Fort Bend ISD Proposes 3.5 cent Tax Increase

Coming on the heals of a Fort Bend Central Appraisal District policy of raising the appraised values of property in the county by an average of 10.8% at a time when property value – and home sales - are sharply lower due to the recession, now we hear that the Fort Bend ISD school board wants to raise their tax rate by 3.5 cents per $100 assessed value.

When will these tax and spend Democrats ever learn? When in a tough economic downturn, the last thing you want to do is raise taxes.

Oh, no . . . wait. Fort Bend County is still firmly in the hands of the Republican Party isn’t it. Republicans still dominate county government. A Republican majority still sits on the school board.

So much for making generalities based on party affiliation.

Because just as it happened at the federal level, where Republicans opened up the hen house doors and let the foxes have full run of the place – putting us all in a very uncomfortable spot, so has it happened at the local level.

At the local level county government has granted an obscene amount of property tax breaks to businesses so that they will move into the county. Trouble is, when you grow the county, county expenses go up. Roads need to be built and maintained. Infrastructure needs to support new growth. Where to get the funds for all of this if you can’t get it from the very entities responsible for the new costs? Get it from those who are already here.

But since Fort Bend County is run by the Republican Party, don’t make it look like you are raising taxes. Raise the assessed values.

Never mind the fact that home insurance companies will take these new values and raise their premiums as well.

Never mind that Fort Bend ISD will also take these new assessed values as the meter against which they assess their taxes.

Truthfully, the school board is between a rock and a hard place. They have to service a debt that was taken on during an unprecedented growth period (partly, courtesy of the county’s tax abatement policies), and have had to adopt a budget where more is being spent than coming in. Fort Bend ISD runs on a net deficit budget.

Given all of this, and given that the district is severely limited in the number of areas where it can make budget cuts, they don’t really have any choice here.

That won’t stop the tax-averse right wingers from coming out in force for this evening’s bi-weekly school board meeting. They will be there. These people who demand a first-rate education for their children, but simply don’t want to pay for it, will be there shaking their fingers at people who really don’t have much of a choice here.

Really, it is better to lay the blame where all of these problems originate. Place the blame for this mess where it truly needs to be placed. Place the blame at the feet of a pro-business, anti-homeowner county government.

And start thinking about getting these rascals booted out of office.

Is the Recession Resolving the Illegal Alien Problem?

Whenever they want Americans to talk about anything other than what is important in their lives, Republicans will haul out the issue of illegal immigration. But now, according to this MSNBC article the issue just may be resolving itself.

Because of the recession.

“Immigrants jump back and forth across borders all the time, and the recession-driven movement from the United States to points south is not yet registering as a mass exodus. But it is increasingly easy to find workers who have decided that they are better off weathering the downturn in their ancestral homelands.”

“In Washington, the Guatemalan Embassy reports a substantial uptick in the number of nationals walking in to apply for travel documents. At U.S. airports, airline agents and government officials describe increased winking and nodding as illegal immigrants ‘self-deport’ with no hassle from authorities.”

“‘When somebody is already showing that they intend to depart the United States, it doesn't serve any interest for us to serve them a notice to appear before an immigration court,’ said Lloyd Easterling, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. ‘That isn't good stewardship of tax dollars.’”

“At Valdemar Travel in Takoma Park, the proportion of one-way air tickets south has reached unprecedented levels, nearing 60 percent of the firm's business earlier this year, manager Devin Reyes said.”

Wouldn’t that be a shame if Republicans lost the “bloody shirt” that they like to wave about? And it’s ironic that the thing that appears to be resolving this issue is the thing that they rail about in the strongest of terms: that unemployment continues to rise despite the TARP and Stimulus Package.

“Sicko” Needs to Be Seen on Public Airwaves

It has been two years since Michael Moore debuted Sicko, his outstanding documentary on how health care is so broken in America. I had a hard time finding a theater here in Red Texas where I could go and see it. I finally found one in Houston. I got there just before the movie started after driving through a blinding rain that slowed freeway traffic to a crawl.

The theater was about a third full. I found myself sitting in front of someone who saw universal health care as nothing short of out and out socialism and was so vocal about it that I was considering moving. But my seat was a good one and the guy did finally shut up when the previews ended and the movie began.

Moore did a masterful job of explaining the problem and showing how France, Canada and the UK have it all solved. After it ended I came across the same guy who sat behind me coming out of the restroom. He was so critical of universal health care at the beginning of the movie, but he came out a changed man. “We have to do something about this. We have to tell people to see this movie,” is what he was saying.

This convinced me that Michael Moore’s Sicko could become more than a theater blockbuster, it could also be a colossal secret weapon that could help turn the tide and get the Blue Dogs to stand in line and support passage of meaningful universal health care legislation.

And now it appears we have our best chance to get it done this year. But we still need a final nudge to get America talking about universal health care. We need to start a conversation.

We need Michael Moore to release his movie to the public airwaves.

We need as many people as we can get to see this movie so that what happened to that one guy in that Houston theater 2 years ago can happen in television-watching households across the nation.

I checked.

Michael Moore’s Sicko is still being aired on premium cable channels. The next time it will air in the next two weeks is at 8 PM on Thursday, July 16^th.

On The Movie Channel.

Now, it’s none of my business what Michael Moore wants to do with his property. That is his concern. All I am saying is that if he wants his film to do more than enrich him, if he wants it to actually be a force for positive change, he needs to release Sicko to the public airwaves and let those who haven’t seen this very persuasive movie, see it.

And he needs to do it soon.

What WAS the CIA Hiding?

This curious tiff between Democrats CIA Director Leon Panetta and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, about Pelosi’s contention that the CIA doesn’t keep Congress informed on all of their activities, took a new turn this week.

On June 24^th Panetta met with the CIA’s Congressional oversight committee to tell them something that the CIA has been doing something and not informing Congress about it.

What it was they weren’t telling Congress about no one is saying. Mainly because, unlike Karl Rove, these committee members don’t reveal secrets entrusted to them.

All we know is that it was stunning news.

And that can’t be good.

One of the committee members, Rep. Anna Eshoo, (D-Calif.), did have these things to say to the Huffington Post that reveals how alarmingly appalling the activity must be:

“Asked if this was the basis of her letter to Panetta, Eshoo said she could not discuss what was a ‘highly classified program.’ She did, however, note that when Panetta told House Intelligence Committee members what it was that had been kept secret, ‘the whole committee was stunned, even Republicans.’ A Republican committee member told Who Runs Gov's Greg Sargent it was something they hadn't heard before.”

Today, this has fueled the speculation that the activity was none other than the one reported on by Seymour Hersh back in March.

That the CIA ran an assassination squad that answered directly to Dick Cheney.

Wait. I read that novel. I did, I really did. It was called First Team. It was written by Larry Bond.

Said Hersh last March:

“Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination wing, essentially. And it’s been going on and on and on. And just today in the Times there was a story saying that its leader, a three-star admiral named McRaven, ordered a stop to certain activities because there were so many collateral deaths. It’s been going in—under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or to the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving.”

Now I remember when all of this was discussed and I gave it little credence because, as I said, I had already read about this in a book of fiction. It seemed fictitious to me.

The 3-star’s name, McRaven, was just too good to be true. This is the perfect name for the commander of a covert CIA hit squad.

But now I just don’t know anymore. If you reveal covert activities to the oversight committee, and even the Republicans on the committee are stunned, it has to be as bad as the Hersh story.

Or maybe even worse.

The Aryan Super Race: Obviously Not in America

I was just thumbing through You Tube videos this afternoon, and I don’t know why I clicked on the video embedded below, because the Fox News icon in the lower left corner told me that I wasn’t going to have any fun listening to their drivel, but I did anyway.

And nearly fell out of my chair.

One of the regulars on Fox and Friends a racist tool by the name of Brian Kilmeade made an astounding Hitlerian racist statement. Go ahead and watch it. I’ll wait.

Shocking, isn’t it? Fox News supports the kind of racism, and the kind of racist that the Allies fought against in World War II.

Swedes and Finns don’t marry outside of their “species,” says Kilmeade. They are “pure”.

I looked around and it all comes from a recently released Swedish study that people who stay married are less likely to contract Alzheimer’s Disease. How Kilmeade took that and turned it into a pitch for racial purity is a mystery.

But I bet it has to do with the fact that this guy’s brain is so absolutely fizzing with racist tirades that when a neuron fires in that brain, all roads lead to Mein Kampf.

SBOE: Perry Picks Another Young Earth Creationist - Gail Lowe

As if on cue, with evangelical nitwit Cynthia Dunbar’s signal that she would be “seriously hesitant” to take an appointment to the most powerful position in Texas education, Chairman of the state’s school board, Rick Perry went back to the rightwing Republican playbook and drew out #57: when your first worst choice fails to go along, go to your second worst choice.

Go with the other young Earth creationist. The one who cites a nonexistent scientific principle: “the theory of graduated accumulated geologic columns.”

Go with Lowe.

Go with another person who has not spent one minute in front of a classroom in Texas feeding knowledge to eager young minds.

Go with another person who puts her own personal beliefs on the table as something that should be taught as truths in the classrooms of Texas’ public school districts.

Go with Lowe.

But mainly, go with Gail Lowe because she is not up for re-election next year. She beat off a Democratic challenger and a Libertarian challenger in 2008 with a 64% vote. A vote record that is not likely to change anytime soon. District 14 is up in the northeast corner of Texas, the area that forms the southern tip of the so-called “redneck crescent” on this now famous New York Times demographic map of the 2008 general election.

Now Gail Lowe faces the same challenge that Cynthia Dunbar does, especially if she maintains her anti-American viewpoints: confirmation in 2011 should she be re-appointed after the term of her appointment ends in February of that year.

But in going with Lowe, at least Perry won’t have to undergo the embarrassment of having his appointed chairman get turned out of office in 2010, because the last time I looked there were long lines forming on both the left and the right. Long lines of people who want to send Cynthia Dunbar back to home schooling her children in Richmond.

Cynthia Dunbar to Governor Perry: No Thanks Rick

I love irony.

And in the story that appeared at the Fort Bend Herald’s website, I find irony oozing out of my keyboard.

Cynthia Dunbar, Texas State Board of Education Member from District 10, my district, was recently in the news when her name came up as a proposed replacement for rejected SBOE Chairman Don McLeroy.

I know, I missed it too. The story was “Michaeled” and “Palinized.”

But now it appears that she doesn’t want the appointment. That she is “seriously hesitant” about receiving the appointment.

But that’s not the irony. Oh no, that’s not even close to ironic. The irony is her stated reason why she doesn’t want the job.

From an email sent to the Fort Bend Herald:

“‘I would have to cease making and arguing motions in order to sit as chair,’ Dunbar said in an e-mail response to questions Thursday. ‘This is a vitally important activity and something at which I have been very effective. Numerous substantive actions have been taken by the board based upon my motions and I would be forced to play a less active and less vocal role if I were to serve as chair.’”

There, do you see it? Do you see how flighty this bird is?

Don McLeroy, as unconfirmed chairman of the State Board of Education virtually drove the conversation in the recent Science TEKS brouhaha. He set the agenda. He was the most active participant in the board’s decisions.

And by far the most vocal.

So all of those arguments, that being a mere board Member is far more vitally important than being its chairman is specious reasoning. The irony is all the reasons she gives for not wanting the appointment are reasons she should take it. It is one great big bully pulpit.

No, here is the real reason Dunbar doesn’t want the job.

The Senate would have to confirm her in 2011. And we all know what the State Senate thinks of religious nutjobs who try to push their personal religion on Texas public school children. As a mere Member, the Senate does nothing with her position, as chairman, they confirm the appointment.

Something we all know, as does Cynthia Dunbar, they would never do.

First SMU, Now Texas Tech

You really have to wonder about the people who run the institutions of higher education in Texas. You have to deeply wonder if they themselves were also educated in Texas.

And I suspect that is true.

Because first we have Southern Methodist University’s admins falling all over themselves trying to attract the George W. Bush Presidential Liberry to its campus, taking out a strip mall including a La Madeleine boutique restaurant as discussed here.

And now we have in the news that the administration at Texas Tech has successfully closed on a deal with the discredited former Attorney General of the Bush Regime, Alberto Gonzales, to come and teach there.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“Gonzales will teach a fall junior-level course on contemporary issues in the executive branch and will also help the Texas Tech University System bolster student diversity at Tech and Angelo State University in San Angelo, the system chancellor, Kent Hance, said Tuesday.”

So Texas Tech is going to hire a war criminal to teach government policy issues to future Texas politicians. Well, obviously they have been paying attention to the polls and saw the dip in the Obama Administration approval ratings. The tide is turning and it is time to train up a new generation of criminals to run our government some day.

That’s some long-term planning.

The only good thing about this is that I get to embed in the blog one of my favorite You Tube videos of all time, perhaps conveying my opinion of Texas Tech in a general sense.

Only God Can Judge Me

In the news out of Denton, Texas we hear that a fan of Jesus and tattoos takes his recently acquired tat seriously to heart.

Said gentleman ran up a $200 tab getting a brand new tattoo similar to the one shown on the right, praying hands with the words “Only God Can Judge Me” emblazoned around them.

And when presented with the bill, our pious tat-bearing Christian presented his charge card which was promptly declined by the charge company. And possibly in remembrance of what the Savior of the World said about moneychangers, our pious tat-loving Christian, along with his newly acquired message, promptly ran out of the tattoo parlor.

After all, if the message is to be believed there is only one entity in the entire universe that can judge this guy. And how could He fault a guy who volunteers to be a human billboard to bring His message to this sinful world?

The Inside Man

Oh, this is timely. I just had a dental procedure today and I am not up to my usual drollery. The Lone Star Project, however, has bailed me out.

They just put up on You Tube a short movie about the scandalous behavior of Harris County Tax Assessor Collector Leo Vasquez (although I am betting that former Tax Collector Paul Bettencourt has his dirty little hands in this, too), who harbors an “Inside Man” in protecting Associate Voter Registrar Ed Johnson.

Johnson is actually a Republican paid political consultant who works for State Rep Duane Bohac’s political consulting company Campaign Data Systems, previously blogged on here a month ago.

He is directly responsible for 83,000 Harris County voters not being able to vote last November.

And very probably responsible for the election of several of his clients through his work as “The Inside Man” at the Harris County registrar’s office.

You just can’s miss this, it makes the case for voter suppression (and even voter fraud) so well to a dark and ominous music score, you have to see it.

So here it is embedded below.

The Best Part

In my own opinion, Jennifer Hudson’s rendition of Will You Be There was the best part of today’s memorial of Michael Jackson.

It is from a time that I actually still listened to his music.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

A Stranger in a Strange Land

I‘m sitting here banging on the keyboard while Michael Jackson’s memorial services is being aired live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles, the city of my birth.

I find the memorial both moving and entertaining.

Contrast the public outpouring there with the public invective here in the South. Here in the former Confederate States of America we still have the same racist crazies that we had 150 years ago.

In short, while I have some friends here, I do not feel comfortable living here among these people.

One day I will fix that.

Here is just a taste of what there is out there: comments on Jackson’s memorial service on The Houston Chronicle’s website:

“Perhaps after today, the news will not devote such excessive time to this subject. It has been too much from day one, non stop coverage for hours. Ridiculous. Have the service, move on.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting the greatest show on earth. Send in the clowns for the real 3 ring circus that was Michael Jackson.”

“I understand the circus comes to Staples Center immediately after Jackson’s “memorial service.” Oh wait . . . Jackson’s memorial service IS the circus!”

“freak show!”

“Final act? No way....the liberal media will milk this and all related stories & news about this freak for at least the next 6 months.”

“Hell will burn a lot hotter with all that added plastic down there.”

“California is bankrupt and now taxpayers are going to have to pay the tab for all this police protection for a dysfunctional, self-indulgent over rated personality that most probably practiced pedophilia?”

“So much atttention for the iconic pedifile...”

“Is a dead pervert called a prevert?”

Ad nauseum.

60

Al Franken was sworn in today as junior Senator from the state of Minnesota. Now, assuming that Leader Harry Reid can move this herd of 60 cats in the same direction we have finally put the fluffy angry white man Party of No in its place. Here is the swearing in ceremony, and announcement of the committees Franken will be a member of, from You Tube. CSPAN is having problems today.

Notice the 2 minutes of applause at the end?

Notice the empty seats?

Probably about 40.