Messing with Texas

One must marvel at the gusto with which Texas Governor Rick Perry attempts to pander to the fringe tea party activists he evidently think pack his state. From secessions threats, to his criminal negligence and collusion in covering up death penalty and legal issues, and his complete rejection and denunciation of Washington... except for all those times when he goes to them begging hat in hand for money. He's a real class act.

So that's why it's nice to see him double down on the crazy in an attempt to win the GOP nomination for Governor. What's he up to this time? Chuck Norris as a border guard and Secretary of Kicking Ass? Sovereign Texas money with Jesus on it? Cheap anti-science, pro-corporate stunts? Set another fire at the Governor's mansion? Decrying the stimulus while at an event touting money for and jobs saved by a stimulus project he's taking credit for? It was the science one. But it has a secessionist bent too. State's rights!

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is suing the Environmental Protection Agency in a bid to stop it from regulating global warming pollution. The centerpiece of his argument? Those leaked "Climate-Gate" emails.
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Flanked by his attorney general, Greg Abbott, Perry declared at a press conference that the lawsuit was intended to "defend Texas' environmental successes against federal overreach." And he slammed the Obama administration for "using sweeping mandates and draconian punishments to force a square peg of their vision into the round whole of reality."

Abbott cited the emails to charge that the EPA was using "tainted data" when it ruled in December that heat-trapping gases are a threat to human health and can be regulated by the federal government.

Now, we all know where this one is going. Of course the hacked e-mails don't say anything near what Perry and Abbot say they do. Or even if e-mails from two scientists about their own research proved that their numbers were wrong or faked, that it doesn't invalidate all the multitudinous data from thousands of scientists in hundreds of disparate fields, across various disciplines, stationed everywhere across the globe that show what everyone knows the planetary scientific consensus is: planet warming, bad for humans. Or that if your position about climate change being a hoax was so strong you wouldn't have to lie about leaked e-mails. But that's not going to stop Perry. No, he's got two strong primary challengers, needs to rally the base, and most of his money and support comes from energy interests. Priorities people, priorities.

So big ups to Perry and Texas (ooh, and Virginia too, who has an attorney general with lots of ties to energy interests as well). You aren't going to let a little thing like science stand in the way of political grandstanding, primary politics, corporate whoring, and placing short term electoral and economic goals over long term economic and environmental ones. But I guess you've got a big state and can afford to see some of it under water. Plus, who is going to notice a couple degree increase in temperature when it's already hot as hell? Well done. I hope they make you double governor.