Tag Archives: Rick Perry

October 28, 2011 · 8:38 pm

Ten Things I Hate About Republicans

As a start, let’s remember the classic premise under which the Republican Party has traditionally built its platform:  “A strong national defense and  less government intrusion into our daily lives.”  Doesn’t sound too bad on the surface, but the devil is in the details and how the GOP has evolved over the last 30 years.

The GOP used to be the bastion of White Shoe Lawyers, Old Money and the Corporate Elite.  At least they were straight forward about their goals in those days.  It was all about preserving capital within the family, making money and leaving every one else alone as long as those goals were achieved.

Then came the unholy alliance with the Religious Right.  Then they had to pretend they gave a damn about abortion and gays.  There went the part of the platform about “less government intrusion into our daily lives.”  Out the window.  The proverbial baby with the bath water,

That eventually led to most sensible people leaving the GOP.  This was all just too tacky for the Country Club Republicans to accept.  So, they moved to the Democrats and we saw the rise of the Corporatist Wing of the Democratic Party.

Arguably, a lot of today’s Democrats are very similar to the Republicans of 30 or 40 years ago.  That means a lot of people don’t quite fit anywhere.   However, the Democratic Party is more open to dissension and discussion, so most of these folks stay with the Dems and try to work it out.  The Dems negotiate, the GOP purges like the Stalinists of yore….

But I digress…let’s get back on topic.

What do I hate about the “modern” GOP?  Let me tell you…

1.  They are mean- these folks go for the jugular vein.  They don’t discuss, they don’t book dissent, they kill.  Truth is usually the first victim.  They have obviously read their Machiavelli and believe you can’t wound a prince, you must kill him.  (See Rick Perry)

2.  They lie with impunity- The modern GOP does not believe in facts, they believe in propaganda. They will look you in the eye – or more likely television camera- and lie. Their goal is to create an alternate reality that benefits the Rich without anyone getting wise to the situation.  (See Fox News)

3.  They are hypocrites-  They claim moral superiority and belief in “traditional” family values while serially abandoning wives and families for new trophy wives.  (See John McCain and Newt Gingrich)

4.  They are plastic- If Ken and Barbie ran for  office they would be Republicans.  I’m convinced the GOP and fundamentalist ministers keep the hairspray companies in business.  I would just love to put all the GOP debaters in a wind tunnel and see how they came out.  I wonder if their hair is real or if it’s like some play-dough helmet they put on everyday….(See Mitt Romney and Rick Perry)

5.  They are proud of their ignorance- They hate science and won’t believe simple facts.  They can’t be bothered to learn or study the issues.  (See Herman Cain and Sarah Palin-among others)

6.  They are intolerant of other religions or the religious views of others- Each of them seem to be convinced they have a direct line to God and he speaks only to them.  Anyone who disagrees with them is bound for hell.  (See Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum)

7.  They are heartless-  Ideological purity is of the utmost importance-particularly to the Libertarian Republicans.  These guys believe in almost no government.  If you get sick and don’t have any money, it’s okay to let you die.  They think you should have planned better and worked harder. (See Ron Paul)

8.  They are anti-intellectual-  Used to be we wanted the smartest guy or gal in the room for our President.  Not the GOP.  Not only are they proud of their ignorance, they dismiss intelligence and intellectual curiosity as signs of ideological weakness.  They think people who actually study the issues and the facts are wasting valuable time.  To them, facts are to be adjusted to drive the agenda and one shouldn’t think too much about things like starting a war with Iraq because someone insulted Daddy.  (See George W. Bush)

9.  The are vengeful- They truly believe there are only two important concepts in politics:  Loyalty and Revenge.  You must be loyal, without asking questions, or you will face their revenge.  (See George W. Bush and Dick Cheney)

10.  They are always out for themselves- Their motto really should be “I’ve got mine, screw you.”  They don’t believe in anything that stands in the way of profiteering.  It’s all about “me” to them.  They don’t even recognize the existence of anyone else as that would require them to stop gazing at themselves in the mirror and reading their bank statements.  (See Sarah Palin)

I could go on, but I’ll stop here for now….

I’m sure before the Republican Presidential Primaries are over, I’ll be able to add to this list…..

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October 25, 2011 · 8:20 pm

Rick Perry On Increasing Income Inequality: ‘I Don’t Care About That’

Well, this shouldn’t be news to anyone….

Because:

a)  We all knew Governor GoodHair was an Airheaded Ex-Cheerleader just like George W Bush- but with worse grades at a worse school and an even meaner disposition.

b) Everyone should know by now the entire GOP- and some of the Dems- are bought and paid for by the Corporations and the Rich.  They are just starting to be honest about it….

c)  “I Don’t Care” should be the Republican Party’s  Campaign Slogan for 2012.  The Rickster is just ahead of the curve on messaging.

 

From The Huffington Post:

 

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry says he wants a huge tax break for the rich, and he doesn’t care what it means for income inequality.

Rick Perry announced on Tuesday that if elected president he would slash the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 and give everyone the option of paying a flat income tax rate of 20 percent.

He also would try to encourage U.S. companies who have stored $1.4 trillion overseas to move their profits back to the United States by allowing them to pay 5.25 percent in taxes at first, according to Reuters.

The plan, if enacted, would dramatically reduce the tax burdens of the wealthiest people in the United States, saving millions of dollars for some, while raising taxes for poor and middle-class people who opt into the plan.

“I don’t care about that,” Perry said of the increased economic inequality that would result from the tax plan in an interview with The New York Times. “If that’s what comes, I’ll take that criticism.”

via Rick Perry On Increasing Income Inequality: ‘I Don’t Care About That’.

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September 25, 2011 · 1:42 pm

Rick Perry Eviscerated By Fox News Sunday Panel: He ‘Really Did Throw Up All Over Himself In The Debate’

I hate to tell you “I told you so….”

But not really…..

I warned folks a few weeks ago the GOP Establishment and the Bushies would not tolerate Governor GoodHair.  He made it really easy for them to take him down and down he’s going…..

When you are a Republican and you’ve got Fox News turning on you like this, your days are numbered…..

 

WASHINGTON — After a weak debate performance and a loss in the Florida straw poll, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) is having his fitness as the GOP presidential frontrunner seriously questioned.

These doubts were on display during the roundtable on “Fox News Sunday.”

“Perry really did throw up all over himself in the debate, at a time when he needed to raise his game. He did worse, it seems to me, than in previous debates. … Perry is one-half a step away from almost total collapse as a candidate,” said Fox News commentator Brit Hume.

Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol wrote an editorial titled “Yikes” on Friday, writing of Thursday’s debate, “[N]one of the candidates really seemed up to the moment, either politically or substantively. In the midst of a crisis, we’re getting politics as usual — and a somewhat subpar version of politics as usual at that.”

The alternative, he wrote, is for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) to jump into the race.

On “Fox News Sunday,” Kristol said his editorial reflected what many Republicans are thinking, as evinced in Saturday’s straw poll in Florida, where Herman Cain won with 37 percent of the vote. The results were considered especially embarrassing for Perry, who came in second, since former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney did not officially compete. (He ended up coming in third.)

But Kristol said it was a repudiation of both the frontrunners.

via Rick Perry Eviscerated By Fox News Sunday Panel: He ‘Really Did Throw Up All Over Himself In The Debate’.

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September 17, 2011 · 11:54 am

Would a Perry v. Obama Contest Be a Confederacy v. Union Rematch?

Interesting article from Alternet…

I’ve always said the Republicans look backwards with fear while the Democrats look forward with hope.

Should Perry be the GOP nominee, it would definitely set up an interesting group of dynamics.  Rich vs the Poor and Middle Class.  Past vs Future.  Corporate Power vs The People.  Ignorance vs Science and Knowledge.  And yes, many, many more….including North vs South.

It would be one nasty, scary battle as Perry fights in the gutter.  I just hope he’s done himself in with his comments about ending Social Security, Secession, and many, many more totally stupid comments….

However, America elected George W Bush, at least once, so I never under-estimate the power of ignorance and venality to triumph in this country….

 

Should Perry win the GOP presidential nomination, an obvious subtext of the presidential contest will be “Confederacy v. Union — The Rematch.” And, at the visual level, the theme will be conveniently reinforced by each man’s respective race.

Earlier this week, Perry delivered a speech from the stage of the 10,000-seat amphitheater at Liberty University, the evangelical institution founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, one of the early leaders of the religious right and an opponent of school desegregation. “When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line,” Falwell told his flock in 1958,  according to a report by Sarah Posner for AlterNet.

In introducing Perry to the Liberty U audience this week, Falwell’s son, Jerry Jr., lauded the Texas governor “for having the guts to say things that weren’t exactly politically correct, like when Gov. Perry said Texas might secede one day from the union.”

Indeed, Perry made such intimations more than once during the rancorous debate over the president’s health-care reform legislation. At the time, Tea Party leaders were vociferously talking up the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which reserves to the states all powers not enumerated within the document, as the means for challenging the health-care bill’s mandate for individual purchase of health insurance. The impetus for all the 10th Amendment love comes from states’ rights advocates, often known as Tenthers, many of whom view the Civil War as the result of unlawful usurpation of power from the states by the federal government.

via Would a Perry v. Obama Contest Be a Confederacy v. Union Rematch? | | AlterNet.

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September 8, 2011 · 9:27 am

Rick Perry Campaign Refuses To Rule Out Ending Social Security

This proves:

a) Governor GoodHair is just as stupid as has been reported

b) He thinks the Dems are too stupid to play this position up in the General Election

c) He knows this is now the official GOP Platform plank and he’s too stupid to hide it like the rest of them

d) He spends so much time with Rich People and egghead Conservative theorists, he thinks this is a popular, winning position.

e) All of the Above

Make no mistake about it: Rick Perry is running against Social Security. Last night in the debate, Perry stood by his oft-repeated claims that the popular government retirement program is a Ponzi Scheme and a “failure.”

And after the debate, Team Perry refused to rule out ending the program all together under a Perry presidency.

From the Huffington Post’s Jon Ward:

A top Perry aide refused, under repeated questions from The Huffington Post, to rule out the idea that Perry would favor dissolving altogether the 76-year-old program that pays out benefits to seniors.

“I’m not going to parse his words,” Perry aide Ray Sullivan told Ward after the debate when asked “why he would not just say that Perry does not want to end the program.”

via Rick Perry Campaign Refuses To Rule Out Ending Social Security | Election 2012.

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September 4, 2011 · 6:46 pm

Beware Rick Perry: The Bushies Are At It Again…

The Bushies really hate Rick Perry, so they are going after Chris “Two Tons of Fun” Christie, the NJ Governor to try to push him into the GOP Presidential Primary to undercut Perry.

And Sarah Palin is still doing her Hamlet routine:  To run or not to run, that is the question….

The fun is just beginning….

 

The speculation simply won’t die. On Sunday, former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was “actively” weighing the option of jumping into the Republican presidential race amid voter discontent with the current field.

“I don’t think Republicans regard this as a strong field,” Gerson said, during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” “So there is still talk of people getting in the race. Not just [Sarah] Palin but last week, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey was in Chicago and had two meetings with serious Republican groups from the Midwest.”

via Chris Christie ‘Actively.. Considering Getting In This Race’: Bush Aide.

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September 2, 2011 · 11:08 pm

Luckenbach Texas

This is an interesting song…

I’ll shock some folks by saying I have always liked it.  I have since college.  I like the overall message of simplifying life.

The problem is the location.

I’m sorry, but Texas gave us  Tom Delay, George Bush and Rick Perry.   True, it also gave us Molly Ivins and Ann Richards. But I think Delay, Bush and Perry have done more to destroy the Texas Mystique than most Texans realize.

No matter how many times I watch “Giant”, all I can think is that the Benedicts have ultimately lost out to Jett Rink….

While I like the sentiment of the song, it seems to be saying, let’s shuck it all and move to the intellectual, cultural and artistic wastelands- which is what most of Texas is-excluding Austin, San Antonio and maybe a couple of other places.

Discuss among yourselves:

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August 24, 2011 · 9:06 pm

Rick Perry Vaults Into Lead For GOP Nomination In Two National Polls

This is getting to be fun…

Public Policy Polling is one of the most accurate pollsters in the country.

Rick Perry, aka Governor Goodhair,  is not only evil, but certifiably crazy.  See previous posts on this blog and elsewhere….

President Obama should be able to destroy him, but it would be one of the nastiest campaigns ever seen.

Of course, Governor Goodhair may yet fade. Karl Rove and the Bushies hate him and will do all they can do to bring him down.  But the GOP Primary voters are so crazy, it might not matter what anyone says or does….The crazier the candidate, the more they like them.  See how well Michele Bachmann polls here, as well…

Poor Willard Romney, he’s starting to see it all slip away.  I guess that’s why he needs that big, new retirement house in California….

From TalkingPointsMemo.com:

Former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney has been the frontrunner in most national polls of the GOP primary over the last year, and the general punditry considered it his nomination to lose, at least at first. And while it’s still early, new polling released on Wednesday shows his unchallenged time at the head of the pack may be over.

A new national Gallup poll of GOP and GOP-leaning voters shows Romney, who had more than a quarter of the total vote in Gallup’s June numbers in the same poll, has fallen to 17 percent, while newly minted candidate Tex. Gov. Rick Perry surges to 29 percent and the lead. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), considered a top contender, falls to fourth with 10 percent, behind Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) at 13 percent. The rest of the field is in single digits.

Public Policy Polling (D) also came out with a national poll of GOP voters on Wednesday, which showed similar results. In that survey, Perry leads with 33 percent in the field of announced candidates, followed by Romney at 20 percent and Bachmann at 16. The rest of the field in that poll were also in single digits.

Both polls showed Perry’s favorability ratings are very high among Republican primary voters. Gallup recently published “positive intensity scores” on the GOP field (a metric that measures strong favorability against strong unfavorability), which show Perry as the highest rated of the GOP major contenders, although less known. In the PPP poll, Perry registered a 64 percent favorablility rating against 17 unfavorable, a number that reflected findings in another PPP poll released Tuesday of Iowa GOP voters.

The Gallup poll included live telephone interviews conducted from August 17th to 21st with Republicans and GOP-leaning independents, and has a sampling error of four percent. The PPP national poll used 663 automated interviews conducted from August 18th to the 21st with GOP voters, and has a sampling error of 3.8 percent.

via Perry Vaults Into Lead For GOP Nomination In Two National Polls | TPMDC.

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August 18, 2011 · 10:30 pm

*Government* Jobs Led To Perry’s Texas Economic Boom

Governor Goodhair is not going to like this little bit of information from TalkingPointsMemo.com:

On the campaign trail, governor Rick Perry will claim credit for the so-called Texas miracle. His state weathered the housing and jobs crises better than many others, and he’ll happily tell voters it was the result of his small government conservative approach to running things.

But his state’s relative success has a lot to do with things out of his control — population growth resulting from an influx of immigrants from Mexico and of workers and retirees from other U.S. states, and high oil company profits, to name just a couple. Oh, and also federal stimulus.

What’s that you say?!

Despite being one of the loudest critics of President Obama’s stimulus, Perry used billions of dollars of federal money to patch Texas’ budget shortfalls, and was thus able to create and maintain lots and lots of public sector jobs. In fact, if you look at net job creation between 2007 and 2010, it’s clear the only thing keeping Texas buoyant was government jobs.

via CHART OF THE DAY: *Government* Jobs Led To Perry’s Economic Boom | TPMDC.

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August 17, 2011 · 6:09 pm

Hightower: There’s a ‘very ugly side’ to Rick Perry

Interesting comments from Texas populist/progressive Jim Hightower….

It’s really kind of scary that he considers Perry to be like George Bush “without the intelligence or the ethics”.

As I said earlier, I expect Rick Perry to fizzle- if not explode.

And the Establishment GOP seems to be living in fear that he won’t.

Remember one thing:  Karl Rove and the Bushies do not like Rick Perry.  Rick Perry does not want people to know this….Rove has already hit him once over his comments this weekend about Ben Bernanke.  Keep an eye on this dynamic.

Instead of Texas seceding, as Governor Goodhair suggested a while back, the Texas GOP may be on the verge of it’s own Civil War.

 

Although the presence of Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the Republican presidential primary may be looked upon warmly in the press these days, don’t expect that to last. Speaking with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Tuesday, populist author and Texas Observer contributor Jim Hightower cautioned that there’s a “very ugly side” to Perry that won’t be relatively unknown for long.

“They say the higher the monkey climbs, the more you see its ugly side,” Hightower said. “Well, Perry’s got a very ugly side. He’s going to get the kind of media scrutiny that he’s not had.”

“Republicans get a two’fer with him. One, they get one of the furthest-out of the far-out tea party right-wingers, sort of a Michele Bachmann with better hair. And also though, they get the real Perry, which is the exuberant, corporate Republican who never met a corporate lobbyist he wouldn’t hug as long as that lobbyist had a campaign check and a wish list.

“He really is kind of a George Bush plutocrat without the intelligence or the ethics. That’s the real Perry, is really going to be the corporate Perry. That’s the kind of governorship he has run.”

via Hightower: There’s a ‘very ugly side’ to Rick Perry | Raw Replay.

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