Should Texans Bill Gov. Rick Perry for Running for President?

According to the Associated Press, Texas Gov. Rick Perry recently billed the federal goverment nearly $350 million "to cover the costs he says Texas has incurred incarcerating illegal immigrants in state prisons and county jails."

His invoicing letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano "was dated Aug. 10, three days before the Republican governor formally announced he is running for president," the AP noted.

Meanwhile, Texas is in the midst of an economic and public school crisis, unemployment is up and the state is being hammered by extreme drought and growing water shortages.

Instead of staying in the state and providing serious, hands-on leadership in these matters, Gov. Perry recently announced that he is running for President of the United States. Now he is traveling to other states, at some expense to Texas, so he can extol his "Texas miracle" (which lately has taken on many aspects of "mirage," some critics say). He has moved coast to coast raising campaign funds, shaking hands and making shoot-from-the-hip statements and charges that quickly have had to be "walked back" by his handlers.

So, the question now is, should Texans bill their governor for the state money he is spending outside the state and insist that he come back home, deal with the current emergencies and prove he can resurrect his alleged "miracle" right here where he was elected to serve?

For now, Gov. Rick Perry is the GOP front runner du jour. However, many Texans expect his campaign to implode quickly once the novelty of his running wears off and the realities of his state political record are seen in the glare of the national spotlights.

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Two Moments in Austin (Photos)

Texas Senate in Action (April 29, 2009)
(Photograph copyright 2009, Si Dunn)

"Record Low" Temperature (May 15, 2009)
(Photograph copyright 2009, Si Dunn)

Memo to Obama, Clinton and McCain: Shut Up (Again!) About Each Other Already

The political idiocy just never stops.

In the seemingly neverending--and endlessly stupid--game of campaign "Gotcha!", now we have Sen. Clinton accusing Sen. Obama of looking down his nose at weary middle-class voters. We have Sen. Obama responding by criticizing Sen. Clinton for voting for a bankruptcy bill backed by credit card companies. And we have Sen. McCain's campaign accusing Sen. Obama of being "elitist" and "condescending" and "out of touch" in his views.

Can someone kindly explain how any of this (and its accompanying mini-firestorm in the weekend news media) has helped any voter anywhere learn anything new and useful about any of the candidates and where they stand on any issue?

"Gotcha!" politics is utterly useless, except that it gives the news media a convenient excuse for avoiding more substantial reporting. And it is totally insulting to voters who want to give fair consideration to all candidates.

Indeed, the whole campaign process now is broken and needs to be scrapped and replaced with a long series of public and televised forums where the candidates have to explain themselves and their hopes and proposals for America--without any mention or implied criticism of other candidates in the race.

American voters are smart enough to pick their leaders without the "help" of campaigns that try constantly to undermine their opponents or make them look stupid.

It's the campaigns and their candidates--every one of them--that end up looking absurd.

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Memo to Obama, Clinton and McCain: Shut Up About Each Other, Already

By Si Dunn

All's fair in love and war--and politics.

That, of course, is just the polite way of saying nothing is fair in love and war and politics--particularly politics.

So now, in a suppposedly tight race for the White House, we are stuck once again in a short lull between "key" Democratic primaries.

Meanwhile, the candidates and their campaign staffs are busily finding any direct and obtuse way they can to try to discredit their opponents' potential abilities to be commander in chief or national healer or shining beacon of peace and hope to the troubled world.

Oh, please, Senators Obama, Clinton and McCain. Just shut up about each other now, please, and get on with explaining yourselves.

Convince us why you (without any further mention or slam of your opponents) should be the next President of the United States. Tell us what you (without any further mention or slam of your opponents) propose to do about the national economy, the housing crisis, the war in Iraq, and America's shattered world prestige, to name just a few of today's troubling issues.

Put away the race cards, the White House cards, the combat cards, the patriot cards, the religion cards, the ringing-telephone cards, the retired-generals card, the endorsement cards, etc., etc., ad naseum.

Skip the overseas "fact-finding" photo ops and the strident demands for apologies, retractions and resignations from each other's campaigns.

Rise above this petty crap. Step out of your political Green Zones--and Twilight Zones.

Between now and the November general election, just show us and tell us who the hell you really are and what you propose to try to do about the many incredible messes the current Administration will leave behind in January, 2009.

That's what we voters want and need to know. Who are you, what needs to be done, and how you think the massive mountain range of problems should be approached.

Most of what else you are doing and saying right now amounts to absurd, empty posturing and a babble of irritating noises that we voters can, and will, shut off very soon.

So shut up about each other already. Tell us something that we actually can use to help us decide.

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Fixing Washington -- Two Modest Proposals

Can Congress and the White House get any more unpopular in 2008? Well, yeah, but their 2007 popularity (or lack of popularity) ratings have been plenty ugly enough. Indeed, they were, as many Texans like to say, downright double-ugly as the year ended.

Modest Proposal #1: To end Washington, D.C.’s “inside the Beltway” fixation on running—and ruining--America, why not move the nation’s capitol to a city near the geographical center of the United States? Yep, Wichita, Kansas, should become the next vortex sutra of American politics. Our leaders should have to rule from the very heart of the heartland. And those poor, left-behind K Street lobbyists? They will just have to buy plane tickets, bus tickets and train tickets if they wish to bring their bags of cash into the new center of influence.

Modest Proposal #2: We can keep electing presidents, vice presidents and governors. But everyone else over the age of 40 should have to register for the political draft and, if selected, be required to serve a four-year term as a U.S. or state senator or representative. There will be no more campaigns and no more cash donations for these offices. All political draftees will attend eight weeks of special boot camp, where they will re-learn American history and appropriate state history. They also will study the contents of key historical documents and learn how to work together as teams willing to honor, protect, defend and serve their states and nation. It will be government of the people, by the people, for the people, in a much truer sense.

Religions (or no religion), handicaps, birthplace, and income levels should be no impediment to holding office, as long as one is a native or naturalized citizen. Someone living on Social Security, Medicare and Republican rip-off drug plans could be drafted and suddenly find themselves drawing a U.S. Senator’s salary, with full benefits.

Anyone claiming to be “too stupid” or “too crooked” to serve will not be allowed to dodge the political draft. America has survived many episodes of these two qualities already, at all levels of government.

Moving the capitol to the heartland and letting America’s “real” people rule will not destroy our nation. Indeed, it couldn’t make us any worse than what we have already become: a dollar-ocracy where everything, including loyalty and patriotism, gets sold to the highest bidder.

These two changes might even help us become the kind of nation we were taught to believe in—and often did believe in—when we were young: America the Beautiful; esteemed leader of the free world; open to all, friend to all; the land of opportunity—not opportunism.

Wichita vortex America!

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Political UFOs - Updated

By Si Dunn

Like Dennis Kucinich, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington, I, too, have seen a UFO.

However, unlike their not-so-close encounters, I had a much clearer look at what I saw. And I knew exactly what I was seeing.

Of course, my sighting was long ago, in a universe far away: Little Rock, Arkansas, circa 1958, well before the invention of YouTube videos and cell phone cameras.

Thus, you’ll have to trust the memories of a 63-year-old observer with a reasonably good mind, a long-running reputation for honesty, and absolutely no desire to run for public office.

Anyway...

I was 14 years old, standing in my front yard on a warm summer afternoon. I liked to watch the changing cloud shapes and the silver gleam of the then-fearsome B-47 jet bombers as they slowed over Little Rock and turned toward runways at the nearby Jacksonville Air Force Base.

As I looked almost straight up at one B-47 starting its northeastward landing approach from about 3,000 feet, I suddenly saw a light-grey disk perhaps 30 feet in diameter appear just 50 yards or so behind the B-47’s stabilizer. The grey disk seemed to have a smaller, lighter disk perhaps 10 or 15 feet in diameter underneath at its center.

My immediate impression was that someone had just popped open a parachute. But no one had ejected from the B-47. The bomber simply continued its normal descent, passing a short distance north of the Arkansas State Capitol building.

The grey disk, meanwhile, lingered behind, hanging eerily in the sky, showing no apparent movement at all.

Then, after about 10 seconds, it began to drift due north, accelerating faster and faster. Finally, it zipped into a cloud and disappeared.

What did I see? I saw an unidentified flying object, one that displayed a classic shape reported by many UFO observers. “Flying saucers” had been in the headlines many times in my young life.

Do I believe “my” UFO came from outer space, from a distant civilization far advanced to ours? Perhaps.

It is also possible, as some theorists contend, that it came here from a world which shares our world, in dimensions we cannot sense.

All I know is this: I saw a UFO. And, maybe someday, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will help me sort out what it was.

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