’s nonexistent.

It’s still early but I’d argue that 2016 is shaping up to be GOP year for taking back the White House. Rick Perry has presided over the strongest economy in the nation. Scott Walker passed collective bargaining reform, then staved off the unions’ attempts to kill the reforms. He also passed a $2.2 billion tax cut while creating 110,000 jobs. Bobby Jindal passed school choice laws that are improving educational outcomes in Louisiana. John Kasich’s economic policies have revived Ohio. He cut taxes while eliminating an $8 billion deficit upon entering office.

By comparison, the Democrats have a pair of wannabes as their top tier.

Technorati: John McCain, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Senators, Rick Perry, Scott Walker, John Kasich, Bobby Jindal, Reforms, Collective Bargaining, School Choice, Tort Reform, GOP, Hillary, Elizabeth Warren, Alinskyites, Democrats, Election 2016

Few apolitical people know that the Democratic Party has put in place a system that chills political involvement and that buys elections. I have proof that both statements are true. Starting with buying elections, this story proves that the DFL broke Minnesota’s campaign lawss and bought 11 Senate seats:

The Republican Party of Minnesota began filing complaints in October 2012, charging that DFL campaign materials were wrongfully listed as independent expenditures, but the materials were not because the candidates were actively engaged in photo shoots in producing the print ads, thereby breaching the legal wall between candidates and independent expenditures.

For those that want to argue that this is just Republican sour grapes, I’d ask them to explain this:

The Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board Tuesday, Dec. 17, fined the Minnesota DFL Senate Caucus $100,000 for wrongfully working with 13 of its candidates in the 2012 election.

The $100,000 civil penalty is among the biggest in state history.

These sitting senators should be kicked out of the Senate for their actions. Further, they should be fined for their actions, as should the DFL Senate Caucus for their actions. Finally, there should be a special election to replace Democrats that broke the law.

If it’s a financial hardship for these Democrats, good. I’m not interested in making their lives comfortable. I’m interested in making examples of them. They’ve lost the right to be called public servants. They’ve earned the right to be called lawbreakers. These Democrats have earned the right to be considered unethical politicians.

While buying elections is a serious thing, it’s trivial compared with the political witch hunt that’s happening in Wisconsin:

MADISON, Wis. – Conservative targets of a Democrat-launched John Doe investigation have described the secret probe as a witch hunt.

That might not be a big enough descriptor, based on records released Friday by a federal appeals court as part of a massive document dump.

Attorneys for conservative activist Eric O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth point to subpoenas requested by John Doe prosecutors that sought records from “at least eight phone companies” believed to serve the targets of the investigation. O’Keefe and the club have filed a civil rights lawsuit against John Doe prosecutors, alleging they violated conservatives’ First Amendment rights.

While there’s no doubt Democrats will deny a connection between the IRS-TEA Party scandal and this witch hunt, they’re too similar in intent to ignore. Here’s what John Chisholm, the Milwaukee County prosecutor leading this witch hunt, obtained through his pre-dawn paramilitary raids:

Court documents show the extraordinary breadth of the prosecutors’ subpoena requests.

They sought phone records for a year-and-a-half period, “which happened to be the most contentious period in political politics,” the conservatives note. They note that prosecutors did not pursue the same tactics with left-leaning organizations that pumped tens of millions of dollars into Wisconsin’s recall elections, in what certainly appeared to be a well-coordinated effort.

Among other documents, prosecutors sought “all call detail records including incoming and outgoing calls,” “billing name and information,” “subscriber name and information including any application for service,” according to the conservatives’ court filing.

In other words, these Democrat prosecutors wanted to intimidate people they didn’t agree with. They used tactics third world dictators use to intimidate the citizenry:

Chisholm, a Democrat, launched the dragnet two years ago, and, according to court documents, with the help of the state Government Accountability Board, the probe was expanded to five counties. The John Doe proceeding compelled scores of witnesses to testify, and a gag order compelled them to keep their mouths shut or face jail time. Sources have described predawn “paramilitary-style” raids in which their posessions were rifled through and seized by law enforcement officers.

This isn’t just a fishing expedition. It’s a message from Democrats to Republicans that they’ll use their offices to intimidate their political enemies. It’s a message from Democrats that they’re weaponizing government agencies.

This isn’t just happening in Wisconsin. It’s happened in Texas, too, where a Democrat with a penchant for getting highly intoxicated abused her office to indict Gov. Rick Perry for doing what other governors have done since the founding of their respective states. She indicted him because he vetoed a bill cutting off funding for her office.

It isn’t coincidence that Scott Walker and Rick Perry are considered potential presidential candidates. In fact, I’d argue that Chisholm launched his fishing expedition into Gov. Walker to defeat him so he can’t run for president.

Check back later today for Part II of this series.

Technorati: John Chisholm, John Doe Prosecutors, Political Witch Hunt, Rosemary Lehmberg, Malicious Prosecution, Campaign Coordination, Buying Elections, Censorship, Weaponized Government, Democrats, Scott Walker, Rick Perry, Republicans, Election 2014

Thanks to this article by the Wisconsin Reporter, conservatives can learn about the Democratic Party’s witch hunt machine. Anyone that thinks Democrats are nice people that conservatives simply disagree with is badly mistaken. Read the article, then tell me that:

MADISON, Wis. – Conservative targets of a Democrat-launched John Doe investigation have described the secret probe as a witch hunt.

That might not be a big enough descriptor, based on records released Friday by a federal appeals court as part of a massive document dump.

Attorneys for conservative activist Eric O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth point to subpoenas requested by John Doe prosecutors that sought records from “at least eight phone companies” believed to serve the targets of the investigation. O’Keefe and the club have filed a civil rights lawsuit against John Doe prosecutors, alleging they violated conservatives’ First Amendment rights.

That the John Doe prosecutors tried to get records from “at least eight phone companies” is frightening enough. Who needs the NSA when Wisconsin has these John Doe prosecutors. Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there:

Subpoenas also demanded the conservatives’ bank records, “emails from every major private email provider” and other information in what some have described as a mini-NSA (National Security Agency) operation in Wisconsin.

“In fact, Defendants’ submissions confirm and expand upon the scope and intensity of retaliation previously demonstrated,” O’Keefe’s attorney wrote in documents ordered unsealed by the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

Anyone that thinks this is just a case of some rogue prosecutors gone bad apparently hasn’t paid attention to Rosemary Lehmberg’s indictment of Gov. Rick Perry, (R-TX). These naive people should read this, too:

Chisholm, a Democrat, launched the dragnet two years ago, and, according to court documents, with the help of the state Government Accountability Board, the probe was expanded to five counties. The John Doe proceeding compelled scores of witnesses to testify, and a gag order compelled them to keep their mouths shut or face jail time. Sources have described predawn “paramilitary-style” raids in which their posessions were rifled through and seized by law enforcement officers.

If you thought that weaponized government was just a term used by paranoid conservatives, you’d better rethink things. This is proof that some Democratic prosecutors will use their office for blatantly political purposes. Again and unfortunately, that isn’t all these Democratic thugs with law degrees did. Here’s more:

Court documents show the extraordinary breadth of the prosecutors’ subpoena requests.

They sought phone records for a year-and-a-half period, “which happened to be the most contentious period in political politics,” the conservatives note. They note that prosecutors did not pursue the same tactics with left-leaning organizations that pumped tens of millions of dollars into Wisconsin’s recall elections, in what certainly appeared to be a well-coordinated effort.

Among other documents, prosecutors sought “all call detail records including incoming and outgoing calls,” “billing name and information,” “subscriber name and information including any application for service,” according to the conservatives’ court filing.

In other words, these Democrats wanted confidential information. That’s why the Wisconsin Club for Growth and Eric O’Keefe filed their civil rights lawsuit.

There’s little doubt that these Democrats would’ve used the information they gathered through their witch hunt to chill these conservatives’ desire to participate in the political process. The only retaliation against these Democrats is to a)prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law when possible, b) end their political careers by removing them from their positions of political power and c) pressure Democrat politicians into passing sweeping reforms to prevent these fishing expeditions from today going forward.

If Democrats aren’t willing to limit rogue prosecutors’ ability to conduct political fishing expeditions, then we’ll know that they approve of these Democrats’ behavior.

Thanks to M.D. Kittle and the Wisconsin Reporter, we now know that these Democrats were attempting to chill conservatives from exercising their right to participate in the political process. This needs to be stopped ASAP and it needs to be stopped dead in its tracks.

Technorati: John Doe Prosecutors, John Chisholm, Political Witch Hunt, Subpoenaes, Bank Records, Emails, Phone Records, Civil Rights Violations, Chilling Effect, Smear Campaign, Weaponized Government, Democrats, Scott Walker, Eric O’Keefe, Wisconsin Club for Growth, Civil Rights Lawsuit, First Amendment, Rick Perry, Republicans

One of the things that Rick Perry hasn’t gotten credit for is his moving 1,000 National Guardsmen to the Tex-Mex border. It isn’t that people haven’t commented on Gov. Perry’s decision. It’s that there’s been too much second guessing of his decision:

The governor is simply trying to grab headlines, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest replied.

He said the administration hopes “Gov. Perry will not just take these kinds of steps that are generating the kind of headlines I suspect he intended, but will actually take the kinds of steps that will be constructive to solving the problem over the long term.”

Like most of the stuff coming from this administration, Earnest’s comments are BS. It isn’t that Gov. Perry is trying to grab cheesy headlines. It’s that he’s trying to fix a problem created by the federal government that’s spilled into his lap:

Deploying 1,000 Guardsmen “has nothing to do with unaccompanied minors or children crossing the border,” Perry said, because data show “only 20 percent of those apprehended crossing the border illegally are children.”

The Texas Department of Safety found that 203,000 illegal immigrants were arrested and charged with more than 640,000 crimes since 2008, Perry told the Trib. “Of those crimes, 3,000 were homicides and nearly 8,000 were sexual assaults,” he said. “Thousands of lives have been shattered forever, that shouldn’t have (been), if the federal government had done its job.”

Thanks to President Obama’s indifference to protecting Americans, literally thousands of Texans’ lives have been ruined. The Texas Department of Safety’s statistics are irrefutable. The children flooding in are just part of the crisis. The biggest part of the crisis, though, is that thousands of illegal immigrants have committed heinous crimes that’ve ruined people’s lives.

Border Patrol data show that the number of children entering Texas illegally has grown from about 5,000 in 2012 to more than 50,000 this year. “Inaction encourages other minors to place themselves in extremely dangerous situations,” Perry wrote in his letter to the president. “…Every day of delay risks more lives. Every child allowed to remain encourages hundreds more to attempt the journey.”

President Obama doesn’t see this as a humanitarian crisis as much as he sees it as a political opportunity. He wanted tens of thousands of illegal immigrants to flood into the US in the hopes of forcing Republicans to pass “comprehensive immigration reform.” President Obama’s problem is that the crisis got tons of press, which made it look like a) the administration tried manufacturing this crisis and b) this administration and other Democrats don’t care about consistently enforcing the border.

Republicans have repeatedly said that they won’t pass immigration reform until enforcing the border becomes a high priority for this administration. That isn’t something pro-open borders organizations like La Raza or pro-open borders legislators like Luis Guttierez are interested in.

That’s their problem. The overwhelming majority of people polled demand that the border be secured before talking about legalizing the illegal immigrants already in the country.

It’s gotten to the point that Republicans get better grades on immigration than Democrats get. Gov. Perry might run for president in 2016. At this point, he should because he’s getting high marks for taking border security seriously. He’s taking his law enforcement responsibilities seriously, too, which is more than they think about President Obama.

Technorati: Rick Perry, Border Security, National Guard, Texas Department of Public Safety, Republicans, President Obama, Violent Crimes, Border Crisis, Luis Guttierez, Open Borders, Comprehensive Immigration Reform, Democrats