Tales of a Phony Capitalist Part II: Rick Perry's Porn Problem

It seems that tales of Rick Perry's dastardly exploits abound, so I've decided to make this into a series. (And I hope you'll understand why this post has no accompanying picture like the last one!) Fresh off the heels of Gardasil-gate, we have another damning story about Perry's phoniness, and much like the last one, this involves cash and a shady corporation as well.

Except this time, it was strictly legal; Perry invested somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000 in a company called Movie Gallery. (Of course, he later bundled his investments into a blind trust, so there is no telling the exact amount.) According to the Texas based www.burntorangereport.com, "Movie Gallery boasts being the second largest North American home-entertainment specialty retailer after Blockbuster; Movie Gallery has more than 4700 stores located in all fifty states, Mexico, and Canada." Harmless, right? Wrong! Just one little problem. "Movie Gallery is also both the largest distributor of pornography in America and the only major retail chain to sell pornography in its flagship stores."

The article continues,

As reported in Forbes, Movie Gallery possesses a winning business model, which has allowed it to acquire the much-larger franchise Hollywood Video. Forbes reports that pornography increases Movie Gallery’s profits enough to lowball the prices on regular, non-pornographic rentals.  Pornography is a unique product that many stores are reluctant to sell.  Movie Gallery’s practices have forced small, locally owned rental chains out of business.

Zealously boycotted by the conservative, two-million-strong American Family Association (AFA), Movie Gallery faces two lawsuits because of its allegedly illegal business practices.  FN13.  Smaller competing video stores claim that Movie Gallery illegally distributes porn across state lines.  

That's right, the same AFA that was involved in Mr. Perfect's recent prayer rally. But to the main point, it appears that for all his supposed social conservative cred and concern for women's health, he was making big bucks off the biggest porn distributor in the country. Actually, maybe that's another reason he wanted all 6th grade girls in Texas immunized against an STD. And there's more.

The AFA has undertaken a nationwide campaign—advertising in USA Today and Washington Post—urging government officials to investigate Movie Gallery.  Many local authorities—like the U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Texas—are allegedly dragging their feet. With Gov. Perry owning stock in Movie Gallery, his financial interests contravene the success of any such investigation.

Are we starting to see the pattern here? Perry claims that he's simply creating jobs and growing the economy, yet in reality he is merely protecting his shady business interests. And how does the Perry camp respond? The response from the campaign is usually something like "Perry's record is unquestioned when it comes to his conservative values yada yada yada". At some point, though, you can't just keep claiming to be a true conservative in the face of all evidence; you have to answer for your misdeeds. The typical response from zombie-like supporters is well illustrated by an email sent to Michelle Malkin which reads in part "...shut the hell up... Governor Perry is the best we got."

Excuse me, but there is someone much better. At this point, the deliberate ignorance of Palin's accomplishments and record leads me to believe that the only possible explanation is that some people just can't handle a woman as President. Otherwise, there is just no way Perry is the "best we got". Perhaps the Perry campaign thinks they can blow by his problems by ignoring them. Perhaps the Perry apologists over at places like RedState and the Daily Caller, where they see no problem with calling Palin a MILF, are unfazed by such hypocrisy when it comes to Christian values. After all, this is the equivalent of Sarah Palin investing in Planned Parenthood. Can you imagine what would happen if something like that were revealed? It would be the end of her career. But when it comes to the entitled good ol' boys of the GOP, who are understandably a little bit upset over losing their stranglehold on the GOP (and the country), supporting the exploitation of women is no big deal. Well, they have only themselves to blame for the loss of their power. Maybe if they started living up to their supposed Christian values people would take them seriously again.

Gardasil, Porn, what's next? Actually, Coloradan Michelle Malkin has a great preview of the topics which will be covered in our series. Among the more egregious known transgressions of the Charismatron 2012, we have the following:

Free tuition for illegal immigrants
Kickbacks via the Texas Enterprise Fund
Destruction of private property rights via the Trans Texas Corridor
La Raza - maybe he wanted to do more than secede from the union
Ties to Jihadis and Sharia law

and the kicker...

ACORN