Y’all, He’s NOT Lying.
Rick Perry is not lying. It’s just that “arithmetic” and “remembering” are not his top two stellar Presidential skills. His third not-top-tier expertness is “logic.” (If you are reading this aloud to someone, be sure to use air quotes where needed and point out that I, unlike Mr. Perry, can almost always remember three words at once.)
Jumping on the Measles bandwagon, Perry boasted —
“Our vaccination rate in Texas [in 2000] was 65 percent. When I left two weeks ago, it was 95 percent.”
– Former Texas governor Rick Perry (R), in an interview with The Washington Post and the Texas Tribune, Feb. 5, 2015
Hell, I’d loan him my new truck if that were true.
It, of course, ain’t.
Perry’s “proof” is that in 2002 the immunization rate for children under age 3 was 65 percent but now, after Texas has been Perryized, the rate for children entering kindergarten in 2014 is 97%.
Okay, see, that’s like saying in 2002, only 5% of people under the age of 20 needed glasses but in 2014, that jumped to 80% for people over the age of 70. So, we can deduce that Perry causes bad vision.
It is the age group under 3 years old who need the vaccine most. Those numbers are as follows:
2000: 63.5 percent
2013: 72.5 percent.
And the rate of vaccinated children has actually declined since 2007.
Why would that be?
Dragsbaek said that Perry had an excellent record on promoting vaccination. In 2003 he signed a bill that made it easier for parents to cite philosophical objections to giving children vaccines, but even so, “my experience has been that Governor Perry was a fairly strong pro-vaccine governor,” she said.
Bless his heart. This thinking stuff is real hard.
Thanks to everybody for the heads up.
Having just read a story in the WaPo about the staff Hillary is acquiring for her upcoming campaign, I just flashed on a debate between her and pRick.
Wouldn’t that be a hoot?
1Has Icky been vaccinated?
2Corrine Sabo: More importantly, can we be vaccinated against Icky and his ilk?
3For a group of people unable to do the simple arithmetic of adding 2 + 2, the Perry apologists sure are excellent at distorting math.
“Mark’s post is well worth reading in its entirety. But here’s the short version in non-medical terms: imagine 100,000 seat belt users and 100 non seat belt users are involved in identical rollover collisions. If a thousand seat belt users are killed and 25 non seat belt users are killed, then 97.5 percent of those killed were wearing seat belts! Does this mean buckling up is more risky? No, in fact it means the opposite. In this hypothetical illustration, non seat belt wearers were 25 times more likely to be killed.”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/07/1362464/-Anti-vaccination-alarmists-are-no-strangers-to-bad-math?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29#
4@PKM
5Doancha just hear “lies, damn lies and statistics” when you go through the math to get to the 97.5% number, knowing full well the sample sizes are hopelessly imbalanced. As the presumed genius, Homer Simpson once said, “97.5% of statistics are made up on the spot, including this one.”
Micr, very true “lies, damn lies and statistics” … that summarizes right wing math; they cannot add, but they sure have perfected the art of distortion.
Just remember, when a Republican cites statistics, they’re conflating math with the sport known as gymnastics. Similar as to gymnastics replacing their moral compass.
For a bunch of rickety old codgers, they they sure are slippery/agile.
6Is there a vaccine that will cure “stupid”?
Just wondering.
If so…. Rick should get the first shot.
7Miemaw, the cure for st00pid isn’t a traditional vaccine, but it does come in a shot form. It’s supported by the NRA and the ammosexuals.
8“Republican Speak” as perfected by Karl Rove (remember him? Bush’s Brain?) is simple to understand: Up is really down. Freedom is really slavery. Fact is really fiction. False is really true. True is really false. Republicans all have it exactly ass-backwards. Even Rick Perry.
9Okay, sit down if you’re not, because I’m going to shock the hell out of you. I am going to defend Rick Perry… on one point. He did say at one time that girls should get the HPV vaccine to prevent a disease that can lead to cervical cancer. Granted, he may have been influenced by the fact that the lobbyist for the vaccine’s maker was working for Perry’s PAC and got him a boatload of campaign cash, but it was still the right thing to do.
Of course the GOP reared its ugly head– hard to do when it’s stuck up their collective (seat cushion)– and shrieked that they’d rather girls get cancer and DIE than that some of them might get the idea that being immunized against one otherwise minor sexually-transmitted disease meant that they were free to go out and fornicate their brains out. And Perry backed down with his tail between his legs where his head had become lodged.
But he did once, even if for the wrong reason and not for very long, do the right thing about immunization. Once. And not for very long.
10Repugs just aren’t fact friendly. In fact, a whole new industry has been born just to deal with them. It’s called fact checking and every die-hard Repug I know becomes incensed when asked to check the facts regarding their outrageous pronouncements, due to the fact that they are almost always
11WRONG.
Rhea, you really tried! But pRick didn’t give you much to work with; right for once in his life and probably for all the wrong reasons, then he walked back his little bit of right for political expediency.
12“97.5% of statistics are made up on the spot, including this one.” Needs to be cross-stitched on a whoopee pillow along with a fully chromatic pic of Homer! Go Homer! I bet even you could whip Perry in a debate.
13Oh, I thought maybe Perry had documentation that showed he vaccinated all those kids himself, while wearing his gimme cap backwards, with a big gun slung over his back.
14Well it’s like Bill Maher said last night with republicans like Perry 2 plus 2 equals Jesus. That about says it all.
15Perry is extremely pro-vaccine as long as that vaccine is bing sold by his cronies: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/09/15/opinion/krumholz-beckel-perry-pharmaceutical/
16@AFM
17As into judging sex as the Tea-hadists are I would have thought to them 2 + 2 = orgy.