Rick Perry

Rick Perry Gives Small California Gun Shop a Warm Texas Welcome

It's thirsty work being Rick Perry. You have to stand in the warm May sun outside a gun shop and wax poetic about the virtues of firearms, laissez-faire capitalism and how much California blows. It's no wonder then that you would promptly hightail it across town to the local brewery. After all, what ... More >>

Poll: Majority of Texans Favor Both "Fetal Pain" Proposal and Abortion Rights

Yesterday, Collin County state Representative Jodie Laubenberg filed a bill that would ban all abortions after 20 weeks, calling it the "Preborn Pain Act." The bill is premised on deeply questionable science which claims that fetuses can feel pain at that point in a pregnancy, and ignores a heap of ... More >>

Californians Are Flocking to Texas, But, Hard as Rick Perry May Try, Their Businesses Aren't

Governor Rick Perry is in California this week as part of his campaign to lure businesses to Texas, attempting to finish in person what his radio ads started. In an interview with the San Jose Mercury News Perry said that California Governor Jerry Brown's comments that Perry's radio ad was "a fart ... More >>

California Is Not Amused By Rick Perry's Open Invitation to "Come Check Out Texas"

On February 4 a 30-second radio ad featuring none other than Governor Rick Perry started its week-long run in six California cities. The ad features the governor's voice tempting the state's businesses to relocate to Texas: "Building a business is tough, but I hear building a business in California ... More >>

Rick Perry is Pretty Sure Lifting its Gay Ban Will Destroy Scouting

The debate over whether Boy Scouts of America should allow gay members and volunteers will come to a head this week, as the organization's board of directors descends on Irving for its regular meeting. They will be greeted by a full-page Human Rights Campaign ad in the Dallas Morning New and a quar ... More >>

Rick Perry's "Abysmal" Poll Numbers Put Him Dead Last among 2016 Presidential Candidates

Governor Rick Perry has been coy about his plans for 2016 leaving the door open for a second presidential bid but remaining noncommittal. His epic flameout in 2012, one supposes, might be written off as a fluke. The man who had never lost an election was overly confident and thus under prepared. He ... More >>

Burn It All Down

Buzz looks back on 2012 before the memories go where they belong: up in smoke.

Rick Perry Supports "Fetal Pain" Measure, Vows to Make Abortion a "Thing of the Past"

Perhaps you were hoping that the upcoming legislative session wouldn't be yet another round of conservative lawmakers vying with one another to show just how deeply and sincerely anti-abortion they are. Or maybe that's exactly what you look for in a lawmaker: an eagle eye and a vise grip on every Te ... More >>

Rick Perry's Sales Pitch for Cheaper, Dumber Universities Is a Lie

All you ambitious students out there, please take time to understand what Governor Rick Perry is really doing to you when he says he wants to help you graduate from college. It's the opposite. See also: - Rick Perry's Manufactured Miracle What Perry really wants to do is the same old thing he has ... More >>

At the Opening of a Houston Pregnancy Center, Rick Perry Pledges To Help "Make Abortion A Thing of the Past"

Governor Rick Perry, it may shock you to learn, is not such a big fan of abortion. Perry vowed some time ago to create a new, Texas-run version of the Women's Health Program, one that would ban doctors from discussing or "promoting" abortion with their patients. It would also explicitly bar Planned ... More >>

Rick Perry: "Aliens" Still Not Eligible for Public Benefits In Texas

It's a pretty basic equation: When the Obama administration does something, Governor Rick Perry's against it. When at all possible, his administration will refuse to implement in Texas whatever policy change the feds have made. Expanding Medicaid? He's not going to do it here, no matter how many mil ... More >>

Perry Says NO-bamacare for Texas

This morning, in a move about as surprising as the sun rising, Governor Rick Perry came out with guns blazing against the Affordable Health Care Act, recently approved (mostly) by the U.S. Supreme Court. The act's expanded Medicaid coverage for the poor will not be implemented in Perry's state, de ... More >>

Texas Democrats Make Fun of Republicans with Weird Animated Video, Santorum Jokes

Someone has shown the Texas Democratic Party the video creator apps on YouTube, and the results are Lego George W. Bush, a joke about santorum (the frothy kind), a version of Rick Perry that looks like a rotund funeral home director and some jabs at sweater vests. Politicians, please start making ... More >>

Governor Rick Perry Hearts Pink Slime

Governor Rick Perry publicly endorsed "lean, finely textured beef" today. Governors from Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and the Lt. Gov. Matt Michels, standing in for South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard, who is in China, jointly issued the statement intending to clarify public perception of "pink slime." P ... More >>

Rick Perry On Fox News: "We're Spending Most Of Our Time In The Courthouse Suing The Federal Government "

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Rick Perry dropped by Fox News early this morning to let Steve Doocy know just how happy he is to be your governor. In less than five minutes, he also managed to find the time to diss the feds and defend the voter ID law. Doocy asked if Perry would acce ... More >>

"It's Getting Rather Messy": The Best of the Rick Perry Facebook Bomb

Over at the Morning News' Trail Blazers Blog, Christy Hoppe pointed out late yesterday that Rick Perry's Facebook page has been "inundated by angry women" unhappy about the end of the Medicaid Women's Health Program. Perry's Facebook bomb is actually part of a larger effort to "sarcasm-flood" the ... More >>

Federal Medicaid Agency Lays Out Just How The Women's Health Program Will End

What prompted Governor Rick Perry's frenzied bout of outraged tweeting about the Women's Health Program yesterday? As much as we'd like to speculate that it was a bad batch of PCP (and will continue to do so privately, purely for our own amusement, not because it's at all true), it was actually one ... More >>

Eddie Bernice Johnson on Rick Perry: "I Don't Even Know This Governor Anymore"

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, who worked as a nurse before heading to Washington, dropped by Martin Bashir's show on MSNBC to denounce Governor Rick Perry's stance toward Planned Parenthood (and to call Rush Limbaugh "un-American".) "I don't even know this governor anymore," the congresswoman says in ... More >>

Rick Perry Vows to Save the Medicaid Women's Health Program from the Evil Feds

Update, March 10: Federal Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced late Friday in Houston that federal funding to the WHP would be cut. She said the program will wind down over the next several months, and that the feds are considering funding Planned Parenthood directly. In r ... More >>

Rick Perry and State Health Commissioner Insist Obama Hates Women, Loves Abortion

A few days ago, we told you that Texas's Medicaid Women's Health Program appears to be on death's door, which could leave some 130,000 low-income Texas women without vital medical care. We also mentioned that Gov. Rick Perry's administration appeared eager to blame the program's end on the feds broa ... More >>

Rick Perry Is Back in Austin Doin' Nothin', and That's Right Where We Want Him

Final Rick Perry-for-President footnote? Next to last? Please, no more? Look, there's one more point to drive home here. Then I think I can promise not to mention it again. I think I can. Now that he's not running for president any more, Perry apparently has returned to his more natural status of v ... More >>

Governor Gaffe Comes Back to Texas, Wounded But No Wiser

Wait a minute. Forgive me, but I must misuse and abuse a bit of Dylan Thomas here to suggest we should not let Rick Perry go quite so gentle into that good night. I'm reading a lot of crap about how he bombed in his presidential campaign because he was "ill-prepared" and committed gaffes. It's way ... More >>

Who'll Stop the Rain? Rick Perry's Pals, That's Who.

A plan for the Brazos River threatens to upend Texas water law.

Play Me Back Home: A Playlist For Rick Perry

​After what literally felt like four years, Rick Perry has finally ended his campaign for President, thrown his support at Newty G., and is returning to Texas. He said it best himself: "I know when it's time to make a strategic retreat." Ah, but he's given us so many amazing moments. Who co ... More >>

Texas's New Sonogram Law Is Going Into Effect Immediately. As In: Right Now.

Just four days after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Rick Perry's favorite law -- the one requiring women to get a sonogram, listen to a fetal heartbeat and hear a verbal description from a doctor of the sonogram image before they can get an abortion -- is street legal, the court issue ... More >>

Rick Perry Thinks He's Just Like Rocky Balboa, and Not Because They're Both Brain Injured

If you gave me 100 tries to guess how Rick Perry is similar to Rocky and Babe Ruth, I don't think I'd come up with "Champion." But there it is, in all its strings-and-keys glory. Soak up the magic while the YouTube channel still exists.

Shippin' Shale, or: What's That You Say About Our Energy Independence?

​The days of lease-bearing landmen making it rain on the Barnett Shale are over. The industry became so proficient at fracturing the rock thousands of feet beneath the surface and extracting the gas trapped within that they glutted the market. Gas prices took a swan dive and have stagnated eve ... More >>

Be Water, My Friend

Perry's Down, But, Apparently, Not Out

​Below we noted that after his dismal showing in Iowa last night, Governor Rick Perry went back to Austin to pray and fast -- so sad. But minutes ago he tweeted this magnificent photo, accompanied by the note: "And the next leg of the marathon is the Palmetto State...Here we come South Carolina!!! ... More >>

"When America Is On Its Knees": Some Jeffress, Perry Video Before the Iowa Caucus Results

We're about four hours away from finding out who won those long, hard-fought caucuses in Iowa, which Rick Perry is trying like holy hell to win based on the newly minted video you'll find on the other side. It's quite the stars-and-stripes-and-church-cross spectacular -- like something Jerry Bruckhe ... More >>

It Appears Even Perry's People Believe His Whole Campaign Has Been An "Oops" Moment

​Schutze said it the other day: Gov. Rick Perry's probably just a few days away from crawling back to Austin with his tail tucked between Anita's legs. We'll know more tonight at 7, when the Des Moines Register releases its all-important Iowa Poll, and Happy New Year to you too. But this morning, ... More >>

A Quick Kick at Rick, While He's Still Around

I'm afraid Rick Perry will evaporate soon from the presidential coverage, and I won't get to say my little piece about him. So just in case, here it is. Months ago I was asked by the company I work for to produce a piece about Perry's so-called economic miracle in Texas. My first response was to sa ... More >>

Merry Effing Christmas to Rick Perry and the Tea Party -- From the Kids

​I'm having particular trouble this year with Toys for Tots. Put it on me for being a grinch. But, look. I see this big smarmy hoopla on the TV news every night with the weatherman and a bunch of shiny-eyed volunteers in North Face parkas handing out useless plastic Big Box crap for the poor ... More >>

Short on Daylight, Long on Spiritual Light

Rick Perry Is (Quite Literally) an Ass

​Yesterday, during my occasional and futile shift on the Rick Perry firing squad, I unloaded most of my ammunition on Perry's impossibly ignorant rant about Obama's plan to protect gay people overseas -- an act Perry deemed as an attack on "traditional American values." By the time I finished ... More >>

Why Are Harlan Crow, Charles Moncrief Bailing on Rick Perry? Well, It's The Talkin', Mostly.

​There's a piece in this morning's Wall Street Journal in which Unfair Park's cross-the-street neighbor Harlan Crow and Fort Worth oil man Charles Moncrief explain why they're throwing their money at Mitt Romney after years spent filling Rick Perry's coffers. Long story short: It's that openin'-hi ... More >>

Joe Arpaio Is Distancing Himself from Rick Perry? Shouldn't It Be the Other Way Around?

In Perry's defense, she does sort of look like a coyote.​This morning's News carries a paywall-less story about yesterday's meeting of the minds between Rick Perry and Phoenix-area sheriff Joe Arpaio. (No wall on an immigration story? Liberal media!) It was the move of a desperate candidate, a ... More >>

There's a Wolf at Rick Perry's Door

​Wolf Blitzer of CNN takes on the Republican candidates tonight for the second foreign policy debate. This is the do-or-die moment for our homeboy: Either Rick Perry repairs his fortunes and escapes the back-bench or he's toast. Perry's people know that, so our governor is going to be all-in tonig ... More >>

The Upside of Rick Perry's Embarrassing Gaffes: Like, Everyone Wants Him to "Adios, Mofo"

​Star-Telegram Washington bureau reporter Maria Recio has a story today asking various Texas politicos how much Governor Rick Perry has embarrassed the Lone Star State. The answers don't vary a lot. If this were a story about fishing, some people would have their hands out about shoulder widt ... More >>

Rick Perry, Proving That When When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold

​OK, so just below this item is last night's Saturday Night Live sketch starring the best Rick Perry impersonator yet, Rick Perry. But a lot's happened since then as the Perry camp attempts to salvage the campaign. Like that tweet from the gov you see above. And: the hastily popped-up poll on the ... More >>

Rick Perry's Debate Performance Tonight Was Funny, In a Sad Kind of Way.

I was sitting down to watch some teevee when the bossman emailed: "Rick Perry just shit the bed." Ah. Yes. Tonight's debate, otherwise known as: The Night Rick Perry's Campaign Ended when he couldn't remember ... couldn't remember ... something ... oops. Shame too, though at least Bill Hader should ... More >>

Rick Perry's Not "a Talker." Little Late There.

Half the comments below are about Rick Perry's appearance in New Hampshire Friday, when it appeared our governor began his weekend a little too hard and a little too early; strange stuff, and the clip follows for those who've yet to see it. It's good for a contact buzz, if nothing else. It was follo ... More >>

It's Not Too Late to Go As Tom Leppert Tonight

​This morning, there was Rick Perry's latest ad -- he's a doer, see, not a talker, or so he says (which is weird, because he's not a talker ... but a drinker, maybe). But lest we forget, from another GOP would-be, there's a new Tom Leppert spot out there too -- this one, like the last, filmed amid ... More >>

More Tarnish for the "Texas Miracle"

New report finds the Lone Star swimming in deep debt.

Rick Perry's Balanced-Budget Illusion

​Now this is something I could really kick myself for. I can take being wrong. It's one thing to be accused of being too Pollyanna. (Not sure that has actually ever happened.) But the one thing I cannot forgive in myself is not being negative enough. That just should not been happening. That' ... More >>

Rick Perry Is Either a Birther or a Jedi

The wavier the hair, the shinier the tin foil looks.​In an interview published Sunday in Parade magazine, Rick Perry was asked whether he believes the president was born in the United States. His response, which you'll find below, has caused some alarm, because it makes Perry appear to be alig ... More >>

The Insurance Man Knows What Rick Perry Doesn't About Climate Change

​There is a point in the climate change debate where theory turns into money, and Rick Perry may help us all get to that point sooner. It's a reality that hasn't had time to filter down to Main Street, but the people at the top of the money tree know all about it. It so happens that I write a ... More >>

Even Karl Rove Doesn't Like Robert Jeffress's "Cult" Comments About Mormons, Romney

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.comKarl Rove was on The O'Reilly Factor last night discussing the impact the First Baptist Dallas pastor's comments will have on Rick Perry's campaign, among other things. Alas, Bill O'Reilly was off, and instead Dubya's right-hand man was on with Laura Ingrah ... More >>

Rick Perry's Manufactured Miracle

Rick Perry's Texas is a job-making, low-taxing oasis of prosperity. It's also pure fantasy.

Rick Perry Says He's Mr. Grassroots, But His Trans-Texas Flop Suggests Otherwise

Tea Party people say they hate Washington and its top-down style of governance. They're the political version of eat-local. Everything should be grassroots. Here in Texas the Tea Party loves Governor Rick Perry, but if you talk to people who've gone up against Perry on local issues, they will tell ... More >>