Category: Politics

The Uninformed Rick Perry

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

ABC has the news of Rick Perry in New Hampshire:

When Rick Perry arrived in New Hampshire one day ago, he repeated the state’s “live free or die” motto, telling an audience, “You’ve got to love that.

What Perry may not have loved, however, is the treatment he received just 24-hours later at a meet-and-greet stop in this picturesque Seacoast town where he encountered about two-dozen protesters who shouted at him, held signs with slogans like “Another Texas idiot for sale,” and followed him into a cafe to yell some more.

Conceptual re-write of the situation:

Rick Perry: Live free or die!
Gail Mitchell: Old and busted. The new hotness: ‘Live for free or die!’
Rick Perry: Shazam!

Over at HotAir, the latest tidbit is that BHO’s team wants to run against Perry. The clear reason for this is that Bush is old and busted, but Perry can be framed as the new raaaaacist. White, male Texas Governors: only Teh One can save us from their depredations! And if you work hard enough for BHO, you may get a federal scooby snack.

It is great that the Administration has achieved such a level of transparency; would that the contents thereof were not pure hooey.

I Would Very Much Like to Say That Janeane Garofalo Has Lost Her Mind …

Posted on Comments

. . . but there isn’t much evidence that she was ever entirely sane:

Last night, on failed MSNBC talk host Keith Olbermann’s new Current TV show (a network with less viewers than MSNBC), Janeane Garofalo said Herman Cain must be getting paid to run, has Stockholm Syndrome and that the Tea Party and Conservative movement is racist.

A few samples of Janeane’s brilliant political insights moonbat rantings:

“[Herman Cain] in this presidential race because he deflects the racism that is inherent in the Republican party, the conservative movement, the Tea Party certainly. [In] the last 30 years the Republican party has been moving more and more to the right, but also race-baiting more. Gay-baiting more. Religion-baiting more,” Garofalo said.
“But, Herman Cain, I feel like, is being paid by somebody to be involved and to run for president so that you go like ‘I love that, that can’t be racist. He’s a black guy, a black guy asking for Obama being impeached.’ Or ‘it’s a black guy whose anti-Muslim. It’s a black guy who is a Tea Party guy.'”
Garofalo also had some conspiracy theories as to who may be putting Cain up to this.
“And I feel like wouldn’t that suit the purposes of whomever astroturfs these things. Whether that be the Koch brothers or Grover Norquist or any anything. It could even be Karl Rove. ‘Let’s get Herman Cain involved so it deflects the obvious racism of our Republican party,'” Garofalo said.

Along the way, she managed to cite the Southern Poverty Law Center as a definite authority for the fact that America’s inherent racism has skyrocketed since Obama’s election. I just spent 10 days in Iowa, where Herman Cain was greeted by cheers from thousands of members of the party of “obvious racism.” Maybe all those Iowans are part of the Koch brothers/Grover Norquist/Karl Rove conspiracy.

HERMAN CAIN FOR PRESIDENT
Because Janeane Garofalo Needs a Long Stay in a
Quiet Place With Nurses and Doctors to Help Her Cope

UPDATE: Janeane Garofalo is obviously much more knowledgeable about racism than the guy in this video:

(Hat-tip: Katie Pavlich.)

Attention, ‘Young Hotties’ Who Have Had Sex With a Certain Texas Governor

Posted on Comments

Ron Paul supporter Robert Morrow took out a newspaper ad seeking women who can expose Gov. Rick Perry as a hypocrite:

HAVE YOU EVER HAD
SEX WITH RICK PERRY?
Are you a stripper, an escort, or just a “young hottie”
impressed by an arrogant, entitled governor of Texas? . . .
[W]e will help you publicize your direct dealings
with a Christian buzzword-spouting “family values”
hypocrite and fraud.

It should be noted that Morrow is a resident of Austin. Have there been any rumors in the Texas capital of gubernatorial hanky-panky? Why would Morrow be so specific about the types of women he was seeking? If Perry were indeed prone to extramarital affairs, doesn’t it make more sense that he’d be involved with, say, staffers or lobbyists — women he knew via politics, and who would thus have an incentive to be discreet — than to assume he’d be tapping strippers and escorts? But Morrow says the wording of his ad reflects more than a wild guess:

Morrow claims that he knows strippers in Austin who have stories about Perry, but none of them are willing to come forward to the press; hence, the need for an ad in the Chronicle. “I think it’s only a matter of time until somebody credible comes forward,” he told me.
At the bottom of the ad is a nod to the longtime (and equally unsubstantiated) rumors that Perry, who has pursued sundry anti-gay policies, is himself gay. “Note to gay people: If you know the truth about Rick, please QUIT covering for him,” it reads.

So the governor is either a reckless womanizer or a closeted homosexual, at least according to this Ron Paul supporter in Austin. That’s the great thing about unsubstantiated rumors: They can be completely contradictory, and still be damaging.

How long until Will Folks claims to have had sex with Rick Perry?

Malkin Not Keen on ‘Governor Gardasil’

Posted on Comments

The Boss went after Rick Perry for imposing mandatory vaccination with Gardasil on 12-year-old girls. Gardasil protects against human pappiloma virus (HPV, genital warts) and, at the time of the 2007 decision, social conservatives were outraged by the idea of requiring that girls so young be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease. Libertarians were outraged at the mandatory aspect of the requirement. Perhaps the worst part was that it appeared Perry was acting corruptly, as a favor to lobbyists for the vaccine manufacturer, Merck.

In response to this criticism, Streiff at Red State wrote a post about “the bad faith and dishonest arguments being made in regards to this decision. Unfortunately, people I have previously had some respect for have checked their integrity and intellect at the door on this subject” — and linked Malkin, thus accusing her of a lack of “integrity and intellect”!

Dan Riehl demanded that Red State’s Erick Erickson apologize for that.

Amid all this friendly-fire action, The Right Perspective recalled my own gut-hunch reaction to the Perry campaign’s roll-out: “I felt a need to put on the record my instinctive sense that there’s something fundamentally wrong about the Perry campaign . . . . Some kind of catastrophe will result, one way or another.”

I took a lot of flak for saying that at the time, but if Perry is so self-evidently the GOP Dream Candidate for 2012, why are Jeb Bush, Bill Bennett and John Boehner urging Paul Ryan to get in the race? I don’t know.

What I do know is that a lot of conservatives seem to have doubts about Perry’s candidacy, and that these doubts aren’t getting much media notice amid all the hype about the alleged Dream Candidate.

Herman Cain ‘Common Sense Solutions’ Bus Tour Heads to New Hampshire Friday

Posted on Comments

While the incumbent is running around the Midwest blaming the Tea Party for unemployment, Herman Cain gets ready to head to the Granite State and talk about how jobs are really created. Here’s the press release from the Cain campaign:

Cain Announces New Hampshire Stops
of “Common Sense Solutions” Bus Tour

(Stockbridge, GA)- Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain will embark on his “Common Sense Solutions” two day bus tour throughout the state of New Hampshire beginning on Friday, August 19.

Bus schedule (all times EDT):

Friday, August 19, 2011
5:15 p.m. Grand Opening of New Hampshire Headquarters
62 Lowell Street, Manchester, NH

6 p.m. Visits around the area
Elm Street shops and restaurants

Saturday, August 20, 2011
9:30 a.m. Breakfast in Dover
Weeks Restaurant (Downtown Dover)
2 Locust Street

10:30 a.m. Durham
Breaking New Grounds
50 Main Street, #B

12:15 p.m. Portsmouth Downtown
The Friendly Toast
113 Congress Street

3 p.m. New Hampshire Young Republican’s Lobster Bake
The Great Island Common
301 Wentworth Road (Behind New Castle Library)

Michelle Goldberg and ‘The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Evangelicalism’

Posted on Comments

Da Tech Guy yesterday made passing reference to something I had previously noticed but chosen to ignore: Michelle Goldberg’s article at the Daily Beast warning that both Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry are in league with “some of America’s most radical theocrats.”

Can we just call this what it is, namely fear-mongering and bigotry against devout Christians? Because I’m frankly sick and tired of this little game, which has been going on for decades but is seldom called out for what it really is.

If a conservative were to accuse liberal Jews of conspiring for political dominance, he would be automatically condemned as an anti-Semite and purged from polite society. And yet no liberal is ever condemned for accusing conservative Christians of conspiring for political dominance.

This goes back at least as far as Norman Lear and People for the American Way, and the same agitprop methods have been pursued quite lucratively by the disgraced and disgraceful Southern Poverty Law Center.

Fear of a Christian theocracy, the alleged objective of schemes purportedly hatched and incubated by secretive cabals of fundamentalists, has been a persistent theme of liberal journalism and advocacy for at least three decades now. But where is this theocracy they’ve warned us about? 

To hear them tell it, we are always but one election cycle away from the dawn of a Margaret Atwood dystopia — If Republicans win, the Bible-thumping fascists will impose their morals on us all! — yet we recently passed through several years of GOP dominance and I don’t recall any headlines about the National Morality Police shutting down gay discos or strip joints during the Nightmare Era of Bushdom. Continue reading Michelle Goldberg and ‘The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Evangelicalism’ →

Marcus Bachmann and the Dangerous Modern Myth of ‘Sexual Orientation’

Posted on Comments

My friend Da Tech Guy got into an argument with Cynthia Yockey about Michele Bachmann’s husband, Marcus. Everyone is jumping up and down yelling that he sets off their “gaydar,” pointing especially to his (alleged) involvement with the NARTH “reparative therapy” movement. Between that and his (alleged) gay mannerisms, these armchair sexuality sleuths have concluded that Marcus Bachmann is a closet case, another Ted Haggard scandal waiting to happen.

What is at the heart of such speculation is a myth that arose in the 20th century, based largely on the theories of Sigmund Freud and Alfred Kinsey, which holds that all human beings have an inborn sexual essence which must be fulfilled in order for them to be psychologically healthy. This myth of “sexual orientation” (sometimes known as “sexual identity,” as it pertains to transgenderism) has so pervaded our culture that most people are no longer capable of understanding it as myth.

Since the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, the Freudian concept of “repression” has been hijacked by the advocates of liberation, who insist that it is an infringement of civil rights to expect people to resist sexual urges. I’ve sometimes called this the “Desire Is Destiny” theory of sexuality, but you could also think of it as a particular manifestation of the Veruca Salt Syndrome: I want what I want and I want it now!

Given the high-profile status of the Official Gay Rights Movement as a loudly influential constituency of the Democratic Party, we most often encounter this liberationist argument in association with homosexuality, and most people never even notice how this dangerous idea — the belief that we are entitled as a matter of right to the satisfaction of our erotic desires — is well-nigh ubiquitous throughout our society.

When you see a businessman divorce his wife of 30 years in order to marry his receptionist, or when Mary Kay LeTourneau wrecks her life to pursue a taboo romance with Vili Fualaau, these are manifestations of the same basic concept at the root of the gay-rights lobby’s “born that way” argument: Desire is destiny, and of all the happiness that we are free to pursue, no pursuit is more important than a sexual partner who fulfills our deepest longings. Continue reading Marcus Bachmann and the Dangerous Modern Myth of ‘Sexual Orientation’ →

Michele Bachmann to Begin Three-Day South Carolina Bus Tour Tuesday

Posted on Comments

Michele Bachmann greets a supporter Friday, Aug. 5,
at the Spirit Midwest Christian Music Festival in West Des Moines, Iowa

HARTSELLE, Alabama
Fresh off her victory in the Iowa GOP straw poll, Michele Bachmann will bring her campaign to South Carolina tomorrow, kicking off a three-day bus tour of the Palmetto State with a 12:30 p.m. rally at Spartanburg’s Beacon Drive-In, to be followed by events in Greenville, Columbia, Florence, Myrtle Beach and Mount Pleasant. Here’s the press release:

**MEDIA ADVISORY**

REMINDER: Team Bachmann Rallies South Carolina
Voters During Bus Tour of the Palmetto State

Washington, D.C. – Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann will kick off her bus tour of the Palmetto State on Tuesday, August 16, 2011. Throughout the tour, Bachmann will rally voters and discuss the important issues facing our nation including the debt crisis, job creation, and economic growth. The following events, which occur in Eastern Daylight Time, are open to credentialed media:

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

“Join Team Bachmann!” Spartanburg Rally
12:30 pm ET
The Beacon Drive-In
255 John B. White Blvd.
Spartanburg, S.C.

Greenville Town Hall
3:00 pm ET
TD Convention Center (formerly Carolina First Center)
1 Exposition Dr.
Greenville, S.C.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

“Join Team Bachmann!” Columbia Rally
12:00 pm ET
The Hall at Senate’s End
320 Senate St.
Columbia, S.C.

“Join Team Bachmann!” Florence Rally
4:00 pm ET
Florence Civic Center
3300 W. Radio Dr.
Florence, S.C.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Myrtle Beach Town Hall
12:00 pm ET
Sheraton Myrtle Beach Convention Center Hotel
2101 North Oak St.
Myrtle Beach, S.C.

“Join Team Bachmann!” Mt. Pleasant Rally
3:30 pm ET
Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum
40 Patriots Point Rd.
Mt. Pleasant, S.C.

Speaking of road trips: Right now, I’m in beautiful Morgan County, Ala., recovering from my 10-day “Fear and Loathing in Iowa” trip at the home of legendary Alabama political operative Stephen Gordon. In April, the guy I call “Gordo” was the victim of a horrible car crash when another driver crossed the center line and hit him head-on. Emergency personnel responding to the scene of the accident had not expected Gordo to survive. He suffered a broken leg, a broken arm, a crushed foot, broken ribs, broken sternum, collapsed lungs, a concussion, and various lacerations and contusions. So he’s lucky to be alive, but is now up and around and as feisty as ever, although with a noticeable limp and taking serious medications to cope with pain from his injuries.

Gordo’s condition is kind of a cautionary tale that reminds me why my wife always worries about my road trips. Continue reading Michele Bachmann to Begin Three-Day South Carolina Bus Tour Tuesday →