LGBTQ news and entertainment
As Rick Perry rides off into the sunset as governor of the Lone Star state after 14 years, the Texas Tribune offers this video send-off celebrating a few highlights of his public statements.
I should add: everyone trips up on their own tongue over years of public speaking. Maybe not as much as Gov. Bang Bang, but it’s human.
We’re just lucky to get to enjoy this little blooper reel. Happy Sunday.
Having been indicted on two felony charges for abuse of power, Texas Gov. Rick Perry reported to the Travis County Court in Austin today to have his mug shot taken.
Following the photo shoot, Perry held a short press conference where he addressed the indictment by a grand jury:
“The actions that I took were lawful, they were legal and they were proper. This indictment is fundamentally a political act that seeks to achieve at the courthouse what could not be achieved at the ballot box.”
And then he got an ice cream cone.
Gov. Rick Perry addressed his recent indictments by a grand jury regarding abuse of power.
It’s interesting here that Perry says he had the authority to veto the funding of the state’s ethics watchdog unit. Apparently no one disputes that.
The problem seems to be that he threatened to cut funding unless Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg resigned after being arrested for drunken driving in April 2013.
The issue at hand seems to be that he THREATENED to do so first, which is what made the case that Perry seemed to leverage his power and force an elected official from office.
A Texas judge then assigned a special prosecutor to investigate. That is how the grand jury – after months of testimony – arrived at charges of abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public servant, which are both felonies and carry possible prison sentences.
The idea that Gov. Perry would “defund” an elected official’s office because they were arrested for being drunk – in TEXAS – is a difficult thing to wrap one’s head around. I grew up in Texas. If every elected official was run out of office for being arrested while intoxicated, there would be a LOT of offices with revolving doors.
Note Perry’s pivot to the border crisis for deflection…
Texas Gov. Rick Perry has become the first sitting Texas governor in over a century to be indicted.
Raw Story has the details:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), a possible Republican presidential candidate, was indicted on Friday for allegedly threatening to cut a state agency’s funding unless a local district attorney quit, Politico reported.
The indictment by an Austin grand jury states that Perry threatened to veto $7.5 million slated for the state public integrity unit, which operates out of the office of Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg. Perry reportedly demanded Lehmberg, a Democrat, resign after spending 45 days in jail on drunk driving charges. When she refused to comply, Perry allegedly carried out his threat, forcing the agency to cut staff by either firing or laying off prosecutors and other employees.
The indictment is the first against a sitting Texas governor in more than a century.
The anti-gay Benham Brothers meet anti-gay Gov. Rick Perry at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa this past weekend.
Isn’t this a rather interesting perspective?
Close-up forensics reveal what prompted Governor Rick Perry’s Grumpy Cat imitation.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry in upper left hand – giving you boo-boo face.
And President Obama laughing.
Btw – note that there is a “name tent” in front of the President??? Really?
Captions, please… 🙂
Governor Rick “Bang Bang” Perry admitted that he “stepped right in it” last week when he compared homosexuality to alcoholism.
Thursday he told the Christian Science Monitor:
“I got asked about an issue, and instead of saying, ‘You know what, we need to be a really respectful and tolerant country, and get back to talking about, whether you’re gay or straight you need to be having a job, and those are the focuses I want to be involved with,’ instead of getting — which I did, I readily admit, I stepped right in it.”
Perry went on to say that Republicans should not let social issues divide the party.
(via Politico)
CNBC Squawk Box host Joe Kernan called Texas Governor Rick Perry on his remarks comparing homosexuality to alcoholism in a segment that aired Monday morning. Here’s just a bit of what went on.
Joe Kernan:
“In terms of comparing it to alcoholism, that’s what got all the play, and i don’t — I have a really high bar for what I would take offense to, but that would exceed the bar for me on being an offensive comment. I don’t think gay marriage leads to cirrhosis of the liver or domestic violence or DWIs. I don’t see how that’s similar.”
Perry tried to spin his comments as an issue of “states right,” but Kernan was clearly not going to let the governor get off so easily:
“But in terms of changing the behavior of someone…you wouldn’t think that someone who’s heterosexual, that you couldn’t change them into a homosexual, or someone who is homosexual, you don’t think that there should be therapy to try to change them into a heterosexual?”
At one point when Perry says that the issue of homosexuality should be left “to the psychologists and the doctors,” Kernan jumps in:
“The psychologists they’ve already weighed in. they’ve dismissed the idea that sexual orientation is a mental disorder and they’ve told their mental health professionals to avoid telling clients that you can change your sexual orientation…”
Near the end of the interview segment, Kernan says:
“It just seems like the Republican Party is going to be forever behind the curve on this issue.”
I can’t express how I appreciate a journalist holding a politician responsible for something they said. Rick Perry said these things, and Joe Kernan held him to it and asked for answers.
No softball lobbed here.
(via Towleroad)
Speaking to the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on Wednesday night, Texas Governor Rick Perry compared being gay to alcoholism.
The comment came in response to a question about the Texas Republican Party’s recent addition of a platform plank which advocates gay “reparative therapy:”
“Whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle or not, you have the ability to decide not to do that. I may have the genetic coding that I’m inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way.”
This isn’t the first time Perry has used the analogy. Back in 2008, TIME Magazine caught this:
…in a little-noticed passage in his first book, “On My Honor,” a encomium on the Boy Scouts published in 2008, Perry also drew a parallel between homosexuality and alcoholism. “Even if an alcoholic is powerless over alcohol once it enters his body, he still makes a choice to drink,” he wrote. “And, even if someone is attracted to a person of the same sex, he or she still makes a choice to engage in sexual activity with someone of the same gender.”
Interesting how Texas conservatives profess a “live and let live” attitude EXCEPT when it comes to the gays.
Several major news organization has picked up on Perry’s comment today.
