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If there was going to be a moment of levity during Donald Trump's Cabinet hearings, leave it to Rick Perry to provide it. The former Texas governor is the president-elect's pick to be energy secretary, and he had a relatively smooth hearing with the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. But it was his humorous exchange with Sen. Al Franken that may be the most memorable of his testimony. The Minnesota Democrat began his questioning by thanking Perry for coming by to chat with him prior to his hearing. "Thank you so much for coming into my office. Did you...

The worksheet, assigned to seventh-graders at Highland Hills Middle School, presents a passage written by a fictional 20-year-old Saudi woman named Ahlima, who feels “very fortunate” to live under Sharia law in Saudi Arabia. She writes about how she will soon become a man’s second wife and explains her modest dress: “I understand that some foreigners see our dress as a way of keeping women from being equal, but … I find Western women’s clothing to be horribly immodest.” “That document by itself, it’s almost propaganda,” said Jon Baker, whose daughter also received the worksheet. “If you read that, you...

The New York Times faced a backlash Thursday after its only source for a negative story on former Texas governor Rick Perry accused them of taking his remarks out of context. The Times reported Wednesday evening that when Perry accepted Donald Trump‘s nomination for the Secretary of Energy position, he “initially misunderstood” what the job even was. “Mr. Perry gladly accepted, believing he was taking on a role as a global ambassador for the American oil and gas industry that he had long championed in his home state,” they wrote. “In the days after, Mr. Perry… discovered that he would...

As he tries to convince the Senate to put him in charge of the Energy Department, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry will tell lawmakers Thursday that he was wrong to recommend eliminating that same department. During his 2012 presidential campaign, Mr. Perry, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for energy secretary, advocated getting rid of the Energy Department, along with several other federal agencies. At one GOP primary debate he was unable to remember all of the departments he sought to scrap, leading to his infamous “Oops” moment. More than four years later, Mr. Perry now is a full-throated supporter of the...

WASHINGTON — When President-elect Donald J. Trump offered Rick Perry the job of energy secretary five weeks ago, Mr. Perry gladly accepted, believing he was taking on a role as a global ambassador for the American oil and gas industry that he had long championed in his home state. In the days after, Mr. Perry, the former Texas governor, discovered that he would be no such thing — that in fact, if confirmed by the Senate, he would become the steward of a vast national security complex he knew almost nothing about, caring for the most fearsome weapons on the...

The Obama White House made an unfortunate and ungracious choice in launching a preemptive attack on Rick Perry's nomination this week. Spokesman Josh Earnest did his best deadpan as he disparaged the choice as one based on politics and not merit. But what about President Obama's appointments of Ken Salazar, Kathleen Sebelius, Tom Vilsack and Janet Napolitano? They were all lawyers without specific expertise in the issue areas of the departments they led. But each, having experience as elected Democratic statewide officials, knew enough about their respective issue areas that their status as non-experts never really mattered. Perry spent 14...

Mission change This will be portrayed in the media as a “flip-flop,” or as some sort of inherent contradiction. How can a man lead a department he once advocated eliminating entirely? But there’s no contradiction at all. If you believe the federal government doesn’t need to be dictating energy policy to the rest of the nation, but the Energy Department is still going to exist, why not have someone in charge of it who believes in the inherent limits of its usefulness, and runs it accordingly?

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump plans to name the former Texas governor Rick Perry as his secretary of energy. The selection of Mr. Perry to lead the energy agency would offer a rich irony: During a televised debate in 2011, when he was seeking the Republican nomination, Mr. Perry intended to list the Department of Energy among agencies he wanted to eliminate, but he could not remember its name.

FULL TITLE - Muslim Leader: America Must Understand Sharia Law is Greater Than the Constitution, Therefore Muslims are Above the Law. The Director of the Dallas Council on American- Islamic Relations (CAIR), Mustafa Carroll, made a surprising and shocking statement during a Muslim rally in Austin, Texas. He firmly believes that the message of the Qur’an is supreme over the United States constitution. The statement would be shocking to most citizens of the United States, unless they had some perspective on who CAIR really is. He said, “If we are practicing Muslims, we are above the law of the land.”...

Senator Cruz stunned conservatives when he refused to endorse Donald Trump at the RNC Convention in Cleveland. This came after Cruz was thumped in the GOP primary race. Perry leads Cruz in a senate primary matchup 46% to 37%. The Texas Tribune reported: A new poll suggests there is at least one fellow Republican who could unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018: Rick Perry. The former Texas governor would beat Cruz by 9 percentage points, according to the forthcoming survey from the Democratic-leaning firm Public Policy Polling. Set to be released later today, the poll found Perry would get...

Washington (CNN)Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday that the Gold Star father involved in a war of words with Donald Trump shouldn't get a "free ride" from public criticism. Perry said Khizr and Ghazala Khan should have known that the Republican Party's presidential nominee would respond to their Democratic National Convention address. "Mr. Khan is the one that went out and struck the first blow, and in a campaign, if you're going to go out and think that you can take a shot at somebody and not have incoming coming back at you, shame on you," Perry, a Trump...

Former Gov. Rick Perry is defending Donald Trump's war of words with the family of a fallen Muslim soldier, saying the father "struck the first blow" against the Republican presidential nominee and is not above criticism in return. "In a campaign, if you’re going to go out and think that you can take a shot at somebody and not have incoming coming back at you, shame on you," Perry said in an interview Tuesday on CNN. The father, Khizr Khan, harshly criticized Trump last month during the Democratic National Convention over the nominee's proposal to temporarily ban Muslim immigration. In...

The sudden death of a 12-year-old girl in Waukesha, Wisconsin, just hours after receiving the HPV Gardasil vaccine has shocked the girl’s family, and sent local media out asking questions as to how this could happen. Here is a report from WISN 12 News. Dr. Geoffrey Swain of the local health department was interviewed to give the standard CDC reply, which is similar to almost every other vaccine, stating that severe reactions like this resulting in death are “very rare,” and about “1 out of a million”. Assuming that there is some data to back up the claim of only...

CLEVELAND, OH (KTRK) -- Former Texas governor and two-time Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry says he's interested in a role in a Donald Trump administration. Speaking to reporters after addressing the Texas delegation on the first day of the party's national convention in Cleveland, Ohio, Perry said he'd reached out to the Trump campaign and expressed his interest in working with veterans issues. Perry was flanked by military veterans when he announced his own 2016 campaign in North Texas more than a year ago. He is an Air Force veteran himself. Perry also talked about having been a candidate, then...

As we have noted here many times, military training is generally the key that separates competent terrorists from wannabes. But whether actual or would-be jihadists, these Muslims are motivated by Islamic supremacism, the belief that sharia, Islam’s ancient, totalitarian law, must be imposed on society. Based on all this, there is abundant Washington and media speculation that the attack is “ISIS-inspired.” This is consistent with the bipartisan, government-approved inanity we have been following for a quarter-century, what I often call the political class’s concoction of “An Islam of Their Very Own.” It goes something like this: Islam is a religion...

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) says Hillary Clinton would be torn apart in a debate with Donald Trump. "Donald Trump will peel her skin off in a debate setting and actually, he'll peel it off this evening out in San Jose as well," Perry said on Fox News when asked about a potential debate between the two presidential contenders. Perry, who backed Trump in May, said Clinton is not used to taking criticism and called out the Democratic front-runner for not holding a press conference in months. He said she does not "want to take hard questions from the...

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who once called Donald Trump "a cancer on conservatism," said Friday he would be willing to serve as the presumptive Republican nominee's vice president. Perry said he will do whatever he can to help Trump -- including joining him on the Republican ticket in November. "I suspect I'm going to be helping him in a myriad ways -- but if it's the vice presidency, if a cabinet position is where he needs somebody with my experience then I'm not going to go back to Texas and say, 'Aw shucks sir, I'm gonna go fishing.' I'm...

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry predicted during a private phone call Wednesday that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump could carry more than 35 states in the November election. “The more I spend time with him, the more I talk with him, the more I see how he has analyzed this country properly at this point in time, I feel very comfortable that we’re going to win,” Perry told donors during a conference call hosted by the pro-Trump Great America PAC. “I think we have the potential to win overwhelmingly,” he added. “I’m talking a 35, 36, 37-state victory. Just...

Unlike some of the other former candidates, Rick Perry is keeping his word and has pledged his support for the apparent nominee, Donald Trump. Texas’ longest serving governor is now being attacked for honoring his promise to the voters that he would support the eventual nominee of the party. In September 2015, Gov. Perry was asked in a post-campaign interview if he would support Donald Trump by the Austin American-Statesman’s Jonathan Tilove... Perry’s answer, “Sure. Whoever comes out of that Republican field I’m going to be supporting...” Now, outlets like Red State and National Review are attacking the governor for...

U.S. immigration officials are planning a month-long series of raids in May and June to deport hundreds of Central American mothers and children found to have entered the country illegally, according to sources and an internal document seen by Reuters. The operation would likely be the largest deportation sweep targeting immigrant families by the administration of President Barack Obama this year after a similar drive over two days in January that focused on Georgia, Texas, and North Carolina. Those raids, which resulted in the detention of 121 people, mostly women and children, sparked an outcry from immigration advocates and criticism...