WP Columnist Kathleen Parker on Rick Perry, Another Conservative Myth Exposed, Pole Tax is Legal in Texas

And Other Quotes that Need Little or No Comment

Writing in the Washington Post, Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker had this to say about Texas Gov. Rick Perry

Faith and reason are not mutually exclusive, but Perry makes you think they are.

Kind of sums it up, doesn’t it.

Jon Huntsman, speaking in New Hampshire said of his positions

“I’m not trying to be everything to everybody . . . ,” he told audiences. “I’m running on my record. You’re not going to like 100 percent of it.”

Thus illustrating why Mr. Huntsman is neck and neck with Newt Gingrich in the race to be the next to leave the Republican race.

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Remember all that Conservative rhetoric about unemployment benefits keeping the unemployed from seeking a job.  From USA Today we have



These People Have Jobs at Ford
16,400 applicants will not



Memo to the nearly 17,000 people who applied last month for $15-per-hour Ford factory jobs: If you haven't heard by now, Ford won't be calling.

About 600 of the expected 2,700 jobs at Ford's Louisville (Ky.) Assembly Plant are left for new hires after the rest were claimed by workers on layoff, or UAW union members transferring from other Ford plants.

And another Conservative talking point goes down, and goes down hard.

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Michelle Bachmann (who?) gets it wrong again.  The WSJ reports that

Swedish appliance maker Electrolux AB was recently dragged into the U.S. presidential race when Republican hopeful Michele Bachmann said that the company had closed its doors in the U.S., after it moved operations of an Iowa plant to Mexico.

Electrolux is primarily known in the U. S. as Frigidaire and as far as its U. S. operations are concerned the Journal elicited this from its finance chief for the U. S. division

We have manufacturing facilities in Saint Cloud, Minn.; Springfield, Tenn.; Kinston, N.C.; and Anderson, S.C. We have a sizable presence in the U.S. We certainly are not leaving the country. The Webster City [Iowa] facility was closed and that production was moved to Mexico. But we also recently announced the closing of a Canadian facility and we're building a new facility in Memphis.

The bad news for Ms Bachmann is not that she gets this wrong, that happens regularly.  No,  it’s that nobody is paying attention to her, not even to her incorrect observations.  Hey Michelle, say "Hi Mr. Perry"

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For decades everyone has believed that poll taxes are illegal.  It turns out in Texas they are not.

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday overruled the Texas trial and appellate courts and unanimously upheld the constitutionality of a $5 "pole tax' on strip club patrons. Combs v. Texas Entertainment Ass'n, No. 09-0481 (Tex. Aug. 26, 2011):

“A Texas statute requires a business that offers live nude entertainment and allows the consumption of alcohol on its premises to remit to the Comptroller a $5 fee for each customer admitted. We are asked to decide whether the statute violates the right to freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. We hold it does not.”

Not something Mr. Jefferson ever thought the First Amendment would have to address.