Rick Perry in Iowa August 2015

Guv Oops! Strikes Again!

Rick Perry makes sense for once

Now I am no fan of Rick Perry but yesterday, for the first time in my memory, he made a very sensible statement, no doubt written by someone else and containing some odd words and phrases more fitting to the Evangelicals he courts, but a very sensible statement nevertheless. Here is a Politico article about it.

Rick Perry: Donald Trump will destroy the Republican Party

By Katie Glueck

Politico  7/22/15 3:38 PM EDT

Updated 7/22/15 9:51 PM EDT

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has already emerged as one of the GOP presidential field’s most vocal critics of Donald Trump, ratcheted up his rhetoric again Wednesday as he slammed the real estate mogul’s presidential bid as a “cancer on conservatism” and warned that, left unchecked, Trump could be the demise of the Republican Party.

“He offers a barking carnival act that can be best described as Trumpism: a toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition if pursued,” Perry charged during an address at the Willard Hotel in downtown Washington. “Let no one be mistaken: Donald Trump’s candidacy is a cancer on conservatism, and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised and discarded.”

Trump drew the ire of the bulk of the Republican field Saturday, when, during a social conservatives confab in Iowa, he questioned the heroism of Sen. John McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. But Perry was lobbing harsh and persistent criticisms before that, bashing Trump last week over controversial comments the provocateur has made about immigrants who came to the United States illegally, a theme Perry returned to Wednesday.

“Donald Trump, the reality television star, is a great generator of ratings. But Donald Trump the candidate is a sower of division, wrongly demonizing Mexican-Americans for political sport,” Perry said. “He has piqued the interest of some Republican voters who have legitimate concerns about a porous border and broken immigration system. But instead of offering those voters leadership or solutions, he has offered fear and sound bites. This cannot stand.”

In 2011, during his disastrous first presidential run, Perry tussled with his Republican rivals over his defense of the Texas DREAM Act, which allows in-state tuition for the children of undocumented immigrants, charging that those who disagreed “don’t have a heart.” The remark drew fury from conservatives, but with the GOP routed among Hispanic voters in 2012, Perry’s supporters again believe his more compassionate tone will resonate, though he remains a long shot.

(Eric Walker, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, however, said in an email that Perry also has used hot rhetoric about undocumented immigrants, though certainly not on par with Trump. He pointed to a 2014 statement in which Perry claimed there were “over 3,000 homicides by illegal aliens over the course of the last six years,” something PolitiFact concluded was wrong.)

In the meantime, some in the GOP field, including Scott Walker and Ted Cruz, have avoided criticizing Trump over his immigration remarks, though they took issue with his comments about McCain. (Cruz, however, has refrained from criticizing Trump directly.)

But Perry, who is on the bubble for qualifying for the first Republican debate next month, has found that fiery attacks on Trump are the easiest route to national media attention, and he dominated political Twitter on Wednesday afternoon.

He earned loud applause from the audience when he expressed outrage over Trump’s comments concerning McCain.

“He couldn’t have endured for five minutes what John McCain endured for five-and-a-half years,” jabbed Perry, noting his own military experience.

And he got in a dig at Trump over remarks made in Iowa that some considered unseemly for an event aimed at social conservatives.

“Most telling to me,” Perry said of Trump, is “his admission that there is not a single time in his life that he sought the forgiveness of God.”

In language that bordered on apocalyptic, Perry urged Republicans to “beware of false prophets” and warned that the Republican Party could go the way of the now-defunct Whig Party if Trump isn’t reined in, likening his views to those of the nativist Know-Nothing Party from the mid-1800s.

“I will not go quiet when this cancer on conservatism threatens to metastasize into a movement of mean-spirited politics that will send the Republican Party to the same place it sent the Whig Party in 1854: the graveyard,” he said.

Rick Perry's latest slip

Perry's "Accident" Incident
From the Texas Trubune

• by Patrick Svitek
• June 19, 2015

The one presidential candidate who cannot make a mistake did just that Friday.

Addressing Wednesday's massacre at a South Carolina church, former Gov. Rick Perry referred to it as an "accident." His campaign quickly clarified that he meant "incident," but not before the apparent slip of the tongue sparked a social media backlash, inviting inevitable comparisons to the so-called "oops" moment that defined Perry's last bid for the White House. 

The comment came during a TV interview in which Perry was asked about President Obama's response to the shooting, which left nine people dead at the historically black church in Charleston. In a speech Thursday, Obama suggested more gun control might be necessary to prevent tragedies like it. 

"This is the M.O. of this administration anytime there is a accident like this," Perry told Newsmax's Steve Malzberg in an interview published Friday. "You know, the president's clear. He doesn't like for Americans to have guns, and so he uses every opportunity, this being another one, to basically go parrot that message."

Shortly after Perry's remark began making headlines and ricocheting around social media, spokesman Travis Considine indicated the former governor misspoke. "From the context of his comments, it is clear Gov. Perry meant incident," Considine said in a statement.

But the sound bite had already become a hot topic online, evoking memories of the 2012 debate where Perry was unable to remember the third federal agency he would eliminate if elected president.

In the Newsmax interview, Perry spoke extensively about the shooting, saying he did not know whether it was an act of terror but did know it was a "crime of hate." He also suggested the alleged shooter, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, may have been "medicated," apparently tying the issue to his campaign's outreach to current and former members of the military.

"I know for a fact, being a substantial supporter of our military and our veterans, that the Veterans Administration, for instance, is handing out these opioids in massive amounts," Perry told Malzberg. "And then people question, 'Well then why can't these young individuals get work?' or 'Why is the suicide rate so high?'"

Perry was also asked whether the Confederate flag should fly over the South Carolina Capitol in the aftermath of the shooting, which many consider racially motivated. In his response, Perry reminded Malzberg that the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Texas has the right to refuse to issue Confederate license plates, a decision with which he agrees. And Perry indicated he would be open to taking down the flag in South Carolina, saying, "Maybe there's a good conversation that needs to be had."

Rick Perry must never be President

This is a blog post I did in 2012, the last time Rick Perry ran for President. I admit to having an exceedingly low opinion of the former guv and believe it would disastrous for him to ever become President.

Rick Perry is once again throwing the U.S. Constitution under the bus to pander to the right wing religious extremists. Click on pic for larger image Texas Governor Rick Perry made some startling remarks Tuesday, Sept. 18, as he addressed a conference call to a meeting of Christian conservatives. His remarks displayed an utter disregard for the concepts outlined in the U.S. Constitution, American and Texas history and indicated he had no interest in other Christian faiths, other religions or people who had no religion. He knows which side his bread is buttered on. Below is a good summary in an article by Christy Hoppe of the Dallas News. By Christy Hoppe choppe@dallasnews.com 3:26 pm on September 19, 2012 | Permalink Rick Perry, speaking on a conference call with Christian conservatives Tuesday, called the separation between church and state a false premise that is advanced by the devil. He also said that the Obama Administration and court system are working to remove religious references from the American way of life and that is it up to “Christian warriors, Christian soldiers,” to prevent it from  happening. Since his presidential campaign, Perry has been publicly outspoken about what he sees as the strong role of religion in public service, but the statements and audio, posted by Right Wing Watch, are among his most strident. Perry was participating in conservative pastor Rick Scarborough’s “40 Days to Save America,” which calls for prayer and fasting that seeks God’s intervention for the nation and leading up to the November election. Perry told listeners that instead of staying away from the political fray, people of faith have, “a Biblical responsibility to be involved in the public arena proclaiming God’s truth,” Perry said. He said it is particularly true on the abortion issues, where it’s “important that we as Christians put legislation into place, that we elect women and men that defend life.” “Satan runs across the world with his doubt and with his untruths and what have you, and one of the untruths out there that is driven is that people of faith should not be involved in the public arena,” Perry said. Perry also struck a theme he used frequently on the presidential campaign that the Obama Administration has declared a war on religion, mostly citing a decision that health insurance policies include coverage for contraceptives. “The American family is under siege, traditional values are somehow exclusionary, a simple prayer in our public schools is the basis for these secular attacks,” Perry said, calling it “spiritual warfare.” “It falls on us, we truly are Christian warriors, Christian soldiers, and for us as Americans to stand our ground and to firmly send a message to Washington that our nation is about more than just some secular laws,” Perry said.