"Part-Time Perry" vs. "BTEC Bill"

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http://blogs.chron.com/texaspolitics/archives/2010/06/white_christens.html

June 17, 2010

Democrat Bill White is again taking aim at Gov. Rick Perry's work ethic, disclosing more of an official schedule that lists less than a full plate for the GOP incumbent.

Perry, who spent the early part of this year fending off a primary challenge from U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, worked an average of seven hours a week from January through May, White said in releasing Perry's schedule .

"He's far and above the highest-paid employee on an hourly basis," White said, vowing that if he succeeds Perry, "I will set a good example for state employees."

White criticized the schedule as loaded with photo ops and press conferences but little substance on issues such as addressing the looming $18 billion budget shortfall.

Among examples, White said, "He had time to meet with the CEO of BP but he didn't have time to meet with the families of those who had lost loved ones ... or to meet with those in the offshore industry that is so critical to our state."

Perry spokesman Mark Miner said that "being governor is a 24 hour a day, seven day a week job" and that Perry treats it as such.

Miner said Perry "has a record of balancing budgets for his time as governor" and pointed to Houston's fiscal problems after the former mayor's tenure.

"This is nothing more than a diversion for Bill White to hide the fact that he's under an ethical cloud of corruption for steering business to a company that he had financial ties with during Hurricane Rita," Miner said.

White -- whom Miner calls BTEC Bill after the company in question -- has said he did nothing wrong and that the charge is a lie.

[sonias]

1. Seven hours a week Perry

Can you imagine how much more damage Perry could do if he worked full time?

Perry is really the poster child for republican corporate welfare - he's out there screaming about cutting back services and having the agencies tighten their belts, but at the same time - he's flying and living in first class style on either the taxpayers' money or his corporate masters who own him.

And the media barely nudge him. That secretly paid junket to Isreal should be huge news, instead http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=180x64481">one lonely TV News show has covered it.

The recent news about the continuing abuse of kids being forced to fight in state institutions is barely getting any coverage outside of the Texas Tribune and Texas Observer. The larger media "mainstream" newspapers aren't even bothering. And this was a big issue last session with the taped "Fight Club" fights in Corpus Christi state institutions.

Perry should absolutely be fired for his irresponsible lack of leadership on protecting our kids in Texas. The TYC scandal was on his watch, the Fight Club issue was on his watch and the fighting in those schools continues today.

Texas Tribune 6/6/10
Forced to Fight
Workers at a center for distressed children provoked seven developmentally disabled girls into a fight of biting and bruising, while they laughed, cheered and promised the winners a precious prize: after-school snacks.

Four of the girls were injured, according to records obtained by The Texas Tribune and the Houston Chronicle. State officials learned of the incident at Daystar Residential Inc. in Manvel the day after it occurred, when a Daystar employee doing health checks found bite marks, scrapes and bruises on the girls’ bodies.

The fight was one of more than 250 incidents of confirmed abuse and mistreatment in residential treatment centers over the last two years, based on the Chronicle/Tribune review of state records.

But unlike last year’s scandal at the Corpus Christi State School, where staffers were found to have forced mentally disabled adults to fight one another, there were no impassioned calls for reform. No criminal indictments sought against the perpetrators. And no lawmakers publicly grilling a state agency about how it could have happened.

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2. Can you imagine how much more damage Perry could do if he worked full time?

Yikes. I didn't think about it like that. Good point!
:hi: