Come and Take it!

Please remove me from this blog

2006-12-27T09:51:00.000-08:00

this blog is no longer being updated. Please remove my account from it.

Thoughts on the Swift meat packing raids

2006-12-17T11:11:00.000-08:00

I've been too swamped with finals to really have the time needed to comment on the recent ICE raids at six Swift meat processing facilities, including the one in nearby Cactus, TX. Not that I haven't noticed, of course. Thankfully, there's already plenty of fine commentary available on our government's latest Gestapo tactics, so I won't have to add too many of my own. I did want to first note something a nearby Dumas resident Fate Bennett said about the raid:

The storey [sic] regarding the raid in Cactus, TX is not completely forth-coming regarding the events that took place in the small texas town this morning. The story does not mention the fact that immigration agents were going door to door in Cactus demanding birth certificates, drivers licenses, social security cards and other identification documentation from people outside the Swift meat packing plant who were peacefully going about their daily routine in their own homes. Texas citizens were also be stopped on the roads in Cactus, and were requested to produce the documents mentioned previously. Immigration services also requested identification documents for all members in the households, children and adults, they shook down. I think that the actions not covered in any news story I have read are quite extreme, and racially motivated. If any person there were hispanic or hispanic looking, then immigration agents and other officers working in the area zeroed in on them!

I mean really, since when do people carry their birth certificates around with them. And since when could a federal agent knock on your door and request these items from you. Last time I checked, people didn't have to provide anything identifying themselves to authorities without either a warrant or probable cause. I don't see any probable cause when going door to door, and no warrants were provided to any of the people I spoke to that were in Cactus this morning.

I feel that the entire events of a something like this should be covered in the news, and not just the main focus of the what it is that authorities are trying to do. I don't know how many people were detained from their homes, and I don't know if it is within the powers that be to go into residents homes, and interrogate them in this manner, but I don't agree with it. Mabye [sic] if the immigration services and the authorities would get their rear-ends down to the borders and start patrolling them properly, then we would not have to waste our tax payer dollars on raids like this.

The state and federal agencies act like this is something that has just come up. I lived in Dumas most of my life, and I'm now in my 30's, and I know that there have been illegal immigrants in this area in large numbers for as long as I can remember. I know that the focus of these operations was to prevent identity theft, but identify theft was just another means for this government to carry out the new witch hunt for illegal immigrants. I know that the area their will take an economical hit if large numbers of illegal immigrants are deported, and it just seems like a bad way to do things. Think of the people that will be seperated [sic] from their families as well. Just doesn't seem like the right thing to do!

My emphasis added. An anonymous reader of the same Amarillo newspaper added this remark:

Now how are the little children that went home today on the bus to not find there parents at home, or better yet how about the children that couldn't get home because there parents weren't there to do so.

The effect on the kids has got to be devastating, as a quote from this Desmoines-are article cited at Man Eegee suggests:

The baby left behind has her own problems.

She has been difficult to feed since her mother was arrested, Feagan said.

“The mother was breastfeeding the baby,” Feagan said. “The baby doesn’t want to eat. Another tried to breastfeed, but she knew it wasn’t her.”

Feagan said she and advocates for local Hispanic families have tried to pinpoint exactly how many children are in family-limbo to try to organize help.

A total of 408 students were absent in the Marshalltown community school district as of Wednesday morning, district officials reported.

Other bloggers of note who have the lowdown include Nezua, XicanoPwr, Latina Lista, Duke1676 of Migra Matters, and David Neiwert.

The decimation of the Writ of Habeas Corpus that the last Congressional session foisted upon us is already having its consequences, just in time for the Holidays. Can't help but wonder if to add to the already fascist behavior exhibited by the raids themselves if those Haliburton concentration camps are now being put in to use.

One a related note: on the right sidebar of my blog you'll now notice a list of all the Senators from this last Congressional session who voted to do away with Habeas Corpus. As my friend Manuel notes, they aren't all Republicans - and to drive that point home I've put the Dems who voted to kill Habeas Corpus in boldface type.

Global Transformation

2006-10-14T21:59:00.000-07:00

Please remove me as a blog contributor

2006-09-08T00:39:00.000-07:00

I aplogize about this "off-topic" post, but I've tried to email.

Contributor Link:
AMERICA the Blog: http://www.americatheblog.com/ (no longer exists)

Contributor:
David: http://www.blogger.com/profile/1864066

I just never contribute so I'd like the blog removed from my "line-up".

Thank you and please forgive the inconvenience.

David

More arrogance and incompetence from the Texas Attorney General

2006-08-21T04:06:00.000-07:00

The Corpus-Christi Caller-Times reports this rather alarming -- even for Greg Abbott -- defiance of a federal judge:

U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack is incensed at Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott for seizing X-rays, some of which are now missing, that are key to federal and state investigations into potentially fraudulent diagnoses of the lung disease silicosis.
Jack made national headlines last year when she issued an opinion that the majority of more than 10,000 silicosis lawsuits before her were about litigation rather than medical care and that the "diagnoses were driven neither by health nor justice: they were manufactured for money."
Abbott's office, along with a congressional committee and the U.S. Attorney's Office, have been investigating since.
Four armed agents from Abbott's office visited the storage facility where thousands of X-rays related to the case were being housed on behalf of the federal court with a subpoena June 23, threatening to arrest the storage supervisor if he did not turn them over.
When Jack learned July 5 that the state attorney general's office had removed the X-rays, she ordered the office to return them by noon the following day, according to court records.
Forty boxes of X-rays came back, but an inventory by records custodian Gary Cosgrove showed that 152 X-rays are missing.
"Let me tell you that real, real clearly. It may be a criminal matter, and we're going to have to turn this over to the appropriate people," Jack said during an Aug. 11 telephone hearing that included representatives from Abbott's office. "The arrogance of taking those documents from a federal court supervised depository is astounding. You all took documents that did not belong to you, under - with armed guards."

How is it beneficial to anyone -- the plaintiffs, the defendants, the courts, an atmosphere of cooperation between federal and state authorities and oh, maybe all of the people of the state of Texas -- when the OAG runs amok, seizing X-rays from a US federal record depository using men with guns, and then losing some of them?

Or are the X-rays even actually "misplaced"? Can we next expect Greg Abbott to grandstand something outlandish in order to bring attention to himself in an election season?

Abbott, suddenly realizing that he's in a tough re-election fight, is scrambling to show that he has been doing something -- anything -- to justify his term as the state's chief law enforcement officer and protector of Texas consumers (clue: he hasn't done a damn thing for anyone except conservative evangelicals and greedy corporations). All he's got to show for the past four years is a couple of online child predator convictions and some charges of voter fraud against little old ladies who took mail-in ballots to the post office.

Appalling. This is what it looks like when power-mad Republicans get desperate. To paraphrase the car commercials: they are arrogant, incompetent, and built to stay that way.

Of course, no matter how this matter is eventually resolved between Judge Jack and Abbott -- whether by sober discussion, flying subpoenas or flying bullets -- you have a clear choice in the Texas Attorney General's race.

Tom DeLay must stay on ballot for Nov 2006 election.

2006-08-04T01:08:00.000-07:00

Hubris "In Greek, an excess of pride; the most common character defect (one interpretation of the Greek hamartia) of the protagonist in Greek tragedy. "Pride goeth before a fall" is an Elizabethan expression of this foundation of tragedy."

The picture which should come to mind now is Tom DeLay. He has been the House Majority Leader since before Bush was selected President in 2000. He has been quoted as saying "I AM the government!" and has been called the most powerful leader of the House in over a century. But his efforts to gain Republican control of the Texas House of Representatives so that they would do a mid-decade redistricting of the Texas Congressional House Districts and increase the Republican majority in the House by five appear to have been his undoing.

While the redistricting worked and in 2004 four Texas Democratic Congressmen were replaced by Republicans, the District Attorney of Austin, TX determined that Tom DeLay used corporate funds to gain control of the Texas House. This violates a century-old Texas law. Since Tom DeLay knew this would be a problem, he arranged that the corporate funds be laundered the funds through the Republican National Committee before they were sent to his TRMPAC in Texas. The trial is pending. Remember that the trial is pending. It is important to the rest of the story.

Besides the Texas charges against Tom DeLay, several of Tom DeLays' Congressional aides have admitted guilt to the Justice Department in connection with bribery schemes run by Jack Abramoff. The aides and Jack Abramoff are all expected to testify against Tom DeLay in similar charges.

When Tom was indicted by Ronnie Earle he was required by the House Republican rules to step down as House Majority Leader. This rule was put into effect in 1994 when the Republicans first took control of the House under Newt Gingrich with Tom as Whip.

This rule was window dressing put in place during the euphoria when the Republicans for the first time in forty years took control of the House. It was because the Republicans had run against the "corrupt Democratic leaders of the House", and the rule was intended to show that the Republicans were the new, clean broom which had come in to correct the problems of the long term Democratic Leadership.

When Ronnie Earle had first begun investigating how the Republican takeover of the Texas House of Representatives had been finance in 2002, the Republicans in the Federal House of Representatives had attempted to rescind that rule, but the public outcry at the obvious corruption of such a move made them reinstate it. This was the lead-up to Tom DeLay's resignation as House Majority Leader and his replacement by Rep. John Boehner when the indictments were handed down.

Tom DeLay has been paying for lawyers ever since. It hasn't been cheap, either. He currently has about $1.5 million on hand, and roughly $1 million in unpaid legal bills. Since the Federal Election Commission provided a ruling to then Congressman (and now federal prisoner) Randy "Duke" Cunningham permitting him to use campaign contributions to pay for his legal bills for accusations related to his job as a Congressman, Tom DeLay has happily used his campaign contributions to pay his legal bills.

This is rather obviously one reason why he ran in the Texas Republican Primary for reelection. As long as he was running he could collect more campaign contributions, much of which he knew would be needed for legal bills. His defense attorney, Dick DeGuerin (interestingly a Democrat) is one of the best and most expensive defense attorneys in Texas.

The other reason he ran in the Primary as he has since made clear is that he detests the three Republicans who were attempting to take advantage of his political weakness and replace him in his Congressional seat. By Running in the Primary for reelection Tom felt that he could defeat them and decide who his replacement in Congressional District 22 would be. So he ran for the Republican nomination for reelection to his own seat in Congress, and won. All he had to do then was drop out of the race and have the Texas Republican Party appoint someone with less political baggage to run in his place. Congressional District 22 has been gerrymandered to have a majority of Republican voters. With DeLay running, the Democrat running against him could almost certainly win the seat, but with some other Republican candidate it would be more difficult to pull out a Democratic win.

The problem is that Texas has a law requiring that once a candidate has won his party primary he may withdraw but his party cannot replace him. His name must remain on the ballot. The idea is that it is unfair for a party to have a candidate who for some reason deconstructs as a viable candidate, then have the party bring in a ringer at the last minute. So DeLay declared that he had moved his residence to his townhouse in Virginia, and the Texas State Republican Party would declare him ineligible to run for his district 22 seat. Then they would choose his replacement.

The Democrats then took this to court, stating that since Tom still owned his home in Sugarland, TX and his wife still lived there no proof existed that he was ineligible to run for reelection. A Republican-appointed federal Judge agreed with the Democrats and ordered the Texas Republican Party to keep his name on the ballot. Tom appealed to the fifth circuit court of appeals in New Orleans (one of the most conservative courts in America) where the three judge panel who drew the case just decided that the district court judge was completely correct (See CNN.) The result is that Tom is still required to keep his name on the ballot.

The Democrat, Nick Lampson, is an experienced Congressman who had lost his seat as part of DeLay's redistricting. He has a war chest of at least $2 million with which to campaign for the seat. Tom has only $.5 million left and still has to pay lawyers when D.A. Ronnie Early actually tries him on the charges for which he has been indicted. As of this time there are only three months left until the election, and Tom has not begun to campaign, assuming that he dares spend the money to campaign rather than pay his lawyers.

So Tom has, of course, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. By now, even if the USSC reverses the lower court decisions (a long shot) the Texas Republicans still have to anoint a candidate, start a campaign and let the voters know who is is, and try to defeat the well-known and well-funded Nick Lampson. All of this in the face of a strong national anti-Republican mood and the clear legal and ethical problems that have caused Tom DeLay to withdraw.

So that's the story of Tom DeLay. Barring some really unanticipated events between now and the November general election, he is toast as a Congressman and Nick Lampson will represent the district 22.

See the Hubris? Tom DeLay is the lead in a Greek tragedy of his own making.

Previous posts about the DeLay case. (Note- there are links in each post to other news sources. This is intended as a research source.)

Repubs: Making DeLay run for reelection could backfire. 07-21-2006
DeLay to remain on ballot. 07-06-2006
Tom DeLay’s final legal defense fund report. 07-03-2006
Supreme Court upholds (most of) Texas’ redistricting. 06-28-2006
Judge thinks Tom DeLay withdrew from election. 06-27-2006
An excellent roundup of Delay-resignation news. 04-05-2006
Why did DeLay wait til now to announce his resignation? 04-05-2006
DeLay’s legal defense funds run short. 02-01-2006
Texas investigation of DeLay finds “Duke” Cunningham money. 01-20-2006
Frist, DeLay had day traders working in their offices to trade on inside political information. 01-19-2006
Post by Nick Lampson running to defeat DeLay. 01-15-2006
Cunningham case ensnares DeLay, Blunt. 01-13-2006
Reid likens DeLayism to Mafia corruption 01-13-2006
The prospects for DeLay’s reelection. 01-12-2006
The Republicans what WHO to replace DeLay? 01-10-2006
Aw, poor Tom DeLay, conspiracy victim.
DeLay decision creates more problems for Republicans. 01-08-2006
DeLay, Abramoff and the Alexander Group. 01-08-2006
More on DeLay’s K-Street Project. 01-05-2006
Abramoff – Key influence peddler in DeLay’s K-Street Project. 01-04-2006
Abramoff scandal – How far can the Department of Justice go? 01-03-2006
DeLay problems extend to the Marianas Islands. 12-05-2005
Texas redistricting violated voting rights act. 12-02-2006
Republican corruption is logical outcome of the K-Street project. 11-29-2006
What services can a Congressman exchange for campaign contributions? 11-28-2006
DeLay admitted to DA Earle that he was aware of money movement before it happened. 11-11-2005
Tom DeLay reports to Sheriff – released on bond. 10-20-2005
More on Tom DeLay’s money laundering indictment. 10-05-2005
New indictment against Tom DeLay. 10-03-2005
DeLay’s shameful Congress. 10-02-2005
Who was on the Grand Jury that indicted Tom DeLay? 09-30-2005
Indictment issued against DeLay’s TRMPAC. 09-09-2005
Crooks act like crooks – See Republicans in ARMPAC. 08-11-2005

[Cross-posted from Politics Plus Stuff]

Greg Abbott = Big Hypocrite

2006-07-13T12:31:00.000-07:00

Go read the new blog on what will undoubtedly be a lengthy, detailed subject, particularly with this news today.

DeLay to remain on November ballot

2006-07-06T10:54:00.000-07:00

It seems that Tom DeLay outsmarted himself when he ran in the Republican primary for his Congressional seat, then tried to duck out and get the Texas Republican Party to replace him on the ballot with someone else he approved of. U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks announced today that DeLay must remain on the ballot for the November 7th election.

The Austin-American Statesman (Free signup required) has this as breaking news this morning.

"The Texas Democratic Party sued to keep the indicted Sugar Land Republican on the ballot because party officials believed that their candidate Nick Lampson could more easily defeat DeLay instead of a GOP replacement.

Sparks' order prevents state Republican Chairwoman Tina Benkiser from completing the process of naming a DeLay successor. Although the Republican Party is expected to appeal, Sparks' order keeps the campaigns of possible GOP candidates for congressional District 22 in limbo.

Under state law, a political party cannot replace a nominee who resigns in mid-election. But Benkiser said she could replace DeLay because he had become ineligible to represent the GOP on the ballot when he moved to the Virginia condo he has owned for the past 12 years.

DeLay testified that he planned to live indefinitely in Virginia and had rented an office in Washington, D.C. The court also was presented documents showing DeLay has registered to vote in Virginia and had filed state tax documents.

Lawyers for the Democratic Party, however, argued that DeLay's move was just a ploy to circumvent the state election law. They noted that DeLay testified his wife was still living at their Sugar Land residence and that they subpoenaed him for his court appearance at that house.

The U.S. Constitution says a candidate for the U.S. House of representatives must be 25 years old, an American citizen and an inhabitant of the state 'when elected.'"

Note also that Article I Section 4 of the Constitution gives the States the power to determine "The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives...." so it is unlikely that the appeal will overturn the Texas law which does not permit a political party to replace a weak candidate with a stronger one after the weak candidate won the party primary.

The Republicans will appeal this decision, of course, but they have no strong candidate to appoint anyway. In addition, there are only four months remaining for the appeal to be decided and, if it allowed the Republicans to appoint a new candidate, for that candidate to campaign for office. Even in the strong Republican district that Tom DeLay has left, this is an almost insurmountable barrier to electing a new Republican candidate.

Considering the Republican US Supreme Court recently upheld most of the Tom DeLay instigated mid-term redistricting last week (except for Congressional District 23) there is more than a little poetic justice in this decision.

[X-posted from Politics Plus Stuff.]

See prior post on this subject Judge thinks Tom DeLay withdrew from election.

We know a million bucks ain't enough

2006-07-04T14:38:00.000-07:00

How much is? How much money would it take for the current Attorney General of Texas to say: "My moral values preclude me from making a ruling in this case":

One thing you have to like about Texas politicians is their resistance to embarrassment.

Take the case of Attorney General Greg Abbott. Last Dec. 15 he received $100,000 in campaign contributions from Houston homebuilder Bob Perry and his wife. The next day, he received a letter from Rep. David Swinford of Dumas, chairman of the House Committee on State Affairs.

Swinford wanted Abbott to issue a formal opinion on whether Grandma, a.k.a. state Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, had the authority to conduct a review of the performance of the newly created and controversial Texas Residential Construction Commission.

...

But the notion that the attorney general can take $100,000 from someone with a direct interest in his ruling is outrageous. And it's actually worse. Since 2001, Abbott has received $1.1 million from Mr. and Mrs. Perry.

Memo to Rep. Swinford: Don't bother asking the attorney general for an opinion on that. I phoned and e-mailed his press office Friday to discuss the issue but received no response.

Since Abbott and his staff likely started their holiday weekend early last Friday and couldn't get back to Casey with a response, we'll just have to answer for him:

"There IS no limit, according to my well-documented Christian principles. There is NO MAXIMUM amount of money I will accept that would prevent me from passing legal judgment in favor of my largest campaign contributors.

"After all, billion-dollar corporations are people, too."

Update: John Cobarruvias of Homeowners Against Deficient Dwellings is personally offended. And muse adds more.

Tom DeLay's final legal defense fund report.

2006-07-03T13:19:00.000-07:00

Tom DeLay has raised $330,000 for his legal defense fund since January 1 and has nearly $1,000,000 in unpaid legal bills at this time according to his final financial disclosure for his legal defense fund. He also has $1,400,000 in his campaign fund which can be used to pay legal bills. He still faces trial in Austin, TX on charges of money-laundering to influence the vote for the Texas House of Representatives for the 2002 election.

This is from the Houston Chronicle.

I wonder if he'll have to start selling assets to pay lawyers.

[Cross-posted from Politics Plus Stuff]

Supreme Court to announce TX redistricting decision this week

2006-06-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

Roll Call state that the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to announce its decision on Tom DeLay's 2003 Texas redistricing. The decision is expected this week.

No Fitzmas this year.

2006-06-13T05:14:00.000-07:00

The children are crying.

Rove to Bush: "I will be indicted"

2006-05-12T19:01:00.000-07:00

Jason Leopold has led this story all the way to the finish line:

Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources.

Details of Rove's discussions with the president and Bolten have spread through the corridors of the White House where low-level staffers and senior officials were trying to determine how the indictment would impact an administration that has been mired in a number of high-profile political scandals for nearly a year, said a half-dozen White House aides and two senior officials who work at the Republican National Committee.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources confirmed Rove's indictment is imminent. These individuals requested anonymity saying they were not authorized to speak publicly about Rove's situation. A spokesman in the White House press office said they would not comment on "wildly speculative rumors."

Just waiting for the shoe to drop, then. What are the charges, Mr. Fitzgerald?

Rove is said to have told Bolten that he will be charged with perjury regarding when he was asked how and when he discovered that covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the agency, and whether he discussed her job with reporters. ... Sources close to the case said there is a strong chance Rove will also face an additional charge of obstruction of justice, adding that Fitzgerald has been working meticulously over the past few months to build an obstruction case against Rove because it "carries more weight" in a jury trial and is considered a more serious crime.

Sounds like Karl is going to be spending more time with his family.

Finally. A frame that fits my portrait of Jesus.

2006-05-09T04:58:00.000-07:00

Or more specifically, the snapshot of the practice of American politics and religion.

From now on, as Andrew Sullivan has established and Phillip Martin has advanced, "Christians" will be replaced with Christianists and "Christianity" is discarded in favor of Christianism.

You're going to have click on the links to get the frontstory. Here's my summary: the new words most accurately describe the co-optation of selected religious tenets by (mostly -- well, virtually exclusively) the Republican Party and their various acolytes in order to advance their political agenda, but which betray the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Christianists, in short, are hypocrites, and I believe Jesus would have spit them out of his mouth.

Here's a few examples of what I'm talking about:

Christianists like Bill Frist -- and his buddy James Dobson -- really don't give a cat's ass about domestic animals -- or poor people, for that matter.
Christianism is Tom DeLay grinning through his mugshot, letting us "see Christ through him", while lobbyists pour champagne on his daughter in a hot tub.
Christianists like Rick Perry go to church to sign a bill that outlaws marriage except between heterosexuals while our children go without the proper schoolbooks to pass the state-mandated tests to advance to the sixth grade.
Christianism is when Greg Abbott argues before the United States Supreme Court that a monument to the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the state Capitol doesn't violate the First Amendment. And a majority of Justices agree.
A small group of Christianists gathered just this past weekend in Pasadena to choose the man -- sorry, Dr. Sekula-Gibbs -- who will try to fill the golf shoes of The Hammer. The Seven District Twenty-Two Apostles, minus the Sugar Land mayor who was saved from the dead by prayer, dutifully answered their questions (.pdf).

Gee, I'm sure there's more examples of Christianism but I haven't even Googled yet.

Can you think of any?

CD-22 Repukes huddle to pick eventual loser

2006-05-07T05:28:00.000-07:00

The real news is the last line of this article:

Republican leaders from Harris County met in Pasadena Saturday to interview potential candidates for the 22nd District congressional seat that will be vacated by outgoing Rep. Tom DeLay sometime in May or June.

The day drew seven hopefuls, who filled out a questionnaire detailing their political history and philosophies, including Houston City Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, state Rep. Robert Talton of Pasadena, lawyer Tom Campbell, who came in second to DeLay in the March primary, state Rep. Charlie Howard of Sugar Land, state Sen. Mike Jackson of La Porte, businessman Timothy Turner and Precinct 3 Fort Bend County Commissioner Andy Meyers.

In closed-door sessions, potential nominees handed out copies of their questionnaires and gave presentations to the roughly 50 precinct chairs. The replacement nominee for the November ballot will be selected by a four-member committee of precinct chairs — one each from Brazoria, Fort Bend, Galveston and Harris counties.

...

The leaders at the meeting did not say whether any candidate had broken out of the pack on Saturday, but several expressed disappointment that Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace, who many considered a leading candidate, did not fill out the questionnaire and failed to show.

Wallace would have been the front-runner, holding the blessing of The Hammer; that he would snub the actual kingmakers seems to bode ill for his prospects.

So who do you think the Pukes will pick for the privilege of losing to Nick Lampson in November? There's a couple of polls where you can vote.

Appeals Court agrees; DeLay Conspiracy charge dismissed

2006-04-19T09:16:00.000-07:00

According to the Associated Press 04-19-2006 a Texas Appeals court today agreed with a lower court ruling that the Texas Law on conspiracy did not apply to Tom DeLay's actions on money laundering in 2002.

This does not mean DeLay did not conspire to illegally launder corporate money to change control of the Texas House of Representative in 2002. Because the Legislature revised the statute in 2003 to clarify that actions such as those taken by DeLay were covered, the court has decided that the earlier version of the law did not apply to what Tom DeLay is accused by Austin District Attorney Ronnie Earle of doing.

The underlying felony action of money laundering to avoid the Texas Law against the use of corporate money in Texas elections is still going forward to trial. With this appeal decided, the trial date can now be set. It will probably be sometime in late Summer now.

[Cross-posted from Politics Plus Stuff]

The Public's Right to 'No'

2006-04-15T01:22:00.000-07:00

The Texas Observer on Bill Ceverha and the Texas Ethics Commission. (Need background?)

It was as if the Taliban had commandeered Austin’s premiere strip joint: The Texas Ethics Commission, the very state agency created to service the body politic’s right to know, orchestrated a coverup of unknown proportions.

The dustup started late last year when beleaguered Texas Employees Retirement System (ERS) trustee—and GOP power broker—Bill Ceverha reported in a routine public disclosure filing that he had received a “check” as a gift. Ceverha stopped there, failing to disclose the value of this check. Given that it came from Houston homebuilder Bob Perry— Texas’ top political donor who gives Texas Republican PACs and candidates $4 million each election—Ceverha’s mystery check could have contained oodles of zeroes.
In January, Texans for Public Justice filed a complaint with the Texas Ethics Commission, arguing that Ceverha’s failure to report the amount of that check violated his obligation under Texas law to provide a “description” of any gift worth more than $250.
In response to the complaint and a subsequent appeal, the Ethics Commission twice ruled in Ceverha’s favor—arguing that public officials need not quantify the gifts they receive. For the Ethics Commission, this was an act of bureaucratic self-negation. Why bother having a disclosure agency that sabotages public disclosure?

And the summation:

Bill Ceverha is the first flunky to take the bullet for Texans for a Republican Majority’s illegal intervention in Texas’ 2002 election. If Texas’ top donor was willing to help pay Ceverha’s legal bills—and if Ceverha didn’t want to disclose the magnitude of Bob Perry’s gift—then apparently the least that the Republican leadership could do was to obliterate the public’s right to know about it. That’s exactly what their ethics appointees did.

You like this kind of government? Vote Republican.

Duval County voting irregularities reported

2006-04-08T07:31:00.000-07:00

Has the Parr family again returned to its political ways? Actually, the Box 13 votes that gave Lyndon Johnson his 87 vote victory in the 1948 Democratic Primary came from the nearby Jim Wells County, but it was apparently orchestrated by the famed "Duke of Duval", George Parr. [See the Handbook of Texas, Duval County.]

This time the irregularities are that over half the votes cast in the March primary election were cast by absentee ballot, and the reported voter turnout was 57% of registered voters. Statewide the turnout was about 4%. From the Houston Chronicle:

More than half of the 5,641 votes cast were through absentee balloting. That amounts to 2,958 ballots sent by mail, more than all the early voting in the county's 2004 primary when about 2,800 ballots were cast both in person and by mail.

Then from the Corpus Christi Caller-Times:

Some of the callers to the state from Duval County asked why 4,098 of the 5,445 primary ballots were early voters and why 2,800 of those were by mail. Mail-in ballots are limited by law to registered voters 65 or older, the disabled, people who will be out of the county on Election Day and during early voting, and eligible voters confined in jail.

Something is very fishy in Duval County, TX. The Dallas Morning News got this information, but it certainly doesn't explain the (alleged) fraudulent mail-in ballots:

Alicia G. Saenz, Democratic Party chairwoman for Duval County, said she's not surprised with the voter turnout because of two prominent local races, for county judge and county treasurer. But Saenz said she was surprised at the number of mail-in ballots [Snip]

Some residents complained about receiving rejected mail-in ballot forms at their homes, although they were unaware who had sent them in the first place, West said.

"In one instance, it was the lady's deceased father's name that was on the ballot," West said. "We know he didn't fill it out.

So what's new? It rains in the rain forest, and there is vote fraud in Duval County, TX.

[Cross-posted from Politics Plus Stuff and I apologize for being late on this. It was in the (paper) Fort Worth Star-Telegram, I clipped it out, and simply forgot to blog it until after the on-line version disappeared behind the archive wall where they charge for the article.]

DeLays' goons practice Brownshirt tactics

2006-04-06T14:12:00.000-07:00

Republican goons at Tom DeLay's beck and call work to disrupt today's Press Conference by Nick Lampson. Here are pictures of the would-be Nazis.

Anyone besides me remember a similar incident during the 2000 Florida recount in which goons (in white shirts and ties) from Tom DeLay's Washington office entered the Miami government office and disrupted efforts to count the vote?

[Cross-posted from Politics Plus Stuff]

[Thanks to TPM]

Trans Texas Corridor Toll Road will have winners and losers

2006-04-05T11:01:00.000-07:00

The proposal for Rick Perry's Trans Texas Toll Road running parrallel and to the east of IH 35 is going to set up some real political issues. Who benefits, and who loses? (See article in Austin American Statesman.)

Besides the question of whose land will be taken to build the road, there is the issue that it runs east of Dallas, thus leaving Fort Worth out. There is also the issue that it terminates in Larado and excludes Brownsville.

North of Waco the route east of IH 35 will take over a lot of prime blackland Texas farmland. This is going to be expensive, as well as reducing prime agricultural land.

The political games are about to come out into the open now. This will be significant.

Special Election in TX-22?

2006-04-05T08:04:00.000-07:00

DavidNYC at SwingStateProject has an interesting take on the possibilities.

Fortunately, Texas law recognizes that not all vacancies are created equal. The governor may choose whether or not to call a special election - holding one is not mandatory. Gov. Rick Perry must now exercise his discretion wisely and refuse to squander taxpayers' dollars on such a wasteful exercise. To do otherwise would be to blatantly serve the naked partisan purpose of forcing Nick Lampson, the Democrat, through two elections - and possibly three, since a special might require a run-off - in just a few months time.

Of course, I'm not naive - Perry will do whatever his Republican overlords tell him to do. Therefore, if he does call a special election, I think all Democrats - including Lampson - should boycott it completely. Don't run in it, don't vote in it, don't even talk about it. If the TX GOP wants to waste time and money on a special election, then we shouldn't accord the "winner" any legitimacy whatsoever. The real election - as it has been all along - is still in November, regardless of what the Texas Republicans try to do.

Not so sure Perry will hand over the ammunition.

Bell already gets a boost to his "ethics" profile as the one who started the ball rolling on Delay. (BTW, if you didn't catch Chris on the Ed Schultz Show yesterday, the campaign site has a podcast available. Good times.)

And whatever the party, the redistricting fight made it clear the Repubs would do anything to win. Up to and including ignoring vital issues to the state like education finance reform (How many special sessions on this question are we at now?) and gutting the Tx Congressional delegation of it's seniority. Another Delay-Craddick-Perry gift to the citizens of Texas.

If Perry does call for this special ed election, he strengthens One-Many-Surnamed Grandma's position as the "independent" conservative candidate as well as brings Bell's ethics plank into even stronger focus (if the campaign plays it right.)

I think she's the only candidate Perry's really afraid of (the cordial mutual loathing doesn't hurt either), and I'm not sure he'll eagerly load the guns that could shoot his ambitions dead.

But we shall see...

X-posted at TX21 and We Are the Resistance.

Why did DeLay wait 'til now to announce his resignation?

2006-04-05T07:15:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post has what will probably be the definitive article explaining Tom DeLay's motivation and timing for waiting until after the Texas Republican Primary to announce his resignation, yet still not going on to run for reelection in the Fall.

The short answer is that he wants to leave the Congressional District in Republican hands. But he felt that none of his Republican opponents in the Primary were acceptable as his replacement, so he ran in the Republican Primary to beat them. By carefully timing his resignation, he is able to name his replacement on the ballot for the Fall election.

The Election this Fall was going to be difficult. DeLay is aware that he has very high negatives in the District and there is a strong Democratic opponent (ex-Congressman Nick Lampson) who offers the voters in the District a good choice in opposition to the politically damaged incumbent. Although the District went for Bush by 64% in Fall of 2004, it reelected DeLay by only 55% over an unknown Democratic opponent. Clearly DeLay was already having problems in his district even before his legal problems began piling up so badly. Since polls show that 80% of the voters in the district have already made up their minds about whether or not to vote for Tom DeLay, reelection against Nick Lampson was going to be very expensive, perhaps as high as $10 million, and the chance of being defeated even after spending the money was still high. That is money he is very likely to need for legal fees.

Tom DeLay Tom DeLay appears to have his legal problems in mind. He stated that he decided on Wednesday, March 29th to resign, but then he also sent out another fundraising appeal to his supporters late Thursday, March 30th. (source: TPM Muckraker) This suggests that Tom is building his campaign funds with the intention of converting them to his Legal Defense Fund when he resigns.

By delaying his resignation to late May or June there is not enough time remaining prior to the Fall election for Texas Governor Rick Perry to call for a special election to replace Tom DeLay. The law requires that DeLay's name remains on the ballot for the Fall unless he dies, is convicted of a felony or moves out of the district. He says he intends to move legally to Virginia in May or June. (Source: TPM Muckraker) This timing throws the choice of who the Republicans will run in the Fall election to the Republican party officials and precinct chairmen in his district.

In short, Tom's announcement that he will resign from Congress is very carefully crafted to get the best possible set of choices he can from the situation. If nothing else, it is an excellent display of how a top-flight politician makes complicated decisions.

[Cross-posted from Politics Plus Stuff.]

Is anyone reading this stuff here?

2006-03-13T15:57:00.000-08:00

If so, leave a comment. Anything. just say something.

As a society we get the government ~WE~ pay for

2006-03-13T15:32:00.000-08:00

We citizens can spend the money up front to pay for candidates to run in the elections, or we can let the people with large sums of money available pay for the candidates. The government our society gets does different things. Do we want better society, or do we want more wealthy and powerful investors?

If we want money to determine how our state works, then we will continue to let people like Leinnenger or Sanchez spend whatever they want to win elections for their candidates. This is called "plutocracy" or rule by the wealthy. Their purpose is control of government for their purposes. If these purposes are what society needs, it is almost entirely an accident. That is the nature of the tool they use to sway elections - money.

When money is the investment in an election, it is expected to provide a return on the investment that exceeds the expense by an amount that gets larger depending on the risk involved for the investor. Large amounts of money into the system requires an assured greater amount of money back out. Because of the risk involved in elections, the investment has to provide a very high return.

What do the voters get? Not good governance. The voters get "bought politicians" and the opportunity to watch the investors in those politicians make a lot of money. That's all. The voters' votes are mostly bought by the large money people through the highly sophisticated techniques developed by the Public Relations industry since the 1920's

If we (the voters) are lucky, then the investors will ALSO offer some level of competence in governance, but it really doesn't matter much to the incumbents if they provide good social governance or not. Money is what elected the candidates, money is the required output of election, and money will reelect the incumbents. Good governance is an accidental side effect.

If we want ideas, character and good governance to determine how our state works, then we will institute public financing for elections as Arizona and Maine have done. This will remove money as the key element in electing our representatives, and will permit a larger variety of potential candidates to run for election. Then those candidates will run on their ideas, character, and personal history, and as representatives of organizations we voters can evaluate.

We can demand that they provide competent governance as return for being elected. I don't oppose investors getting a good return for their efforts, but their efforts should be aimed at providing better goods and services to their customers, not getting control of tax revenues for their own purposes.

Candidates elected using public financing will be elected on their ideas and competence. Such people might actually establish a reasonable system of funding the schools. The investors won't. This benefits society massively, but it does not provide a direct return to the investors. They can't get any cash return on their investment in electing candidates by establishing a decent school finance system. Those investors will do nothing except block any reasonable education finance system - as they have done for at least three decades.

Educating other people's children is a major benefit to society and to the parents who spend the time and money to raise the children. In the long run it builds a better, more wealthy society. What it does not do is provide an immediate high return to the investors in elections. It is only an expense to those investors. A few such investors will spend the money anyway out of altruism, but most will not. It's not a good investment.

Unless we remove the money that controls our elections and government, we will never get decent government. In the long run, even the money men will get a better society. They just won't control it.

But we are not going to get good government until ~WE~, the voters, pay for the selection of our policy-makers.

Cross-posted from Politics Plus Stuff

First draft of Texas Republic Constitution found

2006-03-01T06:53:00.000-08:00

From the Austin-American Statesman:

Lost to history until an archivist at the Texas General Land Office found it two years ago in the agency's collections, it is about to return temporarily to its birthplace 100 miles east of Austin on the bank of the Brazos River, where in March 1836, 59 delegates from Texas gathered to pledge independence from Mexico.

An armored vehicle will stop at the land office this morning, and armed guards will emerge to pick up the draft. The guards will also swing by the State Library and Archives Commission to collect the only handwritten copy of the Texas Declaration of Independence still in existence. In addition, they will get a diary of convention proceedings and Spanish versions of the constitution and declaration at the University of Texas' Center for American History. [Snip]

The constitution, the declaration and other documents were all penned within a few weeks in March 1836, a time of great uncertainty about the Texas revolution's prospects for success. No one signed the draft, but there is no doubt that it was written by Herbert Kimble, secretary of the 1836 convention, said Jerry Drake, director of archives and records for the land office.

It's unclear how the draft, complete with strike-throughs and inserts, came to the land office. Another mystery: No final draft of the constitution is known to exist. One theory is that the final version was lost after it was published in newspapers.

The Draft Constitution of the Republic of Texas with associated documents will be on display from March 2, 2006 to March 16, 2006 at the Star of the Republic Museum at Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site, off Texas 105 northeast of Brenham from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Further information can be found at the website of the Star of the Republic Museum.

[Cross posted from Politics Plus Stuff]

Bush, the Gravedigger, and Cheney's Gunshot Victim

2006-02-18T12:35:00.000-08:00

The following was written by Jerry Politex of Bush Watch and originally appeared here:

========================

Although he's often been present at the relevant speeches over the years, maybe Dick Cheney wasn't listening as the president hyped his "responsibility society." After days of pressure, Vice President Dick finally 'fessed up in public to shooting Harry Whittington while quail hunting on a ranch in Texas. Folks outside of Texas were still asking "Harry Who".

Molly Ivins describes Harry Whittington as "a rare Texas Republican who is seriously civilized, particularly on the issues of crime, punishment and prisons." Over the years, Whittington, an Austin lawyer of 78 who is presently best known around town and in court for his real estate holdings, has been on the Texas Board of Corrections and the chairman of Texas Public Finance Authority.

Looking at Whittington in a broader frame, New York Times reporter Simon Romero tells us that Cheney's hunting companion "was known largely for his pivotal role in building the Republican Party in Texas into a powerhouse." Along the way, the earthy Whittington, a University of Texas Law School grad, helped smooth the way for G.H.W. Bush during his unsuccessful Senate campaign in 1964, and continues to raise money and provide advice to Republican candidates to this day. In 1999 then-Governor W. Bush got him to chair the Funeral Service Commission, a regulatory state agency. At the time, Bush was embroiled in a whistleblower lawsuit that contended that Bush and Robert Waltrip, the owner of Service Corporation International -- the largest funeral corporation in Texas -- were in cahoots. Waltrip, a Houston-based CEO, had previously donated $45,000 to the Bush campaigns for governor and $100,000 to Daddy Bush for his presidential library at College Station. Here's how Romero describes it:

"The Texas funeral industry was then riddled by claims of irregularities, some surrounding Service Corporation International, of Houston, a large chain of funeral homes headed by an ardent supporter of the Bush family. Under Whittington, the commission reluctantly settled a whistle-blower lawsuit filed by a former state regulator who maintained that she had been fired for investigating the company."

Here's how I described it in 1999:

Bush is presently pulling a "Where's Waldo?" with respect to telling the court what he knows about interactions between himself, his Funeral Commission [eventually chaired by Whittington], the Service Corporation International, which owns over 10% of all funeral homes in Texas and has been called "the world's largest death care company," key members of his staff [including ex-FEMA head and Brownie classmate Joe Allbaugh], and the Attorney General [now Senator John Cornyn], among others. George has missed a July 1 deposition date in a lawsuit filed by former Funeral Commission head Eliza May, which "alleges that May was fired because she 'repeatedly and in good faith reported violations of the law and conduct that she reasonably believed to constitute violations of the law.'" The Austin Chronicle's Robert Bryce calls it a "whistleblower lawsuit" which "alleges that Bush and other politicos worked to thwart an investigation by the Texas Funeral Service Commission (TFSC) into improperly licensed embalmers working out of SCI funeral homes in Dallas."

Bush managed to stay out of court until Whittington worked out an out-of-court settlement that cost the State of Texas $155,000 and Waltrip's SCI $55,000, as reported in the Dallas Morning News:

"Neither SCI, Mr. Bush nor any of the other defendants admit wrongdoing under the terms of the settlement. Attorney General John Cornyn, who was also named as a defendant as a result of a legal opinion he wrote that was favorable to SCI, represented the state in the case.... Harry Whittington of Austin, who was named presiding officer of the Funeral Service Commission after a major shakeup of agency in 1999, said his board reluctantly agreed to pay $50,000 as part of the settlement to end the 2-year-old case.... Mr. Bush, Mr. Allbaugh, and the other defendants had previously denied wrongdoing. Ms. May's lawyers had accused Mr. Bush of improperly intervening in the funeral commission investigation as a favor to his friend, Mr. Waltrip. Mr. Waltrip served as a trustee for the George Bush Presidential Library, and SCI donated more than $100,000 toward its construction. Mr. Waltrip also contributed $45,000 to the younger Mr. Bush's gubernatorial campaigns."

Last September Jason Leopold in Online Journal reported the involvement of another Bush crony, Alberto Gonzales:

[Whistleblower] May claimed that current White House counsel Alberto Gonzales was also complicit in the matter and even helped SCI in a cover-up. Gonzales, who was also Bush's gubernatorial counsel, reportedly received a memo on April 22, 1996, suggesting possible improprieties by two funeral commissioners with ties to SCI.... In his interview with Newsweek, Gonzales said such a memo was merely one of many that might have crossed his desk and was otherwise not memorable. In any case, Bush never acted on the memo's recommendations that the SCI affiliated commissioners be removed."

We know where all the Bush Funeralgate players are today, right? Waltrip? Of course:

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency has hired Kenyon International to set up a mobile morgue for handling bodies in Baton Rouge, Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina. Kenyon is a subsidiary of Service Corporation International (SCI), a scandal-ridden Texas-based company operated by a friend of the Bush family. Recently, SCI subsidiaries have been implicated in illegally discarding and desecrating corpses.... Kenyon's original deal was secured by the Department of Homeland Security."

Readings:

Remarks by the President at Bush-Cheney 2004 Luncheon
The White House

Too Bad Cheney Shot A Smart Texas Republican
Molly Ivins

Profile of Harry Whittington
Internation Herald Tribune

Dubya And The Gravedigger: Various Essays
Bush Watch

FEMA hires subsidiary of funeral services company implicated in scandals
Jason Leopold

FEMA, La. outsource Katrina body count to firm implicated in body-dumping scandals
Jason Leopold

DeLay's legal defense funds fails to cover fees

2006-02-01T03:31:00.000-08:00

The Houston Chronicle reports that although DeLay's legal defense fund took in over $500,000 in 2005, his legal expenses for the same period ran above $1,000,000.

While some of the Republicans the reporter spoke to said that there did not appear to be any dropping off of contributions since he was indicted, fewer than 15% of the Republicans in the Housed have contributed.

[Cross-posted from Politics Plus Stuff]

The prospects for Tom DeLay's reelection

2006-01-13T14:24:00.000-08:00

Now that Tom DeLay has resigned as House Majority Leader he needs to focus on his own reelection as a member of Congress.

He is still in a strong Republican district south and west of Houston, but as a result of his own 2003 Texas redistricting to remove Democrats, he took in a number of Democratic voters that he had not faced in previous years. He won by 55% over an unknown Democrat who got only 41%. While this appears like a good advantage, any incumbent Congressman who gets only 55% of his district is considered to be threatened.

DeLay no longer has the power of being the House Majority Leader and will face serious scrutiny of any funds he does receive. He remains under indictment by the Austin, TX District Attorney, and will face trial in that purely Texas case sometime this Spring. DeLay's name has already surfaced rather frequently in the expanding Washington, D.C. investigation of Jack Abramoff, and two of his previous House aides (Tony C. Rudy and Michael Scanlon) have been indicted. Scanlon has pleaded guilty to some charges with the agreement to testify against certain at this time unknown others.

With these weakening factors in sight, Tom DeLay now faces three republican contenders, Pat Baig, Tom Campbell and Michael Fjetland, in the March 7th Republican Primary. Baig is a former teacher and political novice and Fjetland has run against DeLay previously and been defeated. Both are poorly financed. Campbell, however, is a conservative attorney who worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during the administration of Bush I. He apparently does not have much organized local support, though. DeLay will probably defeat all three. If there is a run-off DeLay is in real trouble.

DeLay also faces another Republican, Steve Stockman, who expects to run as an independent. This will require that he get a petition of nearly 5,000 voters who do not vote in any primary on March 7, he will be competing with a Libertarian candidate and perhaps another independent for those signatures. Stockman was a Congressman previously defeated by Nick Lampson, but there is concern that if he makes it into the race he will pull votes from DeLay. He is a conservative crackpot who embarrassed even other Republicans as a Congressman, so he is no threat to Lampson.

Then DeLay faces the Democratic ex-congressman, Nick Lampson, from the next door Texas district 2 who was defeated in 2004 as a result of DeLay's Texas redistricting in 2003. Many of the new Democrats on Galveston Island and in Southern Houston came from Lampson's previous district and Lampson will be well-financed. He will be the hardest for DeLay to defeat. He faces no opposition in the March 7th Democratic Primary.

Republican strategists confidently predict that the district is so thoroughly Republican that DeLay will be reelected. Democratic strategists seem strangely silent. Several political scientists have expressed doubts that DeLay will still be running for reelection by November.

All in all, Tom DeLay is in rough water as he aims for reelection. The sharks smell blood in the water which explains all the potential competitors at this time.

My personal bet at this time is that he has about a 50 - 50 chance to survive long enough be reelected. Much will depend on the news out of Washington D.C. and what Abramoff and Scanlon have to tell the prosecutors. It is definitely an election worth watching.

[Cross-posted from Politics Plus Stuff.]

See also Harry Reid's editorial published in Tom DeLay's hometown paper in which he likens fighting DeLayism with his experiences fighting the corruption of the mob in Nevada.

It's ok go ahead and quit

2006-01-08T00:07:00.000-08:00

The local Orkin man should should rest a little easier now.

“DeLay told the Chronicle Saturday that in recent days he discussed his situation with GOP leaders, including Hastert, and considered several options, including resigning from Congress. In the end he decided against quitting Congress because ‘I still have a lot to contribute to the Houston-Galveston area.’” Think Progress

Take two with your daily dose of truth serum.

(Cross-posted from Truth Serum Blog)

Defunding the "Contraceptive Mentality"

2006-01-04T20:21:00.000-08:00

from Talk to Action

What is the contraceptive mentality, anyway? If you think it sounds like a good idea, not only are you probably going to hell, but you'll never, never cut it as a Texas legislator.

Courtesy of the American Life League, Monsignor Vincent Foy provides us with a brief primer on this insidious threat to our very survival as a nation. The monsignor would understand perfectly why a group of influential "Christian" legislators in Texas have embarked on a crusade to stamp out birth control while there's still time.

Fostering the Culture of Life does not only mean respect for life from conception until natural death. It means also repudiation of contraception, the root cause of all other attacks on human life. Contraception, which shows a willingness to sacrifice life to lust, is a fuse that ignites a whole chain of evils destructive of a just society, from abortion to euthanasia.

Worse than the ten plagues which devastated Egypt, the contraceptive mentality is a multi-pronged attack on society. It tends to permeate more and more social structures and even creates its own institutions.
:::
The contraceptive mentality diminishes the level of love in society and increases the level of selfishness and lust. In education, it promotes sex-education and the resultant corruption of the young. In hospital care, it leads to sterilization, abortion and euthanasia.
:::
If this contraceptive mentality continues to prevail, our society is headed for disaster. Statistical proofs show that if the present course is continued, by the year 2050 the U.S. will be a Third World nation.

It is only by a miracle of grace and mercy that the contraceptive mentality can be turned into one of love and life. The hour is late; a dark night of the social order approaches. We need to be heroic in our support of pro-life causes. We need to recognize that contraception is the new terrorism.

Some of our leading "pro-life" heroes in the Texas Legislature appear to have recognized the evil of contraception for what it is. In apparent agreement with Msgr. Foy, they seem determined to eradicate its pernicious influence and engineer the breaking of a new dawn upon the social order here in Texas. Among the institutions spawned by the contraceptive mentality are Planned Parenthood and many other state-funded family planning clinics that serve tens of thousands of low-income women around the state every year. Now -- after decades of helping women to prevent unplanned pregnancies and untimely deaths from breast and cervical cancers -- their day of reckoning has come.

The anti-contraception campaign began in earnest in 2003, when state Sen. Tommy Williams (pictured above, fourth from left, with his good friends at Texas Right to Life) -- a champion of the "pro-life" lobby and an avowed enemy of Planned Parenthood -- devised a plan to close down Planned Parenthood clinics across Texas. State money would no longer fund any entity connected in any way, however tenuously, to the provision of abortion care. Planned Parenthood immediately mounted a legal challenge, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals eventually sent Williams home with a scolding, but the law itself remains on the books. And this year, Williams' anti-choice jihad is finally bearing fruit, closing down the family planning clinics of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Leaders at UT Southwestern, which had run the program for decades, were worried about possibly violating the law because some of its doctors practice medicine at hospitals where elective abortions are performed.

Dr. Ron Anderson, Parkland's president and chief executive officer, said the state Legislature was attempting to take money away from Planned Parenthood.

"I don't think the state Legislature understood the consequence of this," he told the hospital board. "It's a big snafu."

Planned Parenthood officials said at the time that the 2003 law was an effort to penalize the agency for providing legal abortions by cutting money for other services. Money instead went to public clinics that did not provide family planning. The organization sued successfully to hang on to all but 5 percent of its funding.

Emily Snooks, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of North Texas, said it was a shame that any family planning program would cut its services. Thirteen of the agency's 28 clinics in North Texas depend on such federal funds.

"It's the thousands of underserved North Texas women who are going to suffer the most," she said. "Planned Parenthood is the only family planning provider for uninsured women in Tarrant and other rural counties."
:::
Parkland officials took over the UT Southwestern program after realizing that the charity hospital would end up delivering more babies without such a program. Its annual 16,000 births usually are the highest in the nation.
:::
A family planning program for low-income women in Dallas County is planning to close three neighborhood clinics and lay off more than 30 employees despite efforts by Parkland Memorial Hospital to keep the program intact.

As many as 11,000 women could lose access to postpartum care and birth control next year, doctors from UT Southwestern Medical Center warned Parkland's Board of Managers on Tuesday.

The doctors, who are running the program for Parkland, blamed an almost 25 percent cut in federal funding distributed by the state next year – a loss totaling $1.7 million.

The family planning program cared for 33,738 women at seven clinics over the last year.

If, as Dr. Anderson supposed, the Legislature as a whole didn't understand what it was doing, Tommy Williams certainly did. Because in the 2005 legislative session, he came back and did it again. And this time he not only crippled the purveyors of the "contraceptive mentality" even further, but accomplished his pet faith-based initiative by diverting millions in state funds intended for family planning and primary health screening into financing the highly dubious practices of crisis pregnancy centers.

Senate budget writers want to shift $5 million from programs that provide birth control and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases to a pregnancy counseling program that only pushes alternatives to abortion.
:::
Proponents argue that the money would be funneled to a needed social service, and that Medicaid could pay for the services that will lose some funding.

Critics say the change effectively would eliminate basic medical care for more than 16,600 low-income women who are served by the family planning program.

"It's almost ridiculous that they will take money from a program that will prevent abortion," said Peggy Romberg, CEO of Women's Health And Family Planning Association of Texas.

The reduction in state money will reduce the availability of birth control services, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and urinary tract infections, and breast exams at clinics that receive state money through the program, Romberg said.

"There's a lot of money in that Family Planning strategy, and what we did was earmark $5 million for pregnancy assistance centers," said Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, one of the lawmakers who voted for the amendment.

Pregnancy assistance centers, which are not receiving state money, provide pregnancy testing and counseling that advocates against abortion. Finance Committee chairman Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, said the reduction is relatively small compared with the Family Planning program's total budget of $54 million, and Medicaid provides many of the same services for low-income women.

"People need to keep in context that the $5 million being taken away from Family Planning is out of a Medicaid budget that is almost $25 billion. "Because it's so small, it doesn't really justify all the hyperventilating that goes along with it."

In a typically misleading attempt to downplay the effects of his and Tommy Williams' anti-birth control shell game, Ogden conflates the Medicaid budget for all health care in Texas with the already underfunded family planning program. And here's some entirely justified hyperventilation, reproduced exactly as I received it.

Why Tanya cried

so,
this morning i dragged myself out of bed before dawn to be at planned parenthood at 730 and wait in the freezing morning shade until 9 for my
annual exam. at 930, myself and the 25 other women (of color.of course) grumbled in solidarity and confusion, wondering why we were still waiting and shivering. finally an employee opened the doors and coralled us inside just to inform us that there would be no walk-in exams today.or tomorrow.or ever. are you kidding me? i thought. nope. no joke. turns out the good ol
boys at the texas state legislature cut pp's funding by 40% last friday.

i stood in the office stunned while 3 mothers began to cry. another women, at least 65 years old, turned to me and asked, "que dijo?" what did she say? as i tried to explain what i still didnt understand, i began to feel my anger swell. overnight one of the safest, most reliable, most critical social services vanished. all patients over 24 years old have to seek new clinics, all birth control now costs $25/month, all annuals $125, all pregnancy tests $30.

i stood waiting for the chance of one more pack of birth control pills, asking questions answered with shrugs and apologies, watching faces full of exasperation. when my name was called i tried again to get more information, but the fact was clear and simple; accessible family planning and women's reproductive rights are not a priority. i left with a pack of pills after giving all my $35, sat in my car and cried.

here's the kicker. texas lawmakers are promoting crisis pregnancy centers instead. that's right, slash funding for sexual health and preventive services and create crisis centers. this whole freakin country is a crisis center. i want to see those lawmakers walk into clinics all over this state and have the guts to tell a room full of women, "sorry, go home and buy condoms" or "sorry, god willed those children and you're on your own to figure out the rest". i want them to watch women lose the thread of hope they were gripping.

so now what? write letters and make phone calls? i dont think so. the truth is i dont know what to do. i do know nothing will be done if people dont know. so in my emotional, reactionary state, that's what i am trying to do.

i'm fighting hard to keep my faith.

thanks for reading,
-tanya

Planned Parenthood in downtown Austin now has this notice for its patients:

Because of decisions made by elected representatives in the Texas government, this clinic will not receive enough money to take care of all the patients who need services. Our state government made decisions to limit services from trusted family planning providers like Planned Parenthood—for purely political reasons.
:::
As of January 1, 2006, the only patients who will be able to receive services at this clinic are women who are 24 years old or younger and who are residents of Travis County. Also, clinic hours have been cut.

Planned Parenthood in Waco is hoping that an emergency fundraiser will help to keep its doors open.

All across the state, tens of thousands of women are being deprived of their only access to family planning services that also include primary screening for cancer, high blood pressure, anemia, STDs and other threats to their health.

The state's Health and Human Services Commission tells us that this is a good thing, because "the active promotion of childbirth" is now the official policy of the State of Texas. That the women affected by this dictate might not want to bear children in the service of the state's policy is not an official concern.

But wait; there's more, as detailed by the Houston Chronicle.

Women, children last

An irrational, secretive redistribution of millions of dollars robs Texas' poorest women of health care

It's not as if they weren't doing their job. In a state with the nation's highest number of uninsured residents, family planning clinics across Texas for years have offered women preventive medicine, including cancer screening, contraception and gynecological, prenatal and postpartum care.

This winter, however, these providers have been slammed by laws quietly crafted last spring. In riders that required no public discussion, Texas legislators arranged to shift $5 million of the federal money on which these clinics rely to a different sort of service: programs "for women seeking alternatives to abortion focused on pregnancy support services that promote childbirth." Another $20 million was diverted from the experienced clinics to alternative programs that may not provide the same level of service.
:::
El Paso's [Family Planning Department], which loses 50 percent of its funds, must now turn away some of its clients. The disruption will force more women into the county hospital at late stages of illness.
:::
In Dallas, withdrawal of $1.7 million is forcing the closure of three family planning clinics. In Houston, where the Legislature cut more than 50 percent of Planned Parenthood funds, as many as 10,000 women will lose access to well-woman exams, contraception and cancer screenings. Under federal law, none of these Texas clinics could have used these funds to perform abortions. Nevertheless, legislators chose to cripple the clinics.

The pivotal operating funds will go to pregnancy crisis centers or to 19 Federally Qualified Health Centers — some of which never requested the help. These FQHCs are valuable resources, offering primary care to poor neighborhoods. But the clinics are scarce, far-flung, and often lack family planning services such as contraception. They can't replace the multiservice family planning clinics that have treated Texans for decades.

Legislators have every right to push abortion alternatives — as long as they don't abdicate their other duties. But ravaging working clinics during a health coverage crisis has nothing to do with protecting women or children. It's self-interested strutting, and it's trampling on the health of thousands of Texas wives, mothers and daughters.

Dozens of long time family planning and women's health care providers have lost millions of dollars in state and federal funding. A training program for women's health care nurse practitioners has closed. Clinics that have served communities for decades already have closed or will be closing soon, while the FQHCs selected to receive huge amounts of unrequested funding are so unprepared to offer family planning services that many are not even making applications for the money.

If you object to the heroic efforts of our faithful public servants to save Texas women from the "new terrorism" of contraception, if you fail to understand that contraception is the gateway to abortion and a dark night of the social order, perhaps it is only because you, too, have been deluded and deceived by the contraceptive mentality. But if you are fortunate enough to live in Texas, your salvation is at hand.

30 of 32 TX Congressional Districts to be Contested

2006-01-03T19:22:00.000-08:00

According to the Tx Democratic Party website, thirty-one of the thirty-two Congressional Districts in Texas will have a Democratic candidate.

*Note: the maps and the GOP candidate list are both .pdf files, so may take a little extra time to open.

The exception is CD-11, which is very deep Red country indeed. So by all indications, freshman Congressman Mike Conaway will be headed back to the Beltway, as the Libertarian Party of Texas is not fielding a candidate in that district either.

The Republican Party seems to be shy in eight CDs*:

CD 7- Incumbent John Culberson's welcome message is all about the last election. It remains to be seen if Democratic candidate Jim Henley is facing an uphill battle against an incumbent or a relative cakewalk against Libertarian Drew Parks.
CD 9 - Democratic incumbent Al Green (who defeated current gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell in the post-redistricting primary) appears to be unopposed at this time.
CD 16 - has no Republican candidate listed, but Democratic incumbent Sylvestre Reyes does have a primary challenger, Jorge Artalejo . The winner of that contest will face Libertarian Gordon Strickland in the general election.
CD 18 - Democratic incumbent Sheila Jackson Lee has no signficant opposition, though Libertarian Patrick Warren has filed his candidacy for the seat as well.
CD 20, Democratic incumbent Charles A. Gonzalez also faces an opponent- whichever Libertarian emerges victorious from one of the few contested primaries, Jessie A Bouley or Michael Idrogo. Candidate Idrogo is one of the few Libertarians who has his own campaign website at this stage- offering more rant than policy to be sure, but there you are.
CD 25, Democratic incumbent Lloyd Doggett has no GOP opponent. Candidate of many professions (computer programmer, chiropracter, etc.) Grant Rostig is his Libertarian opposition. Though a self-described writer who can't even spell his opponent's name correctly may suffer from a serious style handicap.
CD 28 - Democratic incumbent Henry R. Cuellar faces not one but two primary challengers, former Congressman Ciro D. Rodriguez and off-again on again Democrat Victor Morales. The winner (or survivor) will face Libertarian Glenda B. Moyes in the general.

and

CD 29 - Democratic incumbent Gene Green runs unopposed in the primary, and faces Clifford Lee Messina in the general as the Libertarian candidate.

Let the games begin.

(*This seems low to me, but it is from the TX GOP's own site. If there are corrections I'll post them as they come in).

Crossposted from TX-21 Blog.

Tom DeLay on Congressional Ethics

2005-12-22T04:54:00.000-08:00

Joe Conason via David Sirota and kos. Originally from the Congressional Record, 11/16/95 (.pdf) :

"The time has come that the American people know exactly what their Representatives are doing here in Washington. Are they feeding at the public trough, taking lobbyist-paid vacations, getting wined and dined by special interest groups? Or are they working hard to represent their constituents? The people, the American people, have a right to know ... I say the best disinfectant is full disclosure, not isolation."

Bobby Eberle running for vice chair of Texas GOP

2005-12-18T05:55:00.000-08:00

That would be the Bobby Eberle who used to "publish" Talon News, which you may also recall was Jeff Gannon's employer.

Juanita, of The World's Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, reporting from Sugar Land, has the scoop:

===================

A local GOPper, who is jumping ship soon while he still has a lick of sense left, sent me the following information. Bobby Eberle, publisher of the online “news” source, GOP USA (which used to be called Talon News) is running for Vice Chair of the Texas Republican party. That’s where the story starts.

The middle part of the story goes like this ---

Remember Jeff Gannon (who is also known as James Guckert), the male homosexual call-boy who got into the White House press room to ask President Bush softball questions, and then it got all hushed-up because nobody really wanted to think about a male call-boy getting in the White House within 10 feet of the President? Well, Gannon/Guckert’s press credentials were with Talon News, which is now known as GOP USA, but is still owned and operated by Bobby Eberle, the only person, place, or thing in this whole sordid story who hasn’t had the good sense to change his name.

Okay, so it’s funny enough that the man who vouched for Gannon The Male Call-Boy as a reporter is running for VICE chair of the Texas GOP.

Here comes the end part ----

The local GOPper also sent me a copy of an online semi-endorsement (it's a two man race) of Eberle writeen by a local male GOP twentyish-something blogger that – seriously – went like this:

"I guess if you were to place odds, Eberle would be the favorite based on how many man hours he has spent working for the GOP. I'm sure we'll start seeing his slick glossy mailers early in 2006. The race is a name ID position. So he better build it up, or risk some bigger name coming in and taking it away from him."

I dunno. Even the movie Top Gun wasn’t that homoerotic.

I give this race a 10 on the Entertainment Potential scale.

====================

You know what's missing here? A Brokeback Mountain reference.

Seriously. I'm getting a mental visual of Dubya, Eberle, Gannon, "Big Time" Dick, Ken Mehlman, Scott McClellan, Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum, and John "Box Turtle" Cornyn, all in cowboy hats and buttless chaps, squatting around a campfire in Crawford re-enacting the beans scene from Blazing Saddles.

Horse-milkin' homophobes ridin' bareback on the back forty whilst the womenfolk (Bush's four mommies; Grandmaw Bar, Condi, Karen "Bigfoot" Hughes, and "Pickles") are quiltin' back at the ranch house -- mixin' martinis, smokin' cigarettes and listenin' to Lynne Cheney read aloud her tales of lesbian eroticism.

The Republican Party of Texas -- also known as the Talibapublicans -- is going to be one hot place to party in 2006.

Culberson: al-Qaeda captured, in W. Texas jail

2005-12-15T06:32:00.000-08:00

This is simply hilarious.

John Culberson, who exclusively represents the Republicans residing in the 7th Congressional District of Texas -- but whose actual job is to make certain that there is a constant supply of hot towels in Tom DeLay's lavatory -- went on teevee in November and announced that a member of al-Qaeda had been captured by the Brewster County sheriff's department. Too bad for him it wasn't true:

Local Republican congressman John Culberson took to the Fox News airwaves last month to raise the alarm about illegal immigration.
Two West Texas sheriffs, he said on Hannity & Colmes, "confirmed for me that they had an Al Qaeda terrorist…in the Brewster County jail."
To which the two sheriffs in question have answered, in essence, WTF?
One of the sheriffs, Brewster County's Ronny Dodson, told The Big Bend Sentinel that he had jailed one person "who had drawn a picture on his pants of Osama Bin Laden, and we don't know if that was a joke or not." He said Culberson must have been confused somehow by hearing various stories from border agents.
Tony Essalih, Culberson's press secretary, says there's no confusion. Two other aides of the congressman were present when the sheriffs told them of the terrorist prisoner, he says.
"We really haven't figured out where the communication breakdown was. What he said on the show was what he was told by the sheriffs," Essalih says.
Both sheriffs have been avoiding the non-local media since the story broke, but one staffer at the Brewster County Sheriff's Department said Culberson's people "were lying through their teeth…I told them if they'd bring me an Al Qaeda I'd slap him four times, make him pick up cigarette butts; you know, something really mean. But no, no Al Qaeda [here]."

David Murff, one of Culberson's challengers in CD-07 and who has joined the blogranks, has more.

Do You Want Your Vote Counted?

2005-12-02T10:10:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, Texas hasn't seen a whole lot of scrutiny in the vote-counting arena. That doesn't mean that problems don't exist - they do.

Voting is the bedrock of democracy, yet the efforts to ensure good vote counts in Texas has been unable to get traction. Meanwhile, known problems continue to pile up. This should not be a partisan issue - after all the Baker-Carter proposals were a bi-partisan effort.

There are people nationwide who are standing up for our votes to be counted. Won't you be one of them?

HR 550, Votes, Elections, Verified
Voting, Rush Holt

Texas redistricting violated Voting Rights Act

2005-12-02T06:52:00.000-08:00

Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan.

The memo, unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the department's voting section, said the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts. It also said the plan eliminated several other districts in which minorities had a substantial, though not necessarily decisive, influence in elections.

Sad, but not surprising.Texas redistricting violated Voting Rights Act.

{Cross posted from Politics Plus Stuff]

Does Rahm Know Something We Don't?

2005-11-23T11:30:00.000-08:00

Well, he may know several things we don't, but there's a particular news item I have in mind.

The blogosphere's been pushing for some time to have a complete list of Congressional districts and announced candidates.

Well, the DCCC has finally rolled one out.

And yes, John Courage is listed in TX-21. But either Rahm Emanuel knows something that hasn't yet been announced, or there's a little typo because it's listed as an open seat.

I know Lamar Smith is not the most colorful of congresscritters-he might as well be covered in Delay stamped cellophane-but I haven't seen any announcement that he's retiring from Congress.

Though the idea does tickle me. Perhaps we can generate a little more prickly heat for Bacardi Lamar.

Any ideas?

crossposted from TX-21 Blog

Whatever Happened to Thanksgiving?

2005-11-19T08:55:00.000-08:00

I've come to grips with the reality that there are some aspects of my childhood that will simply not be repeated for future generations. Things like: watching a black-and-white TV with a set of rabbit-ears and having the incredible choice of three channels, watching the McDonald's being built and counting the days until Ronald McDonald would whip out his huge scissors and the first Big Mac in town would be sold, and hearing from the pulpit that our faith should be shown, not shouted.

And I'm wondering how long it will be until Thanksgiving disappears. Christmas, despite right wing attempts to portray it as "under attack", will never disappear. The twin American Gods of Football and Shopping (both of which bow down before Gluttony) are simply too powerful. Quite simply, there is too much cultural significance to Christmas for it to be endangered.

Thanksgiving, however, gets a parade, two NFL football games (Dallas and Detroit), and - oh yeah, let's not forget a four day weekend. That four days is about the only thing that keeps Thanksgiving going.

It is odd that a holiday specifically designed to give thanks to God is completely overlooked by both sides in our religiously-based culture wars, yet one that is steeped in the heritage of pagan rituals is staunchly attacked.

Everyone, of course, knows the story of the first Thanksgiving - at least I think they do. It was certainly drilled into our little heads when I was a lad. Of course, the link provides historical details that Charlie Brown and Linus never contemplated as they leaned on their favorite brick wall. At least, I don't think they were running a slave market at the ballpark nor kicking a human head down the streets. Who knows? Maybe that's why they are only on TBS now.

Yet Thanksgiving was quickly observed as a national event. But it was not a holiday. It was simply a day of observation - kind of like Veteran's Day has become. You stop and say, "Oh, yeah. That's nice." Then you hurry on your way.

But here's a snip from the proclamation that I believe really shows why it isn't part and parcel of the culture wars:

they[Congress] do further recommend to all ranks, to testify to their gratitude to GOD for his goodness, by a cheerful obedience of his laws, and by promoting, each in his station, and by his influence, the practice of true and undefiled religion, which is the great foundation of public prosperity and national happiness.

Um, Thanksgiving is supposed to be a time when we show our gratitude to God by being obedient, and the greatest way to show that is to observer YOUR OWN RELIGIOUS BELIEFS! No chanting and protest is allowed. No marches on Washington to bend the evil opposition to your will. Nope. Simply the pursuit in the quiet corners of your heart and soul of that spark of deity that inhabits us all.

Here are the words of George Washington's Thanksgiving proclaimation:

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have show kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Yikes! We should pray to pay our taxes on time? And do it cheerfully? What kind of a Marxist was Washington? To increase science and promote knowledge of religion? Holy crappers, Batman! Washington may not have been a flaming liberal (or maybe he was), but he damn sure wasn't from Kansas!

It wasn't until our country was torn by the Civil War that Abraham Lincoln took steps to make Thanksgiving a national and permanent holiday. Lincoln, as well, had specific reasons for Thanksgiving:

And I recommend to [Americans] that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

Penitence for our perverseness and disobedience, care for the widows and orphans, comfort for the afflicted, and to bind our wounds so that our country might still truly be, in peace, harmony, and tranquility, the UNITED states of america.

That will be my prayer this year at Thanksgiving. If it was needed in Lincoln's time, then it is no less needed today. As it was, so let it be again.

Oh Lord! Let me be an instrument of They peace!

A Kink in Perry's Plans

2005-11-14T11:37:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of mouth-foaming over Kinky Friedman's run for the Governor's mansion. It looks like Kinky is serious, too. After all, he's hired Dean Barkley and Reid Nelson to get his campaign going.

But he's likely to find out what Ralph Nader and H. Ross Perot already discovered - the parties may be irrelevant, but you need them to win.

So far, Kinky has the support of 21% of likely voters. Statistically, that isn't far from the 37% Jesse Ventura pulled to win the Minnesota governor's race in 1998. However, Texas is not Minnesota - to state the obvious - and Kinky ain't no Jesse.

Jesse had a building block of stardom in that he had made a couple of cheesey movies and paraded around in tights. Kinky is an author of books that most Texans haven't heard of and a singer of songs that you never hear on the radio.

Nor is Texas very well fitting with the types of policy Kinky might dream up. When asked about Prop. 2, Kinky stated that he thought gays should be allowed to marry so they could be miserable, too. Hah, hah. Except you just lost a huge chunk of dedicated voters that are sure to turn out.

The big issues in Texas cannot be laughed away: property taxes and school financing. Basically, the only way to get property taxes down and fund our schools is to amend the Constitution to allow a state income tax. Good luck finding a line that will allow people to laugh at that when they pull the voting lever.

Plus, in case no one noticed, Texas is a HUGE state. How many media markets are there to buy ad time in? You hit Houston, DFW, San Antonio, and El Paso and you've only just begun to contact voters. Don't forget Austin, Lubbock, Amarillo, Waco, Beaumont, Corpus Christi, McAllen, Brownsville, Galveston...

In Texas, to run a campaign, it takes a party. And that is one thing Kinky just doesn't have. He does do one thing for Democrats, though:

He makes Rick Perry look stupid. Of course, Rick does that on his own pretty well, too.

Racism, Republicans, and the Religious Right

2005-11-12T22:09:00.000-08:00

The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal (not know for its antagonism of Republicans) reports:

Former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed claimed in a 2001 e-mail to a lobbyist that he choreographed John Cornyn's efforts as Texas attorney general to shut down an East Texas Indian tribe's casino

That "East Texas Indian tribe" is the Alabama-Coushatta - one of the poorest Native American nations. Look at the facts of life among the Alabama-Coushatta:

46 percent of all eligible members of the Alabama-Coushatta are not employed on a full-time basis.

Only 1 percent of Tribal members on the reservation have a four-year college degree.

Out of a total of 513 on-reservation Tribal members, 147 are diabetic.

Median household income of the Alabama-Coushatta is $10,809.

Don't let anyone sucker you into thinking that they are just too damn lazy to get ahead either:

The Alabama-Coushatta Tribe does not want a handout – it just wants the opportunity to pursue economic development projects. We want to provide long-term economic stability for our members, and economic independence for individual tribal members. We want a better life for ourselves and our children. We want to be self-sufficient.

What does John Cornyn, the darling of the Texas Republicans, think of this group of Indians? Let's look at some of the email on the subject:

"We have also choreographed Cornyn's response. The AG will state that the law is clear, talk about how much he wants to avoid repetition of El Paso and pledge to take swift action to enforce the law," Reed wrote. "He will also personally hand Ed Young a letter that commits him to take action in Livingston."

"Reed" is Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed. He is point-blank bragging - and guaranteeing - that John Cornyn will behave exactly the way he wants. And the way he wants is for two Indian casinos - the sole means most young Native Americans have of getting enough money to go to college - to be closed forever.

Ralph Reed has a long political career. In that career, he has managed to tie himself to Pat Robertson, Jack Abramoff, Mike Scanlon, Tom DeLay, Karl Rove, Enron, Jesse Helms, and Pat Buchanan.

It should be apparent to anyone that the actions of this bunch is not in any way tied to a moral objection to gambling - after all, no one blinked when William Bennett admitted he was a big time gambler. Not one of them has openly opposed the Texas Lotto - or any other lottery, for that matter. Yet they seem to get a bee up their butt when Indians make a few dollars off of people willfully going into a casino and make a wager or two.

It's time to call it what it really is - racism. There's simply no other reason why they would favor certain forms of gambling, yet fight so hard to get two Indian-owned and -operated casinos in Texas shut down.

Perhaps it's as simple as the fact that the Indians didn't fork over enough cash to be treated "fairly".

This might be a good time for Tom DeLay to read up on what happened to another cocksure White Man who hated Indians - George Armstrong Custer.

Ralph Reed choreographs Senator Torture

2005-11-12T10:14:00.000-08:00

I knew at least one of them was gay:

Former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed claimed in a 2001 e-mail to a lobbyist that he choreographed John Cornyn's efforts as Texas attorney general to shut down an East Texas Indian tribe's casino.

The lobbyist was Jack Abramoff, who is under federal investigation along with his partner Michael Scanlon, on allegations of defrauding six Indian tribes of about $80 million between 2001 and 2004. The e-mail, along with about a dozen others, were released last week as part of the investigation. In 2001, Abramoff was working as a lobbyist for the Louisiana Coushatta tribe to prevent rival gaming casinos from siphoning off its Texas customers. He paid Reed as a consultant, and Reed lobbied to get the Alabama-Coushatta and Tigua casinos closed in Texas.
In the Nov. 30, 2001, e-mail, Reed told Abramoff that 50 pastors led by Ed Young, of Second Baptist Church in Houston, would meet with Cornyn to urge him to shut down the Alabama-Coushatta tribe's casino near Livingston, Texas. He said Young would back up the request in writing.

"We have also choreographed Cornyn's response. The AG will state that the law is clear, talk about how much he wants to avoid repetition of El Paso and pledge to take swift action to enforce the law," Reed wrote. "He will also personally hand Ed Young a letter that commits him to take action in Livingston."

Cornyn, now a Republican U.S. senator, had filed a lawsuit in 1999 to shut down a casino operated by the Tigua tribe in El Paso, saying it violated the state's limited gambling laws. In 2002, federal courts shuttered the Tiguas' casino and Cornyn used that ruling to shut down the Alabama-Coushuttas' casino.

The entire article, including the transcripts of the e-mail exchanged between Reed and Abramoff about Cornyn, can be found here.

Here's a question for my local paper, the Houston Chronicle: do you plan on investigating this and/or covering it yourselves or are you just going to rely on the wire reports?

(So far, the Austin American Statesman has an identical wire story. Houston Chronicle, nada. Dallas Morning News, zip. Thanks to Sean Paul at The Agonist for the tip.)

A Whimpering Gavel

2005-11-11T07:51:00.000-08:00

"This is the way the world ends - not with a bang, but a whimper."

Those words were written by T.S. Elliot in his famous poem "The Hollow Men". Recognized as one of the great literary works of the English language, Elliot sought to capture the spirit of loss his generation felt when they realized that all they had sacrificed for "The Great War" was not going to be enough to bring peace to Europe - and the world at large. It's a cry of despair too deep to even be uttered. It is what the Koreans call "han".

How much of an exaggeration would it be to say that Texans must feel this sadness, this despair, this han when they see their state legislature gaveled into recess for the third time this year without being able to deal with either property taxes or school financing? Perhaps it is an exaggeration, but considering the fact that the two issues are tied together, it may not be a large one.

The problem is that all land is not equal in Texas, but all children do have an equal right to be educated. It is a symptom - no, a symbol - of how deeply divided our culture is that this obvious truth has become a political issue with no answer. If the symbol of Texan bravery at the foundation of our state was the Lone Star boldly staring at anyone tempted to cast greedy eyes upon our possessions, then the symbol of Texan foolishness must now be a fallow field and a textbook with no pages. Property taxes are raised to buy books for school, and then those same taxes force poor Texans to lose their livelihoods.

Draw that plow digging into the textbook, driving it deeper underground where its promise of a better life will never be seen. It's better for a poor child to never ben teased with the idea that they can read and write and someday, if they work very hard, eat their vegetables, listen to their parents, and study, study, study; then they will one day be able to care for their own children and honor their parents in their dotage. It's better for the poor farmer, the manual laborer, the mechanic, the plumber, and the hired hand to know from the beginning that their children will never, ever, ever make one penny more than their parents. They will never own a home or look with pride upon a crop struggling to break free from the earth to raise tiny green fingers to the sun. No, it's better that we never give them hope than it is to string them along like we do now - promising them their struggles will be rewarded, but denying them both the means to reach the prize and the ability to hold it once they do.

Let us look at our children honestly and tell them, as Elliot explained:

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

Tell them, "We could have acted bravely and created a fair and just tax system that rewarded men and women who work by the sweat of their brow, the calluses on their hands, and the aching of their backs. We could have used that system to create a school for you and your friends that liberated you from this living death sentence. We could have taught you how to be better than us. We could have. But we were afraid."

There is another Korean word that described the Texas in which I grew up. Jung. It describes the attraction of man to mankind, an unbreakable bond of brotherhood. It's why your throat catches when you see people you don't even know struggling to get out of New Orleans. It's why your heart aches when you see the sky darkening with another hail storm when your neighbors cotton is barely popping. It's why your eyes sting when a mother cries out for the senseless death of her child. It's why you turn instantly when you hear that certain cry in the park that tells you a child is in danger. We used to have it. It used to be the light of the Lone Star.

I wonder where it is now. I wonder how we got so tightfisted that we forgot how to fund our schools. I wonder how we got so desperate that we have no sympathy for the man who blinks and wipes the sweat from his eyes when we ask him to change our tire.

I wonder how long Texas will remain the Land of the Lone Star, where every man has a chance if he just works for it. I wonder now if the Lone Star isn't a shooting star, and quickly disappearing over the horizon of my childhood.

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Voting Results

2005-11-09T06:54:00.000-08:00

Prop 1: Yes 53.7% No 46.2%
Prop 2: Yes 76.1% No 23.8%
Prop 3: Yes 51.8% No 48.2%
Prop 4: Yes 84.8% No 15.2%
Prop 5: Yes 43.4% No 56.6%
Prop 6: Yes 62.7% No 37.4%
Prop 7: Yes 59.8% No 40.2%
Prop 8: Yes 61.2% No 38.8%
Prop 9: Yes 46.6% No 53.4%

The two proposals that failed:

Prop 5: "would authorize the Legislature to exempt commercial loans from state usury laws that set maximum interest rates. "Commercial loans" are loans made primarily for business, commercial, investment, agricultural, or similar purposes and not primarily for personal, family, or household purposes."

and

Prop 9: "would authorize the Legislature to provide staggered six year terms of office for board members serving on regional mobility authorities, with no more than one-third of the board positions being appointed every two years."

So, Texans don't want to exempt commercial loans from state usury laws - which is probably a good thing - and don't want to create "regional mobility authorities" (whatever that is) to make a whole new level of government that is unaccountable to the public.

Gotta say, I agree with both outcomes.

Of course, there was nothing but Amendments on the ballot - and Texas inches closer to overtaking Alabama as having the longest (most Amended Constitution) in the country. Voter turnout was extremely low. Of 12.5 million plus voters, barely 2 million decided the fate of the state. Prop 2 (the ban on gay marriage) collected the most votes with 2.24 million people casting votes - or about 18% of all voters.

This will be interpreted as Texas overwhelmingly being against gay marriage. I would point out that Texans are even more overwhelmingly indifferent to gay marriage. What you had here was the most motivated voters on each side voting. Had this been held in a regular election cycle, more voters would have turned out and it still would have been approved - though probably by a closer margin.

The problem is that gay marriage turned into a religious issue. Texans who want to see homosexuals treated as full citizens need to mobilize and re-claim the language of the debate and turn it into a question of government running your life. As Prop 4 and 9 show, Texans really are voting to have less government interferance in the ways things are done.

Yeah, it's gonna be an uphill battle. Way uphill.

Tuesday, Election Day

2005-11-06T20:32:00.000-08:00

So far 8.3 percent in Travis County, 1.42 percent in El Paso County for early voters.

This is a low turnout election, with only constitutional amendments on the ballot. If enough come out to vote in opposition to proposition 2, it may fail.

And that would be a Good Thing.

Cross posted at The Supreme Irony of Life ...

God announces His support of marriage amendment

2005-11-06T10:44:00.000-08:00

Proposition 2 has received the Supreme Being's endorsement.

At least according to Charlie Howard, the Texas House representative from Sugar Land:

"What we're doing, we are saying, here is a law we are going to follow. It happens to be God's law".

You may view the press conference where Rep. Howard announces the Lord's endorsement with thine own eyes by clicking here (link will carry you to TexansFORMarriage.org and their embedded Windows Media Player will begin).

Hallelujah! Now we can all go cast our ballots!

(Wait a minute ... has anyone polled Jesus?)

The Confused World of Tom Delay

2005-11-04T06:52:00.000-08:00

Early September: Tom Delay announced that we have won the battle against government spending and there's no more pork to trim out of the federal budget.

Later that month: Tom Delay says we need to slash billions in wasteful spending out of the federal budget.

Today: Tom Delay says runaway spending must end, and do you know whose fault it is that it hasn't? Now, if you were going to say "that president who submits budgets that spend like a drunken sailor without collecting enough revenue to cover the tab," you are obviously a deluded victim of the liberal conspiracy. No, it's the Democrats, who are cunningly using their lack of votes, lack of control of federal agencies, and lack of key positions in Congress to force Republicans to pass stupid budgets. They are smart, those Democrats, having apparently figured out how to turn minority party status and general lack of influence into an unstoppable force.

Do any of the people who vote for Tom Delay even pay attention to what this joker is saying, or how often he contradicts himself?

(From By the Bayou)

The truth is revealed by their own words

2005-11-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

"Consider one memo highlighted in a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday that (Michael) Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Tx., sent the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana to describe his strategy for protecting the tribe's gambling business. In plain terms, Scanlon confessed the source code of recent Republican electoral victories: target religious conservatives, distract everyone else, and then railroad through complex initiatives.
'The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees,' Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. 'Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them.'"

This is, of course, the tactic being advanced by the Fright-Wing to pass Proposition 2 next Tuesday. Unfortunately the "strict constructionist" that is our state's attorney general failed to comprehend the precise meaning of the words of that amendment.

From Ed Sills at Harvey Kronberg's Quorum Report (scroll down to November 2, 4:40 p.m.):

"'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'" --Lewis Carroll
As a champion of "strict constructionism" that gives full weight to the "plain text" in legal language, Attorney General Greg Abbott should know better.

Abbott has been insisting in media statements that Proposition 2, which purports to secure the definition of marriage in the Texas Constitution, is crystal clear. He even scheduled a news conference with Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht to denounce the supposedly "deceptive" telephone ads attacking Proposition 2. The news conference was abruptly canceled, perhaps when Hecht realized he might not be able to rule on a marriage case if he stated his views in a public forum or perhaps when Abbott realized that attorneys general walk a dangerous path when they start trying to regulate the content of political speech.
Abbott might well be correct in his assertion that no elected judge would overturn civil or religious marriages in Texas off the language of Proposition 2, but he’s leaving out the rest of the story.

Unless he is following the political axiom, "When you’re wrong, shout it out!" one might wonder why an attorney general would claim credit for vetting the language of Prop. 2 when the erroneous wording is justifiably confusing lawyers and law professors.

The drafting of Proposition 2 was a tribute to the "We’ve got the votes" mentality that chokes off open-minded contemplation of any editing.

The Lying Eyes (and Mouth) of Kay Bailey Hutchison

2005-10-25T10:26:00.000-07:00

From the Houston Chronicle:

BACK in 1999 when the U.S. Senate tried and ultimately acquitted President Bill Clinton after he was impeached by the House, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas had no doubt about the seriousness of the alleged crime. Clinton stood accused of lying under oath and obstructing the investigation of his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky.

"What would we be telling Americans," Hutchison asked, "if the Senate of the United States were to conclude: The president lied under oath as an element of a scheme to obstruct the due process of law, but we chose to look the other way. I cannot make that choice. I cannot look away."

As news accounts indicate special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald might be preparing to bring perjury and obstruction of justice charges against Bush administration officials involved in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, Hutchison is taking a different view. Appearing on Meet the Press Sunday, she seemed quite willing to look away from such violations this time around.

The senator decried the tendency of prosecutors and district attorneys to "go for technicalities, sort of a gotcha mentality in this country." If Fitzgerald does return indictments, she hoped that they would involve a crime and not some "perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on a crime."

When Meet the Press host Tim Russert pointed out the contradiction between her past and current positions on perjury and obstruction, Hutchison responded that there were other charges against Clinton and, "I'm not saying that those were not crimes. They are." Hutchison went on to express sympathy for homemaking maven Martha Stewart, convicted "where they couldn't find a crime and they indict on something that she said about something that wasn't a crime."

One cannot pick and choose when a charge is justified. Lying to investigators and grand juries is not a technicality. Our system of law depends on the ability of law enforcement to get at the truth, both in interviews with investigators and in sworn testimony in court. The penalties can be personally devastating and often do not hinge on other crimes. Former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros continues to be dogged by a decade-long investigation set off by his admitted lies to FBI agents vetting him for a Cabinet post about how much money he had paid a former mistress, an act that was not a crime.

If Hutchison found perjury and obstruction reason enough to throw a president out of office, surely those offenses would be sufficient cause to charge people if they obstructed a probe of a potential violation of national security laws. The unmasking of a covert CIA operative can have life and death consequences for previous associates met over the years in countries around the world.

Public officials such as Sen. Hutchison do not enhance their stature when they seem to support one standard of justice for officials of the opposing party and another for their own. What was good for the Democratic goose in the Clinton impeachment trial should be good enough for the Republican gander in the Plame investigation.

So, Ms. Pretty-Pretty Princess, why is Democratic lying bad and Republican lying good? Let me put it in Biblical terms that all good Republi-vangelicals should know:

Why is the mote in Mr. Clinton's eye grounds for throwing him out of office, but the beam in Mr. Rove's and Mr. Libby's (and Mr. DeLay's and Mr. Frist's) eye is "just a technicality"? Perhaps because all of your good works are as dry as sepulchres?

Not ringing a bell? Let me quote Matthew 23:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

"hypocrites" "extortion and excess" "Full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness"

Wow, that DOESsounds a lot like the Republican Party!

DeLay wins shredder, gets lampooned

2005-10-25T03:37:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Raw Story:

Indicted Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) bid on a wicker basket two weekends ago at the Needville Harvest Festival in Fort Bend County in his home state. And he won not just the basket, but the gadget inside it, too — a paper shredder, Roll Call's Mary Anne Akers reports Tuesday. (subscription only)

Excerpts:

The shredder purchase would have perhaps remained a secret if DeLay’s potential 2006 Democratic opponent, Nick Lampson, hadn’t gleefully spilled the beans at a fundraiser last week. A national political reporter was also on hand at the festival to witness the basket/shredder bid. (So stay tuned for more details, including how much the Hammer paid for the shredder.)

A former House Member who was victimized by the redistricting engineered by DeLay, Lampson is having a ball telling the story of DeLay’s rather ironic purchase.

“Nobody needs a paper shredder more than Tom DeLay,” Lampson’s campaign manager, Mike Malaise, told HOH. “This was a very practical purchase, and we’re sure the paper shredder will see a lot of use in the DeLay camp.”

He said Houston may just see its second straight white Christmas “when it starts snowing TRMPAC documents this year.”

AMERICAblog Blasts Kay Bailey Hutchison

2005-10-24T17:23:00.000-07:00

AMERICAblog Blasts Kay Bailey Hutchison

Kay Bailey Hutchison, during WWII traitors who leaked the names of American agents were shot. Yet today, you defend treason. Why do you hate America?
by John in DC - 10/24/2005 12:00:00 AM

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has a soft spot in her heart for traitors.

[...]

PS Feel free to let Senator Hutchison know there's a new t-shirt coming out with her name on it, and the name of every Republican Senator who support treason.

She also had a very, very different idea about things when Bill Clinton was in office and going through impeachment.

All My Ex's Live in Texas

2005-10-24T17:12:00.000-07:00

Forget Gay Marriage! It seems the Texas legislature is thinking maybe we should just ban marriage altogether.

Not only do they want to make something that's already illegal (gay marriage), well, illegal they also want to end a long time legal institution of heterosexual marriage as well.

I guess that would make things equal. No marriage. period.

http://www.savetexasmarriage.com/readlanguage.php

Smiling faces

2005-10-23T10:31:00.000-07:00

Tom DeLay reports to sheriff, released on bond

2005-10-20T12:40:00.000-07:00

Tom DeLay reported to the Harris County Sheriff in Houston where he was fingerprinted, a mugshot was taken, and he was released on $10,000 bond. He showed up at 12:15 and was free before 1:00 PM today.

This is in anticipation of his appearance in Court on Friday. The Houston Chronicle has the story.

The Chronicle also lists back stories and documents in this case in a sidebar at the same link.

[Cross-posted from Politics Plus Stuff]

Whose the Bad Dog Now?

2005-10-17T11:11:00.000-07:00

The Free Enterprise Fund wants you to believe that Ronnie Earle is a bad boy (actually, they even stoop so low as to rob him of humanity). Exactly who is this "Free Enterprise Fund"? Why would they even care?

Well, their chairman (or chariman, as the linked page states) is Mallory Factor. Factor is a "major fundraiser" for George W. Bush. He has said that Democrats are attacking DeLay because he defends "free market principles" - which apparently include buying a Congressman and redrawing the entire Congressional District map. He's a hard-core Republican financier and back-room insider in the style of Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall. He's managed to help get at least one of his cronies a nice job at The Wall Street Journal.

Then there's Executive Director E. O'Brien Murray - whose blank profile speaks volumes about how this group wants to disclose who they are and what they do. Not only is this guy an enigma to his own organization, but he doesn't even come up in an internet search. The same is true for their "Vice President for Strategic Programs" Steve Goodrick.

What about Lawrence A. Hunter, Ph.D., their Vice President & Chief Economist? Well, at least this guy really exists (the others probably do, too - they are just stuck in the smoke-filled back-rooms). He used to work for the incestuous combination of Freedomworks/Empoweramerica, which is lead by none other than Dick Armey.

Basically, the FEF is just a shill for the Club for Growth. Apparently, the Club is too well-known now to pull in back-room deals.

This is what the right has become incredibly skilled at - setting up shadowy back-room attack groups (think Swift Boats) for the express purpose of keeping their candidates clean while they slime the opposition.

"Attack Dog" Prosecutor? Look Behind You!

2005-10-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

Republicans are worried. The prosecution of Tom DeLay may turn the disgraced Party Leader into a lead domino - his fall in turning knocking down Republican after Republican as the corruption that has eaten its way through the Republican Party is exposed. How worried?

The Free Enterprise Fund, a conservative Republican-shadow-attack organization, is now paying FOX network (big surprise!) to air a television commercial that smears Prosecutor Ronnie Earle an "attack dog". It warns that a prosecutor with an ax to grind can be "dangerous".

Not that Ronnie Earle has such an ax (other than against corruption), but the Republicans actually got one right - a politically motivated prosecution is dangerous. They should know. They are the ones that let their pet attack dog, Ken Starr, hump the leg of the American people for five long years. Even Starr himself has admitted (see link above) that his investigation never should have progressed in the manner it did. Of course, a dog will follow the Meaty Bone no matter where its master puts it. In this case, it stuck it in the pants of a sitting President. No matter, the job is more important than the man - and the American people deserve to know if their elected leader committed a crime.

Ok, so why is this NOT true for Tom DeLay?

Let's examine the facts:

Ken Starr was authorized to investigate the Whitewater investment and to see if Bill Clinton broke a law by losing money in a private investment. He ended up talking to what appeared to be a rather naive young intern who had been entrapped by a power-hungry bitch of a Clinton-hater (or, if you prefer, a power-hungry bitch of an opportunist).

By contrast, Ronnie Earle was investigating the biggest political scandal in Texas history - the forced redistricting of Texas Congressional districts only two years after the last redistricting process. A series of grand juries indicted several of DeLay's associates for criminal activity surrounding that process, and the evidence appeared to implicate DeLay himself. Earle then asked a separate grand jury to weigh the evidence against DeLay - and the grand jury agreed there was sufficient evidence to go to full court proceedings where the Congressman could either be convicted or fully clear his name in a court of law.

Showing blatant disregard for the facts, or perhaps believing that the Congressman will never be able to clear his name in a fair and balanced courtroom (where he doesn't hold all the cards and can't bully anyone to vote his way), Republicans are saying that Ronnie Earle has a long history of prosecuting Republicans.

He does. Crooked ones. Democrats, too. In fact, the man actually filed charges against himself for missing a financial disclosure deadline.

And where, exactly, did Ken Starr ever file charges against himself for his misbehavior.

Yeah, I thought so.

How Much Does it Cost to Buy a Justice?

2005-10-14T09:35:00.000-07:00

Some info about Harriet Miers from The Institute on Money in State Politics:

Although not a prolific contributor to state-level political campaigns, Miers did give $30,357 to Republican candidates in Texas from 1994 to 2000, primarily to Bush.

Yeah, it isn't much, but how's this for managing a conflict-of-interest?

Miers, then the Bush-appointed chairwoman to the Texas Lottery Commission, gave $22,960 to
Bush for his 1998 re-election campaign.

She also maxed out her personal contributions to Bush's two Presidential campaigns - which is perfectly fine and is her right as a private citizen. I'm not exactly sure about making contributions to your boss, though. Some places tend to frown on that, for what should be obvious reasons.

In today's political world, it probably isn't possible to find someone who didn't give anything to anyone anywhere. However, giving huge chunks (and $23,000 isn't anything to sneeze at) of money to the person that appointed you to a pretty nice state job is a peek at how she might manage any future litigation that George W. Bush might be a party to in front of the Court.

It deserves to be examined and she should answer questions about it. But don't look for John Cornyn to ask them - he's one of the people she's given money to.

Top 10 Congressional Mis-Leaders - Slick Politicians are Covered in Oil Money

2005-10-02T21:58:00.000-07:00

LINK: Top 10 Congressional Mis-Leaders

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita exposed the underbelly of the oil industry, and now Greenpeace is exposing the politicians stained with oil money. In the wake of the storms, Louisiana and Texas faced massive oil spills as a result of platforms and refineries that couldn’t withstand hurricane force winds. But some members of Congress can’t withstand pressure from the oil industry, and are using the hurricane tragedies as an excuse to actually spread these offshore drilling operations to other vulnerable coastal communities.

Including Texas favorites:
Hutchison, Kay Bailey (R-TX)
Conaway, Mike (R-TX)
Barton, Joe (R-TX)
Neugebauer, Randy (R-TX)
Sessions, Pete (R-TX)

10 Asinine Tom DeLay Quotes

2005-10-02T18:27:00.000-07:00

1) "I AM the federal government." -- snarled at the owner of Ruth's Chris Steak House, after being told to put out his cigar because of federal government regulations banning smoking in the building, May 14, 2003 (Source)

2) "So many minority youths had volunteered…that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself." -- clarifying, at the 1988 GOP convention, why he and vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle did not fight in the Vietnam War(Source)

3) "Now tell me the truth, boys, is this kind of fun?" -- joking to three young hurricane evacuees from New Orleans at the Astrodome in Houston, Sept. 9, 2005 (Source)

4) "We're no longer a superpower. We're a super-duper power." -- explaining why America must topple Saddam Hussein in 2002 interview with Fox News (Source)

5) "Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes." -- bloviating about the Republican agenda, March 12, 2003 (Source)

6) "Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence. The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills." -- pontificating on causes of the Columbine High School massacre, 1999 (Source)

7) "A woman can take care of the family. It takes a man to provide structure. To provide stability. Not that a woman can't provide stability, I'm not saying that... It does take a father, though." -- explaining his family values in a radio interview, Feb. 10, 2004 (Source)

8) "I don't believe there is a separation of church and state. I think the Constitution is very clear. The only separation is that there will not be a government church." -- interpreting the Constitution (Source)

9) "Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour [the minimum wage in 1996] are hard to resist. Fortunately, such families do not exist." -- during a debate in Congress on increasing the minimum wage, April 23, 1996 (Source)

10) "I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution." -- in a CNN interview, Dec. 19, 1995 (Source)

No Leg to Stand On? Make Stuff Up!

2005-09-19T13:11:00.000-07:00

The folks who are trying to amend the Texas constitution to make same-sex marriage permanently illegal (they need to hurry because public opinion is slowly but steadily turning away from their position) have alerted the secretary of state that anti-amendment forces may bus in out of state voteres to influence the referendum in November.

Why are they worried about this? Well... because... you know... it could happen! So reports the Austin American-Stateman, generously calling the suspicions "rumors."

Rumors, my ass. Lies and mudslinging are more like it. The pro-amendment folks have not come up with any rational reason for their amendment. And, as the A-S reports, with business basically taking a pass on this one (it doesn't affect businesses, except in making Texas look like a backward place where no one would want to locate a facility) there's not a lot of money in the campaign, so it's going to come down to grassroots organizing, and scaring people that the world will end if the amendment doesn't pass.

Glenn Maxey, leading the opposition to the amendment, had a simple response: "They're smoking crack."

It's easy to see how the anti-marriage folks are trying to spin it: "Those un-Texan homo liberals are trying to deny us our good old fashioned kill-the-queers values!"

Given the likelihood that the amendment will pass (most people don't care about it or are vaguely uncomfortable, there aren't very many reasons for most voters to even go to the polls this November, and the right is very good at mobilizing voters) it's a little surprising to see them being a bit desparate and starting this crap already. Maybe we should be more hopeful that common sense and fairness will prevail in November.

Meanwhile, you can be a voice against ignorance. Go here to find out how.

(From By the Bayou, Houston)

Logic on Holiday

2005-09-16T08:55:00.000-07:00

The sponsor of the anti-marriage amendment in Texas, Warren Chisum (a state rep from Pampa), says that we need to ban gay marriage, or else someone will try to make polygamy legal.

If this is supposed to be a good reason for the amendment a really obvious question comes to mind: if that's your concern, why don't you sponsor an amendment making polygamy illegal?

Using Chisum's "logic" we should make driving illegal, because someone might drive drunk. Or perhaps we should make going to church illegal, because someone might decide to have a church that involves human sacrifice.

The paucity of sensible arguments for a ban on gay marriage is the most damning thing about these kinds of amendments. Let's hope that the folks fighting this nonsense call lots of attention to that.

(From By the Bayou in Houston)

Bush's New Orleans Vacation in pictures

2005-09-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

The President assures a small child that someday he will have a plate of food too.

"I know they're nigras ... but why are there so many of them?!?"

41 and 43 get some bonding time by fishing the 9th Ward.

The President may have to take a "drop" because his ball has become lodged under a corpse.

The President serenades an appreciative crowd - to help take their mind off the food and water that will arrive any day now.

Courtesy The Blue Republic.

No Nonsense Campaign against Prop 2

2005-09-11T12:13:00.000-07:00

I would like to invite all members and readers to get involved now, today, in the fight against the Prop 2, the constitutional amendment which purports to ban same-sex marriage (which is already illegal in the state of Texas).

Please visit the campaign website and download the talking points. You can also print flyers to distribute to your friends and neighbors, co-workers, fellow church members, whoever is in your sphere of influence. You can register for the calendar and register to attend events on the calendar. If you don't live in Texas, send money.

I am personally working to coordinate faith communities in Houston and UU communities state-wide to work against this constitutional amendment. To that end, I have developed an inventory list of helpful material for each individual to carry around and use while talking to people. Each person who is a member of a church or temple should consider working with me or with your regional faith coordinator to organize interested members to fight this amendment. In like fashion, if you are a member of a Humanist group, political club, neighborhood group, please consider doing the same. Contact me if you are interested using some of the resources I have developed or want to serve as a liaison from the campaign to your church, club, or group. Contact me if you are interested in getting involved with the campaign in any capacity, I don't care where you live, I will find the right person to set you to work.

This amendment is the latest in a long run of erosions of our civil liberties and freedoms that we have come to take for granted in the US. This is not solely a gay issue. This affects us all. We are on the verge of writing discrimination against an identifiable minority of our society into our constitution. Are you horrified by the precedent this would be? I certainly am.

What's more, the discrimation against this identifiable minority is already part of the legal system. So what was the point of this amendment again? Seems like a blatant attempt to demonize that identifiable minority to me. So, at the risk of being trite, if we don't stand together, exactly who will stand with you if and when you are an identifiable minority that is the target of discrimination and demonization?

It's time to push back. Yes, there are a lot of terrible things going on right now. I am here to tell you that we can do something about this particular terrible thing. And guess what, we can build a network that we can mobilize when other terrible things are proposed, because there is more like this coming down the pike.

Senfronia Thompson noted regarding this amendment, "I want you to know that this amendment [is] blowing smoke to fuel the hell-fire flames of bigotry". Read her full remarks here.

58 days till election day (November 8).

30 days till the voter registration deadline (October 11).

What have you done to fight this bill today?

What is Tom DeLay doing NOW?

2005-09-11T09:29:00.000-07:00

A. : Getting ready, Mr. DeMille, for his "Mission Accomplished" closeup

B. : Preparing to have some more "kind of fun" with Astrodome child evacuees

c. : Wishing for a pair of manly-looking combat boots instead of his $1300 tasseled Gucci loafers

D. : Praying like hell to Pat Robertson that he doesn't have to trade olive green for bright orange

Lamar Smith Gets Schooled by Sensible Constituents

2005-09-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

As reported by TXTiger, over at Dkos, Rep. Smith had a town hall meeting today. It didn't go like he expected.

Excerpts below (with emphasis as in the original), but I recommend following the above link for the whole report, and some very interesting Kossakian commentary.

The Response to Hurricane Katrina

Asked how Hurricane Katrina will affect the Congress' legislative priorities, and whether this should require a shift away from tax cuts, Smith said, "Yes, mostly." He said he believes that tax cuts do (or can) spike the economy, but remarked, "Realistically, the estate tax will not be repealed this year."

At this point, a man with silver hair stood up. "Representative Smith," he said firmly, "I have been a Republican since the early 1960's." Oh, no, I thought, here it comes - shill time. This guy had to be part of the crowd called in by the Travis County Republican Party this morning to give Smith some cover.

"I pay a lot for taxes," he continued, "and I consider it a social investment. I am outraged! When this catastrophe hit, the president's response was that we should 'give to private charity.' I am outraged that this party can't support our country. We can't deal with our own self-defense. You need to fire Chertoff and these FEMA clowns. What are you doing with our tax dollars?!"

At this point, the audience broke into applause.

Not an auspicious beginning. Let's move on to a more reliable talking point. How about "support the troops"?

Iraq and Support for the Troops

A young woman stood up and introduced herself as a small business owner and from a family of veterans. "The Republican party claims to support our troops," she said, "but a bill providing medical care for veterans missed by one vote, and you voted 'No' on that bill. How do you defend your vote?"

Smith said that veterans received an 8% increase this past year, and "any more would have broken the budget and the general agreement." This excuse was received with hisses.

She followed up asking about a bill to increase health insurance rates for Guard and Reserve troops to the same level as Tricare which regular troops receive, which missed by 7 votes and for which Smith voted 'No.' She said service people are losing their businesses because they have been called up for so long.

Smith said, "We have to do more and do better, but at some point we have to say that 8% is enough."

But to applause, this young woman said, "I don't think you've done as much for our servicemen as you've done for the top 1% in our country."

I love the way he spoke about the budget as if it hadn't been broken beyond most powers of calculation by this Republican controlled Congress.

There was more lively discussion. On the subject of Tom Delay, TRMPAC and the mugging of Congressional districts in the off cycle redistricting, Rep Smith played dumb. At least I don't think he's that dumb, though I'd not hazard a guess as to how much wattage there actually is under the hood.

Another questioner stood up later and thanked Smith for coming out to meet with his constiuents. Playing off Smith's opening assertion that only 20% of his colleagues hold town meetings, the man said, "The reason they don't go meet their constituents is because they don't have competitive districts due to gerrymandering. When will congress pass laws requiring independently-drawn districts?"

Smith said, "That's up to the states to do."

"Then why was Tom DeLay involved here in Texas?" shouted someone.

"He wasn't, the state legislature - "

"Oh, c'mon, Lamar!"

"The legislature - "

"Everyone knows DeLay was running it!"

The shouting and hisses continued for a few moments. Smith pretended not to understand what redistricting people were talking about (he "thought" they meant Texas house districts, not Congressional). He complained that he had been a victim of redistricting in the Texas House back in 1981. And he denied that Tom DeLay had any hand in the matter at all. "Redistricting is up to the states," he said.

"It was wrong split Austin into three districts," said the original questioner.

There's more, and TxTiger reports it well, but this last excerpt is irresistible.

And when asking about his votes against stem cell research and for extending Terry Schiavo's life, the questioner remarked, "If you spent so much effort on living people as on these issues, New Orleans would never have happened."

May she rest in peace, Terri Schiavo is the gift that keeps backfiring on the Mullahs of Congress.

By the last ten minutes, Smith was looking at the clock pretty regularly.

Well, I would imagine so. This must have been one of the 10 longest hours Rep Smith has ever had in his life.

At least to date.

One thing has become crystal clear about this Republican leadership. They will expend the very minimum of effort to keep embarassment off their backs. Preferrably PR effort, but if pushed they will resort to more substantial efforts.

Our job as constituents is to keep flipping over the rock, and pelting them with enough pebbles to keep them moving in the right direction.

Crossposted at Texas 21 Blog.

Austin Grand Jury hands down indictments against TRMPAC, TAB

2005-09-09T05:02:00.000-07:00

The Travis County grand jury has issued an indictement against the "Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee" created by Congressman Tom DeLay to provide corporate funds to take over the Texas House of Representatives in 2002. There were also four indictments issued against the "Texas Association of Business."

From the Austin-American Statesman:

If convicted, the state's largest business group faces the threat of fines — up to $20,000 for each count. But the indictments also complicate the group's defense against civil lawsuits filed by losing Democratic candidates. Damages in those suits could be double the $1.7 million that the association spent on 4 million mailers to voters in 2002.

The four indictments against the business group — two of which were issued last month and then sealed — break down the counts by different actions the group took. They include:

n 14 counts of prohibited political contributions by a corporation (TAB) for paying Hammond and staffer Jack Campbell to do political work.

•28 additional counts for fraudulently soliciting money from corporations to use in the 2002 election..

•83 additional counts of prohibited political contributions by a corporation for paying for political mailers and TV commercials.

•Three counts of prohibited political expenditures by a corporation for spending money in connection with 23 legislative campaigns.

All the counts are third-degree felonies.

TRMPAC, in the lone indictment against it, is charged with two counts of illegally accepting corporate donations, including $100,000 from the Washington, D.C.-based Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care.

Texas House speaker candidate Tom Craddick collected that check at a Houston restaurant days before the 2002 election. He has said he didn't know the amount of the check and was just passing it along to the PAC.

Craddick, who became speaker after Republicans took control in the 2002 elections, was not named in the indictments.

At a noon press conference, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle said TAB and Texans for a Republican Majority worked together in a complicated scheme to circumvent the state law banning corporate money being spent on campaign activity.

TAB has refused to identify the 30 or so corporations that underwrote its mail campaign. But TAB unintentionally disclosed 20 corporations, mostly insurance companies, as donors, in documents it was required to release as part of the civil suit. Additional donors are listed in the indictments, including the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care and the American Health Care Association, sister organizations that together gave $300,000, the largest single corporate contribution to TAB.

People who watch the antics of our Texas criminal class, the Legislature, may recall that the two recent special sessions to establish Consitutitonal funding for the Texas school system failed to achieve anything in part because they refused to raise taxes on currently untaxed businesses.

Anyone besides me see a connection?

[Cross-posted from Politics Plus Stuff]

Welcome to Willy World

2005-09-03T00:14:00.000-07:00

This year the pack of holy hyenas that dominates the Texas Lege, led by Republican banker and alpha male-supremacist Sen. Tommy Williams, funneled $5,000,000 of our tax money -- public funds designated for family planning, primary health screening and other legitimate medical care -- into the religiously oriented agencies known as crisis pregnancy centers. Williams and his anti-choice buddies called Planned Parenthood a "special interest" that was "grubbing for money" while maintaining that their own two-year, multimillion-dollar giveaway to faith-based special interests was just a drop in the bucket.

The measure's author, Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, said there are “more than adequate resources to meet the health care needs of women.”
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"There's more than enough money in this strategy for the traditional healthcare things such as pap smears and birth control pills,” Williams said. “I don't count government-funded abortion among those services and I think that's what the difference is.”

OK, just so that we all can be clear on Williams’ wannabe impersonation of Karl Rove: [1] Public funds cannot be and are not used to fund abortion, [2] Williams is a CPA who understands the separation of public and private funding and [3] the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has already kicked his behind on this same non-issue.

Now back to reality.

Tommy Williams’ favorite faith-based initiative already is stripping low income women of vital healthcare services by forcing Planned Parenthood to close its doors in one of the poorest counties of a state that has the highest percentage of women without health insurance in the country – just one more statistic to make us all feel Texas Proud.

Planned Parenthood closed its Pharr clinic Thursday, citing a $200,000 cut in state funding to its Hidalgo County chapter. The closing follows the Texas Legislature’s decision to divert $2.5 million from the Department of State Health Services’ family planning budget to an anti-abortion program, said Margaret Mendez, director for community health services at the state agency.

Planned Parenthood was one of a number of family planning providers, including university health centers and community centers, to lose funding under the deal.
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With the Pharr clinic closing, around 4,000 patients, mostly low income and from the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo area, will have to seek services elsewhere, said Kathryn Hearn, community services director for Hidalgo County Planned Parenthood.
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"There’s not enough money and not enough space for them," Hearn said. "Birth control, STD tests, pre-cancer screenings, these things cost money."

That money will now go to fund "pregnancy counseling clinics," where women are encouraged to give birth and not seek an abortion. While such clinics have been in Texas for some time, they have not been publicly funded until now, said Dade Phelan, spokesman for State Senator Bobby (sic) Williams, R-Woodlands, who authored the budget change and whose district lies north of Houston.

"There has always been plenty of money for family planning, but there’s nothing that addresses alternative to abortion programs," he said. "This is for women who are trying to decide whether or not to have a baby, and this will give an alternative to abortion. It’s giving them more choice."

But Hearn is critical of such clinics, saying they provide little in the way of medical services, and do little to lower the abortion rate.

"We’ve had some of our clients go these places before, and their whole function is discouraging birth control and promoting child-bearing" she said. "We also try to prevent abortions, but we’re letting people make up their own minds.

"If you have a loss of access to birth control, you’re only going to see a rise in abortions."

So are the hundreds of medically unsupervised and unregulated crisis pregnancy centers around the state being christened "clinics" now, just to give the Texas GOP's Compulsory Childbirth Club an excuse to shovel our tax money into them?

Clinics used to be places where a woman could receive health care instead of being subjected to fake-religious propaganda, scare tactics and lies.

But not anymore, not in the world of Tommy Williams -- one far removed from the risk of an untreated STD, the fear of an unwanted pregnancy or the danger of undiagnosed cervical cancer. His is the safe and privileged kind of world that most women in Texas will never know.

Texas OK's Death Penalty for Abortion-Providing Doctors

2005-08-31T23:07:00.000-07:00

It had to happen somewhere sooner or later, and none of us will be surprised that it has happened first in Texas. The rabidly anti-choice mob comprising the majority of the Texas Legislature passed a law this year that finally has abortion-providing physicians exactly where the Rapture Right wants them: subject to the death penalty.

How could such a thing have happened? In a state with a government like ours, how can you ask?

Rick Perry signed our new law exposing doctors who provide abortion care to a risk of execution for capital murder at a Fort Worth church three months ago, on the same occasion that he notoriously suggested that returning Iraq veterans shouldn't come back to Texas . . . if they were gay.

"It has been a tragedy of unspeakable consequences that for decades activist courts denied many Texas parents their right to be involved in one of the most important decisions their young daughter could ever make - whether to end the life that was growing inside her," Perry told a crowd of about 1,000 people gathered at the Calvary Christian Academy. "For too long, a blind eye has been turned to the rights of our most vulnerable human beings - that's the unborn in our society."

Texas already had a parental notification bill, approved in 1999. The new, tougher measure requires a parent to provide written consent for unmarried girls under 18.
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Before Perry spoke, several pastors received standing ovations and shouts of "Amen!" from the crowd as they touted the two measures being signed by Perry.

"It seems to me that people of the great state of Texas will be silent no more," said Rod Parsley, of the Center for Moral Clarity in Ohio. "Folks in this room understand, God is still watching."
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Pastor Larry White of Our Savior Lutheran Church in Houston said the gathering inside the church school was about life, family and marriage.

"There are those that would drive people of faith from the public square if they could," White said.

Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt said many of the critics "would object to this bill-signing if it were in a public school, a library, a Wal-Mart parking lot or any other venue, because they oppose pro-life and pro-family issues."

This particular critic doesn’t give a nickel-plated damn where Perry signed such an appallingly framed and potentially lethal excuse for a statute. If he didn't realize what he was doing, he's merely hopelessly incompetent. But if he did know, there are no words for what he is.

Capital Defense Weekly

Sunday, August 28
Texas Authorizes Death for Some Abortion Providers

Abortion providers in Texas who don't follow the exacting letter of that State's abortion law are eligible for capital punishment according to the Texas District and County Attorneys Association's Lindsay Roberts. “This is a case study of sorts on how changing one code can have dramatic effects on other codes that actually reference those statutes,” Roberts said. “I presented it as an unintended consequence on a change to the civil code, but you will have to talk to your local prosecutors there about how they will handle those situations. I just presented what the Legislature has done.”

The Waco Tribune-Herald notes:
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Roberts noted that the Legislature two years ago altered the definition of an individual in homicide statutes from “a human being who has been born and is alive” to “a human being who is alive, including an unborn child at every stage of gestation, from fertilization until birth.”

There was debate when the definition of individual was changed about whether the effect would make abortion the equivalent of murder. So lawmakers took particular care to write into the homicide statute that a lawful medical procedure performed with consent by a physician or other licensed health-care provider, if the death of the unborn child was the intended result, is an abortion. That provided a lawful defense or exception to homicide laws.

Continuing to connect the statutory dots, however, Roberts told local prosecutors that there is no such defense provided for a doctor who performs an unlawful medical procedure, such as an abortion on a minor without parental consent.

So, in effect, the doctor would have killed a child younger than 6 in an illegal abortion and thereby subjected himself or herself to potential prosecution for capital murder, Roberts told the dumbfounded audience.

OK, I’m not a doctor, so all I can be charged with is having a vivid imagination.

Scenario #1: Kim and Katie are sisters. Kim is 17 and Katie is 19, but like many other sisters, they look enough alike to be twins. Their parents hate Kim’s boyfriend, believe that she broke up with him when they ordered her to stop seeing him three months ago – and now Kim is pregnant. There will be hell to pay if Mom and Dad find out, so Kim makes an appointment for an abortion in Katie’s name. She borrows her sister’s driver’s license, presents it at the clinic as her own ID, and no one suspects a thing. A week later, while Kim is at school, Mom tosses her bedroom and finds a note from Kim’s best friend that mentions Kim’s abortion.

Scenario #2: There’s already a ton of paperwork required for getting an abortion in Texas. There’s a consent form for the ultrasound, and for the prerequisite lab tests. There’s a receipt for the clinic’s HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices, and another signature to attest that a woman has received a copy of her aftercare instructions. There’s a consent form for IV sedation, and yet another for the abortion procedure itself. And then there’s the woman’s signed certification that the doctor personally gave her a laundry list of state-mandated information including dire warnings of such possible consequences of abortion as breast cancer, and that she afterward completed a 24-hour waiting period before her procedure – a document without which no abortion in Texas can be legally performed. Somewhere amid all this documenting and attesting, a woman will have questions about birth control, about how the abortion procedure itself is going to feel, and a dozen other things.

If the patient is a minor, her mother will have many questions of her own. And while a clinic’s staff is busy making sure that having an abortion really is the teenager’s idea and not just what her parents want, detailing her medical history, flagging her chart for medical evaluation, filling out the lab requisition form for a Pap smear or selecting informational materials for the girl to take home – or while they’re preoccupied with any number of other necessary things -- they might overlook yet one more form, the one that documents parental consent.

Scenario #3: The parental notification law was part of the Texas Family Code, but in its fervid zeal to tighten restrictions on abortion, the Lege attached the new consent law as an amendment to an entirely different section of the state statutes. The law requires the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners to provide doctors with an official consent form for compliance with the new law. But TSBME says that it will be next spring before they create that form and make it available. Until then, doctors are on their own, and simply will have to hope that whatever documentary standards they come up with to comply with parental consent eventually will meet legal criteria yet unknown.

Only yesterday, performing an abortion without having a teenager’s parent sign a form could have cost doctors their licenses to practice. Now, under the law of the State of Texas, it could cost them their lives.

And it seems odd that some of the holy hyenas who howled the loudest about stopping abortion during the legislative session seem unusually reluctant to comment.

In signing the parental consent bill, Perry said, “Today, we are laying down a significant marker in the effort to create a culture of life by protecting those who can't protect themselves, by giving voice to the voiceless who yearn for life.”

Robert Black, the governor's deputy press secretary, said last week that his office was not aware of the potential created by the new bill for doctors who perform illegal abortions to face possible death sentences.

“During the legislative process, a lot of folks see conspiracies everywhere,” Black said. “But the fact is that the parental notification law as well as the parental consent legislation that the governor has always supported is intended to protect young girls and protect the rights of parents. What you mentioned is a hypothetical and we are not going down the road of hypotheticals.”

Roberts said he is no conspiracy theorist.

“We are just giving facts. We pitched this as an unintended consequence,” Roberts said. “It shows you that when they change one thing, for whatever reason they changed it, it can have an effect on other things. It happens all the time. We are just telling it like it is.”

And I can't think of a single reason not to believe him.

Gov. Perry to Address His Mutaween

2005-08-24T14:22:00.000-07:00

Stop talking about school finance already! The governor is planning to address a group of preachers about the anti-marriage amendment, PinkDome reports, with commentary on an Austin American-Stateman article on the upcoming inquisition, um, I mean meeting.

Pink Dome is pissed. I'm too unsurprised to be that pissed off. Obviously Perry is going to suck up to his natural base of far right radicals (the American version of these guys) because he's been such an inept governor that even Republicans aren't thrilled with him.

The American-Stateman article is an example of the general lame-ass reporting the entire Texas press has been doing on this topic. A request to any media types who might be reading this: could one of you, please, do something slightly reporterly and ask a question or two? When Perry and his folks start talking about how we have to stop the vague, amorphous bad thing that would happen is gay people ever got married in Texas, could you perhaps ask them what that thing is and how exactly it would come to pass? Is it too much to ask reporters to actually dig into a story a little bit?

Is the fear that we'll turn into Massachusetts, with its significantly lower divorce rate and healthier children attending better schools, going home to more stable families, and being well prepared to be part of that state's superior economy? Heaven forbid.

(From By the Bayou, Houston)

Bass-fishing Lake Greedy Republican

2005-08-22T08:02:00.000-07:00

While reading about the ongoing Tx. Association of Business investigation, I came across this little gem:

"Also, a Washington lobbyist is holding a golf tournament and luncheon Wednesday in Virginia to raise money for the three men indicted in the investigation of Texans for a Republican Majority, an attorney in the case said."

Okay, a lobbyist in Washington is going to help get Tom DeLay's buddies some cash to pay for their lawyers.

Yep, if the clock on the wall is right, it's now time for the second round of pay-offs.

This is the same investigation that has found everyone around Tom DeLay (not DeLay himself - yet) to be crooked. TAB took money from insurance companies to "educate" Texans as to why they needed redistricting. The redistricting, as everyone knows, gave the Republicans a State House majority - which they used to (feign shock and surprise) deregulate the insurance industry. Now they are going to pay to get their best buddies off the legal hook that's sunk in their mouth like a spinner-bait to a nine-pound bass.

Okay - and Tom DeLay is still not involved? How come its a lobbyist in WASHINGTON raising money and not one in - well, any of the ten thousand places in Texas that have golf courses?

All of this comes on the heels of Jack Abramoff's indictment - and we all know how tight Jack and Tom are.

Can we bring back the days of Clinton when the only thing we worried about was who the President was having sex with?

"I love these (gasoline) prices."

2005-08-19T05:47:00.000-07:00

"The higher, the better."

So stated Frank Gafke of Galveston, who is described by the Houston Chronicle as a "senior service leader" employed by the Halliburton Corporation. Mr. Gafke was recreating in his pleasure craft along the Texas coast when the Chronic caught up with him, and is further quoted:

Gafke said Halliburton's profits - and his savings account - had increased markedly since fuel prices began rising. He predicted that prices soon will reach $3 per gallon for automobile drivers, as well as for recreational boaters.
And, he said, relief at the pump probably won't come anytime soon.

Hey, who should know better than ol' Frank?

Texas Reps Seek Mexican Border War

2005-08-11T18:06:00.000-07:00

War in Iraq is all well and good for the Republicans in Washington, but what is it doing for Texas Republicans? What we need is a war right here in Texas. How about a good old fashioned border war with Mexico? From the Austin American Statesman:

Frustrated by a government that seems unable to stanch the flow of illegal immigrants, a Houston Republican has introduced legislation creating a civilian volunteer militia to patrol the nation's borders, armed with arrest power, guns and the approval to use "any force necessary."

Commanded by Gov. Rick Perry and other border-state governors, the Border Protection Corps would add another line of defense against terrorists, smugglers and gangs eager to prey upon the United States, U.S. Rep. John Culberson said.

Of course, we can count on our Austin-area congressmen to stop this nonsense, right? So what's their plan of action here? Apparently, to co-sponsor the bill. Even my beloved Rep. Lamar Smith, who actually mostly represents San Antonio. Good old TX-21... Excuse me while I throw up:

Though critics dismiss Culberson's numbers as unrealistic, 47 Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors, including U.S. Reps. Michael McCaul of Austin, John Carter of Round Rock and Lamar Smith of San Antonio, whose district includes most of downtown Austin.

One more thing I have to touch on here: the laughable idea of Rick Perry commanding anything. I can just see it now, Commander Perry tearing off his Kaiser Wilhelm helmet, miraculously revealing an unperturbed romance-novel coiffure, announcing on the steps of the capital: "I am a War Governor!" and "Remember the Alamo!" and "We must create a Grand Army of the Republic!"

Or maybe, "Now I've got you, you wascawwy immigwant!"

A New Reason to Visit this Site and Recruit New Bloggers

2005-08-10T20:11:00.000-07:00

Folks, Texas is done playing games. It is time to expand Come And Take It to encompass every corner of Texas. Inspired by Paul Hackett's close call in one of the most extreme parts of Ohio and dismayed by the discovery that the radical conservatives (of the very type currently doing damage to our State's good name) have an edge in local blogging, I want to take it to the next level.

It is time to get serious. We've had it with nuking Syria, gettin' on down the road, and our dear Senator Rubber Stamp.

I want a blogger in every county. A blogger with his or her ear to the ground--monitoring radical conservatism in their local paper, on their local television, at the church on Sunday, at their place of business--in every county in Texas.

Here's a list. Let's go out and find 'em and recruit 'em. We know they are there. We just want 'em here, with us. All it takes is pooling our knowledge in the comments below. Go to it. Leave links to blogs in counties not crossed out. Tell me where you are from if you are covering a county. I will gladly cross out that county.

Get local.

Once we have all of this information, we will have the beginnings of a state-wide accountability machine. And wouldn't that be nice?

The next post describes a new feature of the site.

And now, the 254 (count 'em) Texas counties...

Anderson
Andrews
Angelina
Aransas
Archer
Armstrong
Atascosa
Austin
Bailey
Bandera
Bastrop
Baylor
Bee
Bell
Bexar
Blanco
Borden
Bosque
Bowie
Brazoria
Brazos
Brewster
Briscoe
Brooks
Brown
Burleson
Burnet
Caldwell
Calhoun
Callahan
Cameron
Camp
Carson
Cass
Castro
Chambers
Cherokee
Childress
Clay
Cochran
Coke
Coleman
Collin
Collingsworth
Colorado
Comal
Comanche
Concho
Cooke
Coryell
Cottle
Crane
Crockett
Crosby
Culberson
Dallam
~~Dallas~~
Dawson
Deaf Smith
Delta
Denton
DeWitt
Dickens
Dimmit
Donley
Duval
Eastland
Ector
Edwards
Ellis
El Paso
Erath
Falls
Fannin
Fayette
Fisher
Floyd
Foard
Fort Bend
Franklin
Freestone
Frio
Gaines
Galveston
Garza
Gillespie
Glasscock
Goliad
Gonzales
Gray
Grayson
Gregg
Grimes
Guadalupe
Hale
Hall
Hamilton
Hansford
Hardeman
Hardin
~~Harris~~
Harrison
Hartley
Haskell
Hays
Hemphill
Henderson
Hidalgo
Hill
Hockley
Hood
Hopkins
Houston
Howard
Hudspeth
Hunt
Hutchinson
Irion
Jack
Jackson
Jasper
Jeff Davis
Jefferson
Jim Hogg
Jim Wells
Johnson
Jones
Karnes
Kaufman
Kendall
Kenedy
Kent
Kerr
Kimble
King
Kinney
Kleberg
Knox
Lamar
Lamb
Lampasas
La Salle
Lavaca
Lee
Leon
Liberty
Limestone
Lipscomb
Live Oak
Llano
Loving
Lubbock
Lynn
McCulloch
McLennan
McMullen
Madison
Marion
Martin
Mason
Matagorda
Maverick
Medina
Menard
Midland
Milam
Mills
Mitchell
Montague
Montgomery
Moore
Morris
Motley
Nacogdoches
Navarro
Newton
Nolan
Nueces
Ochiltree
Oldham
Orange
Palo Pinto
Panola
Parker
Parmer
Pecos
Polk
Potter
Presidio
Rains
Randall
Reagan
Real
Red River
Reeves
Refugio
Roberts
Robertson
Rockwall
Runnels
Rusk
Sabine
San Augustine
San Jacinto
San Patricio
San Saba
Schleicher
Scurry
Shackelford
Shelby
Sherman
Smith
Somervell
Starr
Stephens
Sterling
Stonewall
Sutton
Swisher
Tarrant
Taylor
Terrell
Terry
Throckmorton
Titus
Tom Green
~~Travis~~
Trinity
Tyler
Upshur
Upton
Uvalde
Val Verde
Van Zandt
Victoria
Walker
Waller
Ward
Washington
Webb
Wharton
Wheeler
Wichita
Wilbarger
Willacy
~~Williamson~~
Wilson
Winkler
Wise
Wood
Yoakum
Young
Zapata
Zavala

Rabid Conservatism Funding Its Own Destruction

2005-08-10T19:36:00.000-07:00

As part of the effort to expand the reach of Come and Take It, we are going to do something that I have not yet seen.

Rabid Texas conservatism will begin funding its own destruction starting today when you will see this link appear on every post here at Come and Take It.

That would be a link to contribute to the Texas Democratic Party. Now, this blog is not for liberal activism generally. And I know we have been good that way. But this blog also isn't just a place to vent without making a difference. So this is a good compromise--we'll just let the rabid Texas right wing decide how much it will fund its own electoral defeat.

If one of our bloggers reports something here that gets us all Yosemite Sam angry, then we will click through and fund the electoral defeat of those who caused our bad day. Think of it as a "boiling blood tax."

And if you are the author of the post and it just gets YOU rip-roarin''' mad that you are even reporting such a thing, be sure to remind us all to click through.

Come and Take It, Texas.

Lon Burnham Warned Cindy Because He Knows How Bush Operates

2005-08-10T09:03:00.000-07:00

Boadicea's post below struck me as blaming the good guy. So I contacted Texas State Representative Lon Burnham myself regarding the Cindy Sheehan protest in Crawford. Some things I read yesterday about him “passing warnings” to the Sheehan protestors about possible arrest tomorrow did not strike me as reasonable.

Lon is the only Texas Representative to have stood up and spoken against the Patriot Act and the War in Iraq two years ago. He is Director of the Dallas Peace Commission. His brother was illegally arrested two years ago in Dallas during a demonstration, and only found not guilty this last March. Lon was told by one juror that it was difficult to acquit his brother because the Jury had to decide that the police were lying on the stand. [Yeah, welcome to Dallas - or Texas for that matter.]

Lon pointed out that he knows Karl Rove and the Bush people. They do not like the kind of media exposure that Cindy Sheehan is creating, and this is Texas. It is my opinion that the illegal activities of the New York City Police during the Republican National Convention were mild compared to what they will dare to here in Texas. Lon agreed with me.

He is also on a law enforcement committee in the House of Representatives, and has spoken to law enforcement at both the state and in McLellan County trying to let them know they are being watched. He wants to be sure that Cindy Sheehan and her supporters are provided with their first amendment rights.

There is a special situation coming up. There is going to be a motorcade pass through that area Thursday evening or Friday morning, and Lon is concerned, with what he knows of Rove and Bush, that there may be illegal arrests of demonstrators in advance of that motorcade.

Since Lon has experience with demonstrations in Texas, he is concerned that people who go there are prepared to be arrested. There is no official warning of arrests Thursday (as of 10:30 AM CDT as far as we know), but Lon Burnham knows Bush and Rove and he knows Texas law enforcement. His earlier statements were on the line of telling someone who is getting close to a scorpion about the nature of scorpions and advising them to be prepared for typical scorpion behavior. [The "scorpion" characterization is mine, not Lons.]

The Texas House is in special session right now, and he has not been able to break free to visit the demonstration. I think he was concerned that a lot of people would just hear about the demonstration, decide to attend, and show up without being ready for what they might be walking into. It is clear that his experience and his position as an elected official could be of great use of trouble occurs in Crawford, but with the House in special session he hasn’t been able to get free.

So that is the story as I have gotten it.

If anyone has a good checklist for what to take to a demonstration, it would be good to post it. I've never been to one before, either. What is normal Bail? What do you take for tear gas protection?

[Headline edited by Umpire]

George W. Bush, Poster Boy for Resolute Cowards Everywhere

2005-08-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

Apparently a small band of protestors camping out in the hot Texas heat led by a mother whose lost a beloved son in a dishonest, disgraceful war is about to constitute a threat to national security.

First they tried to ditch the protestors. Then they kept food and water from being supplied (though they relented eventually.) Then they sent a couple of political hacks to parrot the Chickenhawk Line: "At least the Iraqis can now vote". When they met a calm, resolute mother who wasn't buying their bullshit, they went back to Chickenhawk Ranch. Then the Secret Service warned the protestors that cars come down the road really fast and it would be a shame if anybody got hit.

Now, they warn her she's going to be considered a national security risk the day before a Yellow Elephant (Seniors Division) fundraiser. Presumably that means under the Patriot Act, and that means no access to counsel or charges need be filed.

Some folks are trying to get there to support Cindy. See this thread on Dkos.

This President is a lifelong coward and bully. From his frat boy days to putative volunteering for military service only to be the invisible man in his Reserve unit his sadistic enjoyment of the death penalty to the sound and fury of the stolen election of 2000 right through to the bald faced lies he's been peddling to the press and through them the public.

Face to face, he can't maintain the cloak of denial, so I don't hold out much hope that he'll have the huevos to engage in a basic human interaction with his opponents. Bar's baby boy has grown up into a rank, arrogant coward of the first water who has earned the White Feather being handed to him so publically on a hot stretch of asphalt in McLennan County.

He's nothing but a little man in a big suit trying to get out from under Daddy's tall shadow without actually earning his own way.

But he'll do so with a resolute jaw because, face it, he's got nothing else to offer the American military families who have given up so much to prosecute Halliburton's War.

Crossposted on We Are the Resistance.

Update: According to this story on Dkos the threat of arrest was actually speculation by some state legislator rather than a statement from law enforcement. Doesn't change much in my book as it was clearly an attempt by an official to intimidate citizens exercising their First Amendment rights.

I will speculate my own self that said legislator is probably feeling very foolish right now, and if I find out which numskull made that threat (we're talking about the Texas Lege, so there's an embarrassing wealth of candidates) he'll be in for a Lone Star smackdown that's gonna leave him dizzy for several days.

'Ridiculous'

2005-08-08T11:43:00.000-07:00

That's what Pink Dome calls the cluster of do-nothings in Austin masquerading as our state Legislature.

They're exactly right. Here, read their compilations from editorial boards around the state (and PD's smackdown at the end):

Texarkana Gazette: In Our View: Trying do-littles: "They will just say, "The courts made us do it. It was those judicial busybodies who forced us to break our promises of tax relief and otherwise stiff the people who elected us. We wanted to keep the business of funding education under our control and local control. But now our hands are tied by people who don't have to answer to constituents.

"That will not be the whole truth. They have spent our tax money on unproductive special sessions. They have postured and propagandized, and done just about anything but come up with a solution."

Lufkin Daily News: Legislative delays stall school work: " The special session is scheduled to end on Aug. 21, and many state lawmakers are saying it's time to pull the plug and go home, despite Gov. Rick Perry's vow that he would keep calling special sessions until the Legislature passes school reform and finance laws.

"In the 26 to 27 years I've been working for Lufkin ISD, I've never seen it come down this close to the wire," Parsons said. "In the past, if they changed the funding, it went into effect at the start of the next school year."

Startlegram: Grusendorf seeks legislation for textbooks:"Grusendorf said it is also clear to him that enacting meaningful education reform is all but impossible anytime soon."

Sorry about that, teach! The way this session is going, the Lege won't be helping you out. That's okay, really. Who needs to learn Spanish/English/Algebra/Geometry/World History? Given the way your salary is looking, you'll have to take a part-time job teaching at Sylvan/working at the Tastee-Freeze/painting houses anyway.

JustUs Sunday II

2005-08-03T14:14:00.000-07:00

The GOP God Squad is having their second Meetup this Sunday, and Bill Frist won't be there despite the fact it is being held in Nashville, Tennessee.

It's possible he may have been disinvited because he dared to suddenly figure out this week that stem cell research is actually good science.

Instead, the lownote speaker will be ... *drumroll, please* ... Tom DeLay.

Do you think he'll be talking about his golf game?

Check out this awesome lineup of speakers (that's them, not really standing together, up there):

Senator Zell Miller, D-Ga. (HA! Everybody knows crazy ol' Uncle Zell is a Republican who can't find the exit door to the Democratic Party)
Tony Perkins, Family Research Council (I thought that this 'Psycho' actor passed away a few years ago...)
Dr. James Dobson, Focus on the Family (alas, in spirit but not in body -- that means by videotape)
Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship Ministries (former Watergate criminal and the man who said: "it is not honorable to leak classified information to the press". He was NOT talking about Karl Rove)
Bill Donohue, Catholic League
Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum
Cathy Cleaver Ruse, Family Research Council (OK, who else knew that Wally and The Beaver had a sister?!?)
Dr. Jerry Sutton, Two Rivers Baptist Church
Bishop Harry Jackson, Hope Christian Church
Ted Haggard, National Association of Evangelicals

The subtitle for the event is "God Save the United States and this Honorable Court!"

Yes, God, please do.

The GOP-led Texas Lege imploded this week

2005-07-28T09:57:00.000-07:00

Glenn Smith of Drive Democray.org applies the smackdown:

The GOP majority in the Texas House of Representatives (Tuesday) fell apart, its party discipline destroyed by the stink of corruption that permeates the Bush era in Texas and across the country.

If Texas had icebergs, this would be the tip of one. I'm not talking about Karl Rove's adulterous behavior.

I'm talking about the stinging defeat suffered by the Texas GOP on the floor of the state House (Tuesday). GOP leadership, helped to election by illegal corporate contributions, watched helplessly as the Democratic minority and a few frightened Republicans voted down bills that 1) raised taxes on the middle class; 2) Cut taxes for Big Insurance and other special interests involved in the scandal; 3) Stiffed school children and teachers under the guise of education reform.

This is no small matter. It should be pointed out that in the early 1970s, a political scandal called Sharpstown surfaced just ahead of a national political scandal called Watergate. By 1976, Jimmy Carter could carry Texas.

The talking points are simple: Texas Republicans are trying to raise taxes on middle class Texans and devastate public education so they can do what they were ordered to do when they accepted the illegal bribes: cut taxes for the people who paid the bribes.

Several corporations have been indicted. So have some staffers who were allegedly involved in the scheme. Tom DeLay, who lives off his aura of power, says he was powerless over a scheme that invoved his committee and its money and its contributors and that advanced his Congressional redistricting scheme. A grand jury, holding all the cards, is still meeting.

Corruption is bad enough. But when corruption is tied to taxes, education and other close-to-home issues, there's going to be trouble.

That's why some Republicans are rebelling. That's why Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick, always in over his head with this job, might be losing his head and his job. He's asked his Republican members to cast dozens of career-threatening votes just so he can tell his Bosses at Big Insurance that he was a good little boy who did what he was told.

Chris Bell's announcement today that he will take on Governor MoFo'n Goodhair is the first step in toppling these corrupt oligarchs in charge in Austin (in charge at the moment, that is).

Karl Rove is about to get a taste of his own medicine

2005-07-26T17:54:00.000-07:00

Via Daily Kos, from Radar Online:

For years, political insiders in the Lone Star State have whispered about Rove’s close friendship with lobbyist Karen Johnson, a never-married, forty-something GOP loyalist from Austin, Texas. The two first became close when Johnson sat on the board of then-Governor George W. Bush’s Business Council over a decade ago. Their friendship reportedly deepened after Bush appointed Johnson—a little-known spokesperson for the Texas Good Roads Association — to a seat on his Transportation Department transition team in 2000. The plum appointment enabled Johnson’s lobbying firm, Infrastructure Solutions, to snare such high-paying clients as Aetna and the City of Laredo. Sources say Johnson now frequently travels between Washington D.C. and Austin, where she frequently appears at Rove’s side at parties and unofficial functions.

Although there is no evidence that their relationship is anything but professional, the close association between the married White House aide and the comely lobbyist has long raised eyebrows in conservative Texas circles. Asked about the pair, a prominent political journalist who has written extensively about Rove says, “I’ve heard the stories, but I would never write about Karl and Karen. If you want to keep your job as a reporter in Texas, you make believe you don’t see them together.”

In the post-Lewinsky era, Washington’s press corps has mostly avoided reporting on the private lives of public officials. But as the political climate in the capitol grows more poisonous, Rove’s close friendship with the lobbyist has attracted increased scrutiny from opponents eager to prove that Bush’s dirty trickster is sitting on some dirty laundry of his own.

And kos adds:

In a fortuitious coincidence, Jerome and I have just finished interviewing a long-time Texas political writer here in Austin who says that Rove is absolutely having an affair with Karen. Rove is married and has a teenaged son. According to this writer, Rove's wife is a hardcore liberal. "I don't know how he and his wife get along," he said.

Well, quite obviously, they do not.

In a more discreet political era -- say, just a few years ago -- I might have said that a politician's personal life was out of bounds. That sexual affairs between consenting adults was not the public's concern.

But, as we're constantly reminded, 9/11 changed everything.

No New Taxes Legislature fails Texas.

2005-07-26T11:03:00.000-07:00

Low-Tax Low-government-benefit states are not Globally competitive.

Toyota chose Canada to place their new assembly plant over locations in the U.S. that offered $millions more in incentives than Canada did. It was a dollars-and-cents decision. American workers are not as well educated as Canadian worker, and in Canada Toyota does not have to pay the massive health insurance benefits for workers because the State provides that benefit. (See Paul Krugman as well as my own earlier article Toyota Chooses Canada over Alababma/Mississippi for Auto Plant.)

This is not political rhetoric. It is accounting calculation by experts who are investing their own money.

The battle in our Texas Legislature on how to pay for education in Texas is being lost to the know-nothing, do-nothing Republicans who are penny wise and pound foolish. The No-New_Taxes Republicans are damaging the future competitiveness of Texas in the world economy by not paying for things like shipping the new text books already in the warehouse to the schools that need them.

Our Legislators are failing us badly. Again.

Lubbock gets tired of no-results Republican Lege - Blames Democrat

2005-07-25T13:22:00.000-07:00

As a child, Lubbock was a magnet. Anyone who was smart, ambitious, or just not satisfied with the dead-end jobs of countless one-horse towns hitched, rode, or walked towards Lubbock. In the clear air of the High Plains, its lights shimmered like the promise of opportunity that had been preached into the souls of every God-fearing boy and girl in West Texas.

Like most of Texas, Lubbock is a city that prides itself as both a hub of common sense and a gleaming rhinestone of the buckle of the Bible Belt.

The Lubbock paper - the Avalance-Journal - rightfully editorializes that the future of Texas is in the hands of Republicans. The news writer in an AP piece, however, breaks into the op-ed business by stating rather bluntly that the problem is one Democratic Senator who "talked [school finance reform] to death.

This kind of spin helps no one.

Here are the facts on the issue: (Thanks to Linda Messing)

1) As early as 2001, warnings were given to Republicans to take school finance problems seriously. These warnings came from no less authority than the Acting Lt. Governor Bill Ratcliff. In response, Republicans promised"In 140 days we are going to have to craft a new public school finance plan."

2) By 2003, lawyers for wealthy districts were arguing that the Robin Hook law created a de facto illegal state wide tax.

3) In 2004, Gov. Rick Perry called a special session of the State Lege to deal with school finances. The Lege fails to take any action.

4) In Sept. of 2004, 300 school districts band together to challenge the school funding and win. School funding may stop by October. Instead, a stop-gap measure is passed to keep schools open.

5) Throughout the entire 2005 session, Republicans could not get a school finance plan passed. Instead, they focus on skewing the tax laws more in the favor of rich Texans at the expense of the poor and middle class.

6)Last month, Governor Rick Perry again calls a special session because Republicans cannot get support for any school finance plan.

7)This month, a second special session is called as Democrats protect the rights of the working class through use of the filibuster. Republicans again promise results on school finance and Gov. Rick Perry promises to continue to call special sessions until the mess is settled.

Yet during this time, Texas Republicans found a way to redraw partisan House districts to give themselves a majority in both Houses of the State Lege. By the end of 2002, not only did Republicans hold that double Lege majority, but every single state-wide office.

Now, Texas Republicans claim the State of Texas as their birth-right, yet they show no ability to exert leadership in the single most important issue to Texans.

It's past time to inject a bit of horse-sense into this situation. Here's a hint: If you deal someone all the aces and they continue to fold, maybe you need a new man in the card-game.

Note to self: When in a hole, quit digging

2005-07-22T06:11:00.000-07:00

The Austin American Statesman today has a story about the documents that Texas Association for Business has produced under court order. Basically, the identity of many of the corporations that funded the TAB-backed Republican takeover of the legislature can be gleaned from the documents.

But, here's what's interesting to me about the story: The Republicans believe that the First Amendment gives businesses a right to engage in electoral politics in secret. Well, ok, they argue that the TAB wasn't *really* engaging in electoral politics because they didn't use the actual words "support" or "oppose" in their attack ads, but to even suggest that insults the intelligence of Texas voters. When a group runs an add attacking an incumbent, you don't need to say "oppose" candidate X. What's the purpose of the ad? To get voters to oppose candidate X. Otherwise, why raise money at $40,000 or so a pop from secret donors to run the ads. It's just not a credible suggestion.

At any rate, here's what Andy Taylor thinks:

"I think we made it very clear to our donors that we respect their right to anonymity," Taylor said. "We have fought the good fight to protect their right to confidentiality."

"TAB has not and will not voluntarily disclose the name of our donors," he said. "We will continue to protect their identities."

Translation: We promised the companies that bought the Republicans running your legislature that we'd protect their secret identities, and we'll go to the mat to keep their identities secret.

In other words, corporations are entitled to a special right that no one else in Texas has, the right to influence elections without disclosing which elections they are influencing. Not to mention that their illegal actions in influencing said elections should also be kept secret.

What we need is more transparency in electoral politics, but we are clearly not going to get it from Texas Republicans.

Four out of Five Ain't Bad - They're Horrible

2005-07-20T23:03:00.000-07:00

Of course, everyone in Texas knows the Texas Five - the hapless five Democratic House members targeted through redistricting for elimination. Thanks to Tom DeLay and his crookery, such men as Charlie Stenholm, Martin Frost, Max Sandlin, and Nick Lampson were tossed out on their ear. In their stead, Louis Gohmert, Ted Poe, Randy Neugebaur, and Pete Sessions now represent Texas (note: Sessions was actually already in the House, his redistricting pitted him against Martin Frost).

Now that a bit of time has passed, let's see how these honorable men are taking care of Texas:

Louis Gohmert - for the price of $10,000, Tom DeLay bought himself a truly faithful lackey. 98% of the time, Gohmert votes the way DeLay tells him to. Gohmert voted twice to weaken ethics rules to protect his Big Daddy Tom.

Ted Poe - an even better deal for DeLay because it only cost him $5,000. Again, this DeLay Lackey backed his master 98% of the time. Just like his DeLay Brother Gohmert, Poe voted twice to weaken the ethics rules to protect Big Daddy.

Randy Neugebaur - Tom got ripped off here. It cost him $15,000 to bring in only 94% of the votes he wants. While Randy voted to weaken ethics rules to protect Big Daddy, once the issue became a cable TV favorite, he flip-flopped to save face. Too bad it will be his butt on the line for being Big Daddy's least dependable goon.

Pete Sessions - although there was really no need for it, Petey took $26,644 from Tommy-boy . In return for the cash, Petey voted to weaken the ethics rules to protect his pal. Like Neugey, Petey only cares about ethics when the TV is watching. To do penance for his misdeeds, Petey donated $5,000 to DeLay's legal defense fund.

It seems to me that it would be easier, and cheaper, to just pass a law that lets Tom DeLay represent the whole state.

Of course, that would take action by the State Lege - and we all know the likelihood of the Lege doing anything but giving pay raises is non-existant.

They're something going on in Ohio that we need to be watching from Texas

2005-07-20T15:20:00.000-07:00

As we saw yesterday in the outpouring of support for Paul Hackett in Ohio-2, exponential impact is possible even when we're fighting outnumbered and outgunned.

But it's not going to happen if we tickle out a solo focus strategy. We have to shift from thinking linearly to thinking wholistically. And, no, I'm not talking granola.

The Ballot Amendments worked for the Repubs last year. How about a minimum wage Ballot Amendment? Is somebody working on that? A fair wage for a fair workday ought to have particular resonance in Ohio right now.

Governor's race should be take no prisoners, because the people of Ohio, who work hard for their money, had their hard earned tax dollars looted. Why wasn't anybody in state government looking out for them? It's not like anybody in the Rust Belt has money growing out of trees.

Except maybe at the Noe household, anyway.

Same thing with a smaller footprint in every state legislative district.

And in the Congressional races you link (and you thank the Republicans silently for being so greedy *and* stupid as to give you so many opportunities) the rot in the state government with the rot in Washington.

And the same thing people are hearing about the Feds with RoveGate they hear about the state with CoinGate. Then there's whatever the next scandal du bush turns out to be, and everywhere Ohioan's turn there's more dirty Republicans picking their pockets and controlling their lives.

Time for a change, don't you think?

Now, you've got amplification.

And here's the absolute kicker.

Every Democratic campaign has to be a values campaign.

Justice.
Fairness.
Opportunity
Safety (links crime, environment and healthcare).
.
In every township, every county, it's got to be abundantly clear who stands up for the little guy and that has to be the Democrats. If there are any in Ohio that ain't doing it, it's time for a Come To Jesus meeting and good luck in the private sector if you can't walk the talk.

I'm not talking about a calculated and clever manipulation of the news. I leave that to others.

I'm talking about the power of genuine outrage, heartfelt compassion, and determined action. They don't function as a linear sequence but act on each other in a quantum way to make things like yesterdays historic fundraising and profile raising for Paul Hackett.

Ohio, lead the way.

Xposted from We Are the Resistance
and Grow Ohio.

The Most Unpopular Senator in the Nation to Chat Today at 2:45 Central

2005-07-20T11:48:00.000-07:00

Senator John Cornyn will be online chatting with Dallas Morning News readers at 2:45 about immigration, boarder security and citizenship.

Anyone care to ask him what--in his esteemed opinion as the chairman of the Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship subcommittee--he thinks of Karl Rove and his betrayal of national security? </snark>

chat@dallasnews.com

Secret Decoder Rings and "Mainstream"

2005-07-17T06:50:00.000-07:00

George Bush has stated in his radio address that his Supreme Court nominee to replace Sandra Day O'Conner will be "mainstream"; specifically, he said, "My nominee will be a fair-minded individual who represents the mainstream of American law and American values".

Texas Republicans can have a peculiar personal definitions of words. For example, Bush stated that he would be bipartisan when he ran for his first term, that he would be a "uniter, not a divider": his first term was anything but.

More recently, Texas Republicans have argued that checks aren't cash so they didn't really engage in money-laundering.

So it's worthwhile to get out the super secret decoder ring to figure out what "mainstream" means to some Texas Republicans.

How about Montgomery County's self-professed mainstream group, the Republican Leadership Council, which attempted to get Robie Harris' books _It's Perfectly Normal_ and _It's So Amazing_ banned from the the Montgomery County Library System by pressuring the commissioners court to ban them by fiat? (At the end of the day, a community panel decided that the books did indeed NOT violate community standards, and restored the books to the shelf.)

The Republican Leadership Council is also, incidentally, an extremely vocal opponent of presenting evolutionary biology in high school science curricula.

The Republican Party in Montgomery County officially dissociated themselves from the "mainstream" RLC.

Or take the Harris County arm of the battle against evolution, the Texans for Better Science Education. They put out voters guides criticizing groups of moderate republicans as "NOT MAINSTREAM CONSERVATIVE!"

So what's the point? Anyone can call himself mainstream. Where the rubber meets the road is what they actually do. George Bush thinks judges like Janice Brown and Pricilla Owens are acceptable ... perhaps ... mainstream?

RNC consultant and Texas Republican Party vice-chair David Barton states in his audio seminar, Thinking Biblically, Speaking Secularly that it's important to use liberals' terms against us. The example he gives is "censorship". The upshot of the discussion is that when we say, don't incorporate intelligent design in the biology curriculum because the ideas don't have currency with the scientific community, call us unfair and call that censorship.

I would submit that "mainstream" is used to the same effect. The label signifies positions held by most people; in this case by most practicing jurists. But just as in anything, pay careful attention to what's actually inside the package.

Howard Dean and the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin

2005-07-16T21:25:00.000-07:00

In June, Howard Dean came to Texas. As a Texan, it is great to know that our DNC Chair is following through on the 50-state strategy.

However, as an Indian-American, one stop in Houston deeply troubled me. Dr. Dean spoke to the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI). AAPI is NOT a group that is representative of the Indian-American community at large. Basically, AAPI is a group of rich Indian-American doctors that thinks that it should be a political force that represents ALL Indian-Americans. It exists primarily for ego gratification.

Howard Dean may get large donor checks from this event. I imagine that this is the goal of this visit, for this group is most definitely NOT grassroots. Most of the membership is probably Republican. The only reason Dr. Dean was probably invited was for ego and to say, "Look how important we are!" The checks are part of this ego.

A case in point regarding AAPI is the quotation from Joshua Kurlantzick's online article in the New Republic, "Vote Getters" on May 26, 2004. In this article, Sharad Lakhanpal of the Association of American Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) is quoted in Far Eastern Economic Review as saying that Indian-Americans are becoming Republicans due to George W. Bush lack of bashing of outsourcing to India in contrast to John Kerry. With all due respect, why should Lakhanpal's opinion on outsourcing and the supposed move of Indian-Americans to the Republican Party be lent any credence by any credible political observer. Lakhanpal is a member of an association that represents Indian-American doctors, not IT professionals. He should stick to his topic of expertise: medicine. In addition, what makes Lakhanpal the authority on the political desires of the Indian-American community? Perhaps his circle of friends feels this way, but this does not necessarily constitute the viewpoint and trends of the entire Indian-American community. I do not know Lakhanpal's political persuasion, but this may be influencing his grandiose and presumptive statements.

I hope that Dr. Dean does not think that he is getting a pulse of the Indian-American community by visiting with AAPI. Hopefully, the checks are large, because that is all he will get out of this. These are large donors, not small donors.

I like Howard Dean, but if he wants to engage the Indian-American community, there are far better ways of doing it.

Protesting Sex Ed in Waco

2005-07-14T14:56:00.000-07:00

Planned Parenthood held a conference yesterday, Nobody's Fool, which is an abstinence-plus sex education program. Abstinence-plus meaning: "While it encourages teens to postpone sex, it also tells teens to be sensible and use caution if and when they do become sexually active." Teens are given medically accurate, age-appropriate information about birth control.

Naturally,
Pro-life Waco was there to protest.

Texans for Life President Kyleen Wright declined to attend the actual conference, but she spoke at the protest. She opined that Planned Parenthood would withhold vital information about condom failure rates and the dreaded HPV, which causes cervical cancer, and characterized the progrram as "foolish" and "criminal".

Back in the reality-based community, Waco Tribune-Herald staff writer consulted the CDC website:

A more complete picture of HPV infection is available through the Centers for Disease Control, which notes the vast majority of HPV infections do not result in cancer. Scientists are continuing to study condom effectiveness against HPV. Several medical studies so far have found that condom use is associated with lower rates of cervical cancer, the CDC reports.

It should not surprise that the Pro-life lobby uses misleading information to denigrate sex education. What is surprising is how thoroughly the Republican Party of Texas support the pro-life lobby's efforts to quash comprehensive sex ed in this state and why Texans are permitting this to happen.

As Chris Bell commented at the SDEC meeting a couple weeks ago, (Read the whole thing here):

With the highest teen pregnancy rate in the country, Texas Democrats need the moral courage to stand up and protect birth control and give our kids the medically accurate information they need to know so they don’t get pregnant in the first place.

Heck, as the first (only?) rabbi to have graduated from St. John's school commented a few years ago at a Texas Freedom Network workshop "They [anti-sex ed people] have blood on their hands" when they withhold medically accurate information from teenagers - information that can help to reduce sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregancies and yes, abortions, since many abortion procedures result from teen pregnancies.

Count on Senator Stepford to Defend Treason

2005-07-14T14:25:00.000-07:00

Yup, she is at it again. Even though Junior Senator John Cornyn is the most unpopular Senator in America, Kay Bailey seems to have been on a real role lately--from arguing that Durbin "armed America's enemies" to rubber-stamping insufficient funds for veterans, to reluctantly opposing lynching to blubbering about something-or-other on the Senate floor.

Senator Stepford strikes again--this time, she is giving a press conference defending Karl Rove's betrayal of American security during a time of war--a war that its proponents equate with the struggle against German fascism. Click on the link. Give her a call.

And please, Texas, wake up and throw these completely compromised corruptocrats out--before it gets any worse, preferably.

Money Laundering and DeLay Allies

2005-07-12T09:50:00.000-07:00

Austin American-Statesman:

State District Judge Bob Perkins today said he believes two officials with Texans for a Republican Majority should stand trial on felony charges of money laundering.

Wow, the TRMPAC scandal is really starting to get out of Tom DeLay's control.

If his allies in Texas start falling due to money laundering convictions, and other violations of state law, how long before Tom DeLay get hauled in front of a judge to answer for himself?

Hopefully sooner than later.

Cross posted from The Supreme Irony of Life ...

Ted Poe steps in it

2005-07-12T06:56:00.000-07:00

Ted Poe, the Republican representing the 2nd Congressional District of Texas, wrote this yesterday at Arianna Huffington's blog under the headline "Has the Supreme Court Lost its Way?". At heart it's just another rambling right-wing screed against the judiciary, but it's also remarkable in its ignorance considering the source:

As a former felony court judge in Houston, Texas for over 20 years, I used the Constitution and made decisions that affected real people – defendants, victims, and the community. I took the same oath as our Supreme Court justices and never rendered a ruling based upon the sentiments of another nation. I determined whether individuals should lose their property, liberty, and freedom. On occasion, my decisions even resulted in those individuals forfeiting their lives. Nonetheless, every ruling was rooted in the United States Constitution, which those who came to my court unquestionably knew constitutes the basis of all American law... not the judge’s personal opinion or the holdings of a foreign nation; not the British way or the European way; but rather the American way. Had I used any other law but that of the Constitution, I would have been removed from the bench and rightfully so.

The overarching thrust of this rant -- decrying the influence of international law on American jurisprudence -- is specious. Surely Poe has knows enough of law history to recall that Franklin, Hamilton, et al drew inspiration -- if not entire passages -- from the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights, and other foreign sources.

And the portion I emphasized above is just plain foolish. Unless the death penalty appears somewhere in the Constitution, then Poe was just another "activist judge" doing his best to interpret the Framers' intent, and not the strict constructionist he believes himself to be.

Poe was nationally renowned for his creative punishment sentencings while he was a judge locally, and was widely known as a "tough-on-crimer" (even if he let a lot of criminals off the hook after the fact). "Poetic Justice", as it were. I'm not sure where Poe found constitutional authority to order child molesters to put signs on their front doors advertising their convictions, or command drunken drivers to walk at the scene of their crime with sandwich boards publicizing their circumstances, or force people to take out newspaper ads apologizing for their dastardly deeds.

Nor how that ensured the "predictability, consistency, and uniformity of justice".

Then there's this:

Having been down in the mud, blood, and beer with real people, I have witnessed the Constitution’s impact on the lives of Americans. I submit that looking to foreign court decisions is as relevant as using the writings of Reader’s Digest, a Sears and Roebuck catalog, a horoscope, my grandmother’s recipe for the common cold, tea leaves, star gazing, or the local gossip at the barbershop in Cut N’ Shoot, Texas.

I have to wonder here if Poe's father actually named him Sue ...

Maybe while the judge works out his own private personal hypocrisy he can go huntin' with Ag Commissioner Jerry Patterson.

Or sumpin'.

Strayhorn has $7 million -- and she'll have to spend it all

2005-07-11T17:51:00.000-07:00

Carole Strayhorn raised $1.5 million in the first ten days of June (.pdf file) -- that was before she declared -- and has more than $7 million on hand in her race to wrest the GOP gubernatorial nomination away from God's Own MoFo'n Governor, Rick Perry.

But she's going to need every bit of that and more to win:

Texas Republican primary voters would support incumbent Governor Rick Perry over State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn by a two-to-one margin, according to a recent poll.

Since the summer of 2001, Montgomery and Associates, an independent research firm based in Austin, Texas, has been running surveys tracking statewide political issues and elected officials. This survey was conducted from June 27 – July 1, 2005 and tested 905 Texans who had voted in at least one out of the past two Republican primaries. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.3%. Montgomery & Associates conducted the survey independently, and has not been paid by any candidate or party. In partisan political races, the firm works for Democratic candidates.

(From Harvey Kronberg's Quorum Report, 7/11 4:39 pm entry).

Pop more corn, please ...

Alberto Gonzales Depends on Supremes Decision on Enemy Combatants, Apparently Hasn't Read It

2005-07-11T17:15:00.000-07:00

Before Alberto Gonzales became U.S. Attorney General, he was Counsel to the President. As such, in February 2004 he went out to defend the Administration's position on enemy combatants, that they be held indefinitely without charge or hearing:

The first, Yaser Hamdi, is a Saudi national who was a part of a Taliban military unit that surrendered to Northern Alliance forces in a battle near Konduz, Afghanistan in late 2001. He was armed with an AK-47 assault rifle when he surrendered. He has admitted that he went to Afghanistan to train with and fight for the Taliban. Following his capture, a U.S. military screening team confirmed that Hamdi indeed met the criteria for enemy combatants over whom the U.S. forces were taking control. Afterwards, military authorities learned of records indicating that Hamdi, although a Saudi national, had been born in Louisiana. He was transferred to a naval brig in the United States where he remains detained.

The status of "enemy combatants" was established by U.S. vs Quirin, which accords them the status of spies, not soldiers on the field of battle, and thus not protected as prisoners of war. The combatants in question were German saboteurs who stole upon U.S. shores in uniform, then claiming POW status when arrested as spies. The Supreme Court found against them.

Yaser Hamdi was, by Judge Gonzales's own admission, captured on the field of battle, clearly bearing arms in the defense of Afghanistan. Nothing from U.S. vs. Quirin is applicable. When Afghanistan was defeated, he should have been released as any other prisoner of war would be returned to their home country.

It is unclear whether Judge Gonzales (or anyone else in the Bush Administration) has read U.S. vs. Quirin, as he does not quote it directly. But to neglect fundamental homework on such an important legal point does not bode well in a potential Supreme Court nominee.

Help the Rich Keep their Mansions But Keep Poor Kids out of School

2005-07-07T08:38:00.000-07:00

The State Lege is now halfway through its multi-million dollar boondoggle known as a "Special Session".

The good news is that your hard-earned money has not been spent in vain. Rather it has been spent in finding a way to give progressively more tax relief to richer Texans.

How? By approving House Bill 3.

If HB 3 becomes law, the maximum property tax assessed on property will drop from $1.50 per $100 to $1.23 in 2006 and then to $1.10 in 2007.

Whoopee! Tax relief!

Beware the naked man who offers you the shirt off his back.

If you own property that is valued at $50,000, you will save a whole $135 next year. Meanwhile, someone who owns a nice million dollar mansion will save $1,500.

Pretty neat, huh? Who do you think needs the money more? Let's play a game where we assume you buy a house that is valued at 2.5 times your annual income. That means the $50,000 house belongs to someone who makes $20,000 a year - which works out to around $10 an hour. The million dollar home then belongs to someone who makes $400,000 a year - or around $200 per hour. That's not bad work, when you can find it.

So the working guy, grimy with sweat and sand, gets a cut of eleven dollars and a quarter every month. The guy sitting in his office gets more than two and a half times that per week. So, when the hard-hat crew gets off work, they can have a beer and a half every Friday, thanks to the Republican leadership. Meanwhile, the suit gets a night out on the town with his wife - or whoever he decides to spend his money on.

But of course, you don't get something from nothing. The working guy will pay higher sales taxes, a new tax on auto repairs (hey, a new tax break for shade tree mechanics!), and cigarettes. The rich guy will pay all of that, too - potentially. However, he has more money than month - so some of his money doesn't pay sales taxes at all. His new car doesn't need repairs, either. Smoking, of course, everyone CAN do, but in general, the wealthier you are, the less you smoke. Too busy counting your money, I suppose.

Better yet - wait for it - no additional money is going to education! Isn't that a hoot? Oh man, I'm splitting a gut here! An education bill that doesn't address school funding problems. Only a Republican could do it with a straight face.

Meanwhile, a few blocks away, at the only branch of the Republican government that is forced to deal with reality (sometimes)...

329 school districts have banded together to argue that the maximum tax rate on assessments amounts to an illegal state tax. Oh, cool. Now all that hard work for the "special session" (reference to "special olympics" omitted) may be for naught because if the Justices agree with the schools the whole thing has to start over from square one.

The Republican legal defense is predictably thin and antagonistic towards the Court. They claim the matter is a, "political question that the Texas Constitution assigns to the Texas Legislature and not the courts." In other words, our Solicitor General just looked at the Court and said, "This is none of your business."

Apparently wondering if the Republican Lege was thinking about abbrogating its responsibility to provide an education system, Justice Wainwright asked if maybe that meant the Lege could cut off funding after fourth grade. The Republican Party Line: "Yes."

Maybe that's how they plan to get more money to schools and cut the High School dropout rate. Eliminate High School, and you have no drop-outs. Then you take that money and spend it all on fourth graders...

Rep. Krusee Leaves Constituents Thinking He Doesn't Work For Them

2005-07-06T11:21:00.000-07:00

Today I was alerted to an editorial by what I will call a concerned citizen of Williamson County. The editorial is entitled, Krusee should protect interests of constituents . To me that is a sad title. I say that not to disparage the writer but because that is the state of our representation in Williamson County. That we have to remind our representatives in an editorial that their duty is to the constituents! I said it before and I'll say it again, this is what happens when there is no accountability in government. This was written by a resident of Coupland which in the recent past, "..has been one of the most extreme rigidly Republican strongholds ever to be encountered". One would think, that being the case, that the Republican leadership in this county would be responsive to the residents of Coupland. If you read the editorial you will see that, sadly, is not the case. Here are a few key parts of the editorial:

Rarely have I heard the words, "I don't know," more often than during the June 27 town hall meeting hosted by the Coupland Civic Organization to discuss proposed rail lines through the Coupland area. The guest speakers, County Commissioner Frankie Limmer and Wendy Reilly and Jason Nelson, chief of staff and legislative aide to Rep. Mike Krusee, were consistently unable - or unwilling, as has been speculated by many in the community - to provide any information about prospective routes or timelines for the proposed rail lines.

[and]

One would think that our elected officials would be doing everything in their power to protect their constituents from such a fearsome local and national climate. Unfortunately, they aren't.

[and]

After sponsoring all of this legislation, one would think that Rep. Krusee would be keeping pretty close tabs on the actions that TxDOT has been taking after being granted so many new powers. Judging by the meeting in Coupland ..., this is not the case either. Staff members from Krusee's office were unsure of where the rail line would go - other than somewhere between two old rail lines located along Mopac Expressway and SH 95 - and unaware of even the most basic timetable for when construction would begin.

[and]

Instead of authoring bills that will help facilitate the destruction of this beautiful and historic area and turn "miles and miles of Texas" into miles and miles of asphalt and railroad ties, he (Rep. Krusee) should be doing things that benefit the communities he serves.

Go read the whole thing it's great. Thank you Margaret Garry for writing this editorial and thanks to that concerned citizen for letting me know of this.

Rumors on the Internets; Rove indictment "late this week or early next"

2005-07-06T02:54:00.000-07:00

From Josh Frank at Dissident Voice:

Occasionally I get emails from Washington folks who work on the Hill claiming to possess juicy insider digs on our public servants and their corporate paymasters. I usually delete said emails, as I don't want to be responsible for propagating dirty rumors or false information that can't be corroborated. I'd rather let Judith Miller and the New York Times do that. Nonetheless, in the past 24 hours I have been contacted by three separate congressional Democrats in Washington, by email and later phone, who all say the same thing: Karl Rove is about to be indicted.

All this comes on the heels of events that transpired over the weekend, as two different individuals, journalist Michael Isikoff and political commentator Lawrence O'Donnell, both claimed that Karl Rove was responsible for leaking the identity of an undercover CIA officer's identity to Marc Cooper of Time magazine. As Isikoff of Newsweek wrote on July 3:

“The e-mails surrendered by Time Inc., which are largely between Cooper and his editors, show that one of Cooper's sources was White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, according to two lawyers who asked not to be identified because they are representing witnesses sympathetic to the White House. Cooper and a Time spokeswoman declined to comment. But in an interview with Newsweek, Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove had been interviewed by Cooper for the article.”

If what Isikoff and O'Donnell claim is indeed true, it still does not necessarily mean that Rove was also Robert Novak's inside guy, although it surely raises suspicion. The indictment, as I am told, will most likely be of felony weight. In fact, Karl Rove may be accused of perjury, as Bush's top strategist told a grand jury that he was not responsible for leaking Plame's identity to Time. So the charge may not be for leaking top-secret information to the press, but for perjuring himself.

Sources also all say that this indictment is likely to come down either late this week or early next week. Of course Rove's lawyer denies that his client ever “knowingly” handed over classified information to the media, or is the “target” of any investigation. Perhaps Rove “unknowingly” leaked the information, and he's the “subject” rather than a “target” of an investigation. Time will tell.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who has been leaked this information either. Over at Redstate, a right-wing Internet blog, one member who calls himself “Ohsure”, also claims that “[four] Great sources confirmed” the matter, and later added: “I not only don't do this, I have never done this. But here it is; ‘Karl Rove will be indicted late this, or early next week.’ I'm trusting a source. So either I am made a [sic] into an overzealous horses a**, or..., I have good sources and may be more trusted to get these things right.”

Ditto.

And as my friend PW has surmised, the fact that Bush has apparently counseled with and considered retaining a private criminal defense attorney with a specialty in defending Republican scofflaws suggests there's a pony buried somewhere underneath all this manure.

(cross-posted at Brains and Eggs)

Cornyn supports Roves remarks against liberals

2005-07-03T08:45:00.000-07:00

On June 23, 2005 I sent the following letter to Senators John Cornyn and Kay Baily Hutchinson - Letter to Sens Cornyn and Hutchinson. On June 30th I got the following reply from Sen. Cornyn:

Dear Mr. Xxxxxxx:

Thank you for contacting me about recent comments by White House advisor Karl Rove. I appreciate having the benefit of your comments on this matter.

As you know, Mr. Rove's speech addressed the disparate approaches to prosecuting the War on Terror. In responding to the events of September 11, 2001, some groups urged restraint and disagreed with the decision to use military force in Afghanistan, preferring instead to rely on international law to indict terrorists. I supported President Bush's approach that America must aggressively marshal all of its available resources—diplomatic, law enforcement, intelligence, economic, mlitary—to wage a War on Terror and the extremist ideology of hatred. And I concur with his recent remarks observing the one-year anniversary of the transfer of Iraqi sovereignty reminding us that “we either will deal with terrorism and extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us.”

Today, we are striving to replace terrorism, despotism, and oppression with freedom, and we will fight the enemies of freedom wherever necessary. As chairman of the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am working with the President and my congressional colleagues to secure the safety of our nation and our citizens abroad against the threat of terrorism.

I appreciate having the opportunity to represent the interests of Texans in the United States Senate. Thank you for taking the time to contact me.

Sincerely,

JOHN CORNYN
United States Senator

517 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Tel: (202) 224-2934
Fax: (202) 228-2856
http://www.cornyn.senate.gov

In other words, Sen. Cornyn agrees with and supports what Karl Rove stated.

[Cross-posted from Politics Plus Stuff - an Online Magazine]

TEXVAC under attack

2005-07-01T20:16:00.000-07:00

While most of us this Fourth of July weekend are celebrating independence, our country's remaining freedoms and honoring the service of our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tom DeLay's followers are attacking a group of North Texans who have come together to have a voice in state government.

The Free Enterprise Fund, yet another Washington DC-based DeLay front organization, has announced it will air a second national television ad attacking democracy. This time they're specifically attacking Travis County district attorney Ronnie Earle and the Texas Values in Action Coalition. TEXVAC is a political action committee dedicated to returning honest, fair-minded progressives to all levels of state and local government. They are not involved in federal races or national issues and, unlike Tom DeLay, do not accept corporate contributions.

It's interesting to note that on the very day the US House ethics committee announced it will begin meeting to finally begin investigating DeLay’s unethical and illegal behavior, the Free Enterprise Fund launched a second TV ad to deflect the media's attention.

As the battle for the Supreme Court begins, it's important that we not let our famous homegrown right-wing freaks try to fly under the radar, catapulting their propaganda.

Update (7/1): Burnt Orange Report has more.

Madame Chairman Supports Our Troops

2005-06-29T00:00:00.000-07:00

Jim S at the Daily Kos tells us that the Bush administration has finally ponied up the truth: they've been sweeping the health care needs of 103,000 veterans--four times as many as the VA had admitted even existed--under the rug in order to avoid paying their doctor bills.

Even Republican House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis now says, "It borders on stupidity. ... I think someone was hoping they could hide the ball for a while."

VA Undersecretary for Health Jonathan Perlin finally copped to the administration's shell game last week when he testified, "We weren't on the mark from the actuarial model" -- meaning that instead of frittering away a promised $1.6 billion on such fripperies as prosthetic limbs for maimed veterans, they've kited the money around from one account to another to make it look as though our troops were really being provided for.

Veterans' organizations and our returning troops who go begging for health care haven't been fooled. Steve Robertson of the Disabled American Veterans summed it up bluntly, charging that BushCo and its Congressional minions push shortchanging policies that "subdivide veterans into little groups, the ones that 'deserve' and the ones who 'don't deserve.'"

In fact, the Washington Post reports that "Leaders of the American Legion, the Paralyzed Veterans and the Disabled American Veterans all noted a striking partisan division in Congress on veterans issues, with Democrats giving them much more support than Republicans."

But the VA's game of three card monte still made the Secretary of Veterans Affairs cocky enough to write this:

Hon. Kay Bailey Hutchison
Chairman
Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, Committee on Appropriations
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC

Dear Madam Chairman:

... I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the consideration and interest you have shown VA through your leadership in this year's appropriation hearing and many other endeavors on behalf of our veterans. I very much appreciate your proactive involvement and commitment to providing for those who have served this country with such dedication.

I write to you today to address certain issues regarding VA's FY 2005 fiscal situation. I know some have said that VA must have emergency supplemental funds to continue providing the services for which veterans depend on us--timely health care and delivery of benefits.
[snip]
It does not, however, indicate a "dire emergency". I can assure you that VA does not need emergency supplemental funds in FY 2005 to continue to provide the timely, quality service that is always our goal.

[snip]

I look forward to continuing to work with you as we strive to provide the very best service possible for those veterans who depend on us the most. Thank you again for your leadership in this important area.

Sincerely yours,

R. James Nicholson

That very letter was used by Sen. Hutchison and most of the Republican majority to excuse their repeated refusal to give our vets the health care we owe them, even as Sen. Patty Murray and the rest of the Senate Democrats protested until they were blue in the face--along with AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Military Order of the Purple Heart, and the American Legion--that Republicans were shortchanging and neglecting our returning troops.

Now that those 103,000 "hidden" vets have surfaced and made the papers, Sen. Hutchison ("shocked, shocked I say" to learn that they exist anywhere except in the fevered imaginations of traitorous liberal Democrats) is quick to reassure us that "We can never fall short on our promises to those who have sacrificed so much."

As our dedicated senator recently remarked about her desire to keep helping President Bush in the Senate, "We have a president who is trying very hard to do the right thing under very difficult circumstances ... I want to be there to try to make sure that we do not waver in our support."

I'd say that I hope Senator Hutchison supports Dubya better than she supports our troops ... but that would be wrong.

Let's give a big Texas Welcome

2005-06-28T20:23:00.000-07:00

to UUA Moderator Gini Courter (She's the one in the stars and stripes on slide 26. Gini came out as a member of the reality-based community in Fort Worth Thursday night. She was discussing the UU commitment to family, and she noted that, "we stand for reality-based family values". Read about and view the opening ceremony here.

Oh, yeah. And go back to look at the slideshow. That event was "the Prom you never had", and it was opened to GLBT's in the larger Fort Worth community. It was marvelous to see in these times, with all the things that are going on, that for a few hours we could create a safe space for GLBT's.

This is sort of the opposite of what we normally cover, but it occurred in Texas, and I thought we deserve some good news.