Tag: Texas

Rick Perry: Gay, Gay, Gay

Jon Ponder

The blowback from the hate-filled ad targeting Iowa’s Christian bigot voters that Rick Perry released this week has been pretty hilarious.

photos-rick-perry-teletubby-brokebackIt has spawned all sorts of parodies, including the video above, as well as a Tumblr site and a series of Photoshop jobs in which gay icons like Tinky Winky, the late Rev. Jerry Falwell’s favorite Teletubby, are superimposed behind Perry.

And speaking of gay icons, here is a Dept. of There Are No Accidents alert: In the ad, Perry is costumed in a jacket just like the one worn by Heath Ledger in “Brokeback Mountain.”

But the blowback hasn’t been all fun and games for Rick Perry. On Wednesday, Tony Fabrizio, team Perry’s pollster and strategist, was outed on Twitter — “twouted?” — by Jimmy LaSalvia and Chris Barron, prominent members of GOProud, a Stockholm-syndrome support group for gay Republicans:

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Matt Taibbi on Rick Perry’s Peculiar Anti-Government Crony Corporate Socialism

Jon Ponder
Anti-government billionaire Harold Simmons who has made millions under Gov. Perry's crony socialism in Texas -- and the nuke dump he has built in West Texas
Anti-government billionaire Harold Simmons who has made millions under Gov. Perry's crony corporate socialism in Texas -- and the nuke dump he has built in West Texas

If you haven’t read Matt Taibbi’s take down of Rick Perry in Rolling Stone, “The Best Little Whore in Texas,” do it now.

“His hand was so cold, like ice. And he was sweating. He didn’t seem well, like he was in pain or he was sick or something. I don’t know what it was, but something was definitely wrong.”

For one thing, there’s this bit about how Perry, who is supposedly a genius at retail politics, actually comes across in person:

Liliana Ros, a [Republican] party committeewoman in Florida, shook Perry’s hand during a commercial break at the Orlando debate and promptly finked on him to reporters, offering a pervy description that was missing only the open raincoat and the raging boner. “He grabbed my hand and held on to it,” Ros said. “His hand was so cold, like ice. And he was sweating. He didn’t seem well, like he was in pain or he was sick or something. I don’t know what it was, but something was definitely wrong.”

But mainly, there’s this on Perry’s peculiar brand of anti-government corporate crony socialism:

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Is God Smiting Texas?

Jon Ponder
map-texas-drought

When disasters strike in the United States, Republican evangelicals are quick to blame liberals and their wanton ways for bringing God’s wrath onto the land.

In 2001, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell blamed the ACLU, feminists and gays, among others, for the 9/11 attacks. In 2005, Pastor John Hagee of Texas, John McCain’s Catholic-hating buddy from the 2008 campaign, asserted that God smote New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina because it was the site of Southern Decadence, an annual gay event in the French Quarter.

And yet — as we have noted here (and here, here and here) — evangelicals are always silent when disasters hit them in their own backyards.

Rachel Maddow picked up on this theme on her MSBNC show last night, reporting that Cindy Jacobs — a self-proclaimed prophet and theocrat who pals around with Republican presidential frontrunner Rick Perry — has proclaimed that because Perry hosted a prayer meeting, which he called “the Response,” in Houston on Aug. 6, God has healed the state of Texas:

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Sorry, Rick, Galileo Was Not ‘Outvoted’ by Other Scientists

Jon Ponder

Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition, painting by Cristiano Banti, 1857
Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition, painting by Cristiano Banti, 1857
CalBuzz:

[Although] Perry’s bold (reckless?) commitment to attacking Social Security and Romney’s counter-parry were the most important political dynamics of the encounter, what really set our heads spinning was the Texan’s invocation of Galileo, or, as they refer to him in Austin, “that sumbitch heliocentrist.”

As every school kid knows, Galileo’s insistence that the earth revolves around the sun enraged the big brains of the Catholic Church and, in 1615, the Roman Inquisition started to hound him. After he published his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems — seen as an attack on Pope Urban VIII — he was tried and found “vehemently suspect of heresy,” being finally forced to recant, spending the rest of his life under house arrest.
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Why Rick Perry’s Nickname Was ‘Crotch’

Jon Ponder

I first met Rick Perry in 1985. He was a Democratic freshman state rep, straight off the ranch in Haskell, Texas. He wore his jeans so tight, and, umm, adjusted himself so often that my fellow young legislative aides and I used to call him Crotch. Even among state representatives, even among Texas Aggies (graduates of this cute remedial school we have in Texas), Perry stood out for his modest intellectual gifts. Hell, he got a C in animal breeding. I have goats who got an A in that subject. But lack of brains has never been a hindrance in politics.

– Democratic strategist Paul Begala

The Line: Rick Perry

Jon Ponder

photo-perry-stern

  • Kevin Drum, Mother Jones: Why Perry won’t win
  • Erica Grieder, The Economist: Democrats, you misunderestimate Perry at your peril
  • Washington Post: Fact-checking Perry’s announcement speech
  • ThinkProgress: Perry says Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional
  • Juan Cole, Informed Comment: Rick Perry and the hucksterism of the rich
  • Paul Begala, Daily Beast: Lack of brains has never been a hindrance in politics
  • SaintPetersblog: Is Rick Perry gay? Googlers want to know

Lockyear on Texas’ Hidden $27 Bil Deficit: Someone Turned on the Lights in the Bar and Texas ‘Doesn’t Look So Pretty Anymore’

Jon Ponder

Someone just turned the lights on in the bar, and the sexiest state doesn’t look so pretty anymore.

– California Treasurer Bill Lockyear, a Democrat, reacting to news that Texas had been hiding a $27 billion deficit for over a year while both Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry and California GOP candidate for governor Meg Whitman lambasted California’s deficit and touted Texas as a “miracle” of fiscal responsibility.