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I just read the text of Rick Perry's remarks to the Border Summit on Aug, 21st 2001. How in the hell is this stuff slipping through the cracks without a single mention in the conservative press? If this had been Obama, Sean Hannity would have been talking about it 24/7 during the last presidential campaign. There are many passages in the speech that are of great concern to me, but this one really caught my attention. ...Legislation authored by border legislators Pat Haggerty and Eddie Lucio establishes an important study that will look at the feasibility of bi-national health insurance....

Opinion L.A. 2012 Campaign: Rick Perry And A Uniquely Anti-Gay GOP Field? August 24, 2011 You might think as much following the revelation by reporter Mark Benjamin that Republican front-runner and Texas Gov. Rick Perry once compared, in writing, homosexuality to alcoholism. Benjamin writes at Time magazine's Swampland blog: Since leaping into the GOP presidential race, Texas Gov. Rick Perry hasn't been asked if he thinks gays are born or made. But 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...

As he enters the Republican presidential race, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is striking some red-meat notes on the subject of immigration. Border security, he says, is a federal responsibility -- and immigration reform will have to wait until the border is secured. Invoking his beloved 10th Amendment, he proposes that in the meantime states should have some latitude to set their own course on the subject. As for Texas, he suggests, unauthorized immigration will not be treated lightly; earlier this year he called for a state law to abolish sanctuary cities, although the bill never made it to his desk....

A new poll by Public Policy Polling puts Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the front of the GOP presidential field in Iowa and shows just how much Perry’s entrance into the race scrambled the contest for the Republican nomination. The poll, released Tuesday (.pdf), shows that 21% of the poll respondents would support Perry in the Iowa caucuses next February, outpacing the two other Republican frontrunners Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney. Romney’s campaign has been focusing on New Hampshire, a state that is considered a must win for his campaign. If the contest were simplified to a three-way race between...

A couple of caveats are in order before we start looking at this poll. First, it comes from PPP, a Democratic pollster which has had its fair share of difficulties in sampling Republicans. It’s also early in the race, as Rick Perry just starts getting vetted and Sarah Palin hasn’t yet begun to campaign, if in fact she decides to campaign at all. Still, this is a rather dramatic result: The race is pretty close four ways in Iowa but Rick Perry is the new favorite among Republican voters in the state. Among announced candidates he’s at 22% to 19%...

(RALEIGH) -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been in the Presidential race for barely more than a week, but Tom Jensen with Public Policy Polling said a recent round of polling in North Carolina and Colorado already ranks Perry close to deserving front runner status. "We're already finding Perry tied for the lead in both North Carolina and Colorado and these polls were conducted before he even officially entered the race," said Jensen. In North Carolina Perry is in a three way tie with Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. Each getting 17-percent. Perry also led a poll conducted in Virginia...

I spoke to a group of politically active, so-called conservatives last week at a hotel here in my New Mexico hometown. One of the topics that kept coming up was whether I despised Texas Gov. Rick Perry as much as I despised most other candidates that the Republican/Democrat regime is trying to force me to pick from in the next election. Let’s think through some deep thoughts and do fact-checking on Perry and the entire Left/Right paradigm as most people seem to see it right now: You can spend about five minutes on the governor’s official website confirming that Rick...

clip--- As governor of the state that shares the largest border with Mexico, Perry defended his record on immigration, including his support for allowing illegal immigrants to get in-state tuition rates at Texas universities but opposing such a law on a national level. "I'm a big believer in the 10th amendment," Perry said. "Whether they allow for tuition increases or decreases or whatever it might be in that state, it needs to be the states making that decisions." Perry wouldn't wade into a national immigration reform debate, deferring to his position that those decisions should be made on the state...

Rick Perry: A Candidate For Whom 'UnPresidential' Is A Virtue Texas governor's stance on economy and global warming may play well with the US right, but it turns off independents Chris McGreal 19 August 2011 Rick Perry, seen here campaigning in New Hampshire, has drawn criticism over his boasts about new jobs in Texas. There are not many contenders to be president of the United States who consider it an asset to be called unpresidential. But then Rick Perry is not looking for the support of those seeking a president like any other. At least not for now. The Texas...

Rick Perry has many ideas about how to change the American government's founding document. From ending lifetime tenure for federal judges to completely scrapping two whole amendments, the Constitution would see a major overhaul if the Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate had his druthers. Perry laid out these proposed innovations to the founding document in his book, Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington. He has occasionally mentioned them on the campaign trail. Several of his ideas fall within the realm of mainstream conservative thinking today, but, as you will see, there are also a few surprises.

The media may have pronounced Rick Perry the darling of the right wing, but Justin Raimondo has a different take. Perry's a liberal internationalist, just like the Texas governor before him: Another clueless Texas Governor surrounded by the same Praetorian Guard of conniving neocons who led us down the road to imperial overstretch and fiscal ruin last time around – isn’t that just what the GOP needs right now? The neocons have anointed their candidate, and it’s clear they have some sense he’s swimming upstream: "’He will distinguish himself from other Republicans as a hawk internationalist, embracing American exceptionalism and...

Charleston, S.C. When organizers were planning the third annual RedState Gathering, held earlier this month in Charleston, South Carolina, the event looked to be like the second annual RedState Gathering, which was much like the first. Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, would be a featured speaker, as he had been at the others, including last year in Austin, Texas. Perry was the reason the second annual gathering had been held in Austin. Perry wooed the redstaters. He brought the organizers out to Texas, took them to dinner, gave them a tour, took them clay shooting outside of town. RedState...

August 20, 2011 4:00 A.M.Rick Perry Pushes Their Buttons The questions put to Governor Perry are political, not scientific. Gov. Rick Perry, pressed for his views on evolution, characterized it as “a theory” with “some gaps” in it. He went on to say that, in Texas, both conventional evolution and creationism are taught. He told a boy whose mother asked him about the subject: “In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools — because I figure you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.” This is the sort of thing that drives a certain...

ROCK HILL, SC -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) spoke for a few minutes to reporters here about his views on immigration, which have gotten him into some hot water with the conservative base he hopes to woo as his presidential campaign spools up. What he offered up was a little something for everyone. Perry said states should be responsible for their own immigration laws, also stating that the federal government must step up border enforcement. He also spelled out his support for a national program that would allow illegal immigrants who serve in the military to become citizens. Illegal...

According to the Austin-American Statesman's Politifact Texas Perry-O-Meter Rick Perry at least twice promised he would not not run for President in 2012: a)He told a questioner at a January 2010 debate that he would "absolutely" serve out his full new 4-year term. b)In December 2010 Perry told Reuters, "I don't want to be president of the United States. I'm not going to run for the presidency of the United States." And from EFC polfacts: a) In a Nov 8, 2010 interview with Newsweek (after he had been re-elected): "Not going to run for president. Not going to be a...

The head of the Texas Public Utility Commission expressed concern Friday that a new federal air quality rule, set to take effect Jan. 1, will cause disruptions in electric service. If implementation of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule is not delayed, "I have no doubt in my mind that this rule will result in reliability issues and rolling outages in Texas," Donna Nelson said at the start of the commission's meeting. ... The company says the industry's standard time frame for installing emission controls is several years, but the rule requires compliance in six months. So Luminant, a subsidiary of...

Sarah Palin will run for president, and will announce her candidacy sometime around Labor Day – perhaps September 3, when she’s scheduled to address a big Tea Party event in Iowa. That’s what former Bush administration political advisor and all-around GOP smart guy Karl Rove predicts, anyway. In an appearance on Fox News Saturday he said he believes ex-Alaska governor Palin is going to run, in part because of a slick campaign-style video about her trip to the Iowa State Fair released by her PAC last week, and in part because of where she’s popping up. Palin “has a schedule...

Should we be surprised, frightened, disgusted or simply say "we knew it", that in the informal mixer just after Texas Governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry spoke at a Politics and Eggs breakfast in Bedford, New Hampshire, an unknown gentlemen approaches a casual Perry like an Ian Flemming character, and proceeds to dead drop the following: "Bank of America... We will help you out"... and silently moves on. At least we know now who is funding what, and whose interests potential future president Perry will be paid to defend.

You’re probably thinking, “I’ve seen this movie before: West Texas boy makes middling grades in college, gets elected governor and — to the consternation of gobsmacked Democrats, who misunderestimate his folksy appeal — runs for the Republican nomination for president.” But if that’s all you know about Rick Perry, you should be asking whether the country is ready for another White House occupant from the Lone Star State. The fact is, the most recent entrant into the GOP race is nothing like the caricatures being promoted on the left and the right. Here are some myths that need debunking, and...

For a small-government conservative on the presidential campaign stump like Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a new federal regulation forcing farmers to get commercial drivers licenses would make a perfect example of Barack Obama’s Washington run amok. But there is no such regulation. ... The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration stepped in to clarify whether the states had the right to do what Illinois had done, and on May 31, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued a public notice asking for comment on the commercial licensing of farm equipment. Many in the farm community saw that notice as evidence that federal...