The Dallas Morning News broke the story that Rick Perry has handed out $16 million in taxpayer dollars from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund to companies tied to his top political contributors. Perry’s public corruption scandal showed that he gave his “close friend” and campaign contributor David Nance $4.5 million handout, despite the fact that Nance side-stepped two review boards to receive the handout
Gov. Rick Perry and the state's legislative leaders awarded a $4.5 million grant to a cancer treatment company launched by David Nance, a close Perry friend and campaign donor, after the company sidestepped two review committees, including a statewide board created specifically to evaluate and make recommendations on life-science companies.
Rick Perry sells state government and public office to his campaign donors. His use of political appointees as arms of his campaign re-election team is one of the easiest and most thoroughly documented examples of his unending corruption. Overall, Perry’s pay-to-play public corruption practices have rewarded him with $17 million in campaign cash from his political appointees and their spouses. From a report based on contributions through the July 30 reporting periods by Texans for Public Justice:
From 2001 through June 2010 Perry’s campaign received $17,115,865 from 921 of these appointees or their spouses. Gubernatorial appointees accounted for an impressive 21 percent of the $83.2 million that Perry’s campaign has raised since 2001.
An analysis by the Texas Tribune showed that Perry collected $5.8 million from people who he appointed to influential positions at the state's colleges and universities.
According to state schedules, Perry has used taxpayer-funded staff and other state resources for his campaign purposes, a clear violation of the law. Perry has covered-up his secret state schedules to avoid being held accountable, and for years has maintained a practice of deleting all e-mails after one week. Perry’s office has admitted they keep two calendars.
When Perry was questioned about his spare schedule in an interview with WFAA-TV last month, he estimated he works “12 to 14 hours” a day, and further said, “I consider everything I’m doing state business.” His Sept. 15 schedule shows governor’s staff was tasked with briefing Perry on tort reform in advance of a political endorsement, and that two former gubernatorial appointees were listed as point persons at a roundtable and a dinner hosted for Perry at a Houston couple’s residence.
An investigative report by the Dallas Morning News showed that Rick Perry coordinated with two business partners to flip land he purchased and sold in order to profit more than $500,000. Perry covered-up this scandal by refusing to release the public listing agreement, attempting to hide the identity of the land buyer and hiding the fact that the buyer was a business partner with the original seller.
The Dallas Morning News found evidence that Perry's investment was enhanced by a series of professional courtesies and personal favors from friends, campaign donors and the head of a Texas family with a rich history of political power-brokering. Together they may have enriched Perry by almost $500,000, according to an independent real estate appraisal commissioned by The News.
When it is all added up, Perry made at least $573,238 in profit from the land deal.
In 2007, Texans learned of of a massive sex abuse scandal at the Texas Youth Commission. When news of the scandal broke, Governor Rick Perry claimed he knew nothing about the abuse until he saw it in the paper. That was a lie. In fact, Governor Perry and his office were informed of a stalled investigation into the abuse as early as February 2005, two years before news reports first came out.
Gov. Rick Perry's staff knew as early as June 2005 that two administrators at a Texas Youth Commission facility were not being prosecuted on allegations of sexually abusing youths in their custody, according to records obtained Tuesday by the Houston Chronicle.
Two months ago, four leading advocacy groups that have worked with TYC for years issued a statement saying that systemic abuse at TYC still remains. Immediately, Perry’s board members at TYC denied the allegations, despite irrefutable evidence to the contrary, and have stonewalled the story ever since.
Ed. Note: This is the first part of a ten-part wrap-up of Rick Perry's history of cover-up and corruption that will run on Burnt Orange Report today.
On October 19, a smoking gun memo surfaced detailing how Perry appointed friends and donors to the Teacher Retirement System Board who steered hundreds of millions of teacher dollars - and millions in fees - to firms run by Perry donors. In 2000, when Perry took office, the TRS had more assets than it needed to fund retiree benefits for more than 30 years. But now, the TRS has an unfunded liability of $21.6 billion.
Campos' investigation, done under an ongoing $820,000 contract with the retirement system, cleared the board members and the fund's chief investment officer of wrongdoing. The retirement system was quick to release the confidential Campos report last week to tamp down questions raised by a 2009 memo written by former investment executive Michael Green.
[...]
The firm did not go through the normal hiring process for the investment counsel job. The 28-month contract is worth up to $820,000.
Rick Perry has made two announcements of national significance this weekend: he is going on a national book tour and he won't commit to a full term as Governor.
Speaking on a campaign plane between Lubbock and Midland, Perry said he would keep up the pressure by staging a book tour soon after the election. He said he's putting himself on the national stage to promote states' rights, not his own career. Asked if he might run for president in 2012, the governor said, "No. I've answered that about as many times and as many ways as I can."
If his message propels him to another term as governor, however, Perry is not guaranteeing he will serve the full four years.
"I'm guaranteeing people that I'll get in there and do the best job I can for 'em as governor," Perry told reporters on a flight from Lubbock to Midland during Friday's West Texas campaign swing. "I just think it's always very premature to be making a statement about what you're going to be doing two, four, six or eight years from now - I don't ever take anything off the table."
"Staging a self-promoting book tour in the face of a crisis? We deserve a real leader, not a yell leader. I will tackle the budget crisis by squeezing efficiency out of Texans' tax dollars, while Perry's going to be squeezing dollars out of his book tour," said Bill White.
"Only a relentlessly self-promoting, 25-year career politician could dream of launching a book tour three months before what will be the most important legislative session in decades as Texas faces down a $25 billion budget deficit. Texans are 'Fed Up!' with a governor who's only in it for himself and will be firing him on Tuesday. So he'll have a lot of time for those Barnes and Nobles in Iowa and New Hampshire," said Katy Bacon, campaign spokesperson.
Perry's national ambitions have been in question for some time. Jim Henson with the University of Texas thinks he'll run for President:
“I don’t think anybody should expect Rick Perry to announce any plans he has when he’s concluding a campaign that was hinged on defining Washington, D.C., as toxic,” said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project and a lecturer in the government department at the University of Texas at Austin.
Henson predicted Perry’s debut in the race for presidential nominee: His supporters will draft him as a successful governor who must come albeit reluctantly — to Washington to clean it up.
Republicans must be so used to disenfranchising Latino voters that they can't help themselves...
Today -- on the last day of early vote -- Perry's campaign released a video on their Spanish-language website and on their Spanish-language Facebook page that encourages everyone to vote early "beginning today." The video was released about five hours ago and only has 12 views (I'm guessing all but 4-5 of them are from me). Here's the video, with the script for the video, and remember they just released this TODAY:
Hi, I’m Alejandro Garcia, spokesperson for the Rick Perry campaign. Beginning today you can vote early. If you are a person of faith, family, conservative values, vote for Rick Perry. These are the most important values to him and for us. If you want a governor who will keep Texas as the best state in the country for jobs, Rick Perry is your candidate. Take your family and friends, and let’s keep moving Texas forward.
Additionally, in the eleven days since its been on Facebook, only three people have "liked" one of Perry's other Spanish-language ads -- and all three are staffers of Rick Perry. See the photo of Perry's other Spanish-language fail here.
Much like he has with his social media campaign, Rick Perry and his team have made a lot of noise about how they are really doing great to reach out to Hispanic voters. It's a shame that the press corps gives them so much ink every time they pronounce this; hopefully, they will follow up with the fact that -- quite clearly -- the Perry campaign has been and never was serious about reaching out to Latinos.
Texas House and Senate Democrats unleashed a diatribe today against Gov. Rick Perry during a conference call with reporters, lambasting what they say is an underhanded attempt to promote Arizona-style immigration laws in his recent attack ad against Democratic challenger Bill White.
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Sen. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio, says the spot is “disingenuous and offensive.” Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, says it's best described by the Spanish word asco (disgust) and that it is evidence Perry has shifted toward a hard-line stance on state enforcement of immigration laws.
“I think it’s very hurtful for the governor — who has said to the Latino community that he did not think Arizona-type legislation was appropriate for us — to then turn on us,” Van de Putte said during the call. The ad makes no specific reference to Arizona’s controversial SB 1070 — most of which was gutted by a district judge whose decision is now on appeal — but Uresti says people could read between the lines.
“There is a hidden message there, which is ‘We’re going to bring in immigration reform via Arizona-style type laws.’ It is very clear. So he is talking out of both sides of his mouth,” he says.
[...]
State Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, says Perry is scapegoating Latinos to pursue his ultimate goal: deflecting attention away from more pressing issues.
“He [Perry] uses these distractions to ignore our priorities, including our $25 billion budget crisis, our broken school finance system, and the fact that 6.4 million Texans are without health care,” he says. “That’s where the debate and discussion should lie in this election, and I for one am tired of our community being used as a political football when it’s convenient.”
Late Wednesday night, videos normally found on the "Liberal Bill" YouTube channel were not working. When users tried to click on the videos, a message popped up saying, "This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated due to multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement."
[...]
White's campaign said the incident was an example of Perry ignoring the rules.
"It's no surprise that Rick Perry's illegal activity caught up to him" said Katy Bacon, White's campaign spokeswoman. "Perry was hoping to 'Tweeter' his way to victory, but late Wednesday night encountered the biggest "Fail Whale" of them all as his YouTube channel full of false, negative attacks was shut down in the critical days before the election."
Here's a look at the videos, from what I could gather, that violated copyright provisions. Thanks to friends for helping me compile this list:
Bill White's Chicago Way -- The video originally featured Sufjan Stevens' Chicago, but the campaign was forced to remove that. Their Facebook link to the video still discusses the Sufjan Stevens song in the background -- only now when you try to play it, it doesn't work. Their since re-uploaded the video with different music.
Bill White's Friends -- The original link was removed by Warner Bros. You can see the dead version of the video on the Texas Tribune post about the video.
The Campaign About Nothing -- The video was a spoof using Seinfeld. A Google search for the video takes you straight to the Liberal Bill website -- where access is now denied because, once again, the video had to get taken down.
Do It -- A parody video got pulled down -- as you can see from Perry's Facebook page.
Bill White's -- Yes We Can -- Featured the Black Eyed Peas Yes We Can, and this ad was even featured today on the Encyclopedia Britannica blog. Appropriately enough, the video has since been pulled down for violation of copyright laws.
The Rick Perry campaign, since their YouTube account was pulled down tomorrow evening, has since moved many of the videos from their "Liberal Bill" channel over to the campaign's official channel -- but the damage has been done. The SEO loss of losing an entire YouTube channel is pretty phenomenal; every link from every e-mail, every website posting, every Facebook update, every tweet, every newspaper story that embedded one of the videos -- all of that is now lost.
Will it have a major impact on the election, one way or another? Probably not. The race will be won by field in the final days, not a YouTube channel. But it is another clear and extraordinary example of how poorly Rick Perry's campaign has executed its online strategy -- whether it is astroturfing on Twitter or having over 103,000 fewer fans on Facebook than Bill White.
In the end, I guess there are some laws that even Rick Perry can't break.
