The Texas Observer

Perhaps the most notable thing about the “Sovereignty or Secession” rally at the state Capitol today was the absence of any remotely mainstream speakers. That little problem in presentation did not escape the event’s organizers from the Texas Nationalist Movement. In fact, several speakers bitterly complained that neither Gov. Rick Perry nor a single one of the 70-plus supporters of Rep. Brandon Creighton’s HCR 50, a resolution asserting Texas’ “sovereignty” from the federal government, made an appearance.

Back in April, Perry flirted with the idea of secession when he told reporters after a Tax Day tea party event: “There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve [the Union]. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that.”

Even for a governor who frequently plays to the more extreme elements in the Texas GOP, it was a gobsmackingly ‘out there’ remark. But it certainly did wonders for the secession crowd—long a totally marginal and ridiculed group with about as much chance of capturing the mainstream imagination as the LaRouche cult.

The turnout for the rally wasn’t huge—200 would be a generous estimate—but it was enough to show how much Perry has helped galvanize and embolden the right wing “hate America” fringe. After all, the governor of the second most populous state in the nation had suggested that secession was a possible solution to federal over-reach. Republican political leaders have helped bring “death panels” and the Obama birth certificate nonsense into acceptable discourse; Perry’s contribution has been bringing secession into the mix.

Daniel Miller (pictured below, at top), the leader of the Texas Nationalist Movement and the only speaker who had the slightest ability to make secession sound like anything other than just complete lunacy, recounted the April 15 tea party rally in Austin and what it meant to the secessionist movement.

“When [Perry] was giving a speech and the crowd began to shout what? – Secede! Secede! Secede! – that’s what they chanted. So they asked him afterward, What do you think? He said, Well we reserve that right; if things get so bad we reserve the right to leave. And I gotta tell you it’s the first solid thing he’s done in his administration that I can agree with in many, many years.”

So the secession leaders were a little peeved that they couldn’t get their good friends in the Texas GOP to show up today. After all, Fox News is paying attention: Miller was a guest on the Glenn Beck Program on June 23, discussing the possibility of Texas seceding.

Though Perry and the “pro-sovereignty” legislators didn’t show for the rally, Miller said, “I want them to hear this loud and clear: It is time for them to take up that banner and it’s time for them to take the lead and if they do not, if they do not pick up that banner and carry it high, then we will.” Upon which Miller dashed out into the crowd, took hold of a “Come and Take It” flag, and continued his exhortations. Along with other speakers, he called for a special session of the Legislature—next week—to take up the sovereignty-or-secession debate in earnest.

The organizers are trying to set up a time to deliver a petition to Perry demanding that Texas officials either “immediately move for the restoration of the complete and unadulterated Sovereignty of Texas, explicitly adhering to the 10th Amendment wording of the U.S. Constitution,” or “move immediately for complete Secession from the United States of America.”

Instead of Perry or Creighton, the protesters had Larry Kilgore, a “Christian activist” and candidate for governor who has endorsed executions for homosexuals; Debra Medina, a Ron Paul Republican and a slightly-less long-shot candidate for governor; and Melissa Pehle-Hill, yet another fringe candidate and a member of a self-appointed “citizens grand jury” investigating Barack Hussein Obama, aka Barry Soetoro.

The audience of about 200 people included tattoed bikers wearing Confederate memorabilia, Alex Jones conspiracy theorists carrying those Obama-as-Joker signs, lots of older guys in Texas flag shirts and blue jeans, Ron Paul activists, and others.

Kilgore, dressed in starched blue jeans and a cowboy hat, drew some murmurs of disapproval when he launched into a rant against the U.S.

“I hate that flag up there,” Kilgore said pointing to the American flag flying over the Capitol. “I hate the United States government. … They’re an evil, corrupt government. They need to go. Sovereignty is not good enough. Secession is what we need!”

“We hate the United States!,” he said later in the speech. (And they say leftists are America-bashers!)

Medina chipped in: “We are aware that stepping off into secession may in fact be a bloody war. We are aware that the tree of freedom is occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.”

For his part, Kilgore assured the crowd that violence wouldn’t be necessary to secede. Instead, the U.S. would just split up like the USSR did in 1991.

After the rally, lingering secessionists clashed with pro-health reformers holding another rally at the Capitol. Kilgore was seen yelling at some pro-health care reform advocates to “Go back to the U.S. where you belong.”

Secession, the speakers argued, was more important than ever because of the Obama administration. Health care reform, the auto industry and Wall Street bailouts, cap-and-trade legislation, etc, etc – all this “change” is driving people already predisposed to mistrust a Democratic administration to new heights of apoplectic rage.

“If either one of them passes [cap-and-trade or health care reform], we have no option but to go for secession,” said Hill. “Texas is not comprised of people willing to allow Barack Obama and his czars to tax us into bankruptcy while Michelle Obama and her 26 aides live it up on our dime.”

Like any movement, the secessionists have their own reading of history and the law. There was much talk about the true and correct reading of the Constitution, implied powers, Thomas Jefferson’s writings on tyranny and government. One guy even started reading from Black’s Law Dictionary. But the references to the Confederacy were the most telling.

At one point, Miller drew the crowd’s attention to the statue of Lady Liberty on top of the Capitol.

“When they raised her to the top of this Capitol they wanted to face her south so she would forever have her back turned to that nation to the north that knew not liberty,” he told the almost entirely white crowd.

And they wonder why Perry and friends didn’t show up. Even for our governor, these people are toxic.

In what was perhaps the most expected announcement in the history of Texas politics, U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has officially declared that she is challenging Gov. Rick Perry in the 2010 election. The senator began the first leg of a five-day announcement tour on Monday morning in the Gulf Coast town of La Marque, where she went to high school, and ended later that afternoon at the University of Texas in Austin, where we met up with her.

While she did finally commit to the race, Hutchison remained vague as to her plans to vacate her senate seat, only promising to stay on long enough to fight the “massive government takeover of our health-care system.” And she beat that conservative drum steadily throughout her announcement.

After reflecting on her family’s place in Texas history (her great-great-grandfather Charles S. Taylor signed Texas’ Declaration of Independence), she repeated the conservative mantra: “spend less, borrow less and tax less.” This last point segued nicely into her critique of Perry’s “job-killing” new business tax, which she subtly hinted at being the cause Texas’ high job losses this year. She then pointed at the 30,000 new state employees put on the payroll in the last decade as evidence of Perry’s penchant for Big Government. Harsh criticisms of the governor’s failed Trans-Texas Corridor — or “the biggest land grab in the history of Texas” as Hutchison labeled it — and solemn mourning for the Republican Party’s loss of power (read: relevance) soon followed.

Hutchison’s backers ate it up, though Austin clearly is not her bread-and-butter given the scant turnout. Volunteers worked to reshuffle the crowd before the cameras clicked on, in order, they said, to “make it look like there’s a lot of people here.”

What the attendees lacked in number, they made up for in loyalty and enthusiasm. The pantsuits and “Kay” stickers seemed more like battle regalia than business casual — though that might have been because of the shoulder pads.

Serious questions linger about whether Hutchison can go toe-to-toe with Perry. Hutchison’s soundbite-ready condemnations of the governor were delivered with the cadence of a teacher reading to schoolchildren, with nowhere near the charisma we’re used to seeing from Gov. Goodhair. Whatever the results, watching the two trumpet their conservative credentials till they’re blue in the face will make for months of priceless political theater.

Ray Sullivan is a lobbyist who represents energy, transportation and development companies. He will represent these clients for another six days. On July 1, he will whip through the proverbial revolving door and re-enter government as Gov. Rick Perry’s new chief of staff.

When he joins the governor’s office, Sullivan plans to shutter his lobby business and terminate all his remaining lobby contracts, said Allison Castle in the governor’s press office. That elevates him to a slightly higher ethical level than the last high-profile lobbyist-turned Perry chief of staff, Mike “the knife” Toomey, who kept his lobby shop in business during his tour in the gov’s office. Toomey ostensibly handed his business off to a partner, but he returned to the lobby game — and a similar set of clients — a few years later.

The coverage so far of the Sullivan hiring has focused on the political angle: Perry bringing in an experienced political hand — Sullivan served as a Perry aide until joining the lobby in 2002, and he once served Bush during the Florida recount in 2000 — to run the governor’s office during a sure-to-be-fierce campaign year.

But we’re more interested in his business connections. Sullivan was a prominent advocate of energy deregulation and red-light cameras this session.

You can find the full list of Sullivan’s lobby clients here (you’ll have to scroll down a ways).

He had a lobby contract with the energy company Exelon Power Texas (a contract worth as much as $50,000 this year). Sullivan also was a spokesperson for an energy industry group called Texas Competitive Power Advocates. He was quoted in several news stories this session arguing the pro-industry position that electricity deregulation is working in Texas despite increasing electric rates in the deregulated parts of the state. Sullivan’s group has fought efforts by consumer advocates to re-regulate the market.

Sullivan also lobbied for Redflex Traffic Systems, one of the nation’s biggest purveyors of red light cameras. The company has contracts with 40 counties and municipalities in Texas, according to its Web site. The Legislature nearly did away with red light cameras this session — an effort Sullivan fought every step. On the other hand, the TxDOT sunset bill at one point contained a provision that would have allowed highway-side cameras to record license plate numbers of passing cars. Redflex — Sullivan’s soon-to-be former client — might be interested in that contract, if the provision ever becomes law.

Another Sullivan client was the construction services firm HNTB Corp., which consulted for TxDOT on the Trans-Texas Corridor — Perry’s now-widely-unpopular massive toll road project. If and when another TxDOT sunset bill makes its way through the Legislature, HNTB will likely fight any further restrictions on toll-road building.

Just a few business interests to keep in mind as Sullivan begins his new gig.

Gov. Perry announced today that he wants to see the Legislature put $260 million into a fund to help build 16 new reservoirs in Texas. A press release from his office said the governor wants the money to come from a “one-time transfer” from the Rainy Day Fund. But that press release was quickly followed by another one - labeled “REVISED” - that dropped any mention of the Rainy Day Fund.

Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Perry, said the initial mention of the Rainy Day Fund was a mistake. Or an inadvertent admission? She demurred somewhat when pressed about whether the governor really thinks it wise to tap the Fund at a time of severe economic crisis and a $9 billion budget deficit in order to build new reservoirs that many people neither want nor think are needed. It should also be noted that the reservoirs are estimated to cost billions.

“The main message is we need to work with the Legislature to figure out the best way to fund this,” Cesinger said. The precise funding source for the $260 million, she said, is open to discussion.

In supporting the reservoirs, which include the highly-controversial Marvin Nichols reservoir - on the Sulphur River - and Lake Fastrill - on the Neches, Perry is essentially taking sides in a nasty, long-running fight that has pitted Dallas against East Texas. It’s fair to say that folks in rural East Texas are none too pleased about damming rivers so Dallas, which has the highest water usage rates of any city in the state, can continue with St. Augustine lawns and swimming pools. The land that would be flooded by Lake Fastrill includes a relatively pristine stretch of the Upper Neches River and some of the last large stands of bottomland hardwoods left in the state. In an effort to preserve the area, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has designated a national wildlife refuge.

The nature angle may not move Perry much, but he’s walking on a minefield when it comes to private property rights. The Trans-Texas Corridor comes to mind. Many of the landowners at the Marvin Nichols and Fastrill sites have sworn not to budge, meaning protracted and ugly eminent domain battles could be in store if the reservoirs advance.

Perry’s no dummy; he touched on the issue today, saying he supports a constitutional amendment to protect landowners against eminent domain abuses. But he would still support “traditional uses” of eminent domain, such as reservoir-building.

At the same time, Perry “wants to ensure that landowners private property rights are protected as well,” Cesinger said.

That’s probably not going to mollify many folks.

Last session, East Texas lawmakers, especially Rep. Stephen Frost (D-Atlanta), did their damnedest to keep Marvin Nichols and Fastrill from being officially “designated” in the omnibus water bill. They failed - barely - but did get a concession that the designations will expire in 2015 unless reservoir backers have made serious efforts toward funding proposed reservoirs. Another round of reservoir wars is expected this year.

In his remarks today, Perry stressed the urgency of funding new reservoirs, citing the growing Texas population.

“I am convinced that the time to adequately preserve and allocate our water supply is now, so that our children and grandchildren will have access to this life-giving resource for the next 50 years,” Perry said in a press release.

Gov. Rick Perry’s office just released the following statement about today’s appeals court ruling in the FLDS case:

“This is an ongoing legal matter, and our office is confident that state’s lawyers will review the appropriate next steps in this case to ensure the safety and welfare of the children involved.”

Translation: The governor is staying as far away from this as humanly possible. Please stop calling!

While most of the attention surrounding Gov. Perry’s new book, On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For, has been focused on GoodHair’s bizarre - and dare I say homophobic - outlook on homosexuality, he also reveals remarkable hostility towards science and those old-fashioned Enlightenment values of reason and empirical truth. “You can’t have a rational discussion with the left about nature versus nurture, global warming, or the validity of evolution because they claim science has already weighed in,” he writes.

So, has science already “weighed in” on global warming and evolution? Yes - obviously. Does that foreclose a “rational discussion”? No, rational inquiry is the very process by which thinking people reach conclusions. But Perry’s position on scientific matters is thoroughly irrational and unscientific. He unfortunately - for those of us who expect elected leaders to have at least a modicum of scientific literacy - demonstrates a dangerous know-nothingness.

Yet, science reveals new discoveries all the time, and in so doing, for instance, makes the evolutionary explanation less plausible. If, however someone makes an argument for intelligent design, we are told it should be taught in a class on faith. Here we are again at a well-worn crossroads: where the left advocates tolerance while crushing dissenting views.

It’s worth pausing here to really consider what Perry is arguing: Science leads to discovery; discovery challenges received wisdom; therefore, “controversial” theories like evolution would be undermined if only intolerant leftists would allow a real debate. This is a crude parody of the scientific method done in crayon by a dull-witted first-grader. Perry seems to believe science itself is nothing more than a vehicle for liberal ideas. That’s a corrosive notion. As biologist and humanist E.O. Wilson said, “Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.” (Ironically, Perry interviewed Wilson for his book. Wilson is an Eagle Scout.)

Though scientists do not operate in a political vacuum, their work is tested not by agendas left or right, but rather by a particular theory’s ability to withstand new evidence and the intense scrutiny of peers. Science is naturally disputatious, but that doesn’t mean junk ideas like intelligent design have a place in the conversation. Creationism is as much of a “dissenting view” to evolutionary biology as the Flat Earth hypothesis is to a spherical Earth. Perry, of course, doesn’t see it that way. To his mind the time-tested theory of evolution is just another bludgeon used by the left in the ceaseless culture wars.

When it comes to global warming, many scientists who once advocated it is caused by human activity have abandoned that theory after closer study. Where are the stories on this growing scientific movement? Alas, many in the news media have already invested too much in a particular storyline, just as some scientists continue to promote It’s-All-Our-Fault theory because their research grants are dependent on it. In twenty-five years, when this theory has been discarded alongside other ideas that didn’t stand the test of time, then perhaps there will be a one-day story announcing its demise. Then the left will be on to its next theory created to advance a particular political agenda.

Perry was last heard making the (thoroughly debunked) claim that scientists were repudiating human-induced climate change last September. As it turned out, Perry based this assertion on the scurrilous research of an aide to Sen. James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who called global warming the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” The aide, Marc Morano, is at it again in ‘08, this time with a fresh list of 400 alleged climate deniers (400!) with scientific bona fides. Morano’s 400 Club is a hoax. It includes TV weathermen, the editor of a coal industry journal, armchair experts, and real climate experts who aren’t actually climate deniers. Presumably, this list is the basis of Perry’s “growing scientific movement.”

In all the nation is there another high-level politician - Republican or Democrat - as clownish as Perry? He writes off the immense, decades-long global effort to study and understand climate change as little more than a cheap political stunt. Not even George W. Bush has achieved this level of cynicism. And though Perry offers zero proof for his claims, he goes ahead and basically accuses researchers of participating in a vast and fraudulent leftist conspiracy against humanity. For good measure he adds that they’re just doing it for the money. Then, he has the chutzpah to set a date - twenty five years from now! - when he will be proved right. Mark it on your calendar - February 2033.

As you may have heard, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, having aced his merit badge in self-hairstyling, has waded into the treacherous waters of ostensible authorship with On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For. The book, a bit astoundingly, debuted at #1 on the Washington Post bestseller list Monday (according to a press release paid for by Texans for Rick Perry), and it may have received a boost — in the lucrative homophobe market, anyhow — from a Sunday New York Times Magazine interview with the governor by a clearly astounded Deborah Solomon, excerpted below.

Solomon: On My Honor “draws on your experience as an Eagle Scout and champions the values of the Boy Scouts of America, to whom you are donating your royalties.”

Perry: “Yes, to their legal defense fund.”

Solomon: “Which has been fighting the A.C.L.U., to keep gays out of the scouts. Why do you see that as a worthy cause?”

Perry: “I am pretty clear about this one. Scouting ought to be about building character, not about sex. Period. Precious few parents enroll their boys in the Scouts to get a crash course in sexual orientation.”

Solomon: “Why do you think a homosexual would be more likely to bring the subject of sex into a conversation than a heterosexual?”

Perry: “Well, the ban in scouting applies to scout leaders. When you have a clearly open homosexual scout leader, the scouts are going to talk about it. And they’re not there to learn about that. They’re there to learn about what it means to be loyal and trustworthy and thrifty.”

Solomon: “But don’t you think that homosexuals might also be interested in being loyal and thrifty?”

Perry: “The argument that gets made is that homosexuality is about sex. Do you agree?”

Solomon: “No”

Perry: “Well, then, why don’t they call it something else?”

Like what, absurd reductivism?

We will let the governor — famously and a bit tiresomely both an Eagle Scout and the father of an Eagle Scout, and not even in the least tiny bit gay — slide on his title’s sentence-ending preposition (his grammar badge must be pending). But there’s no getting past the wrongheadedness of his message, which seems to be something along the lines of gay people are obsessed with sex and if they’re allowed anywhere near impressionable young minds, then you don’t even want to know what tomorrow’s Webelos will be doing after school in the garage with all those fancy knots.

That message wasn’t lost on Equality Texas, which Tuesday issued a statement decrying Perry’s narrowminded bigotry and — gotcha! — unseemly preoocupation with sex. The group invites gay scouts to attend Perry’s three scheduled Texas booksignings this week.

in case you’re interested, that’s Tuesday, Feb. 26 at 7:30 p.m. at Border’s Books in San Antonio; Wednesday, Feb. 27, at 7 p.m. at BookPeople in Austin; and Thursday, Feb. 28 at 7:30 at Borders Books in Dallas. Expect to find Perry set up at a signing table in the farthest possible corner from the Gay & Lesbian Literature section. Because you know, you can catch those cooties just by breathing too deeply in their proximity.

And Perry should know. Rumors about his own possibly closeted orientation have circulated for years, prompting the governor in 2004 to take the extraordinary step of denying them publicly.

So far no one has been cynical enough to suggest that the Perry book’s square-jawed broadside at the gay and gay-friendly communities is perhaps nothing more than a self-serving bulwark against that very rumor, which bulwark might come in handy if those other rumors — of Perry’s ambition for national office — ever turn out to be true.

But finally, lest mockery get the best of us, let’s pause just a moment to credit Gov. Perry for not encouraging his dog to write a book, as other governors have done. We all know what dogs have on their dirty little dog brains, and it’s certainly not loyalty and trust. And we’re pretty sure there’s no merit badge for it, either.