In her article entitled "Is Rick Perry Fair and Balanced?" Houston Chronicle political reporter and opinion journalist Lisa Falkenberg writes:
in a recent interview with Fox Business News, an anchor praised Gov. Rick Perry for just saying no to federal stimulus money.
"Governor, I'm glad you didn't take any stimulus money since you did balance your budget. You don't need it. Save it for states that are having people that are losing their jobs and losing their homes," said the anchor, completely oblivious to the fact that Texas has more than its share of people losing their jobs and losing their homes.
Perry grinned, quietly bathing in the glory, knowing full well the statement and a similar one made by the anchor were patently false.
In fact, Texas plugged its biennial budget this past session with $12.1 billion in stimulus funds, according to the Legislative Budget Board.
One can only assume the misinformed Fox anchor was referring to Perry's stubborn stance against accepting $555 million in stimulus funds for unemployment insurance. But even that move, as expected, has backfired.
Hats off to Lisa Falkenberg for giving the Chronicle's readers a reality check on the unbalanced and unfair Fox "News" and its interview with Rick Perry.
While Perry smirked and yucked it up with a Fox fairy tale telling, fuzzy math "business" reporter, Texans continue to lose their jobs and the already unemployed are running out of options. Indeed, our esteemed governor chose to ignore one of his very own appointees who urged Perry to take the unemployment bailout money.
According to Falkenberg,
Never mind that Perry's own appointee, Texas Workforce Commission Chairman Tom Pauken, disagreed with him on the matter, saying Texas should do what it could to get the $555 million of "our money" we sent to Washington. Pauken had argued for Texas to discontinue the expanded benefits once the federal money was used, a condition the feds didn't accept outright.
Three months later, Perry emerged victorious from his battle to reject the half-a-billion unemployment bailout.
Why did Perry get his way? What kind of "representation" do we have in Austin, folks? Why did so few of our representatives stand up to Perry?
As Falkenberg concludes:
If only every politician in Austin felt that way, especially our governor, who appears to have sacrificed benefits for thousands of unemployed Texans for better odds at the GOP gubernatorial primary and a few seconds of fair and balanced back-slapping on Fox News
One has to read some of the comments posted under Falkenberg's article to see how folks allow themselves to be misled and lied to by self-serving politicians and cable network shows that serve merely as patent propaganda arms for the power brokers on the right.
Wake up folks. What good has conservative ideology and political agendas brought over the last ten years? Most of conservative ideology today is fueled by hate talk, fuzzy math, misinformation, lies and fear mongering. It's a pretty scary place indeed. Why would anyone even want to go there? |
