CNN’s The Situation Room, Texas Gov. Rick Perry was pressed repeatedly by host Wolf Blitzer to condemn the comments made by musician Ted Nugent calling President Obama a ‘subhuman mongrel’.
“These words that Nugent said, you have to admmit that they are vile,” Blitzer said. “To call the president of the United States a ‘subhuman mongrel, that’s pretty disgusting.”
“They’re pretty tough words,” Perry responded before Blitzer cut him off, telling him that it was okay to call Nugent’s words “disgusting.”
“We agree that that is not appropriate language to use of the United States president.” Perry replied.
Blitzer then asked Perry if it was appropriate for gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott, whose campaign is employing Nugent, to continue to “embrace” him.
“I’m not going to get into this side of whether it’s appropriate or not,” Perry said “There are people who say things all the time. The idea that Ted Nugent has said something that’s outrageous shouldn’t surprise anybody.”
Blitzer responded by calling Nugent’s words “beyond the pale.”
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) likes to talk tough about his small government credentials, but the numbers he’s been racking up lately tell a different tale:according to The Houston Chronicle, the arch conservative’s out-of-state security detail has cost Texas taxpayers a whopping $2.6 million since he was reelected in 2010.
All that money has gone to pay for Perry’s security details as he tours the country trying to poach jobs from other states, and from his ill-fated bid for the Republican nomination to the presidency, according to data released by the Texas Department of Public Safety (TXDPS).
The Chronicle noted that the bulk of Perry’s travel security costs, a full $1.8 million, went to his TXDPS detail during the presidential run. Accounting for his food, lodging and other travel-related costs, NBC News reported last May that Perry’s campaign travel cost Texas taxpayers some $3.6 million in total — nearly twice as much as Perry’s predecessor, George W. Bush, spent on travel during his presidential campaign.
“Gov. Perry is the governor of Texas 24/7 regardless of where he goes, and the Texas Department of Public Safety has a policy of providing security for governors and their families everywhere they travel, as they have back several administrations,” a Perry spokesperson told the Chronicle. “It’s unfortunate that we live in a day and age where security is an issue, but we have the upmost [sic] respect and appreciation for the officers who provide security for the Governor, the First Lady and other state officials.”
The statement is almost word-for-word what a Perry spokesperson told NBC News in May 2012.
With his announcement Monday that he will not seek an unprecedented fourth full term as Governor of Texas, Rick Perry (R) will retire from the office in January 2015. Sadly, he will leave behind a record of right-wing extremism that few could match.
Here are ten of the worst moments from his 13 years as governor and his “oops” 2012 presidential campaign:
1. He allowed Texas to become the nation’s worst polluter. Texas under Perry has led the nation in carbon dioxide emissions and is home to five of the tenworst mercury emitting power plants in the country. Rather than try to do something about this, Perry sued the federal government to try to avoid complying an EPA ruling that the state was in violation of the Clean Air Act. Aproudclimate change denier, Perry called the 2010 BP oil spill an “act of God” while speaking at a trade association funded by BP. And his solution to the nation’s economic ills in 2011: more oil drilling.
2. He executed a likely innocent man and impeded an investigation into the matter. In 2004, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in Huntsville, Texas after being convicted of arson and the murder of his three children. Despitesignificant evidence that arson had not caused the fire (thus exonerating Willingham), Perry refused to grant a stay of execution. Five years after Willingham was executed, a report from a Texas Forensic Science Commission investigator found that the fire could not have been arson. As the commission prepared to hear testimony from the investigator in October 2009, Perry fired and replaced three of its members, forcing an indefinite delay in the process. With a record of executing juveniles and mentally disabled, Perry said in a 2011 GOP presidential debate that he had “never struggled” at all with his decisions to administer the death penalty to more than 230 people.
3. He actively sought to dismantle Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.Perry argued that Texas and other states should be able to opt out of federal entitlements like Medicaid and Social Security — even though such a move would actually cost his own state’s economy billions of dollars. Despite their popularity and success, he called these programs and Medicare “Ponzi schemes,” and suggested they are actually unconstitutional.
4. He consistently backed legislation to restrict women’s reproductive rights.Perry has made news in recent weeks for his embarrassing attacks on State Senator Wendy Davis (D) and his efforts to ram through a likely unconstitutional bill to shut down the vast majority of Texas clinics that provide abortion. But his attacks on women’s reproductive choice are nothing new; in 2011 he pushed for and signed “emergency legislation” to require women to have unnecessary sonograms prior to abortions.
5. He demonized LGBT Texans and worked to increase legal discrimination against them. Perry was staunch defender of Texas’ unconstitutional anti-sodomy law which criminalized the private consensual sexual behavior of adults. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, Perry called ban “appropriate,” and blasted the Court decision as the result of “nine oligarchs in robes.” As a presidential candidate, he ran a shockingly anti-gay ad, blasting open service by gay and lesbian members of the Armed Services as part of President Obama’s “war on religion.” He vocally opposed the Boy Scouts of America’s half-measure allowing openly gay Scouts but not leaders, claimingthe tiny step “contradicts generations of tradition in the name of political correctness.” Even in his speech Monday, he proudly boasted that Texas had defended “the sanctity of marriage” by writing discrimination into the state’s constitution.
6. He backed nullification of federal laws and even raised the prospect of secession. Perry rose to national prominence in 2009 when he threatened to have Texas secede from the United States. “If Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that,” Perry told reporters after a Tea Party event. He also signednullification legislation — a state law that portends to undo federal law, despite the Constitution’s clear guarantee of federal supremacy — as governor, the likes of which were used by secessionists in the 19th Century.
7. He refused to let the federal government provide healthcare for low-income Texans, despite the highest rate of uninsured residents in the country. Health care in Texas is abysmal. More than 25 percent of Texans — 6,234,900 people and growing — lack health coverage, the highest of any state in the country. However, when Obamacare was passed and offered millions of dollars in federal money to expand Medicaid and cover poor Texans, Perry rejected the offer even though it wouldn’t cost Texas a dime for at least three years. Despite his state’s awful track record on covering low-income residents, Perryclaimed that Texas has the “best health care in the country.”
8. He vetoed bipartisan Equal Pay legislation to protect Texas women. Though women, on average, continue to earn 77 cents for every dollar men make, Perry vetoed legislation that would have helped women fight discrimination. The bill, HB 950, which passed the Republican-held Texas legislature, would have built on the federal Lilly Ledbetter Act. Perry, worrying that the bill would lead to regulations, vetoed the measure.
9. He called for repeal of the 16th and 17th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, to end popular election of Senators and the federal income tax.In his book Fed Up!, Perry said that both the 16th and 17th Amendments were “mistaken” and should be repealed. The 16th Amendment allows the federal government to collect income taxes and accounts for 45 percent of all revenue, while the 17th Amendment allows voters, rather than state legislatures, to choose their U.S. senators. Perry opposed both amendments, saying they were merely passed in “a fit of populist rage.”
In his announcement, Perry noted, “Our responsibility remains to the next generation of Texans, who will inherit a state of our making. We alone are responsible for the kind of Texas that will greet them.”
By David Ferguson/Raw Story Thursday night on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” host Rachel Maddow took on Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R)’s attempt to slam state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) by using her former status as an unwed mother against her. Davis went on a 13-hour filibuster at the state capitol in Austin this week to prevent Republicans from passing a draconian law virtually outlawing abortion in the state and reducing the state’s number of abortion-providing clinics to five.
Perry has been governor of Texas for 13 years. Many people say that when his current term is up, the governor will decline to run for his office again, but instead will focus his sights on another presidential run.
“And who knows?” Maddow said. “Maybe he’ll do great this time.”
On paper, Maddow said, Perry is a great candidate. “The problem is that the election isn’t on paper. There’s the talking.”
Perry’s 2012 run was marred by a series of bone-headed misstatements and unforced errors, including his notorious “Oops!” gaffein the Republican primary debates when he couldn’t remember what three agencies of the government he would eviscerate on his first day in office as president.
Maddow played a clip from a 2010 interview at the studios of KRLU radio in which the Texas governor crashed and burned when asked a question about the inefficacy of abstinence-only education. A question asked the governor to explain how abstinence-only education is working for Texas, given that under the Perry administration, Texas rose up to the nation’s third highest position on teen pregnancy rates.
When pressed, the governor stammered out, “I’m sorry, I’m just going to tell you…from my own personal life, abstinence works.” said Perry. “If the point is…we’re going to stand up here and say, ‘Y’all go have sex and have the whatever is going on…and here’s the ways to have safe sex.’ I’m sorry; call me old-fashioned if you want, but that’s not what I’m going to stand up in front of the people in the state of Texas and say, ‘That’s the way we need to go, and forget about abstinence.’”
“Texas Gov. Rick Perry talking about sex in public,” Maddow said, “never goes well. And today he turned those bright lights of his” toward Texas state Senator Wendy Davis.
“And that really did not go well,” she continued.
She noted that “about 15 hours after Davis declared her intention to run for statewide office,” Gov. Perry went on the attack.
Perry commented on the Davis filibuster from the podium at the National Right to Life Convention in Dallas. In his remarks, the governor said that Wendy Davis “was the daughter of a single woman. She was a teenage mother herself. She managed to eventually graduate from Harvard Law School and serve in the Texas Senate. It’s just unfortunate that she hasn’t learned from her own example that every life must be given a chance to realize its full potential and that every life matters.”
Later that day on Dallas radio, he said, “She didn’t come from particularly good circumstances. What if her mom had said, you know, ‘I just can’t do this, I don’t want to do this’ at that particular point in time? I think it becomes very personal.”
Maddow said that Davis must be very glad that the governor was kind enough to “mansplain” her own circumstances to her and how grateful she must be that her mother didn’t abort her.
“You got that, Senator Davis?” Maddow asked. “About your own life and what you need to learn from it? Isn’t it nice that you managed to get through law school?”
Davis, for her part, wasted few words reacting to Perry’s attack, saying, “I would just say that it really demeans the office that he holds to make a personal statement like that.”
Gov. Rick Perry announced there will be a second special session in an attempt to pass a sweeping Texas style abortion ban. It’s back to the drawing board for the SB5 bill. Evidently Wendy Davis pissed him off, and he will NOT allow a woman to thwart the GOP plan to take away a woman’s right to choose!!!
“Misplaced priorities of legislative leaders squandered a tremendous opportunity to make much needed improvements in our transportation infrastructure and help create good jobs and bring businesses to Texas. Despite urging by responsible members of the Senate to bring up the matter of transportation, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst derailed as much as much as $1 billion per year in transportation funding by stubbornly pushing divisive, failed legislation attacking women’s health care options.
If leaders are serious about using this second called special session to improve the lives of Texans by repairing and expanding our transportation networks, they will find no greater ally than me. If they intend to keep pushing their extreme personal political agenda ahead of the interests of Texas families, I will not back off of my duty to fight on their behalf.”
By Arturo Garcia/Raw Story Democrats in the Texas legislature accused Gov. Rick Perry (R) on Friday of vetoing a bill that would have given women more chances to fight pay discrimination,the Dallas Morning News reported.
The measure, HB 950, would have allowed women to sue their employers in state court beyond the current 180-day period after receiving a paycheck they claim was unfair and sue for two years of discriminatory payments. It passed in the state House in April 2013 and the state Senate in May 2013. But a spokesperson for state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, who wrote the House version of the bill, said she was told by Perry’s office that he struck it down.
“I am very surprised that Governor Perry does not see the value in it,” state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) told the News. Davis introduced the Senate version of the bill.
Davis also told the Houston Chronicle that Perry vetoed the bill because it mirrored the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act, a federal law passed in 2009. She questioned that reasoning in a press conference on Saturday, citing the bill’s provision allowing plaintiffs to sue in a state district court.
“These courts are less burdensome financially and are presided over by a judge elected by Texans, and consisting of a jury of their peers” Davis said at the press conference.
By vetoing the bill, Davis said, Perry showed “a callous disregard for the wages that are required to support Texas families.”
The state Supreme Court ruled in August 2012 (PDF) that the Lily Ledbetter Act may not be integrated into the state Commission on Human Rights Act.
Perry’s office did not comment on the allegations. According to the Chronicle, he has until Sunday to issue vetos.
Listen to Davis’ statements, posted online by the Chronicle on Friday, below.
During last night’s GOP presidential debate, Rick Perry suggested that Turkey is run by “Islamic terrorists” and said the American NATO ally should be kicked out of the Atlantic Alliance. The Turkish Foreign Ministry chastised Perry today, saying that candidates for president “should be more knowledgeable about the world.” Today on CNN, host Wolf Blitzer asked Perry if he’d like to take back his comment. “No, not at all,” Perry said. The Texas governor then suggested that the Turkish government is sanctioning “honor killings.” “If they are treating their citizens that way, than they approach that terminology,” he said. Watch the clip:
Last month, 2012 GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich called for drug-testing recipients of federal aid. “Unemployment compensation, food stamps, you name it,” he said.
And Gingrich now has a kindred spirit in the GOP race when it comes to drug-testing those who need to access federal programs and the social safety net — Texas Gov. Rick Perry:
I don’t have a problem with before you get any dollars from the federal government that you’re drug tested,” Perry said in response to a man who suggested the idea in a question to him at a meet-and-greet in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, that drew over 80 people. Perry pointed out that as a pilot in the Air Force, he himself had been drug tested. “I don’t have a problem in the world with that,” he said.
As ThinkProgress’ Justice Ian Millhiser has noted, this sort of policy “would likely run headlong into the Constitution,” as it constitutes a “suspicion-less search,” nevermind the fact that drug testing requirements cost more money than they save and welfare recipients actually use drugs less than other groups. Even 2012 GOP candidate Rick Santorum, a big fan of rabid right-wing causes, wouldn’t endorse federal drug-testing for benefits.
Republicans in several states, however, have embraced testing those who need benefits, as have House Republicans at the federal level. In Georgia, one Democratic lawmaker responded to his Republican colleagues’ desire to test beneficiaries by introducing a bill to drug-test lawmakers.
Fox News is amplifying a Rick Perry attack ad claiming that President Obama has launched a "war on religion" -- a claim that Politico has called "one of the most audible dog whistles so far this cycle about President Obama."
Perry Ad Accusing Obama Of Waging "War On Religion" Called A "Dog Whistle"
Politico: Perry Ad Has "One Of The Most Audible Dog Whistles So Far This Election Cycle About President Obama." In an article headlined, "Rick Perry TV ad hits gays, President Obama 'war on religion,' " Politico reported:
Rick Perry's latest spot in his Iowa ad buy rotation is another faith-based appeal, but one that is openly critical of gay rights and that has one of the most audible dog whistles so far this cycle about President Obama.
In the spot, entitled "Strong," Perry says, "I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Christian, but you don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school. As president, I'll end Obama's war on religion. And I'll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage. Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again."
The hit on gay rights has become a staple of Perry's faith pitch, after getting a hard push yesterday, but the comment about Obama's "war on religion" will rather easily be read as trying underscore the perception among some voters of the president as "different," and a reminder of the false assertions that the Christian chief executive is really a Muslim. [Politico, 12/7/11]
Fox Helped Amplify Perry's "Dog Whistle"
Bill O'Reilly: Perry "Hail Mary" Was "A Smart Move." Bill O'Relly claimed that Perry was "turning to his Christianity" with the ad, calling the ad "emotional" and "a Hail Marry pass." O'Reilly concluded that running the ad was "a smart move." [Fox News, The O'Reilly Factor, 12/8/11]
Fox's Hemmer: "Some Would Say" Perry's Ad Is "Powerful." During an interview with Perry onAmerica's Newsroom, host Bill Hemmer said: "You're on the air already with a, some would say, a powerful ad that goes toward what you consider liberal attacks on religion in America." [Fox News,America's Newsroom, 12/8/11]
Tucker Carlson: The Obama Administration Hates "Traditional Christianity." During a panel discussion reacting to Perry's ad on Hannity, Daily Caller editor Tucker Carlson said, "That ad's not right. There's not a war on -- they don't hate religion. They hate traditional Christianity." [Fox News, Hannity,12/7/11]
Fox's Eric Bolling: Perry Ad "Really Hits Home." On The Five, co-host Eric Bolling said of Perry: "He's going after Obama's war on religion. It's provocative, so we're going to talk about it." Later in the segment, Bolling praised the ad again, calling it "very effective." He added: "This ad really hits home." [Fox News, The Five, 12/7/11, via Nexis]
Fox's Todd Starnes Used Perry Ad To Accuse Obama White House Of Routinely "Attacking The Christian Faith." Fox News' Todd Starnes claimed that in his ad, Perry "decided to address the big elephant in the pew as we head into 2012 -- the Obama administration's relationship with religion -- specifically Christianity." Starnes opined:
The evidence of his White House attacking the Christian faith, however, is plentiful. [FoxNews.com, 12/8/11]
FLASHBACK: Christian Leaders Condemn Attacks On Obama's Faith
Christian Leaders: "The Personal Faith Of Our Leaders Should Not Be Up For Public Debate."In an August 2010 letter, more than 70 Christian leaders "called on the media, public officials, and their fellow Christians to stand with them in opposing those who continue to insinuate that the President is a Muslim, not a Christian." The signatories to the letter wrote:
As Christian leaders -- whose primary responsibility is sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with our congregations, our communities, and our world -- we are deeply troubled by the recent questioning of President Obama's faith. We understand that these are contentious times, but the personal faith of our leaders should not be up for public debate.
President Obama has been unwavering in confessing Christ as Lord and has spoken often about the importance of his Christian faith. Many of the signees on this letter have prayed and worshipped with this President. We believe that questioning, and especially misrepresenting, the faith of a confessing believer goes too far. [Open Letter From National Church Leaders, 8/25/10, via Eleison Group]
A new TV commercial released by Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry claims something is wrong with the United States because the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was repealed.
“I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school,” Perry says in the 30-second ad, which will air in Iowa.
“As President, I’ll end Obama’s war on religion,” he continues. “And I’ll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage. Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again.”
Congress voted this year to end the military’s policy disallowing openly gay people to serve in the military, a move supported by the President. Obama has also riled social conservatives for ordering the Justice Department not to defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.
The ad comes only a day after Perry condemned Obama’s decision to support gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights around the world. Perry said Obama was “at war with people of faith” for ordering government agencies to fight against violence and discrimination targeting LGBT persons.
Watch the ad, uploaded to YouTube on December 6, 2011, below:
2012 GOP presidential contender and Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been plummeting in the polls recently, with the latest numbers showing him at 8 percent in South Carolina and just 2 percent in Florida. In an apparent attempt to revive his campaign, Perry has decided that espousing anti-bank populism is the right approach. Perry said in a speech in New Hampshire today that the bankers who wrecked the economy should be thrown in jail and that he opposes executives at bailed out banks receiving bonuses.
However, his solution to the problem of banks’ undue influence in the economy is to simply promise “no more bailouts” and then have Congress pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution:
Not the large banks that were overleveraged. Not the insurance company that took on too much risk. Not even executives who continued to get these huge bonuses even after the walls had crumbled down. No, the people that are paying the price are average Americans. Main Street businesses. It’s our children who stand to inherit the worst fiscal mess in the history of this country. It is wrong, it is unfair, it is unjust. We shouldn’t be awarding taxpayer funded bonuses to Wall Street executives who defrauded those very same taxpayers. We ought to be locking ‘em up.
Mr. Speaker, when I’m the President of the United States, we will clean up corruption from K Street to Wall Street so that they can not gamble with our childrens’ future again. And it starts with a simple promise. No more bailouts, whether we’re talking about bailing out bankers in America or we’re talking about bankers in Europe. No more bailouts. It continues with my pledge to end wasteful earmarks. And I won’t stop until Congress and the American people pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Watch it:
It’s entirely unclear how Perry thinks that a BBA — one of the worst ideas in Washington, for a whole host of reasons — would help rein in the biggest banks. Perhaps he thinks it will prevent the government from spending money in a TARP-like fashion? And for someone professing such a concern for the power of Wall Street, Perry is on record calling for the repeal of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. “This president does not understand how to free up the small businessmen and women or, for that matter, Wall Street,” Perry has said.
This isn’t the first time that Perry has gone populist when it comes to Wall Street, saying in 2008 that the banking industry “has too often been run on greed.” But when it comes to solutions, Perry suggests a favorite GOP budget gimmick that has nothing to do with the problem at hand.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) wants to be president, but he just can’t remember when the election is or how old you have to be to vote.
At a campaign stop at St. Anselm College Institute of Politics Tuesday, Perry didn’t seem to know that Americans become eligible to vote at the age of 18, and that the 2012 presidential election will be held on Nov. 6, 2012.
“Those who are going to be over 21 on November 12th, I ask for your support,” the candidate told students. “Those of you that won’t be, just work hard. Because you’re… counting on us.”
Following the event, Perry spokesman Mark Miner dismissed the error, saying “the governor misspoke.”
But some are sure to see the slip as part of a pattern.
At a Republican presidential debate in early November, the Texas governor could not recall which three agencies of government he wanted to eliminate.
“The third agency of government — I would do away with Education, the, um, Commerce and let’s see…,” Perry said, glancing down at the podium. “I can’t. The third one, I can’t. Sorry. Oops.”
Watch this video from The Associated Press, broadcast Nov. 29, 2011.
