Top Reads, Feb. 21: Perry reacts to Nugent / Women’s health at issue in Capitol / Child welfare highlighted

Texas Gov. Rick Perry shrugged off comments from Ted Nugent, who helped Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott campaign for governor recently. Nugent has called President Barack Obama a “subhuman mongrel.”
From The Dallas Morning News blog post: “That’s Ted Nugent…. That’s just Ted. Anybody that’s offended – sorry, but that’s just Ted,” Perry said after a breakfast appearance before the Texas State Society. “I don’t take offense, no. If we would spend a whole lot more time talking about how to create jobs instead of trying to pick apart people’s descriptions of somebody, we’d probably get a lot further along in life.”

A hearing at the Capitol to examine the state of women’s health brought flares of tension. The Republican chairwoman of the senate committee that was meeting pointed to the increase in resources for women’s health, but Democrats harped back to policy decisions they say are damaging to women.
My story here.

A spike in foster children deaths lead state senators to question efforts of the Department of Family and Protective Services to stave off child fatalities. The Austin American-Statesman’s Andrea Ball reports here.