Last Call

The laser like focus by House Republicans on creating jobs anything but creating jobs continues as this week they've spent hours grilling Energy Secretary henry Chu about his job...

The hearing was filled with political attacks through five hours of questioning. Republicans scolded Chu and fired questions at him about what he knew and when he knew it, often cutting him off as he answered. One after another accused him of breaking the law.

...want Eric Holder to lose his job over what "gunwalker" programs his Bush-era predecessors set up...

Forty Republicans sent a letter to President Obama on Thursday pushing him to ask for Attorney General Eric Holder’s resignation.

 

The letter, spearheaded by Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), highlights Holder’s role in the botched gun-tracking operation known as Fast and Furious, which was run under the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). 

...killed high-speed rail job creation across the country as another budget hostage....

Republicans trumpeted what they said was the death of the president's six-year, $53 billion plan, saying the future of fast trains lies along the Northeast Corridor, The Hill writes. The funding was eliminated in a deal with Democrats on a spending bill for the Transportation Department and other agencies. The measure cleared the House by 298-121 and the Senate by 70-30 on its way to Obama's desk.

 

...and now plan to make job-killing austerity enshrined in the Constitution through a time-wasting vote that will never pass.

The House of Representatives plans to vote Friday on a constitutional amendment mandating a balanced federal budget — an effort expected ultimately to fail, but one that could have lingering political impact.

This week in job creation, brought to you by the Republican Party.  If the One Percent ain't happy, ain't nobody going to get a damn thing.

Faster Than A Speeding Neutrino

The "are neutrinos faster than light" controversy continues to speed along.  Last month I noted there was a major red flag in readings for the test that showed neutrinos could beat Einstein's speed limit:

When it comes to relativity, frame of reference is everything. The satellite in this experiment was moving from West to East, tilted 55º in reference to the equator. Taken from this vantage point, the distance between the source of the neutrinos at CERN and the detector in Italy are actually changing. The excellent Physics arXiv blog at MIT’s Technology Review quotes van Elburg as saying, “From the perspective of the clock, the detector is moving towards the source and consequently the distance travelled by the particles as observed from the clock is shorter.”

Van Elburg says that this would throw off the experiment’s timing by 32 nanoseconds on each end of the experiment, for a total of roughly 64 nanoseconds of error in the experiment overall. This would mean that neutrino speed is quite similar to that of light, but not faster.

But now scientists have conducted more readings accounting for this time frame reference shift:

To account for this, the beams sent by CERN in this latest experiment were around three nanoseconds shorter, with large gaps of 524 nanoseconds between them, meaning the scientists at Gran Sasso would time their arrival more accurately.

"In this way, compared to the previous measurement, the neutrinos bunches are narrower and more spaced from each other," the scientists said. "This permits to make a more accurate measure of their velocity at the price of a much lower beam intensity."

Jacques Martino, director of the French National Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics, who worked on the second experiment, said that while this test was not a full confirmation, it did remove some of the potential systematic errors that may have occurred in the first one.

"The search is not over," he said in a statement. "There are more checks of systematics currently under discussion."

So it seems even when correcting for the clock, neutrinos still appear to be faster than light in the latest experiment.  If this continues to hold true it's going to revolutionize physics...but there's still a long way to go on this one.

Light-years, even.

Sexy Eyes? That's A Flogging

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi women with attractive eyes may be forced to cover them up, the news website Bikya Masr reported, in a move that could mark the latest repressive measure taken against women by the Islamic state.

A spokesperson for Saudi Arabia's Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV), Sheikh Motlab al Nabet, said the committee had the right to stop women revealing "tempting" eyes in public.

The CPVPV has repeatedly been accused of human rights violations. Founded in 1940, its function is to ensure Islamic laws are not broken in public in Saudi Arabia.

In 2002 the committee refused to allow female students out of a burning school in Mecca because they were not wearing correct head cover, report said. The decision contributed to the high death toll of 15 people who were killed in the fire.

Here's a way to stop temptation: keep your dick in your pants or I'll cut it off.  I'd choose that over having to hide my face, my eyes, my arms, anything that might be a temptation.  I cannot wrap my head around what other women in this world are forced to go through.  Who gets to decide if their eyes are too sexy?  The same committee that has been investigated for violation of human rights?

Jesus.  It makes me want to go on Weight Watchers, work out so I have a rock hard body, and strut naked through their streets in a bulletproof bubble.  Then the old farts could drop of heart attacks and women freed to show their face in public.

Wired Columnist Says Google Has "Uphill Climb" For Cloud Dominance

John Stokes of Wired recently attended a Google event, and has some pretty interesting insights into the future of Google and cloud computing.  At times he praises, at times he criticizes, but his main point is that right now the ever-popular Gmail is Google's key to dominance.  And of course, he's absolutely right.  Right now, the vast majority of people who use a single Google service are on Gmail.  He even brings in Metcalfe's Law and shows where Google will struggle.  I see his point, but I don't think they will struggle as much as he thinks.

Rather than bombard users with a suite of productivity, Google makes sure they are visibly available while keeping their focus on the one service that every Internet user has: email.  By integrating email with chat and smart phones, they have taken that service and made it portable and universal.  They are just now working out any kinks in your email being a portal into the Google universe, and are in no hurry to launch.  The more people who sign up for Gmail give them power, geeks enjoy having an edge, and regular users are growing more frustrated with expensive and glitchy commercial products.  One targeted advertising campaign can start the landslide.  I imagine it would go something like this: Do you really type enough to warrant spending hundreds of dollars for the software? If not, come to Google!

Google was definitely aware of this Gmail-centric dynamic, as evidenced by the fact that Google VP of Product Management Dave Girouard kept insisting to attendees and the press that “email isn’t dead yet!” and stressing just how critical it still is to the enterprise. So there was some nervousness there around the fact that Gmail is to Google’s cloud offerings what AdWords is to Google’s bottom line—i.e., it’s the bread-and-butter, and everything else is sort of nascent and aspirational.

Now, to be clear, the assembled CIOs were asked in a panel if they were using the non-Gmail parts of Google Apps, and they answered in the affirmative to varying degrees. But it was obvious that none of them did a Google migration based on, say, the docs or the spreadsheet. Time and again their remarks came back to how many disparate email systems Gmail had replaced, and how much money that was saving. CIOs are converting their employees to Google Apps in order to get away from the headache of legacy email systems, and in the process they’re also trying to entice employees to switch from Microsoft Office to Google’s competing offerings.

It’s worth thinking about why Gmail is the main way that Google is getting into the enterprise. Email is a communication network, and as such it obeys Metcalfe’s Law, which says that the value of a communication network is proportional to the square of the number of users. So every person who signs up for an email account anywhere on the Internet adds in a nonlinear fashion to the aggregate value of “email” as a network.

In general, all businesses everywhere communicate internally and externally via a critical Microsoft Office “network” that runs on top of the email network in the form of document attachments. Any of those businesses can move to Gmail without losing access to that incredibly large and valuable Office network, but they cannot move to Google Apps’ other offerings without losing access it. So Metcalfe’s law actually works against Google’s efforts to migrate users from Office to Google Apps.

The only thing I think he overlooked here is new growth.  When the economy swings back and new businesses begin to boom, through consultants and cheaper IT labor (IT professionals have struggled with huge competition in the job market) businesses will start on the free and well advertised Google network.  You know, the one that works easily with different operating systems, Android phones, tablets and laptops?  Yeah, that one.  Virtually everyone will have a Gmail so you avoid the issue of having to have multiple accounts to collaborate.

Microsoft's outrageous licensing fees will be their downfall.  Those who have resented being stuck with the bill are actively seeking alternatives.  Google's other side services have time to develop and be competitive with Office.  If they can match or outperform Microsoft Office, we'll have a winner.

Cuban Stupidity Crisis

(CNN) - While campaigning in Miami on Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, who's taken heat over his knowledge of foreign policy, dodged questions on issues related to Cuba.
Asked by a reporter if he supported the "wet-foot, dry-foot policy," which allows Cuban immigrants to stay in the United States once they get in, Cain responded: "Wet-foot, dry-foot policy?"

The Miami Herald reports that Cain's handlers then intercepted the questioning and rushed Cain away from the press. When he came back later, Cain didn't answer another question about the topic, instead saying, "Gotta run, gentleman," the newspaper reported.

In a speech earlier in the day, Cain seemed to outline his approach to Cuba without going into specifics.

"One of my principles is: Go to the source closest to the problem," Cain said. "I want to get from Cuban leaders [in South Florida] a solution of what we should do."

Cain, whose campaign surge kicked off in Florida about seven weeks ago when he won a closely-watched straw poll in the state, drew enthusiastic crowds throughout the day at different stops.

Later at Versailles Restaurant, located in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, a reporter asked about President Barack Obama's decision to scale back some travel restrictions to Cuba, to which Cain reportedly said that was a "gotcha question."

Surrounded by much fanfare, Cain enjoyed a pastry at the restaurant's bakery, asking at one point with his mouth full, "How do you say 'delicious' in Cuban?"

A supporter quickly answered back: "Delicioso." The word is in Spanish, as there is no "Cuban" language.

"Delicioso," Cain repeated, while still chewing. "Delicioso."

The depth of his stupidity knows no bounds.  Neither does his ego.  His vision of a president doesn't even include knowing what is going on regarding foreign policy.  He tells the poor it's their fault for being poor, and is backed by Donald Trump.


At this point, I can't even think of a single positive thing to say about this man.  Begone from my headlines, sir! 

It Was Always About Demand

This Bloomberg article is making the rounds in the econ blogs as Atif Mian and Amir Sufi investigate the causes of recession.  It gets into the weeds a bit but it's a good read (emphasis mine):

Our research suggests that 65 percent of the job losses from 2007 to 2009 came from the drop in household spending induced by the collapse in home prices and its effect on a highly levered household sector.

The first observation we made was that there was a large amount of variation across the U.S. in household-debt levels just before the recession began. In areas that experienced strong increases in home values, debt skyrocketed from 2001 to 2007. However, there were many places that avoided the housing boom and experienced no significant house-price appreciation. In these areas, household-debt levels remained steady in the years before the recession began.

By examining the differences in household balance sheets as of 2006, we were able to tease out how the weak ones are affecting the economy. In a study with Kamalesh Rao of MasterCard Advisors, we showed that areas of high debt experienced a severe shock to house prices and spending from 2007 to 2010.

For example, in U.S. counties in the top decile of the household-debt distribution, house prices fell 30 percent from 2006 to 2009 and spending dropped 15 percent from 2007 to 2009. The consumption decline was across the board; even grocery spending was significantly lower in U.S. counties with severe debt problems. 

In other words, the housing depression created the larger recession that by all accounts we're still in, and what the housing depression continues to do is eliminate demand in all other sectors.  I have always argued that this was a demand-driven recession, not a supply side one as many conservatives continue to scream about.

Where the two schools of thought differ the most is whether or not the government should do anything.  Conservatives say that government interference in itself caused the housing depression, so we must now have government do nothing to fix it.  That's like saying "an innocent bystander was killed in a police shootout with criminals, let's get rid of police."

The last 30 years has so destroyed the American middle class that finally we ran out of power to buy things.  The Republicans want to remedy this by reducing that buying power even more.  Without consumption in a consumption-driven economy, you get what we have right now, a weird bifurcated economy with falling prices on big ticket stuff and rising prices on staples and commodities basically rowing in opposite directions on the economic rowboat, in addition to recovering prices on the really, really high end stuff.

Which is why all the nonsense about "we're spending too much" is idiocy.

We The People Versus Michele Bachmann

This is what happens when "facts optional" Republicans go out into the country to face actual citizens instead of heavily managed campaign stops and invitation-only meetings where critics aren't allowed:  you find out just how ignorant these Clown Car Kids are.  Take Shelly Bachmann, for instance.

With the air of a college instructor, Michele Bachmann essentially gave college students a Conservative 101 on the economy, national and foreign affairs and other important issues on Thursday in Iowa. But when the Republican presidential candidate took questions, some students turned the tables on their lecturer, peppering her with tough questions.


The Minnesota congresswoman appeared at a town hall at Drake University in Des Moines. Campus Republicans sponsored the event and helped pack the room.

But a few students who support President Barack Obama spotted in the crowd before the event began foretold of tense exchanges ahead. At least two of them sat onstage just inches away from Bachmann - one of them wearing a T-shirt with the president's image.

And it got bad, fast.  College kids aren't morons.

"You used the line of 'bullet to the head' for the American military," one student said.

"Part of the super committee, is that there would be mandatory cuts on either side - on entitlement programs and the military spending aspect of it. I would classify it as a bullet to the American family head if our entitlement programs in this country were cut drastically," the student added. "For the people who depend on that - that are in an unemployed situation where they need federal aid.they're the most vulnerable."

Bachmann responded by reiterating that the nation is spending too much.

Another student asked: "You said that you wanted to increase offshore drilling and just drilling in general for oil. So that you could decrease the price of oil in the near future. Don't you think that would kind of just be beating a dead horse instead of trying to find a reasonable solution for the long term?"

Bachmann reiterated her stance that the U.S. has tremendous energy resources, "But the problem is, even our own Department of Energy, won't let us access them."

Another student questioned Bachmann on national service programs, such as AmeriCorps: "You've gone on record as opposing those. So just wondering, if elected president, you might make that a part of your agenda? And if you think it's a good idea, during this economy, to take away opportunities for young people to serve their country?"

"Well it isn't the idea of young people not serving their country," Bachmann said. "The point is, we're broke. I don't know if you all have gotten that message yet from me this morning," Bachmann said.

Arguably the most tense exchange came as Bachmann restated her opposition to "Obamacare."
As she criticized specifics of the nation's health care law, one student shouted: "So screw the sick and homeless?"

"Who said that?" Bachmann asked.

"You have," the student said.

"You could not be further from the truth," Bachmann shot back. "You're looking at someone who lived below poverty. Have you ever lived at that?"

Bachmann continued: "I know what I had to do. I got a job. That's what you need to do. You need to figure out how to get a job and make your way."

And all she has for them is "get a job you lazy college pukes!"   God forbid she gave an answer that wasn't a bitter condemnation of these kids as the privileged class (unlike Bachmann and her farm subsidies and Congressional health care) or that wasn't a GOP talking point.

No wonder she's at, what, 6% in the polls?   It's all she is, a joke.

StupidiNews!

• President Obama announced he will be sending Secretary Clinton to Myanmar, the first US Secretary of State to visit the country in over 50 years.
• Hundreds were arrested in Thursday's "day of action" across the country in support of Occupy Wall Street's protests.
• House Republicans spent five hours questioning Energy Secretary Henry Chu over Solyndra in a bitterly partisan hearing.
• Spainish voters will go to the polls on Sunday to vote on further austerity measures in an election to replace the government of outgoing PM Jose Luis Zapatero.
• Researchers are looking to change the way lithium ion batteries behave in order to give up to ten times the battery life.

Last Call

With Rick Perry fading fast in the national spotlight and his fundrasing cash starting to dry up as the GOP looks for the next Anyone But Romney, the Texas Governor continues to blow a merry little pied piper tune on the racial dog whistle to play for alms from the Tea Party faithful he'll need to gain ground.  TPM's Benjy Sarlin:

Rick Perry says President Obama, the son of a teen mother who frequently was absent from his life and often was stretched financially, grew up the easy way. It’s the latest in a series of winks at conspiracy-minded conservatives deeply suspicious about the president’s background.

Perry’s comments came as he discussed his new ad attacking Obama for saying US policymakers have grown “lazy” about honing America’s competitive edge, a comment that Republicans have inaccurately suggested was aimed at American workers. Asked by FOX News host Sean Hannity about the spot, Perry launched into a highly personal attack on Obama.

“It reveals to me that he grew up in a privileged way,” he said. “He never had to really work for anything.”

Ding ding ding!  And here Perry plays directly to Birther audience, the folks that gleefully pirouette around racial overtones of a man who "never had to really work" to end up President (who just happens to be black.)  The implications that he's undeserving, unintelligent, lazy, shiftless, one of them is no accident.  Perry knows his audience and he's going full blast on that whistle.  Sarlin ends with this insight:

From a strategic perspective, there’s some sense to these tactics as a last-ditch gambit to turn around the Texas governor’s toxic poll numbers. If Perry can bait Democratic critics into accusing him of racially tinged attacks on Obama, he can cast himself as a victim and rally conservative media and Tea Party activists behind him. So far it hasn’t worked, but it certainly isn’t for lack of trying. 

It's an interesting theory and most likely correct.  Certainly the President is staying above the fray...but the point is these are racially tinged attacks and they need to be called out.

Zombie Ghost Pirate Terrorists Could Kill You Like That, Bob

Ten years after the Transportation Security Administration was created, Republicans have a bunch of conflicting, hypocritical nonsense to helpfully spout in order for you to approve of them grifting the system they made in the first place.

Reps. John Mica (R-Fla.) and Paul Broun (R-Ga.) want to give the Transportation Security Administration a series of drastic reforms for its birthday this week.

Days before the 10th anniversary of the TSA's founding, and also one of the busiest travel periods of the year, the GOP lawmakers took the agency to task Wednesday using a new report titled “A Decade Later: A Call for TSA Reform.”

"Americans have paid $60 billion funding TSA and they are no safer today than they were before 9/11," Broun said during a news conference at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport announcing the report. Mica, who wrote the the law that established the TSA in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, agreed. Despite the fact that there have not been any incidents since that day, the TSA has not made flying safer, he said.

"We are safer today, but not because of TSA," Mica said. "It's because the American people will not allow an aircraft to be taken over. We saw on Flight 93, and almost every instance of a successful thwarting since, it's been the passengers, the pilots and the crew."

I'm no huge fan of the TSA but the notion that the guy who "wrote the law establishing the TSA" saying we're no safer now than we were on September 10, 2010 is idiocy.  The plan here is obvious, defund the TSA to the point it can't do its job anymore, declare government unable to work, then privatize airport security by farming out everything to contractors to "save money" and create profit for the GOP's corporate masters.  Should anything happen to an airplane, blame the Dems.

The "government can't possibly work" gameplan is in full effect here, just like similar plans to rid us of the Departments of Education, Labor, Energy, yadda yadda.  Why, Zombie Ghost Pirate Bin Laden could steal the treasure of Monkey Island kill your entire family at any time.  Government has failed you again!


Besides, real Americans just beat up any terrorists they see and don't need to rely on others to protect themselves.  Get to work making yourself safer, citizen.  Alternately, we'd like to sell you Zombie Ghost Pirate Terrorist repelling rock for a nominal fee...

The Dems' Job Strategy Is Working, Part 3

House Republicans are beginning to crack under the 9% approval rating of Congress and the numbers showing a majority of Americans believe the Republicans are blocking jobs legislation in order to hurt the President.  Now all of a sudden, House Republicans are more than happy to pass tax incentives for government contractors and hiring veterans in a unanimous move.

 “Veterans of every working-age generation are finding themselves unemployed or seriously underemployed due to the economic downturn,” Representative Jeff Miller, Republican of Florida  and chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said in support of the bill, which passed. 422 to 0, under a fast-tracked process on the House floor.

The vote followed overwhelming Senate approval and represented a rare bipartisan consensus on elements in the package assembled by the White House in its effort to spur hiring. Republicans have rejected or blocked other pieces of the legislation, including proposals for capital works and money for the hiring of emergency workers and public school teachers.

After the vote, the president said in a statement that he wanted to “congratulate Republicans and Democrats in Congress for coming together to pass these tax credits that will encourage businesses to hire America’s veterans.  No veteran who fought for our country should have to fight for a job when they come home.”

He also said approval of the measure was a “only a step. Congress needs to pass the rest of my American Jobs Act so that we can create jobs and put money in the pockets of the middle class.”


At the same time, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, urged the president to hold a public signing ceremony of the legislation to illustrate the bipartisan nature of the bill — a challenge to the president to share some of the credit with Republicans. 

Why, you'd almost think that House Republicans were terrified of losing control of the chamber next November and were desperate for accomplishments to show off to counter the notion that they were sabotaging the economy on purpose in order to gain politically.  And of course, the Village is expecting the President to be magnanimous and allow the Republicans to save face here, to make sure that Republicans are rewarded for their "good" behavior.

That's hysterical stuff, frankly.  But it also means that the Dems' piecemeal approach to passing elements of the American Jobs Act is not only assuring the issue stays in the news, but also dominates the legislative calendar as well...as the issue of jobs should be doing right now.

Keep up the pressure, guys.

Fire Walker Chronicles, Part 2

Wisconsin Republicans are trying an awful new tack in scuttling the recall effort for Gov. Scott Walker: having Lt Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch (who would also be recalled under the petition) shame the state into inaction with a thinly veiled threat ad that the cost of a special recall election will have to be taken out of money for "teachers or health care for the poor, or school books for your kids.”

“There might be a day when someone asks you for your signature,” Kleefisch says in an ad released Wednesday. “Signing a recall petition is like saying you’re O.K. with spending $7.7 million on another recall election, 7.7 million that may already be allocated to merit raises for teachers or health care for the poor, or school books for your kids.”

“Signing a recall petition is like saying you’re O.K. with taking money away from those things and spending it on another special election,” she continues.

“Signing a recall petition is like saying you’re O.K with spending more months, and more millions, on political campaign ads. Signing a recall petition is like saying you’re O.K with the government taking more of your money to spend on other special elections.”

Yes, sure would be a damn shame if something happened to your nice state here if you dared to have this recall election, Wisconsin.  We wouldn't want to have to cut teacher's salaries or health care for the poor or school funds in order to pay for your little dirty effing hippie populist tantrum, would we?  That would be awful if that happened, so if you would just keep your mouths shut, nobody gets hurt, capiche?

What a lovely little hustle there, bringing in Kleefisch to beg those awful extremist Democrats not to force Republicans to make more cuts to pay for the special recall elections, not to mention giving the Tea Party in that state an excuse to play the "Why do you hippies hate Wisconsin schools?" shame card, all while barely cloaked as an advocacy ad that's not officially a statement from her office but sure looks like one.

You couldn't ask for a better zero-sum extortion racket from the one percent. Keep your head down and nobody gets hurt, plebes...or we make more cuts that will hurt you, not us.

What are you going to do about it, Wisconsin?

This Week's WTH - Crotchless Edition

It started as a family trip to the mall.

"We went towards the play area, because we like to take our son over there," Erin French said.

Next to the play area was a new store called Kids N Teen.

"They have cuddly little backpacks, and pretty little princess dresses," French said.

She also saw underwear.

"Then we saw crotchless panties, and I was mortified. My first initial response was, 'Am I really seeing that?'" French said.

She was. The product has since been taken off the shelves after outraged parents complained to mall management. The store is geared to kids but state that because approximately 25% of their clientele are teens they thought this was okay.

Just... wow.

Truckin' Across The Square

Cincinnati's City Council has finally approved food trucks downtown.

Mobile food vendors will soon be able to do business near Fountain Square.

City Council approved the additional zones for the trucks and trailers Wednesday.

They'll be located along Vine and Fifth Streets.

Council Member Laure Quinlivan made the suggestion after 3CDC shut down food vendors operating in tents on the square.

The vending spaces should be ready in the next week or 2 and that will allow operators to set-up during the busy holiday season downtown. 

Vine and Fifth is the heart of downtown, and it's a good idea economically too.  Cincy's known for its diverse food, now we can finally get some food trucks into downtown and help showcase the city's wide variety of chow.

Interesting to see this happen after the election, and before the new council is seated in December.  Looks like somebody wanted to go out on a high note rather than sour grapes, as the food truck issue has been tied up for months before now.

Good on them for once.  Here's to good eating downtown soon.

Moving Forward At Your Own Perry-il, Part 12

This is not a bug in Governor Goodhair's Inconsequential America, but a guaranteed feature.

At a town hall event in New Hampshire Wednesday morning, reporters have indicated that they were asked if they were U.S. citizens. According to CNN, member of the press were posed this by an employee for Granite State Manufacturing, a defensive contractor hosting the town hall, in order to abide by NAFTA rules.

Associated Press reporter Steve Peoples tweeted, “At press check in for Rick Perry NH town hall, we’re asked if we’re U.S. citizens.”

He added that attendees were “told only citizens allowed because town hall host is a defensive contractor,” meaning “no foreigners allowed.”

NBC News’ Jo Ling Kent shared a similar tweet.

“At Perry press check in, I was asked if I am a U.S. citizen,” she wrote. “Only citizens allowed according to company, which is a defense contractor.” 

This was not an accident, folks.  The frequency Rick Perry is broadcasting on can only be heard if you're tuned into the message of "Y'all ferners git out na."   And he knows exactly who he's sending it out to, folks.  He wants back on the dance floor, and this is his admission.