Rick Perry's Poverty Problem: "Compares Taxes To Civil War" (Video)

Poverty grows in Rick Perry's Texas

Texas Governor Rick Perry likes to brag that his state is an economic powerhouse.

But don't tell that to the nearly one in five Texans who are living below the poverty line.

While it's true that Texas is responsible for 40% of the jobs added in the U.S. over the past two years, its poverty rate also grew faster than the national average in 2010.

Texas ranks 6th in terms of people living in poverty. Some 18.4% of Texans were impoverished in 2010, up from 17.3% a year earlier, according to Census Bureau data released this week. The national average is 15.1%.

And being poor in Texas isn't easy. The state has one of the lowest rates of spending on its citizens per capita and the highest share of those lacking health insurance. It doesn't provide a lot of support services to those in need: Relatively few collect food stamps and qualifying for cash assistance is particularly tough.

"There are two tiers in Texas," said Miguel Ferguson, associate professor of social work at University of Texas at Austin. "There are parts of Texas that are doing well. And there is a tremendous number of Texans, more than Perry has ever wanted to acknowledge, that are doing very, very poorly."

Perry, for his part, believes that creating jobs is the best way to help every Texan. The state is doing "everything we can to ensure that every Texan who wants a job has one," a spokeswoman for the governor said.

Poor in the Lone Star State

A combination of demographic and economic factors contribute to the high poverty rate in Texas, where many families, particularly in the southern swath, live in ramshackle housing with no utilities or indoor plumbing.

More than half the state are minorities, many of them Hispanic. This population often has lower levels of education, making it harder for them to escape poverty, said Steve Murdock, sociology professor at Rice University. And the state's population is younger and the families there larger, on average, which also puts them at greater risk of being poor.

Meanwhile, the Great Recession has driven a new crop of Texans into poverty's grip: the formerly middle class.

Texas Neighborhood Services started seeing a crush of new people seeking help last year, said Bradley Manning, executive director of the Weatherford-based agency. Many of them were unemployed and couldn't find new positions, even after going through job training.

"The middle class are losing their jobs and are not able to replace them fast enough," Manning said. "That's driving them straight into poverty."

Even those lucky enough to get one of the new jobs created in Texas may still find themselves struggling to make ends meet. Many of the positions that have been created are on the lower end of the pay scale.

Some 550,000 workers last year were paid at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25, more than double the number making those wages in 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For someone working full-time, that's just over $15,000 a year before taxes, which is under the poverty line for a single parent with two children.

Some 9.5% of Texas' hourly workforce are minimum-wage workers, the highest percentage in the nation -- a dubious title it shares with Mississippi.

Little help for Texans in need

For residents living in poverty, the state doesn't offer many services or even make federally-funded benefits easily accessible.

For instance, it has one of the tightest income limits -- less than 12% of the poverty level -- to qualify for federal cash assistance payments and one of the most meager benefits, a maximum of about $260 a month for a family of three, said Celia Cole, senior research analyst at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, which advocates for low-income residents. The program serves less than 6% of poor children in the state.

Texas' Medicaid program covers few non-disabled adults, instead providing health insurance mainly for children and senior citizens. And only an estimated 55% of those eligible for food stamps had signed up for the program in 2008, among the lowest participation rates in the country.

Enrollment has since improved after the state legislature allocated more money for administering the system after coming under pressure from the federal government and being hit with a class action lawsuit. However, Cole says, need has greatly increased as well.

Experts chalk up the minimal services and take-up rates to Texas' anti-welfare attitude. In the Lone Star State, you are expected to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

"The Texas mentality is you don't ask for help," Ferguson said.

Perry, a Republican candidate for president, echoes this view. Asked about the high poverty rate, a governor's spokeswoman said Perry is focusing on creating jobs so Texans can sustain themselves and their families. She pointed out that 95% of the state's jobs are above the minimum wage.

"We're trying to create a culture of independence rather than dependence," said Lucy Nashed, noting the state provides an adequate safety net for children, seniors, the disabled and pregnant mothers.

But advocates say more needs to be done to help people rise or return to self-sufficiency. The state should invest more in public education, job training, health programs and work assistance, such as child care subsidies. Also, it should focus on creating jobs with higher wages and decent benefits.

"We don't have the support system in place to provide economic support or economic opportunity to help families lift themselves out of poverty," said Frances Deviney, senior research associate at the center.


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Nikki Haley Supports HPV Vaccine Too! For Young Minority Girls On Medicaid!

Rising GOP star Haley has own history with HPV vaccine fallout

As the debate over Texas Gov. Rick Perry mandating the HPV vaccine continues between Republican presidential candidates, a woman whose endorsement is coveted by all them, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, has her own complicated history on the issue.

In 2007, shortly before Perry issued an executive order requiring that schoolgirls be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, or HPV, that causes most cervical cancers, Haley was throwing her support behind a similar bill in South Carolina. At the time she was in her second term as a state representative.

State Rep. Joan Brady introduced the Cervical Cancer Prevention Act in South Carolina, and the Republican corralled more than 60 legislators, including Haley, to sponsor the bill. Unlike the executive order for which Perry is taking heat, this legislative mandate did not include a provision for parents to opt out of inoculating their daughters.

Within months, fierce opposition mounted, and legislative records back up accounts from sources who recall sponsors "dropping like flies" before a unanimous vote killed the bill on April 18, 2007.

More than a dozen legislators formally requested to be removed as sponsors from the bill, but the future governor of South Carolina was not one of them.

State Rep. Kris Crawford, a physician who led the debate to discredit the policy resulting in the bill's demise, said even though Haley voted against the bill like everybody else he wondered why she didn't remove herself as a bill sponsor if she opposed the mandate.

"If you're a co-sponsor of a bill and it's a bad bill, take your name off of it," Crawford said.

Haley's office declined to comment and pointed CNN to information about the vote on her campaign website.

Palmetto Family Council President Oran Smith was among the conservative activists actively lobbying legislators to oppose the bill.

"When we finally got to them and explained the full story, they were very quick to pull their names off," Smith recalls. "Sure we wish (Haley) had done that as well, but ultimately when it came up on the big board, she voted the way we wanted her to vote twice."

On her campaign website, Haley acknowledges her initial support for the bill but said in a statement, "Through the legislative process, it became clear to me that an opt-out provision was not going to be included in the bill and it sought to mandate that middle-school girls obtain a vaccine -- and strip parents of the right to make the choice for their daughter. In light of that turn of events, I voted to kill the bill."

Haley voted against the opt-out provision she says in her statement would have made the bill palatable.

Smith said that was likely part of legislative strategy by Haley and other conservative Republicans in the state House to vote against the opt-out provision so the bill with a straight mandate wouldn't have a chance of passing.

Crawford, a Republican, said he is not so sure.

"There are exactly two groups of people who can claim they were against this giant overreaching of government -- those who never sponsored the bill and those who were sponsors but subsequently removed their names from the bill when it was explained to be a boondoggle mandating vaccination of little 12-year-old girls against a sexually transmitted disease," Crawford said. "Everyone else was either for the bill or riding the fence trying to claim victory regardless of outcome."

Smith said, "In our view, the opt-out (amendment) did not remove the mandate; it just purported to remove the mandate. That was a position that then-Rep. Haley accepted, and she ultimately voted with other conservatives to not fall for that amendment."

Sheri Few, president of South Carolina Parents Involved in Education and an adviser to Haley's 2010 gubernatorial campaign, said many of the bill's co-sponsors were "misled" by those pushing it.

"Nikki was not the only one misled -- more than a third of Republicans in the House co-sponsored the bill," Few wrote in a statement on Haley's website. "When the facts came to light, even the primary sponsor moved to kill her own bill and it was defeated -- an action that included (Rep.) Haley's vote against it."

Perry's 2007 executive order was repealed two months later by the Texas Legislature, but the issue has been dogging the governor on the presidential campaign trail.

Read more about Perry's HPV executive order

Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota has criticized her opponent in the GOP presidential race for being politically motivated by Merck & Co. Merck, the first company to offer a Food and Drug Administration-approved HPV vaccine, engaged in a well-documented campaign in 2007 to lobby legislators to pass laws that would add the vaccine to the list of required immunizations before attending public school.

The Texas governor denies those allegations, saying his decision to protect females against cancer-causing HPV resulted after meeting a young woman who later died from cervical cancer.

But Perry has admitted that bypassing the Texas Legislature and employing an executive order was a mistake. On Wednesday, speaking to reporters in Virginia, Perry acknowledged the order "should have had an opt-in instead of an opt-out."

The debate over Perry's executive order reminds Smith of the legislative fight in South Carolina more than four years ago. He said he empathized with Perry when the candidate was asked about his 2007 decision in recent debates.

"It was how I felt in 2007 and 2008. We didn't want cervical cancer to take the lives of women, but at the same time, we were militantly opposed to weakening parental rights," Smith said.

Smith, who advocates an "educate but not mandate" approach to the HPV vaccine, said he believes Perry will need to convince voters motivated by social issues that his HPV vaccine decision is an anomaly in his 10-year tenure as governor.

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Reports of Health Concerns Following HPV Vaccination


VAERS Limitations

VAERS data cannot be used to prove a causal association between the vaccine and the adverse event. The only association between the adverse event and vaccination is temporal, meaning that the adverse event occurred sometime after vaccination. Therefore, the adverse event may be coincidental or it may have been caused by vaccination, however we cannot make any conclusions that the events reported to VAERS were caused by the vaccine.


HPV Vaccine Safety

There are two licensed HPV vaccines, Gardasil® and Cervarix®, available to protect against the types of HPV infection that cause most cervical cancers. Gardasil® was licensed for use in females, age 9-26 years in June 2006 and for males age 9-26 years in Oct 2009. Cervarix® was licensed for use in females age 10-25 in October 2009.

The safety of HPV vaccines was studied in clinical trials worldwide before licensure. For Gardasil® , over 29,000 males and females participated in these trials. For Cervarix®, over 30,000 females participated in several clinical trials.

Since licensure, CDC and FDA have been closely monitoring the safety of HPV vaccines. There are 3 systems used to monitor the safety of vaccines after they are licensed and used in the U.S. These systems can monitor adverse events already known to be caused by vaccines, as well as detect rare adverse events that were not identified during pre-licensure clinical trials. The 3 systems are:

The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)–a useful early warning public health system that helps CDC and FDA detect possible side effects or adverse events following vaccination.

The Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) Project–a collaboration between CDC and 10 health care organizations which monitors and evaluates adverse events following vaccination.

The Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Network– a collaboration between6 academic centers in the U.S. which conduct research on adverse events that might be caused by vaccines.

Reports to VAERS Following Gardasil®

As of June 22, 2011, approximately 35 million doses of Gardasil® were distributed in the U.S. and VAERS received a total of 18,727 reports of adverse events following Gardasil® vaccination: 17,958 reports among females and 346 reports for males, of which 285 reports were received after the vaccine was licensed for males in October 2009. VAERS received 423 reports of unknown gender. Of the total number of VAERS reports following Gardasil®, 92% were considered to be non-serious, and 8% were considered serious.


Non-serious adverse event reports

VAERS defines non-serious adverse events as those other than hospitalization, death, permanent disability, or life-threatening illness.

The vast majority (92%) of the adverse events reports following Gardasil® vaccination have included fainting, pain, and swelling at the injection site (the arm), headache, nausea, and fever. Syncope (fainting) is common after injections and vaccinations, especially in adolescents. Falls after fainting may sometimes cause serious injuries, such as head injuries, which can be prevented by closely observing the person for 15 minutes after vaccination.

Serious adverse event reports

Any VAERS report that indicated hospitalization, permanent disability, life-threatening illness, congenital anomaly or death is classified as serious. As with all VAERS reports, serious events may or may not have been caused by the vaccine.


Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS)

Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) has been reported after vaccination with Gardasil® . GBS is a rare neurologic disorder that causes muscle weakness. It occurs in 1-2 out of every 100,000 people in their teens. A number of infections have been associated with GBS. There has been no indication that Gardasil® increases the rate of GBS above the rate expected in the general population, whether or not they were vaccinated.

Blood Clots

There have been some reports of blood clots in females after receiving Gardasil®. These clots have occurred in the heart, lungs, and legs. Most of these people had a risk of getting blood clots, such as taking oral contraceptives (the birth control pill), smoking, obesity, and other risk factors.


Deaths

As of June 22, 2011 there have been a total 68 VAERS reports of death among those who have received Gardasil® . There were 54 reports among females, 3 were among males, and 11 were reports of unknown gender. Thirty two of the total death reports have been confirmed and 36 remain unconfirmed due to no identifiable patient information in the report such as a name and contact information to confirm the report. A death report is confirmed (verified) after a medical doctor reviews the report and any associated records. In the 32 reports confirmed, there was no unusual pattern or clustering to the deaths that would suggest that they were caused by the vaccine and some reports indicated a cause of death unrelated to vaccination.

VAERS Reports Following Cervarix®

Since licensed in October 2009, uptake of Cervarix® vaccination in the U.S. has been low. As of June 2011, there have been 39 VAERS reports of adverse events following Cervarix® vaccination in the U.S. The majority of these reports (97%) were considered to be non-serious.

Cervarix® has also been in use in other countries such as England and Europe prior to licensing from the FDA.

Summary

Based on all of the information we have today, CDC recommends HPV vaccination for the prevention of most types of cervical cancer. As with all approved vaccines, CDC and FDA will continue to closely monitor the safety of HPV vaccines. Any problems detected with these vaccines will be reported to health officials, healthcare providers, and the public and needed action will be taken to ensure the public's health and safety.


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Sources: Center For Disease Control.gov, CNN, MSNBC, Youtube, Google Maps

Tea Party vs. GOP Establishment: Romney Vs. Perry & Bachmann (Polls)

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New CNN Poll: GOP divided over tea party movement

The Republican Party is split right down the middle between tea party movement supporters and those who do not support the two-and-a-half-year-old movement, according to a new national survey.

Full results (pdf)

And a CNN/ORC International Poll released Thursday also highlights the differences in demographics, ideology, and temperament between the two camps. According to the survey, on some issues, the two wings of the GOP are in accord, but tea party activists and supporters do not speak for the entire Republican Party on issues such as the deficit, global warming, evolution, abortion, gay marriage, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Education, or Social Security.

"Demographically, the tea party movement seems to hearken back to the 'angry white men' who were credited with the GOP's upset victory in the 1994 midterm elections," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Ideologically, it effectively boils down to the century-old contest between the conservative and moderate wings of the party."

According to the survey, roughly half (49 percent) of Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP say they support the tea party movement or are active members, with roughly half (51 percent) saying that they have no feelings one way or another about the tea party or that they oppose the movement.

The poll indicates that demographically, tea party Republicans are more likely to be male, older, and college educated, with non-tea party Republicans more likely to be younger, less educated, female, and less likely to say they are born-again or evangelical. Both groups are predominantly white.

Nearly eight in ten tea party Republicans describe themselves as conservatives, with nearly half of non-tea party Republicans call themselves moderate, or in a few cases, liberal. But the differences are also a matter of temperament: 50 percent of tea party Republicans say they are "very angry" about the way things are going in the country today, compared to just 29 percent of their Republican counterparts.

How does all of that affect their views on the issues of the day?

"One of the biggest differences is on the relative importance of jobs versus the federal deficit. Most tea party Republicans say that Congress and President Barack Obama should pay more attention to the deficit," says Holland. "Most non-tea party Republicans say that reducing unemployment is more important than reducing the deficit."

But the "science" issue is also a strong divider. Nearly six in ten tea party Republicans say that global warming is not a proven fact. Most non-tea party Republicans disagree. Six in ten tea party Republicans say that evolution is wrong. Non-tea party Republicans are split on evolution. Six in ten tea party Republicans say the Department of Education should be abolished, but only one in five of their GOP counterparts holds that same view.

There is also disagreement on social issues: Tea party Republicans are roughly twice as likely to say that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances and roughly half as likely to support gay marriage. Tea party Republicans are also roughly twice as likely to believe that the Social Security system should be replaced, and although most Republicans on either side disagree with the assertion that Social Security is a lie and a failure, tea party GOPers are much more likely to embrace that view.

What will happen to the GOP next year if tea party Republicans don't get their way?

"Nearly half of them say that they are not very likely to support an independent presidential candidate next year - possibly because removing Obama from power is their overwhelming motivation, and they may recognize that bolting the party would ensure his re-election," says Holland.

Eight in ten tea party Republicans say that they would prefer a candidate who can beat Obama over one who agrees with them on top issues, so ideological purity may take a back seat to pragmatic politics in 2012 even if the GOP nominee is not a tea party favorite.

Non-tea party Republicans are somewhat more likely to consider voting for a third-party candidate, and place somewhat less emphasis on beating Obama.

"So it's possible that a bolt from the GOP may come from the moderates rather than the tea party activists and supporters. But there is no way to predict how people will react to inherently unpredictable events, so anything can happen," adds Holland.

The poll was conducted for CNN by ORC International September 9-11, with 446 Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.


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Sources: CNN, MSNBC, Roland Martin, Youtube, Google Maps

HPV (Gardasil) Vaccine Linked To 68 Deaths (CDC)! Targeted At Black & Hispanic Girls!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Reports of Health Concerns Following HPV Vaccination


VAERS Limitations

VAERS data cannot be used to prove a causal association between the vaccine and the adverse event. The only association between the adverse event and vaccination is temporal, meaning that the adverse event occurred sometime after vaccination. Therefore, the adverse event may be coincidental or it may have been caused by vaccination, however we cannot make any conclusions that the events reported to VAERS were caused by the vaccine.


HPV Vaccine Safety

There are two licensed HPV vaccines, Gardasil® and Cervarix®, available to protect against the types of HPV infection that cause most cervical cancers. Gardasil® was licensed for use in females, age 9-26 years in June 2006 and for males age 9-26 years in Oct 2009. Cervarix® was licensed for use in females age 10-25 in October 2009.

The safety of HPV vaccines was studied in clinical trials worldwide before licensure. For Gardasil® , over 29,000 males and females participated in these trials. For Cervarix®, over 30,000 females participated in several clinical trials.

Since licensure, CDC and FDA have been closely monitoring the safety of HPV vaccines. There are 3 systems used to monitor the safety of vaccines after they are licensed and used in the U.S. These systems can monitor adverse events already known to be caused by vaccines, as well as detect rare adverse events that were not identified during pre-licensure clinical trials. The 3 systems are:

The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)–a useful early warning public health system that helps CDC and FDA detect possible side effects or adverse events following vaccination.

The Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) Project–a collaboration between CDC and 10 health care organizations which monitors and evaluates adverse events following vaccination.

The Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Network– a collaboration between6 academic centers in the U.S. which conduct research on adverse events that might be caused by vaccines.

Reports to VAERS Following Gardasil®

As of June 22, 2011, approximately 35 million doses of Gardasil® were distributed in the U.S. and VAERS received a total of 18,727 reports of adverse events following Gardasil® vaccination: 17,958 reports among females and 346 reports for males, of which 285 reports were received after the vaccine was licensed for males in October 2009. VAERS received 423 reports of unknown gender. Of the total number of VAERS reports following Gardasil®, 92% were considered to be non-serious, and 8% were considered serious.


Non-serious adverse event reports

VAERS defines non-serious adverse events as those other than hospitalization, death, permanent disability, or life-threatening illness.

The vast majority (92%) of the adverse events reports following Gardasil® vaccination have included fainting, pain, and swelling at the injection site (the arm), headache, nausea, and fever. Syncope (fainting) is common after injections and vaccinations, especially in adolescents. Falls after fainting may sometimes cause serious injuries, such as head injuries, which can be prevented by closely observing the person for 15 minutes after vaccination.

Serious adverse event reports

Any VAERS report that indicated hospitalization, permanent disability, life-threatening illness, congenital anomaly or death is classified as serious. As with all VAERS reports, serious events may or may not have been caused by the vaccine.


Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS)

Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) has been reported after vaccination with Gardasil® . GBS is a rare neurologic disorder that causes muscle weakness. It occurs in 1-2 out of every 100,000 people in their teens. A number of infections have been associated with GBS. There has been no indication that Gardasil® increases the rate of GBS above the rate expected in the general population, whether or not they were vaccinated.

Blood Clots

There have been some reports of blood clots in females after receiving Gardasil®. These clots have occurred in the heart, lungs, and legs. Most of these people had a risk of getting blood clots, such as taking oral contraceptives (the birth control pill), smoking, obesity, and other risk factors.


Deaths

As of June 22, 2011 there have been a total 68 VAERS reports of death among those who have received Gardasil® . There were 54 reports among females, 3 were among males, and 11 were reports of unknown gender. Thirty two of the total death reports have been confirmed and 36 remain unconfirmed due to no identifiable patient information in the report such as a name and contact information to confirm the report. A death report is confirmed (verified) after a medical doctor reviews the report and any associated records. In the 32 reports confirmed, there was no unusual pattern or clustering to the deaths that would suggest that they were caused by the vaccine and some reports indicated a cause of death unrelated to vaccination.

VAERS Reports Following Cervarix®

Since licensed in October 2009, uptake of Cervarix® vaccination in the U.S. has been low. As of June 2011, there have been 39 VAERS reports of adverse events following Cervarix® vaccination in the U.S. The majority of these reports (97%) were considered to be non-serious.

Cervarix® has also been in use in other countries such as England and Europe prior to licensing from the FDA.

Summary

Based on all of the information we have today, CDC recommends HPV vaccination for the prevention of most types of cervical cancer. As with all approved vaccines, CDC and FDA will continue to closely monitor the safety of HPV vaccines. Any problems detected with these vaccines will be reported to health officials, healthcare providers, and the public and needed action will be taken to ensure the public's health and safety.


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Sources: Center For Disease Control.gov, CNN, MSNBC, Youtube, Google Maps

Rick Perry Woos Young, Conservative Voters At Liberty University

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Rick Perry At Liberty University: Faith And Foreign Policy Mixed In Evangelical Address

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry filled in details of his personal and spiritual biography Wednesday in a speech at the nation's largest evangelical Christian college, and outlined an approach to foreign policy that he said would imitate the nation's 40th president, Republican Ronald Reagan.

Texas Gov. Perry was introduced as a possible second coming of Reagan by Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr., who said he appreciated Perry's willingness to talk off the cuff in a way that is politically incorrect. Falwell Jr. specifically mentioned Perry's oblique comments regarding whether Texas might at some point secede from the United States.

Most of Perry's remarks followed the arc of his life. He cast himself as an earthy, common man, pulled himself up from a hardscrabble childhood in Paint Creek, Texas.

"For me, indoor plumbing was a bit of a luxury until I was about five years old," Perry said. "I didn't worry about the latest fashions. My mother sewed most of my clothes. And I didn't know that we weren't wealthy in a material sense. I knew that we were rich in a lot of things that really mattered, a spiritual way."

He made light of his poor performance as a student. Of his 1968 graduation from Paint Creek High School, he said, "I graduated in the top 10 of my graduating class -- of 13."

And he sought to explain why his college transcript was filled with C's and D's, saying he intended to be a veterinarian but found he was not cut out for it. "Four semesters of organic chemistry made a pilot out of me," he joked.

Perry sketched out a searching, uncertain youth: "I spent many a night pondering my purpose, talking to God, wondering what to do with this one life, among the billions that were on the planet. What I learned as I wrestled with God is that I didn't have to have all the answers, that they would be revealed to me in due time, that I needed to trust him."

But, Perry said, he did not find his own Christian faith until he was 27.

"My faith journey is not the story of someone who turned to God because I wanted to. It was because I had nowhere else to turn. I was 27. I'd been an officer in the United States Air Force commanding a fairly substantial piece of sophisticated equipment, telling men and women what to do. But I was lost spiritually and emotionally. And I didn't know how to fix it," Perry said.

At another point in the speech he said that "Christian values" should be given supremacy over other religions in guiding the U.S. government.

"America is going to be guided by some set of values. The question is gonna be, whose values?" Perry said. "It's those Christian values that this country was based upon."

While many evangelicals will want to hear more about Perry's personal conversion experience, for now the speech was a platform for Perry to regain some of the momentum lost over the last week.

Perry's first two debates as a presidential candidate have left him bloodied. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has attacked him for his past statements on Social Security, accusing him of wanting to end the program. And on Monday night, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) savaged Perry for his 2007 attempt to mandate an HPV vaccine for sixth-grade girls at a time when his former chief of staff was a lobbyist for the drug maker, Merck, which would have manufactured the vaccine.

Polls this week have shown some signs that voters are beginning to doubt his ability to beat President Obama in a general election, though he still maintains a large lead over Romney in national polls. While that data is of some significance, it does not tell the story of the candidate's standing in key early primary states.

Perry also meandered Monday night in his answer on how the U.S. should proceed in Afghanistan. And some saw his call to "bring our young men and women home" as a nod to a more isolationist form of foreign policy that has emerged among some on the right.

But the Texan went out of his way to articulate a vision for engagement with the world, not withdrawal.

"Our response cannot be to isolate ourselves within our own borders but to engage our allies in the quest to build these enduring alliances around the globe for freedom," he said.

The central thrust of his foreign policy message was that the U.S. should be "the world's leading advocate for freedom," addressing the problem of oppression that he said he originally saw first hand as an Air Force pilot flying a C-130 transport plane through the mid-1970s.

"We must do what Ronald Reagan did at the apex of the Cold War, which is to speak past the oppressors and the illegitimate rulers and directly to their people -- the ones who live behind the walls of oppression while yearning to be free," Perry said.

Falwell Jr., the son of Liberty founder Jerry Falwell -- who died in 2007 -- said in his introduction that the current moment is similar to 1980, when Reagan ran against incumbent President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat. It was a clear comparison of Perry to Reagan, a parallel that has been discussed recently even in the Wall Street Journal.

"Thirty-one years ago this fall as a Liberty freshman, I sat mesmerized as a conservative governor from a large state told a much smaller convocation about his vision for America," Falwell Jr. said. "At that time, America was mired in an economic malaise and seemed to be waning in its standing in the world. Overreaching government control had fueled double-digit interest rates and inflation. As young college students, we feared -- just as many of you do now -- that our nation's future was in jeopardy. Ronald Reagan was that governor, and he was elected president soon thereafter, and over the following eight years he returned America to prominence and prosperity."

Falwell Jr. then welcomed Perry to the podium saying, "I have a feeling today that history is about to repeat itself."


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Sources: CNN, Huffington Post, MSNBC, Youtube, Google Maps

Perry Or Romney If Elected WILL Adopt G.W. Bush's Social Security Privatization Plan!

All eyes on Social Security

With Rick Perry instantly assuming the top spot among candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, it is no surprise that nearly every other man and woman on stage with him at last night's debate took aim.

Citing his executive order mandating inoculations against a sexually transmitted disease that can lead to cervical cancer, Michele Bachmann expressed outrage that Perry, she said, had "forced" "government injections" of 12-year-old girls. Jon Huntsman archly claimed that Perry's skepticism about a border fence was nothing short of "treasonous." Ron Paul accused Perry, his fellow Texan, of raising his taxes, increasing the state's debt, and expanding the state government's workforce.

The most extended critique of Perry, though, came right out of the gate, from Mitt Romney. Romney accused Perry of trying to scare senior citizens and ruin the Republican Party by calling Social Security unconstitutional, a Ponzi scheme and a failure.

Of all the jabs at Perry last night, these mattered most. Social Security stands out as the most important topic generating substantive disagreement among the top Republican contenders. In a debate that vacillated between broad principles of national defense and the rule of law on the one hand, and small government initiatives conducted at the state and federal levels on the other, this particular exchange featured disagreements about one of the oldest, largest and most popular entitlement programs in the country.

Just as important, the exchange between Romney and Perry over Social Security underscored their competing views about the meaning of limited government. In their first sentences about entitlement reform, these candidates stand together for reducing waste, slashing fraud and trimming the federal government. It is in the second and third sentences, though, that the differences become clearer.

For Perry, power should devolve to the states, and the federal government should maintain operations over only those policy domains for which it has a clear constitutional responsibility. As he noted in his opening remarks last night, the very reason he wants to be president is to make Washington less consequential in the lives of Americans. When asked later about Social Security, Perry went out of his way to offer assurances that the benefits for current and near retirees would remain intact -- "slam dunk, guaranteed," as he put it. But he persisted in characterizing the issue of Social Security reform primarily as one of increased state control. "The issue is, are there ways to move the states into Social Security, for state employees or for retirees."

Romney, by contrast, has proposed a variety of measures that in his view will shore up Social Security without either increasing taxes or reducing the federal government's involvement. Though he didn't lay them out Monday night, the components of Romney's plan include the raising of the retirement age, the creation of personal retirement investment accounts for younger workers, and the indexing of benefits to prices rather than wages, as is currently done.

Between the two at last night's debate, Perry was the clear audience favorite. But should Perry win the nomination, we can expect President Obama to pick up right where Romney left off on Social Security. On the other hand, if Romney can survive a Republican primary season in which the median voter is vastly more conservative than in the general election, then the terms of next year's debate about Social Security will be vastly more conventional -- to the great relief of moderates and frustration of the tea party sponsors of last night's debate.


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Sources: CNBC, CNN, Youtube, Google Maps

GOP 2012 Candidates NOT Interested In JOBS During CNN's Tea Party Debate!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Quote of the Day: Axelrod on why GOP debate lacked real substance

David Axelrod, senior strategist for President Obama's re-election campaign:

“I think if you are an independent voter watching that debate last night, you’d kind of scratch your head and say ‘How can we spend 10 minutes talking about whether we should have created Social Security and not one minute on education?’ ‘How can we spend all this time talking about the inoculation program in Texas and not talk about how we get research development and innovation going in this country?’ There was nothing there. The only thing they seem to agree on is that we ought to roll back Wall Street reforms and give Wall Street the right to write its own rules again, and I don’t think anyone believes that’s the answer to our economic problems."


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Sources: CNN, The Guardian, MSNBC, Google Maps

Obama Vs. 2012 Tea Party Selected GOP Candidate: Obama Wins!

Obama in Close Race Against Romney, Perry, Bachmann, Paul

President Barack Obama is closely matched against each of four possible Republican opponents when registered voters are asked whom they would support if the 2012 presidential election were held today. Mitt Romney leads Obama by two percentage points, 48% to 46%, Rick Perry and Obama are tied at 47%, and Obama edges out Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann by two and four points, respectively.

These prospective election ballots -- measured Aug. 17-18, well over a year before the Nov. 6, 2012, election -- indicate that the race for president at this point is generally competitive, with voters fairly evenly divided in their preference for giving Obama a second term or electing a Republican candidate. Even though the four Republican candidates tested have varying degrees of name recognition, they all fare roughly the same.

Gallup's generic presidential ballot -- measured six times this year -- shows a close race between Obama and a generic "Republican presidential candidate," although there have been survey-to-survey variations on this measure, with the Republican candidate leading in June and July.



President Obama's job approval rating is hovering around the 40% mark. This is below the rating that any of the six incumbent presidents re-elected since Eisenhower has had at the time of the presidential election.

However, in August of the year before they were re-elected, Ronald Reagan (43%) and Bill Clinton (46%) were both below 50%. Obama's position of rough parity against leading GOP candidates shows that more Americans at the moment say they would vote for Obama than approve of the job he is doing -- perhaps a reflection of the continuing lack of a strong front-runner on the Republican side.

With the first official votes for the Republican nomination more than five months away, and with the very real possibility that GOP candidates such as Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, and George Pataki may jump into the race, much could still change as the election process unfolds. A look at presidential election trial heats conducted in the late summer of the year before previous elections reveals that such change is quite common:

In August 1999, Texas Gov. George W. Bush led Vice President Al Gore by 55% to 41% in a Gallup trial heat poll. That race ended up in a virtual dead heat, with Gore ultimately winning slightly more of the national popular vote than Bush.

In August 1995, Kansas Sen. Bob Dole was slightly ahead of President Bill Clinton in a Gallup poll, 48% to 46%. On Election Day 1996, Clinton beat Dole by eight points.
In August 1983, President Ronald Reagan was ahead of Democrat Walter Mondale by only one point, 44% to 43%. Reagan went on to beat Mondale in a 59% to 41% landslide in the November 1984 election.

In August 1979, incumbent President Jimmy Carter was tied with former California Gov. Reagan -- each getting 45% of the vote. Reagan ultimately defeated Carter by 10 points.

Voters Favor Their Party, but Republicans Lend Less Support to Bachmann, Paul

Democratic and Republican registered voters display strong allegiance for their party's candidate across these election match-ups. Democrats are the most consistent, voting for Obama to about the same degree regardless of who the GOP candidate is.

Republicans exhibit a little more variation, giving their strongest support to Perry (92% would vote for him) and Romney (91%), weaker support to Bachmann (86%), and the weakest support to Paul (82%). Independents tilt at least slightly toward voting for Romney, Perry, and Paul against Obama, while tilting slightly toward Obama when he is pitted against Bachmannn.


Bottom Line

President Obama is at the moment in a rough parity position when registered voters are asked whether they would vote for him in election matchups against four potential Republican candidates. Romney fares slightly better than the other GOP candidates, and Bachmann slightly worse, but these are not large differences. Gallup research shows that these types of election measures at this stage in the campaign are not highly stable, and one can expect changes in the relative positioning of Obama and various GOP candidates in the months ahead.




The Tea Party Will Select the GOP's 2012 Nominee

The tea party movement is the driving force in American politics.

In every aspect of our politics — both in campaigns, in state Houses and up on Capitol Hill — the tea party movement is reshaping the debate on debt and the role and scope of government.

This grass-roots, bottom-up movement completely dominated the 2010 GOP senatorial, congressional, and gubernatorial primaries — and won almost every contested GOP race. Even long-time conservative senators were defeated in GOP conventions and primaries because, in the eyes of the tea party, they were “too liberal” on fiscal issues.

But not every tea party GOP nominee won their general election races. The two most notable losers of races that a better GOP candidate would probably have won were Delaware (Christine O’Donnell) and Nevada (Sharron Angle).

With the power of the tea party movement in mind, the best way to analyze the 2012 GOP presidential field is through a tea party prism. No candidate is going to be the 2012 GOP nominee unless the tea party embraces him or her.

Thus, we can begin to eliminate candidates who are unacceptable to the tea party movement:
Mitt Romney has gone out of his way to distance himself from tea partyers; his Romneycare health bill dooms him.

Haley Barbour was a two-decade long inside-the-Beltway lobbyist; the tea party abhors lobbyists, insiders, and those who have lived off the political system.
Jon Huntsman — who, you ask? — can forget it. Known in Utah as a “liberal” Republican who then served as Obama’s ambassador to China cannot win the support of the tea party.

Newt Gingrich? Too self-promoting, too many marriages, too mouthy, and he has no credibility.

Donald Trump? While many agree with his China rhetoric, he is un-electable. He cannot survive serious scrutiny. But, before that happens, he does excite tea partyers with his “outsider” image — it is indeed just an image. Trump has played footsie with long-time Democrat incumbents and funded their campaigns. The tea party doesn’t know that yet, but they will. And they will not embrace him.

Forget the other also-rans, too, like Rick Santorum and Rudy Giuliani. No one digs them at all. They are yesterday’s news.

OK, so who can be the darling of the tea party movement, but not necessarily someone who can win the general election?

Today, they are focusing on Michelle Bachmann, who senses that there is no one else right now who excites the tea party. They have loved Sarah Palin — and still might if she runs. But her recent absence from the scene has opened up the way for others. Bachmann is just Palin 2.0.

Tim Pawlenty is trying to be all things to all people. He’s trying to have one foot in the GOP establishment camp and the other foot in the tea party camp. The problem is that when you try to be all things to all people, you often end up being nothing to anybody. Pawlenty is also boring, which is a fatal problem in the era of TV in politics.

Gov. Mitch Daniels is dithering about running. He has a tea party-friendly economic story to tell, but he appears to lack the fire in the belly for this 2012 race.
Huckabee is still very much alive as a candidate — although rumors abound that he is not going to run because he’s making a ton of dough on TV — and he appeals to Evangelicals and to some tea partyers, but not all. He is the front-runner right now, but a weak one.

Ron Paul is more of a libertarian than a tea partyer, but he does have strong, devoted supporters. He is a good man, but he will not be the GOP nominee or the tea party candidate.

Conclusion: the tea party will select the 2012 GOP nominee. That is not to say that candidate will win the White House. For example, Michele Bachmann could be the Christine O’Donnell/Sharron Angle of the 2012 GOP presidential race: she might win the support of the tea party movement, but she is un-electable in the general election because independent voters will not vote for her.

We on the right have a big problem: we have no one running (yet) who can win both the support of the tea party and can then win over the crucial independent voters in the fall of 2012.

Obama can be beaten, but only if the exact right kind of candidate runs against him.

So we have to keep looking for just such a candidate.


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Sources: Gallup.com, MSNBC, NewsMax, Youtube, Google Maps

Obama Vows He's Ready For GOP In 2012; Cuts Perry "Some Slack" (Video)

Obama: I'll be ready for GOP in 2012

President Barack Obama was largely dismissive of the Republican presidential field Tuesday, claiming that he's not thinking too much about any of his potential 2012 opponents at the moment.

"I'll let (the Republicans) winnow it down a little bit," Obama told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in a one-on-one interview. But once the GOP chooses a presidential standard bearer for 2012, "I'll be ready for them," the president promised.

Obama made his remarks during what many analysts have characterized as a three-day campaign-style swing through the key Midwestern states of Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois.

Asked to respond to Texas Gov. Rick Perry's assertion that members of the armed services would prefer a commander in chief who served in the military, Obama said presidential candidates have "got to be careful" about what they say. But as Perry just got into the presidential race, Obama said, he will "cut (Perry) some slack" for the moment.

Regarding former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's remarks that "corporations are people," Obama conceded that corporations play a critical role in the generation of wealth but stressed his disagreement with some conservatives over the closure of tax loopholes benefiting certain major corporations.

"If you tell me that corporations are vital to American life, that the free enterprise system has been the greatest wealth creator we've ever seen ... that I absolutely agree with," Obama said. But "if on the other hand you tell me that every corporate tax break that's out there is some how good for ordinary Americans ... then that I disagree with."

Ultimately, Obama conceded, the "buck stops with me" when it comes to the economy. "I'm going to be accountable" in 2012, he said.

But the president was quick to emphasize the "mess" he inherited from former President George W. Bush in 2009. He also blamed the economic drag created by state and local government layoffs, as well as "headwinds over the past six months" coming from Europe's debt crisis and a tsunami-ravaged Japan

"Everything we've done has been related to jobs, starting with the (2009) recovery act," Obama said. The president stressed, however, that he is "going to need a partner" in Congress -- now partially controlled by the Republicans -- in order to pass legislation needed to strengthen the economy in the short term.

While admitting that politically popular entitlement programs such as Medicare are contributing to Washington's spiraling deficits, Obama refused to offer details about what he is willing to do to help control medical costs. He stressed the need to lower health care costs as a whole, as opposed to going along with what he characterized as GOP attempts to "voucherize" Medicare and leave more responsibility for health expenses in the hands of vulnerable seniors.



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Sources: CNN, Think Progress, Youtube, Google Maps