Four new Cabinet members sworn in by Vice President Pence

Vice President Pence has been busy swearing in new cabinet members. You can watch the swearing in ceremonies below, starting with Governor Rick Perry as Secretary of Energy, followed by Ben Carson at HUD. Many Democrats voted against each of these two highly accomplished men.

What does he know about energy!

h/t Bookworm

"Keep calm and drawl."

Trump has picked Rick Perry to lead the Department of Energy. Ace of Spades has this:

Governor Rick Perry, Who Once Considered Scrapping the Energy Department, Will Now Lead It
—Ace

The liberal media is aghast at the irony.

I'm not. The most important attribute for the exercise of power is an understanding of the restraint that must be imposed on any exercise of power -- and feeling that a department is kind of bullshit is an excellent start to knowing that restraint.

It should be noted that under Obama, many agencies were perverted, Orwell-like, to perform the exact opposite function of their original mission. The Department of Energy, created to promote the generation of energy, was perverted into an agency largely considered with strangling initiatives to generate energy.

I don't think Rick Perry will roll that way.

Drill, baby, drill.

President-elect Donald Trump has selected former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to be his nominee for energy secretary, the transition team announced Wednesday, which would make him head of an agency he once sought to eliminate.
...

If confirmed by the Senate, Perry will inherit a department that has focused on promoting clean energy and reducing dependence on fossil fuels, but has also seen domestic production of oil explode. And his selection is a nod to the traditional GOP emphasis on energy sources like coal and oil.

"As the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry created created a business climate that produced millions of new jobs and lower energy prices in his state, and he will bring that same approach to our entire country as Secretary of Energy," Trump said in a statement. "My administration is going to make sure we take advantage of our huge natural resource deposits to make America energy independent and create vast new wealth for our nation, and Rick Perry is going to do an amazing job as the leader of that process."

"I've never understood why, with all of our own reserves, we've allowed this country to be held hostage by OPEC, the cartel of oil-producing countries, some of which are hostile to America," Trump wrote in his book "Crippled America."

The article notes the current "controversial" policy of DoE loans to boondoggles like Solyndra.

I think Perry might be interested in some accountability on that front. And I don't think he'll be interested in more boondoggle loans.

Read more here.

Selling his political soul for a seat on the Trump Train

Jonah Goldberg writes in National Review,

‘Let no one be mistaken: Donald Trump’s candidacy is a cancer on conservatism, and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised, and discarded,” former Texas governor Rick Perry declared ten months ago. Trump’s candidacy, Perry added, represents “a toxic mix of demagoguery and mean-spiritedness and nonsense that will lead the Republican party to perdition if pursued.”

Lest you’re thrown off by the alliteration, “perdition” means eternal damnation in Hell.

Perry has since had an epiphany, selling his political soul for a seat on the Trump Train. He even says he’s open to being Trump’s running mate, which would make him a co-pilot (or co-conductor?) leading us down the tracks to Hell. (“Can I blow the whistle, Mr. Trump?”)

Perry is far from alone in his hypocrisy. With the exception of Senator Ben Sasse, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, and a handful of others (including, I hope, Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio), the Republican aristocracy is for the most part bending its knee to the new king, proving that much of the “establishment” is exactly as craven as Trump always claimed.

Those who do not yield can hear the executioner’s axe sharpening against the wheel. Trump has dispatched one of his top minions, Sarah Palin, to punish Ryan for his effrontery in second-guessing Trump’s commitment to conservatism. She said she’ll work to defeat Ryan’s reelection bid this fall. “His political career is over,” Palin said on CNN. She’ll probably fail, but the message is clear. The litmus test in the new Republican party boils down to loyalty, not to a principle or conviction, but to a man: Trump.

The GOP platform can now be written on a bumper sticker: “In Trump We Trust.”

...As for his adamantine principles, there is only one: The limelight belongs to him alone. (That is why Trump is reportedly considering speaking every night at the GOP convention.)

...Conservatives who still have the courage of Perry’s former convictions have no role in the party so long as Trump’s running it. He has admitted that he doesn’t want or need Reaganite conservatives; he’d rather rely on the rank-and-file supporters of a socialist instead.

For conservatives, party unity is another way of saying “suicide pact.” I will never vote for Hillary Clinton because she believes things I can never support. I will never vote for Donald Trump because he’s a bullying fool who believes in nothing but himself. The conservative movement can wait out a Clinton presidency intact. But Perry was right. A Trump presidency is a ride straight to perdition, with a capital H.

Read more here.

Will Trump do to Hillary what he has done to Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Rick Perry and Scott Walker?and

Ross Kaminsky, though not a fan of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, writes at Spectator.org.,

The Donald has a remarkable ability to break through conventional restrictions on acceptable political conversation and to make people think about issues in ways opponents call “extreme” but which resonate among much of the American public. Beyond his base, he is having this effect, whether for good or for ill, on millions of Americans who would not consider voting for Mr. Trump in a general election.

...A large part of Trump’s appeal is his willingness to say things that other politicians won’t say. In that willingness he comes across to many, especially the lightly informed, as a noble truth-teller. And even for those who would not vote for an arrogant often-wrong blowhard, Trump nevertheless plants in their minds toxic seeds that have roughly the same effect on his opponents’ favorability ratings that Roundup has on the weeds in your lawn.

He’s done it to Jeb Bush, he’s done it to Ben Carson, he did it early on to Rick Perry and then to Scott Walker — feats that he isn’t shy to remind us about. And now his aim has turned toward Hillary Clinton. Unless she is some sort of GMP (Genetically Modified Politician) who is immune to political Roundup, she should be very worried.

In Saturday’s Democratic presidential debate (the timing says a lot about whether the DNC actually wants anybody watching), Hillary Clinton claimed that Donald Trump “is becoming ISIS’s best recruiter” and that “they are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.”

Even the liberal-leaning Politifact.com rated Clinton’s claim as false, concluding that “Clinton has turned speculative left-of-center rhetoric into fact” and that “evidence does not exist” to support her slanderous accusation.

As NBC’s Chuck Todd put it on Sunday, “no fact checker has been able to back up her claim on that.”

...The more Trump can convince moderate and independent voters that Hillary’s strongest arguments for herself are somewhere between irrelevant and disqualifying, the harder it becomes for her to carry those swing voters who now determine American elections.

Read more here.

People of the year

Who would you select to be the people of the year in 2015? Jim Geraghty

went with three figures who I felt represented exactly what the country needed at this tumultuous time. Seven years of Obama have steered the country far to the left, and then crashed it on the rocks. We’re economically stagnant, our federal bureaucracy is bloated and unresponsive, we’re depressed, and living in fear. We need that right combination of principled conservatism and a serious record of reforms, firsthand knowledge of how to steer a government away from the left and to government’s true priorities. This year, the three men who best exemplified the change we need were . . . Rick Perry, Scott Walker and Bobby Jindal.

Now, there’s this small detail that the GOP donor class, poll respondents, and everyone else rejected those three. But I think that says more about the poor judgment and bad criteria of the party today than these governors and their records.

Greg’s pick: The family members of the Charleston shooting victims who spoke in the courtroom and told the shooter they forgave him, demonstrating the depth and breadth of their Christian faith.

A great record, or a great campaigner?

What matters most in the presidential races, having a great record of accomplishments, or being a great campaigner? Scott Walker and Rick Perry, both governors with records of significant accomplishments, but neither a very good campaigner, have dropped out of the GOP race.

Mark Steyn writes,

...if you have in effect a three-year election campaign then the ability to campaign becomes what matters: that's the "record" that counts.

Walker, Perry hire establishment operatives

Renee Nal writes at NoisyRoom.net,

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry seems to have largely escaped the scrutiny recently directed toward Scott Walker for hiring establishment operative Brad Dayspring who aggressively lied about the Tea Party during the hotly contested Mississippi primary last year.

While Scott Walker, who this author has long suspected of as having establishment sympathies, has been appropriately getting heat for hiring a pro-Cochran thug, Rick Perry should also be called out for his “terrible hires,” including Henry Barbour (who previously worked for Perry), and should be “censured” and is “quite possibly the most despised campaign consultant in the entire conservative movement,” “McCain flunkie” Steve Schmidt (who believes that Sarah Palin “is filled with anger, has a divisive message”) and Austin Barbour (who also worked on Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign) as senior adviser to three of Perry’s super PACs.

Read more here.

Rick Perry is doing better this time

At Powerline Steven Hayward believes that former Texas governor Rick Perry has learned from his presidential run in 2012. Perry writes an excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal, which Hayward quotes at length. Hayward recommends we pay attention to what Perry is saying.
Read more here.

Update: Roger L. Simon is another who believes Perry deserves a second chance. Read his take here.

Update 2: Elizabeth Price Foley is another who likes Perry. Read her comments here.

The Trump factor

Talk radio is still buzzing about Donald Trump's announcement that he wishes to be considered for the GOP presidential candidacy. Well, it's not his announcement, it's his comments about illegal immigration that are causing the buzz. Denver talk show host Dan Caplis says what is different about Trump is that he exudes strength. So many of the other candidates are nuanced and coached by political consultants and they come across as mushy compared to Trump. It is hard to know the other candidates.

Why isn't our border secure? Why did we the people allow this to happen?

Trump has drawn the ire of two Fox News commentators, George Will and Charles Krauthammer. Will called Trump a "bloviating ignoramus,"and Krauthammer said Trump deserves his high disapproval ratings. Trump fired back, calling Will the “dumbest (and most overrated) political commentator of all time,” and said Krauthammer was "one of the worst and most boring political pundits."

Candidates Rubio, Bush, and Perry have all criticized Trump for his comments about illegal immigrants. Trump responded by saying Perry needs new glasses (something I have long felt, and something which got an immediate chuckle from me.) As for Jeb Bush, Trump had this to say: “Today, Jeb Bush once again proves that he is out of touch with the American people,” Trump wrote Saturday. “Just like the simple question asked of Jeb on Iraq, where it took him five days and multiple answers to get it right, he doesn’t understand anything about the border or border security. In fact, Jeb believes illegal immigrants who break our laws when they cross our border come ‘out of love.'”

The conversation is clearly centering around issues articulated by Trump. Will more people now pay attention to the GOP debate because Trump is involved? Will Trump overwhelm the other candidates, or will one or more of them emerge as tough enough to take him on? If Trump does not get enough votes to win the GOP primary, will he bolt to a third party and give the election to the despicable Hillary Clinton as Ross Perot did to her husband Bill?

Which candidate has the best jobs record

Without question it was Rick Perry. As Ace of Spades points out,

Now, Florida still made some gains under Bush. But these shots he's taking at Perry seem out of place. No less an economic leading light than Matthew Yglesias* has noted that Rick Perry has the best story to tell of any GOP contender on job creation, not least of all because Rick Perry's Texas pumped out a prodigious amount of jobs -- during an economic recession/recoveryless recovery.

Read more here.

The biggest victim may be the rule of law

Scott Ott explains the complicated situation in Travis County, Texas in which Governor Perry has been indicted and the Democrat D.A. drives drunk, then makes a fool of herself in the clink.

A governor with a chest?

Paula Bolyard wishes the U.S. was being led by a man with a chest, instead of by a Pajama Boy. She uses this quote:

“We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”― C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

Bolyard continues:

Perry, the gun-slinging, tough-talking, God-fearing Texas governor, reminds us of what we’ve been missing: for too long we’ve had a president without a chest. In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis imagines a dystopian future without objective truth and divorced from natural law, where “men without chests” rule by their own unreflected whims and according to their own selfish motives. It seems we’ve arrived at that future, or dangerously close to it.

Please read more here.

Paula posts this 2010 speech by Perry as an example of a governor with a chest.


I am not convinced about how wonderful Texas is. I lived in Texas from 1958-1964. It was the time of civil rights passions. I found a lot of bigotry. I was glad to leave to go to graduate school in Kansas in 1964, and have not been back.

Governor Rick Perry gives his views on hot topics of the day

Texas Governor Rick Perry is interviewed here by Stuart Varney. The interview covers immigration, BLM, competing with other states for jobs, and a presidential bid in 2016 by Perry.