They didn't listen to Molly IVINS, maybe it's not too late for Gail COLLINS "As Texas Goes"

Joe SCABS skeedaddled from the table when COLLINS was featured. Dan SENOR tried to NeoCon talking-points scuttle her, but COLLINS overpowered him with the ugly facts about slashed public services (TX ranks 2nd or 3rd from the bottom just above Alabama and Mississippi) and all of those job creations that are of the low pay variety. Her killer point was, with all the pResidents TX has foisted, and all the so-called success, and all the low taxes, what are all those people with "Secede" signs so angry about?!1 The stunned look on SENOR's face was priceless, worth more than those jobs.

Molly IVINS: “The next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please, pay attention.

“Bush was replaced by his exceedingly Lite Guv Rick Perry, who has really good hair. Governor Goodhair, or the Ken Doll (see, all Texans use nicknames—it's not that odd), is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But the chair of a major House committee says, ‘Goodhair is much more engaged as governor than Bush was.’ As the refrain of the country song goes, "O Please, Dear God, Not Another One."



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[font size=5]As Texas Goes...: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda [/font]

by Gail Collins

http://www.amazon.com/As-Texas-Goes-Hijacked-American/dp/0871404079/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339078447&sr=1-1
Review
“There is no one like Gail Collins: uproarious fun on every page, but with a serious point. In this wonderful book she devastates Texas for its hypocrisy, its ignorance, its worship of wealth. But you cannot keep laughing as she shows how the Texan mind works a baleful influence on the rest of the country.” (Anthony Lewis )

“Gail Collins is the funniest serious political commentator in America. Reading AsTexas Goes...is pure pleasure from page one.” (Rachel Maddow )

“With wit and humor, Collins focuses on major Texas figures, from Davy Crockett to Rick Perry, to offer a portrait of an outsize state anxious to take on the task of setting the rest of the country straight and of the broader implications that has for the rest of the country. ...[A] timely look at Texas in a title that will receive a full-dress marketing campaign.” (Booklist )

“There's no funnier writer about politics than Gail Collins, and in Texas, she's found the perfect canvas. The state's record at producing some of the nuttiest characters ever to enter American public life is matched only by its recent prowess in infecting the other 49 states with those politicians' most crackpot policy ideas. Collins serves up hilarity and horror in equal measure and leaves you rooting for Rick Perry to make good on his threat to lead Texas out of the Union.” (Frank Rich )

“New York Times columnist Collins revels in the state's 10-gallon self-regard, Alamo-inspired cult of suicidal last stands, and eccentric right-wing pols... Much like the late Texas dissident Molly Ivins, she slathers plenty of wry humor onto a critique that stings like a red-hot brand.” (Publishers Weekly )

“Starred review. New York Times political columnist Collins (When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, 2009, etc.) zeroes in on what makes Texas so important and why the rest of the country needs to know and care about what’s happening there…. A timely portrait of Texas delivered with Collins’ unique brand of insightful humor.” (Kirkus Reviews )


http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/as-texas-goes-gail-collins/1110785521?ean=9780871404077
Product Details
ISBN-13: 9780871404077
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date: 6/4/2012
Pages: 288
Sales rank: 421

Overview
In one of the most explosive and timely political books in years, Gail Collins declares the "what happens in Texas doesn't stay in Texas anymore."

Not until she visited Texas, that proud state of big oil and bigger ambitions, did Gail Collins, the
best-selling author and columnist for the New York Times, realize that she had missed the one place that mattered most in America’s political landscape. Raised in Ohio, Collins had previously seen the
American fundamental divide as a war between the Republican heartland and its two liberal coasts. But the real story, she came to see, was in Texas, where Bush, Cheney, Rove, & Perry had created a conservative political agenda that is now sweeping the country and defining our national identity. Through its vigorous support of banking deregulation, lax environmental standards, and
draconian tax cuts, through its fierce championing of states rights, gun ownership, and, of course, sexual abstinence, Texas, with Governor Rick Perry’s presidential ambitions, has become the bellwether of a far-reaching national movement that continues to have profound social and economic consequences for us all. Like it or not, as Texas goes, so goes the nation.

Editorial Reviews
Publishers Weekly
The outsized influence of the union’s largest state is decried in this by turns amused and appalled study of Texas’s government and its discontents. New York Times columnist Collins (When Everything Changed) revels in the state’s 10-gallon self-regard, Alamo-inspired cult of suicidal last stands, and eccentric right-wing pols. But the upshot of all that, she argues, is a disastrous model of public policy that inspired the Republican Party’s national platform: a rickety economic boom based on insecure, poverty-level jobs and massive state incentives to corporations; financial deregulation that led to banking meltdowns; a raft of ill-advised education nostrums, from the prototype of the No Child Left Behind Act to abstinence-only sex-ed programs and textbook guidelines that frown on evolution; skimpy public services, high rates of poverty and inequality, and low rates of health coverage and graduation. Collins’s book is really an indictment of what she calls America’s “empty-places” creed—the rural conservative populism that favors small government, low taxes, and lax regulation—through a takedown of its colorful epicenter. Much like the late Texas dissident Molly Ivins, she slathers plenty of wry humor onto a critique that stings like a red-hot brand. Agent: Alice Martell. (June)

Library Journal
So you think the nation's political divide is between the coasts and the heartland? The Christian Far Right and the rest of us? The one percent and the 99 percent? Nope. Collins (columnist, New York Times; When Everything Changed) takes us to the source: Texas. With her characteristic wry amusement, Collins observes a state where politicians hew to an "ideology of empty places," even as 80 percent of the country lives in/near its major cities. As Collins puts it, Texas says, "You leave me alone and I'll leave you alone." Trouble is, she goes on to note, Texas is not actually leaving us alone. From financial deregulation to strong-arming national textbook publishers to follow Texas mores on sex education, guns, and God, to the swagger of Texan U.S. presidents who have dragged more than Texas into war, to meager insurance coverage of its people, and massive job numbers at or below the minimum wage, to pro-oil and antiglobal warming initiatives, Texas has preached states' rights, while its national players, from Tom Delay to Phil Gramm, George W. Bush, and Rick Perry, promote their agendas nationally. Collins maps the invasion of Texas credos into our lives and into the U.S. financial, medical, educational, political, military, and legal infrastructure. The prognosis for Texas's future influence is less clear; the state will be majority Latino soon. Will that bring change? VERDICT A fascinating book, written with great wit and a power to disturb. Essential reading before November. (See Prepub Alert, 12/5/11.) —Margaret Heilbrun, Library Journal

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