All posts tagged "Perry"

The Justice Department uncovered more evidence of Rep. Scott Perry's (R-PA) involvement in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S Capitol and the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, according to court filings revealed this week.

Speaking to MSNBC on Thursday, former House Select Committee investigator Tim Heaphy explained that they were able to obtain a lot of information on Perry through other sources, but that the lawmaker fought cooperating. He explained that there was no choice but to simply move forward. Perry was called, but so was Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who also refused. Others, such as Steve Bannon and Mark Meadows were accused of contempt of Congress.

Under the power of the DOJ, however, special counsel Jack Smith has been able to go beyond the info and obtain damning information about the sitting lawmaker. ...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry was greeted at a restaurant in Anderson, South Carolina with a tremendously-backhanded compliment.

[rebelmouse-image 24863468 original_size="483x500" expand=1]Since Rick Perry seems determined to play the "I'm a Real Texan" card---and a whole lot of the mainstream media is willing to play along---I expect that I'll be spending the next few months, and god forbid year, hopping mad.  Not because I think Perry's an "inauthentic" Texan, but because I dislike the concept of "authentic", which, as I note below, is ironically based more in myth-making than in our complex realities. I mean, Perry is playing the not-a-Real-Texan card against George Bush, who I recall I had to defend a few times (much to my dismay) from liberals in the past  who wanted to take away your Texan card because you were born somewhere else, even if you were raised Texan, identified as a Texan, ran the state, and retired there.  I felt if Bush doesn't get to be a Texan, anyone's card can be yanked on the basis of some arbitrary bullshit.  I take this stuff personally, because I've often felt the not-a-Real-Texan play being used against me, because I don't fit the narrow mold of "ignorant, mean-spirited yahoo" that is heralded by wingnuts, exoticized by the Village, and loathed by decent people who know damn well that there's no honor in willfull ignorance and spiteful reactionary politics.  

[rebelmouse-image 24750180 original_size="350x500" expand=1]American politics are dominated by culture war, and one of the most disturbing aspects of the culture war is the quest for authenticity---especially since what is considered most authentic is usually measured in the ugliest possible way.  Take, for instance, Paul Waldman's examination of how Rick Perry plays the "authenticity" card.  Perry's schtick is that he's more Texan-than-thou, and his Texanness is defined very specifically as a brand of hyper-masculinity: the bigger man/Texan is the meaner, stupider, more violent man/Texan.  There's a lot of ironies inside this kind of authenticity-tripping, the biggest being that the measure of what is "authentic" are based in plain old myth-making.  Waldman talks a bit about how the myth of the cowboy is beloved in the U.S. because it appeals to this sense of authenticity, but it is pure myth: