Rick Perry Lies Twice As Much As He Tells The Truth
Rick Perry, the latest in the radical, religious, Republican race to the presidency, lies twice as much as he tells the truth. No, this isn’t partisan slinging, this is from the folks at the non-partisan Politifact, who write in their investigation that on some major issues and statements, Perry has told the truth ten times, and lied 21, and add, Perry “has spoken accurately when airing figures calculated by others that don’t necessarily reflect on his own record.”
“No one in Texas politics has faced the Truth-O-Meter more than Rick Perry, who’s gotten more True ratings than anyone else in the state — 10 — while also leading in False (14) and Pants on Fire ratings (7).
“The just-declared presidential hopeful has fared well on our other meter, the Perry-O-Meter, which rates the fulfillment of campaign promises. To date, a dozen promises have been rated Kept, three as Broken. And now, given his speech in South Carolina, we’re also marking as Broken his repeated vow not to run for president.”
Note that this doesn’t include all the false statements that lie in his announcement on Saturday that he is running for president, and that having an eye on the White House seems to have been a plan all the while.
“His exaggerations and falsehoods have typically touched on federal issues, including border safety and actions by the Obama administration. For instance, he once inaccurately said he had not been called by the Obama White House and wrongly said that the state hadn’t heard a response from the federal government to its applications for Medicaid waivers.”
Politifact discusses issues like Perry’s recurring lies about issues like this one that just make hiom look like Chris Christie.
“In a December 2010 interview, Perry told a writer whose blog appears on the Houston Chronicle’s website that the state’s request for a federal waiver allowing it to restructure its Medicaid program “has languished in a file cabinet at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for more than two years.” We’d previously learned that the federal government had been waiting for Texas to revise its original proposal — meaning the ball was in the state’s court. Noting Perry had earlier aired the stalled-in-Washington claim, which we then rated False, we ruled his rerun worse than inaccurate. Pants on Fire!“
Politifact says Perry has “distorted” facts, and also cited Perry saying the difference between 40% and 63% is “not that much different.”
Perry lied on issues like when he said, “You’ve got bombs exploding in El Paso.” You didn’t.
And one has to wonder not why Perry lies so much, but why he lies — especially about issues like this one.
“Asked about his relations with Obama’s administration, he said: ‘I have, frankly, never had a call from them.’ Information from both the White House and Perry’s state schedule contradicted his claim. Presuming the state schedule reflects what actually happened, Perry had received such a call two weeks earlier. Pants on Fire.“
But Politifact isn’t the only one digging a little deeper into the Texas Governor’s statements.
In May, Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos wrote,
“Apparently our snake oil dealing Governor Rick Perry is lying his way through the state of California in an effort to trick CEOs into moving to Texas.
“Of course most folks in Cali, unlike those of us in Texas, have no clue that Rick Perry is incapable of fessing up to the sin of his reckless fiscal polices. For Texas is flat out broke and it has lost more jobs than California had in 2010. In fact, Texas ranked second in the nation in job losses.
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Shaw cites a Houston Chronicle op-ed by Lisa Falkenberg that states,
Texas actually lost 352,500 non-farm jobs from 2008 to December 2009, according to seasonally adjusted data from the Texas Workforce Commission.Over the past three years, the period cited in the Journal, Texas lost 61,600 jobs, according to Workforce Commission data from March 2008 to March 2011.
Of course, our numbers are still better than those in many other states, including California. Texas’ jobless rate is 8.1 percent, compared with California’s 12 percent.
Falkenberg adds,
“Every time the governor or some other politician downplays the effect on Texas, it minimizes the struggles of the 984,411 Texans, who, by latest count, are still out of work.”
And just yesterday, The Des Moines Register reported Perry’s lie about the trucking industry and government regulations.
“Perry, who on Saturday announced he is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, contended in Des Moines today that federal regulations are stifling creation of American jobs.
“He then proceeded to cite what he termed an “obscene, crazy†regulation. “If you are a tractor driver, if you drive your tractor across a public road, you’re going to have to have a commercial driver’s license. Now how idiotic is that?â€
Of course, Perry’s lies are just convenient politics, and don’t represent actual facts, just targets he thinks he can gain political points with. The Register delivered the facts.
“U.S. Department of Transportation officials are disputing Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s statement at the Iowa State Fair today that federal administrators plan to require a farmer driving a tractor across a public road to obtain a commercial driver’s license.
“We are absolutely not requiring farmers†to obtain commercial licenses, such as those required of semi-trailer operators, said U.S. DOT spokeswoman Candice Tolliver in Washington, D.C.
“She said U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood had put out a statement last week making the DOT’s position clear.
“We have no intention of instituting onerous regulations on the hardworking farmers who feed our country and fuel our economy,†LaHood’s statement said.”
Like Perry’s number one rival, Michele Bachmann likes to say — albeit in another context — this is just “the tip of the spear.”
Go deeper, fellow journalists.
(image: Texas Governor Rick Perry’s signature.)
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
