Who's the Traitor?

As a blogger, I've tried to avoid being too inflammatory in my statements. I know this is a view not shared by most of the residents of blogistan, but at least I'm trying most of the time. If you want inflammatory, try me about 6:30 am at Lil Peach after we get back to school. I'm the moderate amidst a conservative cabal.

It appears that the latest entrant in the Republican Presidential race, Rick Perry, doesn't believe in cooling the rhetoric, however. In declaring his candidacy over the weekend he called Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke "almost treacherous, or treasonous," saying "we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas" if the Federal Reserve printed more money to ease the recession.

Today's blog is late because I've been doing research at two of my favorite sites Project Vote Smart (www.votesmart.org) and FollowtheMoney.org (www.followthemoney.org). The finance and insurance sector has been the number 1 contributor to Perry's gubernatorial campaigns so I guess he does know just how ugly they'd treat him down in Texas. There's a joke going around that big business likes Republican politicians because they don't cost as much as Democrats which, of course, can be taken two ways. Still, Perry could be right that curing the recession with inflationary currency might not be the best solution.

I also learned that Rick doesn't have much truck with the idea of evolution although I'd expect a BS in Animal Science at Texas A&M might have been exposed to the science behind this concept. When asked about another Texas governor as President, Perry proudly said "George W. Bush went to Yale, I went to Texas A&M" which prompted Conan O'Brien to ask "Is America ready for a President who's not as smart as George W. Bush?"

OK, on to the traitor issue. It seems that Perry doesn't believe man has much to do with global warming. He claims, apparently on the basis of his BS, that it's "a scientific theory that has not been proved,"and inaccurately wrote that scientists doctored data to get grants. So here's the deal, according to FollowtheMoney.com in 2002 and 2006 it cost a little over $20 million for Rick to run for governor of Texas. Last year it cost $39 million. I doubt if costs truly doubled so Perry was thinking ahead and building up a campaign war chest for a potential Presidential run.  Now back in those first two elections about 12% of campaign contributions came from the Energy and Natural Resources sector with Oil and Gas #1 of 15 industries contributing to Perry. In 2010 the Energy and Natural Resources sector jumped to 14.26% of Perry's contributions, a total of $5,606,581. Of that sum $4,865,433 came from oil and gas companies or their connections. This all reminds me of an old movie called Power where a young Denzel played a sleazy lobbyist who was trying to help an Arab country secretly elect their candidate as the Senator from Ohio. I've heard tell that our dependence on an oil based economy has led us into wars, environmental degradation like the BP spill, and, of course, denial of the overwhelming scientific evidence that global warming is caused by CO2 from burning oil. Who's the traitor now, Ricky?