Texas Gov. Rick Perry is speaking in the nation’s capital today at the “Values Voter Summit,” a confab put together by a constellation of religious-right groups like the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family and the American Family Association. What’s more likely to make news in coming weeks, however, are the governor’s comments this past Thursday questioning whether Texas has been affected by the national recession. “We’re in one?” the governor jokingly asked when speaking at a Houston Chamber of Commerce event.
The next day the Texas Workforce Commission announced that unemployment in Texas hit 8 percent, a 22-year high, in August. And, of course, earlier this year Gov. Perry infamously rejected federal stimulus money for the unemployed in our supposedly imaginary recession.
We wonder what the pious folks at the “Values Voter Summit” will think about the governor’s callous disregard of the problems facing working families right now. Is that one of the “values” they want their speakers promoting?
Check out Gov. Perry’s comments in this short video clip.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btQIVffY5cY&hl=en&fs=1&]
Here are some of the truly brilliant things they will be discussing at the Summit:
RUE TOLERANCE: COUNTERING THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
THE THREAT OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
OBAMACARE: RATIONING YOUR LIFE AWAY
MARRIAGE: WHY IT’S WORTH DEFENDING AND HOW REDEFINING IT THREATENS RELIGIOUS LIBERTY – DIPLOMAT ROOM
Charles Donovan, Senior Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation; Thomas Messner, Visiting Fellow; The Heritage Foundation; Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Founder and President, Ruth Institute
Redefining marriage poses serious threats to the religious liberties of people who continue to believe that marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman. This understanding of marriage is an important religious belief for many Americans, but the freedom to express it will come under growing pressure as courts, public officials, and private institutions come to regard the traditional understanding of marriage as a form of irrational prejudice that should be purged from public life. This briefing will focus on policy and legal developments, as well as how to communicate the link between marriage and religious liberty.
GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERIA: THE NEW FACE OF THE “PRO-DEATH” AGENDA
SPEECHLESS – SILENCING THE CHRISTIANS
Casey Smith, Jr., Executive Assistant to the Chairman and President, American Family Association
Americans are at a greater risk of losing their basic freedoms today than ever before in the history of this nation. Political correctness and the voice of the liberal minority are undermining the morals and values of main-stream America. Christians are being silenced all across America: in the political debate, the public square, the schools, the workplace, and even in the sanctuary of their own churches. Through video, renowned author and commentator, Janet Parshall, takes you on a journey across the country to meet citizens who have been arrested for speaking out at a public rally, students who are being forced to attend classes that require them to recite verses from the Koran and to stage their own Jihad and activists pushing social tolerance to such an extreme that the Bible itself is being labeled “hate speech.”
THE NEW MASCULINITY
Dr. Pat Fagan, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Family and Religion, FRC; Michael Schwartz, Chief of Staff, Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.); Dr. Matthew Spalding, Director, B. Kenneth Simon Center for Studies, The Heritage Foundation
Feminism has wreaked havoc on marriage, women, children and men. It is time to redress the disorder it has wrought and that must start with getting the principles and ideals for a new “masculinism” right. Such a “masculinism” will have its dovetailing counterpart in a new “feminism” for they mutually define each other and, in nature, are meant to be complementary. This panel will begin this exploration.
THUGOCRACY – FIGHTING THE VAST LEFT WING CONSPIRACY
DEFUNDING PLANNED PARENTHOOD.
ACTIVISM AND CONSERVATISM: FIT TO A TEA (PARTY)
FAITH, POLITICS, AND THE INTERNET: HOW TO CONTEND FOR TRUTH IN A DIGITAL AGE
Truly brilliant, I tell ya!!!11!1!!eleventyone!!
Oops! That first one should read TRUE Tolerance, not RUE Tolerance
I think Governor Perry might be talking about the imaginary recession that made my wife unemployed nearly a year ago—still unable to find work. It might also be the imaginary recession that caused me to lose my job, which happened fully and officially just yesterday. This is the first time in our lives that both of us have been completely unemployed at the same time—bravely going where this man and woman have never gone before. Yep, we are now both out of work here at our house and living on our savings account. It occurs to me that Governor Perry needs to answer Barney Frank’s now famous question: “On what planet do you spend most of your time?”
FMF jonathan saenz says TFN doesn’t want christmas in textbooks!! How ignorant can FMF be???
We have been amused at how often the pious folks at FMF violate the Commandment against lying.
“Americans are at a greater risk of losing their basic freedoms today than ever before in the history of this nation. Political correctness and the voice of the liberal minority are undermining the morals and values of main-stream America.”
I wish these Christian-Neo-Fundamentalists could make up their minds about whether they are a majority or a minority. On one day, they are a majority persecuted by a vocal minority of liberals (go figure). On another day, they are the minority persecuted via a vast, monolithic conspiracy fomented by political liberals, scientists, illegal Mexicans, uppity negroes, secular humanists, Marxists, Communists, the American news media, Democrats, apostate Christians, unbelievers, do-gooders, and who knows what else.
Personally, I think they are just plain nuts—-our own homegrown Taliban.
I don’t see any problem with “Christmas” in textbooks, and I doubt that TFN does either. In addition to its being an important American holiday observance, one cannot talk about some of the great events in American history without it. For example, George Washington caught the Hessians with their pants down (so to speak) at the Battle of Trenton because these mercenaries were drinking heavily the night before to celebrate—what else—Christmas.
Ricky is slickerin’ his hair do. He’s card carryin’ believer in the funky economic definitions that the US has used monitor and define the state of the economy, eg jiggered inflation numbers, jiggered unemployment numbers, jiggered financial numbers, all designed to con the American public. Firm believer (in the whole package), aka true believe. Find any other developed country that cracks those numbers the way we do. So, if you pump a trillion or so into the financials, thus into the securities and bond exchanges, and they go up, then that satisfies the narrow jiggered definition of “recession” or “not recession”. Recession, as currently defined, has nothing to do with employment per se, or how bad average Americans are hurting, in this one time slice. So, he’s in hog heaven, literally, when he can foist such an economic picture onto such an rotund audience to relieve any possible economic angst, and get on to the business of culture wars. It was Tricky Dicky, now its Slickie Ricky, home breed. Ain’t we proud. We know exactly which planet he lives on; its right there in Genesis, first book: Texas! A priori apologies to Raiders, but at least the tea sippers (not baggers) won the game this weekend.
I’m not Christian but I have no problem with the mention of Christmas in a public school textbook. I think most kids – whether they are Christian or not – already know there is a holiday called Christmas. Uh, I mean, Christmas is everywhere – and I’ve no problem with that either.
Charles, the fact that these wingnuts can’t decide if they are a majority or a minority is consistent with their inability to decide whether Obama is a Nazi or a Marxist. (Didn’t the Nazis and Marxists go to war against each other? Therein lies the irony of their indecision). It’s also consistent with their hypocrisy of whether or not there’s a recession. Um, isn’t the fact that there IS a recession in progress supposed to be one of their biggest weapons to use against Pres. Obama?? When the unemployment rate of 9.7% was announced 3 weeks ago, one could see the Republicans metaphorically jumping for joy over the fact.
Now this genius Perry says there is no recession. How nice that the recession has been resolved and recovered in 3 weeks, eh?
One thing I can say for the GOP: their inconsistency is consistent.
Cytocop:
Yes, in the 1920s and early 1930s in Germany, the communists and nazis got into street brawls from time to time. By around 1932, the biggest Commmist Party outside of the Soviet Union was in Germany, and it held somewhere in the vicinity of 10-15 percent of the seats in the German parliament. After Hitler took over as chancellor, the reds hit the skids—some of their leaders seeking asylum in the Soviet Union where Stalin distrusted them and sent them off to the gulags just to be sure there would be no compettition.
Charles, yes, but wasn’t WWII even a bigger brawl between them?
It sure was.