Houston – We Have a Problem…

Or more specifically, Congressman Pete Olson has a problem. Pete Olson is being primaried by the Tea Party, and the Tea Party is painting Olson as an “establishment incumbent.”

This has been so under the radar, my radar. I had no idea that the Tea Party was not pleased with the voting record of the Olsonmeister. Particularly I remember at a Tea Party rally in 2009 Pete Olson spoke there and had a big trunk open in front of him where he was accepting donations of tea bags that he was going to take back to DC with him.

The Tea Partiers applauded Olson that afternoon.

But now it seems Olson has drawn a challenger, a “Constitutional Conservative” (for that read “Obama hater”) in the person of Barbara J. Carlson.

She has a campaign website that you can find here. On it you will read that she is a mother, a widow, a businesswoman, an author, a widow, against Obamacare, and a college graduate. Oh, and did I mention she is also a widow?

What does that have to do with anything? Is Pete Olson a heartless boor because he chooses to run a campaign against a widow? Ooooh. He IS isn’t he?

You will also learn that Barbara Carlson won the Saddle Up Texas straw poll against Olson in a squeaker 51.5% to 48.5%. I never heard of the Saddle Up Texas straw poll. But apparently the preferred presidential candidate of the voters who participated in this straw poll was none other than Ron Paul.

And you’ll also learn that Ms. Carlson keeps showing up at Republican candidates’ forums and Pete Olson doesn’t. On the website you read this:

“Monday evening, February 13, was the first congressional debate for District 22, held at the Alvin Senior Center. While Barbara J. Carlson arrived early and was prepared, unfortunately, Olson was a no show, not even extending a courteous apology to both the Alvin Area Republican Women’s Club and the Bayou Republican Women’s Club for his no show. Both clubs went to great lengths and personal financial outlay in preparing the excellent homemade food for this all-important forum.”

Oh, Pete, Pete, Pete. Say it isn’t so. Say you didn’t snub these fine ladies and did not partake of the potluck that they labored over hot stoves to prepare?

Pete’s got a problem and her name is Barbara Carlson. I’ll bet he will continue to ignore his opponent, especially when she invites him to debate with her in the “When Was the Last Time You Beat Your Wife?” debate.

Pete Olson Finds the Aye Button

I was wondering if my congressman, Pete Olson, was ever going to find the “Aye” button on that voting machine that he uses to cast votes on what he thinks represents what people in his district want.

For instance, last week Pete Olson found the “Aye” button and voted for HR 2,  the “Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” That’s right. One of the first votes that my congressman cast was a vote to deny his constituents affordable healthcare. He voted to rescind the law that makes it a crime for health insurance companies to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions. He voted to rescind the law that requires health insurance companies to cover your older children on your own family policy.

Because, you know, times are hard and getting health insurance when you are young is a luxury.

Pete Olson voted to do all of that, but not until he voted in the same voting package to keep his own government-subsidized healthcare insurance. You see, included in many of the amendments offered up in HR 2 was a Democratic-sponsored amendment to “prevent lawmakers from keeping their congressional health insurance if they repeal the new health care law for their constituents. Under this motion to HR 2 (above), repeal could not occur until a majority of members in both chambers were dismissed from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. That taxpayer-subsidized, privately operated program provides extensive health insurance for nearly all members of Congress and their families as well as millions of civil servants, former lawmakers and federal retirees, and their spouses.”

Pete Olson thinks its perfectly OK for he and his family to have the very same healthcare insurance that he voted to deny his constituents.

This isn’t hypocrisy. Not really. What it is, is blind greed. It’s what Republicans do best: grab as much for themselves as they can while telling you that you don’t want or need what he and his colleagues jumped through some hoops to keep for themselves.

CD 22 was sold a bill of goods. Not that we Democrats could do anything about it this time, not with Krazy Kesha on the ballot.

Still and all, it’s nice to see that the congressman can find the “Aye” button. I thought maybe he lost it, or worse, couldn’t decipher that “Aye” meant yes.

I’m going to enjoy seeing my congressman listen to President Obama tomorrow night at his State of the Union Message. Hopefully he will find a place right next to Looney Louie Gohmert like he did last time.

They make quite a pair.

The Tom DeLay Show Debuts Monday

Tom DeLay’s money laundering trial got a start this week as the prosecution and defense grilled dozens of potential jurors, finally settling on six men and women, none of them African-American because DeLay’s counsel Dick DeGuerin had three black jurors struck because they frowned at him.

And largely due to the prosecution’s objections, one juror was replaced by a black woman who had laughed and joked with DeGuerin earlier.

This marks the beginning of what I predict will be a circus. Tom DeLay, is at his absolute best (i.e. worst) when he works to degrade and disrespect the judicial process. He belittles the system of justice that has brought him to trial for breaking a 100-year old law just as he cheapened the legislative process while he was a majority leader in Congress.

The last time he found himself in court, in Judge Sam Sparks’ federal district court, his smugness and flippant responses, elicited Sparks’ “run like a rabbit” remark. Again DeLay belittled the judicial process which served to prove the plaintiff’s (the Texas Democratic Party) case, and as a result the Republican Party of Texas had no one on the ballot to run for his old seat.

Which is one of many of Tom DeLay’s personal faults: he fails to learn from his past mistakes.

Like the time he spent on “Dancing With the Stars.” It seems that many of the prospective jurors saw him on DWTS and were not impressed with what they saw. Said one woman, “he is a bad dancer.” DeLay himself can’t avoid using the word dancing to describe himself. Said he last August 17th when the Justice Dept. dropped their criminal investigation of him with regard to his receipt of expensive gifts from lobbyists, of the political climate in DC:

“They have to completely drown you and put you in prison and destroy your family and your reputation and your finances, and then dance on your grave.”

Which is ironic.

The irony is that Tom DeLay just may be the only politician in history to dance on his own grave.

So the 3-Ring Circus that will become The Tom DeLay Show begins on Monday and is expected to go for 3 weeks.

Is Pete Olson Worried about Kesha?

For a few weeks it has been a lone political dispute between myself and my neighbor across the street over whose lawn sign is the better one. When the calendar page turned and it was 60 days out to the November 2 election my neighbor planted a brand spanking new Pete Olson for Congress lawn sign on his front lawn.

When Labor Day came and went I joined in the fun and planted my Bill White for Texas sign. And from that day to this the only political signs visible on my street have been those two.

Up until today.

Driving home today I passed house after house (and not just on my street) with those brand spanking new Pete Olson for Congress signs.

Oh, and one of those loud noisy Bob Hebert for County Judge signs.

Now I have to ask myself, what is with that? When Democrats came to the polls in dribs and drabs last March to vote for their congressional candidate for CD 22 they did what Democrats sometimes do best when they don’t know who the heck any of these candidates are – they pick the first one listed.

The first one listed in CD-22’s most populous county, Fort Bend, was LaRouche Democrat Kesha Rogers. She won Fort Bend County. The one listed first in Harris County’s ballot, Doug Blatt, won Harris County.

And so on.

So CD-22 Democrats saddled themselves with a 3rd tier candidate in Kesha Rogers who thinks that Barack Obama is a puppet of the British monarchy and should be impeached for ending the Aries and Constellation projects at NASA.

Pete Olson, I told myself, was a shoe in for a second term.

Obviously though, Pete Olson disagrees.

I think Olson reads the papers, and has realized that this congressional election is his to lose if he doesn’t get his name out there. And maybe it’s because in 2010 CD-22’s most populous county may just go the way Harris County (CD-22’s 2nd most populous county) had gone in 2008, and break over to Democratic.

Democratic straight ticket voters have outnumbered their Republican counterparts in the past couple of election cycles. This must be of some concern to Pete. And ironically it is of some concern to me in this one race.

That’s because if there is enough voter backlash against the established Washington DC insider incumbent, which is something Pete Olson epitomizes, Pete Olson could just find his hat handed to him by a tin-foil hat-wearing LaRouche Democrat whose main strength in this race is voter ignorance over just what she stands for.

This must be what was on his mind when he ordered up all of those lawn signs.

Texas Democratic Party to Kesha Rogers: Take a Hike

Yesterday at the State Democratic Executive Committee meeting in Round Rock we see the following resolution submitted and passed by the committee members:

WHEREAS, congressional candidate Kesha Rogers describes and defines herself as a LaRouche Democrat, and

WHEREAS, Ms. Rogers' campaign rhetoric, literature, platform positions and website confirm that she is a dedicated follower of Lyndon LaRouche and is an associate of and messenger for the LaRouche Movement, and

WHEREAS, prior actions by Lyndon LaRouche and the LaRouche Movement include instances of illegal activities, discriminatory proclamations and thuggish behavior, and

WHEREAS, the historical record of documentation, both produced by and relating to Lyndon LaRouche and the LaRouche Movement contains clear, convincing and overwhelming evidence of discrimination based on race, religion, sexual orientation and ethnic origin, and

WHEREAS, the rules of the Texas Democratic Party (Art. I, B, 1.) require that no test of membership, nor oaths of loyalty, to the Texas Democratic Party shall be used if those oaths or tests would have the effect of requiring members of the Democratic Party to acquiesce in, condone or support discrimination based on race, religion, sexual orientation, and ethnic origin, now therefore be it

RESOLVED, that no Rules or Declarations of the Texas Democratic Party that require support for Party nominees shall be enforced or have any application as they relate to the candidacy of any person identifying him or herself as aligned with the LaRouche Movement or Lyndon LaRouche, and, be it further

RESOLVED, that Members, Officers and Candidates of the Texas Democratic Party are neither required nor encouraged to support the candidacy of any person indentifying him or herself as aligned with the LaRouche Movement or Lyndon LaRouche but are nevertheless free to relate to, describe and interact with any such candidates or campaigns as they individually deem appropriate, and, be it further

RESOLVED, that the Texas Democratic Party will have no relationship with the campaign of any person indentifying him or herself as aligned with the LaRouche Movement or Lyndon LaRouche; no such campaigns will have access to Party materials or data, no listing on the Party website and no position of privilege or recognition at Party meetings or conventions.

Nice, huh? Now perhaps we won’t see any more toothless statements from party officials who felt bound by the requirements of their office not to say what they really and truly thought about a so-called Democrat who wants to impeach President Obama because he is a puppet of the British Monarchy.

I particularly like the part about being “neither required nor encouraged to support” a LaRouche Movement candidate. Not only is it an invitation to discourage support of Kesha Rogers, it specifically leaves out any reference to “LaRouche Democrat.”

“LaRouche Democrat” is as much an oxymoron as “Compassionate Conservative.”

And Funding the Kesha Rogers Campaign…

The Houston Chronicle has an interesting take on the Kesha Rogers victory in CD-22.

It even mentions this blogger’s plan to vote for the 2nd place winner in the Democratic primary: Under Vote.

But in the final analysis, it all comes down to Doug Blatt’s own opinion on the nature of the race and CD-22 voters:

“I am sorry to inform you that we lost. I am sorry that I was not able to get the word out more. The winner, Kesha Rogers, is already claiming on her web site that this means that Democrats in district 22 want to impeach the President. I can't believe that most people who voted for her, knew that she wants to do that. I do believe that most of them didn't do any research about the candidates before voting.”

In my county-by-county review of the vote, it was very clear to me that the voter was very uninformed, and many voters simply selected the person whose name appeared at the top of the ballot box. Clearly, there was such a high amount of voter ignorance in this race that the second highest vote-getter in the race was “none of the above.”

But more than a few that I have talked to have suggested that Kesha Rogers was a stalking horse candidate with Pete Olson’s campaign secretly supporting it. It even occurred to me as I was quizzed by a Princeton, NJ pollster who I would vote for if Olson and Rogers appeared on the ballot in November.

So I decided to take a look at the FEC campaign reports to see where the money to fund Rogers’ campaign came from.

In the one filing that I looked at, the one filed in January, 2010, here is what I found.

Rogers had 10 campaign contributions from 9 individuals totaling $3,750. No PAC money was reported.

While none of the supporters stood out, and none of the contributions were higher than $500, it was clear that one supporter was a big local backer. This guy donated $500 to the campaign which was immediately returned to his company for the use of office space at that company.

And over the past 7 years, the same guy has contributed over $25,000 to the Lyndon LaRouche for President Campaign or PAC.

A student made two contributions of $300 each, making him the biggest contributor.

The same guy has donated over $1,000 to the Lyndon LaRouche campaign in 2004.

Some unemployed guy living in Las Vegas gave Rogers $500. The same guy has donated $11,500 to the LaRouche campaign over the past 3 years, $500 to the Hillary Clinton campaign, and $500 each to the three LaRouche Youth candidates running for Congress this year. Rogers was the only one of the three to win. Small wonder, the other two ran against Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank.

Actor Robert Beltran, who played Raoul in the 1981 cult classic “Eating Raoul” gave Rogers $500. He has also donated to the Howard Dean campaign and to the LaRouche campaign in 2003 and 2004 ($1000 each time).

By far the biggest honcho who contributed to Rogers’ campaign was the president of a document conversion company that is headquartered in Leesburg, Virginia (a city also known for being the hometown of LaRouchePAC). Since 1999 he has given over $27,000 to LaRouche or ones like Rogers who run under the LaRouche banner.

I could go on but you do see where this is leading, don’t you? If Pete Olson was behind Kesha Rogers’ campaign, he cleverly did it through LaRouche supporters spread out over the country. Something that I doubt.

No, according to the FEC, Rogers took in $3,326 spent $1,315 and had $2011 on hand, as of January 26th, 2010. All of her funding, from what I could see, was from followers of Lyndon LaRouche (who sometimes, but not often, donated to True Democrats).

As a footnote, I decided to take a look at who were the money people behind Doug Blatt’s campaign. That one was easy because the single biggest contributor to Doug Blatt for Congress was Doug Blatt. His wife and parents came in 2nd and 3rd. Oh, and one In Kind donation from the Texas Democratic Party for access to the Voter Activation Network.

Neither Freddie or Kesha took advantage of the TDP voter database, preferring to rely on general voter ignorance and some cosmic miracle in the game of what I call "Ballot Position Roulette."

Blatt was, after all, the only True Democrat running.

How to Cast a Vote for Under Vote

What a turn of events. It’s almost like 2006 when in the CD-22 race there was no Republican on the ballot, and Nick Lampson won against a write-in candidate. This time there will be no Democrat on the ballot for CD-22 this November.

Because true to my most dismal of predictions, Kesha Rogers, follower of the right (no . . .left, no . . . right) wingnut Lyndon LaRouche, narrowly edged her Libertarian opponent and her True Democrat opponent.

What she, and her two opponents, lacked in name recognition Rogers made up for in terms of ballot position.

In Harris County, where she came in 2nd place at the end of Election Night, she came in second to Doug Blatt. Who came in third? Someone called Under Vote.

Then came Freddie Wieder.

In Fort Bend County, where she first on the ballot, Kesha Rogers won. Coming in second place was that other guy, Under Vote. Then came Doug Blatt, then Freddie.

In Galveston County, where she was second on the ballot, Kesha Rogers came in second. Under Vote was edged by Doug Blatt by one percent.

Who won in Galveston County? Freddie Wieder.

Freddie had the honor of being in the top position on the Galveston County Ballot.

In Brazoria County? Kesha Rogers garnered sixty-one percent of the votes there, followed by Under Vote, then Doug Blatt, then Freddie.

I now know that Kesha Rogers had the number one position on the ballot in Brazoria County. Under Vote came in second place, edging Doug Blatt by 0.1%, then Freddie.

Kudos, to Brazoria County voters, though. Freddie Wieder actually had the second place spot on their ballot, but Brazoria County voters bucked the trend and more of them voted for the guy in the third spot than second on the ballot.

Good for you, good for you.

Now, when you do the numbers from the county websites, not the Texas Secretary of State, whose numbers are slightly different, what you see is that Kesha Rogers won the primary, but in second place was none other than Under Vote. Under Vote beat Doug Blatt by almost a thousand votes.

So come Election Day 2010 Democratic voters will be asked either to vote for a follower of Lyndon LaRouche who is calling on the impeachment of President Barack Obama, or to vote for the Republican incumbent Pete Olson, who would call for the impeachment of Barack Obama if he was as loony tunes crazy as his opponent.

Because I doubt that Democrats are going to be nutty enough to submit a write-in candidate to split the vote of Democratic voters, some of whom who will vote for Kesha Rogers simply because she has a D next to her name.

So I have an alternative.

Instead of voting for Kesha Rogers in November, and instead of going completely crazy and voting for Pete Olson in November, Democrats can vote for that guy who came in second in the Democratic primary.

Cast your vote for Under Vote.

Here’s how you do it. After getting to the first screen on that Dial-A-Vote voting machine we have here, you click the button when the cursor is over the box for Straight Democratic Ticket. Then you go back to the list of candidates and where you can vote for them individually and you emphasize your vote for Kesha Rogers by clicking on the red-filled square next to her name.

De-selecting that vote.

By doing that you cast your vote for the second-place winner of the Democratic Primary in CD-22.

Under Vote.

Another CD 22 Headache

I was thinking today about the fact that the only federal office on any given Texas primary ballot this year is for the office of congressman. No senator is running in this inbetween midterm election year.

And where I live, in CD 22, which stretches across parts of 4 counties (thanks to the gerrymandering efforts of Tom DeLay) we have three candidates on the Democratic primary ballot.

Three virtually unknown candidates.

Only one of them, a Libertarian has any kind of track record in the elections process. And that would be Freddie John Weider, Jr, and that is because he ran for the same position in the General Election in 2008 against Nick Lampson and Pete Olson.

The other two, Doug Blatt and Kesha Rogers, are first timers. So while John Weider has next to no name recognition Blatt and Rogers have utterly no name recognition that can help the voter separate them out on the ballot.

And from where I sit, unless some drastic changes occur, that will be their status come the primary election which is set to begin a mere 18 days from now beginning on February 16th with the beginning of Early Voting.

So then how does an ill-informed Democratic primary voter decide who to vote for when they reach the polling booth? Unfortunately, it is the case that some voters opt for the first name they see on the list of candidates. That is why a drawing occurs in each county to determine what place on the ballot a given candidate’s name will appear.

I know it doesn’t sound right, but that’s just the way it is. A voter need not be informed on candidates or issues in order to vote in this country. All they need to be is registered, 18 and not a felon.

So, OK the question begged today. Where do these three congressional candidates sit in regard to their ballot positions in the 4 counties that CD 22 extends over?

Unfortunately, there is no information on CD 22 from Brazoria County. The county elections website is still geared toward the November ’09 Constitutional Amendment election and the county party has no information at all. That skews things somewhat. Brazoria County had over 10,000 Democratic primary voters in 2008 in their 20 CD 22 precincts. There will be less this time but still, that’s quite a chunk. So there’s a weakness that I will have to live with. I was more successful with the 3 other counties.

Here is a screen shot of the Fort Bend County sample ballot for CD 22.

Here is the same shot of Galveston County’s sample ballot for the office.

And here is Harris County’s version of a sample ballot for that congressional district.

Isn’t that interesting?

The only true Democrat, Doug Blatt, has his name in the top position only in Harris County. Kesha Rogers got the number one spot in Fort Bend County, and Freddie Weider got the top spot in Galveston County.

So you would think that in the case of ballot position, it’s pretty much a wash, right? And in that you would be wrong.

45% of the Democrats in CD 22 live in Fort Bend County, 32% live in Harris County, and 11% live in Galveston County.

And not only that, Kesha has the number one or number two spots in all three counties. Freddie splits his 1-2-3 evenly, and Doug has only one number 1 position and runs in the #3 spot in the other two counties.

So not only does Kesha have an advantage in having a ballot position, her number one position occurs in the county with the greatest number of primary voting Democrats.

Scoring by ballot position and percent of the total primary-voting Democrats, I have the three candidates scored in the following way, using a Half Empty scale of 1 to 20 scale (where 20 is a score you get if you have the top position in all three counties for which there is a published ballot):

Kesha Rogers: 10.38
Doug Blatt: 8.7
Freddie Weider: 5.75

Blatt overtakes Weider only due to the fact that his #1 position is in more populous Harris County, and not in Weider’s least populous Galveston County.

So I find it ironic, and just a little bit too alarming, that the only true Democrat on the ballot (Rogers is a “LaRouche Democrat”) does not, if this analysis is at all valid, have the greatest advantage among the lesser informed Democratic primary voters.

Frankly, and this should be of no surprise, I am not optimistic that we will have a true Democrat to vote for in November against Pete Olson. I think that unless something happens pretty soon, the numbers being what they are, and voters doing what they do, we may just have a problem here.

Pete Olson to Host a Carbon “Roundtable Discussion”

It caught my eye in FortBendNow, halfway down the page that my congressman, Pete Olson of TX – 22 is going to host a “roundtable discussion” on Carbon Regulation.

From FortBendNow:

“Representative Pete Olson, District 22, today announced that tomorrow he will be hosting a Carbon Regulation Roundtable with Houston-area state delegation members and industry members. Fellow Houston area Congressman Kevin Brady, District 8, will also be joining Olson for this event.”

Now why should this news item be of interest? Well incredibly, the supposed Round Table will consist of the following groups according to the article:

• Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership
• Economic Alliance Houston Port Region
• East Harris County Manufacturers Assoc.
• Texas Aggregate and Concrete Association
• Texas Motor Transportation Association
• BP; Texas Chemical Council
• National Petrochemical Refiners Association
• Texas Alliance of Energy Producers
• Valero
• Valero Refining
• INEOS Nova
• Lubrizol
• AES Deepwater
• Hefele
• Air Products
• Oxy Vinyls
• Noltex

This is a veritable who’s who of carbon emitters or supporters of carbon emission.

Now a “Round Table Discussion” is defined as a discussion group with contributors of various points of view who come together to equally contribute – the table is round indicating no one is at any specific end – and that all viewpoints are expressed on a level playing field with no prejudice or partiality.

This table is any thing but a round one. At best one could characterize it as semi-circular, with contributors of one point of view clearly evident.

And it is fitting and proper that Pete Olson convene such a group. He has, after all, completely made up his mind on the issue, making an equal exchange of thoughts and ideas at a true roundtable discussion a moot point.

Olson, after all, voted “No” when HR 2454 came to a vote last June. HR 2454, which passed in the House by a vote of 219 to 212. A big part of the bill establishes how carbon emissions can be held in check by collecting and storing carbon emissions in vast underground reservoirs – in naturally occurring porous geologic traps.

Something that is done all the time in the oil and gas industry in order to enhance oil recovery.

But Pete Olson voted “No” on this, and I suspect will vote “No” on anything that even smells like an effort to keep carbon emissions in check. Because Pete Olson knows something that hundreds of environmental scientists and climatologists don’t know.

Pete Olson knows that this global warming thing is a pure hoax.

But that doesn’t prevent Pete Olson from convening this group, a group that is of a single mind to keep the status quo when it comes to carbon emissions. A half-circle table discussion group that he disingenuously labels a “Roundtable discussion.”

I have a better label for this discussion group, a group that convened and shared their single-minded view on carbon regulation today.

I call it a fundraiser.

Congressman Pete Olson Votes Against Texans

Obviously, since only one Republican voted for HR 3962, the recently passed House measure to reform healthcare insurance in America, and it wasn’t my congressman, and no congressman abstained from voting last night, one could reasonably conclude that Congressman Pete Olson of Texas CD 22 voted against, as he would call it, “the Pelosi Bill.”

And I now see that Olson did vote in favor of Boehner’s Republican replacement bill along with 177 of his compatriots. Curiously enough, so did Anh Cao, the lone Republican supporter of “Obamacare.”

This was not announced in the news, and obviously Rep. Cao likes to play both sides against the middle.

But back to Olson, who consistently votes with the Republican Party, I have to ask myself how could he have possibly done what 80% of Texans didn’t want him to do? Well, that’s somewhat rhetorical because clearly Olson doesn’t care what Texans think when he casts his votes. But we should remember the Texas Tribune’s recent internet poll of 800 Texans asking what were the main concerns of Texans.

Well you have to scroll down through the dross to come to something that is completely startling in the extreme. Texans, it seems, are nearly all unified over their opposition to the common dishonorable and shameful practice of healthcare insurance companies to deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions.

From the Texas Tribune poll:

“• 80 percent would stop the denial of health coverage for preexisting conditions.”

Get it? 80% or respondents want the healthcare industry to clean up its act and end this immoral practice once and for all.

80 percent.

And so when Pete Olson cast his “Nay” vote against HR 3962 and his “Yea” vote for the Boehner Amendment he was in his own small way, stomping on the desires of 80 percent of all Texans.

Because HR 3962 ends the practice of denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions statutorily. Ends it.

But don’t take my word for it. Here it is in Section 221:

“SEC. 211. PROHIBITING PREEXISTING CONDITION EXCLUSIONS.”

“A qualified health benefits plan may not impose any preexisting condition exclusion (as defined in section 2701(b)(1)(A) of the Public Health Service Act) or otherwise impose any limit or condition on the coverage under the plan with respect to an individual or dependent based on any of the following: health status, medical condition, claims experience, receipt of health care, medical history, genetic information, evidence of insurability, disability, or source of injury (including conditions arising out of acts of domestic violence) or any similar factors.”

Pete Olson voted against that.

Here is what he voted for:

“SEC. 101. ESTABLISH UNIVERSAL ACCESS PROGRAMS TO IMPROVE HIGH RISK POOLS AND REINSURANCE MARKETS.”

STATE REQUIREMENT.—

(1) IN GENERAL.—Not later than January 1, 2010, each State shall—
(A) subject to paragraph (3), operate—
(i) a qualified State reinsurance program described in subsection (b); or
(ii) qualifying State high risk pool dscribed in subsection (c)(1); and
(B) subject to paragraph (3), apply to the operation of such a program from State funds an amount equivalent to the portion of State funds derived from State premium assessments (as defined by the Secretary) that are not otherwise used on State health care programs.”

Get it? Healthcare insurance providers are not forbidden from the practice of denial of coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Boehner’s bill, the bill that Olson voted for, was an unfunded mandate that states must provide funds to cover these unfortunate souls in “high risk pools.”

This is a huge gift to the healthcare insurance industry, a huge gift made on the backs of state taxpayers.

And Pete Olson voted for it.

Pete Olson doesn’t even defend his vote on his website. As I write this, there is nothing on his website about last night’s vote.

And I completely understand why he wouldn’t want to defend his vote. If I voted for the thing that he voted for, and against the thing he voted against, I wouldn’t want to own up to it either.

Not to that 80 percent of all Texans, anyway.

What? A TX 22 Congressman Needs a Bailout?

First it’s Bear-Stearns and AIG. Then it’s Wall Street and the banking industry in general. Then the Big Three stick out their hands.

Everyone wants bailout money.

And now we hear that our newly elected congressman for Texas CD 22, Republican Pete Olson, needs some bailout money as well.

Olson, it seems, loaned his campaign some of his own personal fortune that he’d like to have back, thank you very much, but he also owes some big-time money to creditors.

It’s all here at FortBendNow:

“Left with at least $170,000 in personal loans to his campaign and more than $100,000 owed to consultants, campaign workers and the IRS, incoming GOP Congressman Pete Olson is asking the public to help pay his debts.”

“In an email sent to supporters and residents of Congressional District 22, Olson thanked people for voting for him in his election victory over incumbent Democrat U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson, adding ‘now I need your help for one last time this year.’”

Let me just say that this is unprecedented in TX 22.

Nick Lampson is well-known for his campaign cash raising skills, and leaves office with a $155,000 cash surplus. Before Nick, CD 22 was the realm of Tom “The Hammer” DeLay.

Tom DeLay wasn’t a congressman who ever had any trouble picking up campaign cash. He had lots of friends to help him, too. Unfortunately, most of them are now in stir, so they can’t be of any help to Pete. Indeed, two individuals who were like peas and carrots with Tom DeLay, Chris Homan and Dana Benoit, aren’t going to be of much help either as between the two of them Olson owes a grand total of $53,000, more than half of the outstanding debt his campaign still owes.

Unprecedented.

And as to that $170,000 personal loan that Olson made to his campaign, money he’d like back now, I have to wonder where that came from. Do DC staffers really pull down that much coin? I just hope to high heaven that Pete didn’t take out a second mortgage on his house – a bad move in this day and age.

So to the conservatives and independents who will do anything but vote for “Liberal Lampson” I say congratulations. Congratulations, you now have on your hands a freshman congressman with no power or pull, just a guy with a bunch of DC friends and cronies.

Hey, that’s right, he’s got lots of DC friends. Maybe Pete can pass the hat around in DC and get his friends, staffers, former staffers and lobbyists to kick in. Evidently they make the kind of serious money where that might be possible, don’t you think?

And what could Pete offer them in return?

Maybe some coupons for organic honey from his position of power on the Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture.

Nick Lampson’s Miscalculation Revealed in the Numbers

Now when Harry S Truman uttered this memorable quote, “When given a choice between a Democrat who votes like a Republican, and a Republican, voters will vote for the Republican every time,” he really did not have Nick Lampson in mind at all.

But he might as well have.

Because Nick Lampson, who ran against a write-in candidate in 2006, found himself between a rock and a hard place when he took office.

He was a centrist Democrat elected by a bare majority in a decidedly right wing-dominated congressional district.

How do you get yourself re-elected in a congressional district whose boundaries were personally redrawn in 2003 by Tom DeLay himself? You can hope for the demographics to shift in two years, or you can do what Nick Lampson finally calculated: bring money into the district, excel in constituent services, and vote with the Republicans whenever you can.

Whenever you can. If a bill is doomed to failure, vote with the Republicans. This, in combination with the other two was a calculation that could produce a winning year for Nick Lampson.

And then along came the FISA bill. The bill that not only extended the extreme measures that the Bush regime granted itself to spy on American citizens, but also made it impossible for these citizens to redress colluding telecommunications companies in its courts. Nick Lampson voted with a majority of Republicans to pass this heinous bill, and we Americans collectively lost some of our 4th Amendment rights.

In that vote, Nick Lampson enraged the left wing voters of his party.

But in Nick’s calculation was this: who are the left wing going to vote for if not for Nick? Nick was unopposed in the March primary. He was the Democratic Party nominee, and the only alternative would be to vote for Pete Olson, a Phil Gramm acolyte.

So we had no choice, and anyone who simply fails to cast their vote either way is simply howling into the wind.

Apparently that is not how some of those of us in the left wing of the party felt.

Looking today at the Fort Bend County portion of CD 22 (because Harris County has yet to post their precinct canvass reports), I arrived at the not so startling conclusion that Nick Lampson just may have miscalculated on two fronts.

The Republican votes he hoped to attract were few and far between, and the Democratic votes that he hoped to retain may have been less numerous than his vote totals could withstand.

I put it on an Excel spreadsheet. I listed all Fort Bend County precincts that fall within CD 22, and recorded the votes for Lampson, Olson, Obama, and the total ballots cast in each precinct.

To get an idea of the number of Republican voters who voted for Lampson, I subtracted the number of votes that Obama got in each precinct from the number of votes that Lampson received. A positive number resulted in 81% of the precincts, but this vote total was only 1,984 voters, or 1.4% of the total votes cast.

Now in many countywide races, 1.4% would have been enough to put the candidate over the top. Fort Bend county is a 51:49 Republican to Democrat county right now. But this didn’t happen in Nick’s case.

And I think the reason it didn’t happen was the left wing undervote.

Now I vote a straight unadulterated Democratic ticket. I do. But I am acquainted with others in my party who did not. I heard more than just a few confess that they voted a straight Democratic ticket when they went to the polls, but then deselected Nick Lampson when presented with the next eSlate screen.

Rather than vote for his opponent, Pete Olson, they simply did not vote in this race.

Now that’s called an undervote with authority.

To find out the total number of Fort Bend County voters who did not vote in the CD 22 race, I added the vote totals of Olson and Lampson in each precinct and subtracted that from the total votes cast.

And the total Fort Bend undervotes for the CD 22 race was 7046, or 5% of the total votes cast.

Now does this number reflect a 100% left wing Democratic voter participation (or non-participation in this case)? Who knows? But even if half of the undervotes reflect voter disaffection with Nick Lampson, this undervote represents a nuclear explosion in a wind storm. An explosion that undoes any effect that the wind has on anything.

So is this the story? Nick’s failure to garner more Republican votes was exacerbated by left wing voters who withheld their votes from him?

Maybe so.

All I know is that in Fort Bend County Nick Lampson lost to Pete Olson by exactly 6000 votes. He improved on this number by 1,984 Republicans, but may have suffered the loss of 7000 or so votes that were cast in neither direction.

That, and a 1% difference in voter party preference cost him re-election.

Now here’s the question: who will we see coming up to the CD 22 plate in 2010? Will it be a sadder but wiser Nick Lampson?

Or am I just dreaming this whole thing up?

NRCC Lies, Pete Olson Approved of That Message

Is it any wonder that you don’t hear a peep from Pete Olson about the recent NRCC hit piece against Nick Lampson? The piece is running on several TV channels in the Houston media market and has raised eyebrows of those of us who watch what our congressman does, and what he doesn’t do.

Take a gander at the hit piece in this You Tube embed. Hit the pause button when you see the photo of the military jet taking off. You see in the lower left corner their citation of the house vote of the bill that Nick Lampson supposedly voted against on December 17, 2007.



Interesting huh? Now take a look here at his actual vote on HR 2764.

So shall we say that the NRCC ad is “inaccurate”?

Shall we say that it is an outright lie that is provable by public record? Something that Pete Olson wishes he had for his explanation on why it was that it was not he who voted in that Connecticut special election in 2003?

Kay Bailey Hutchison is the one that pushed that bill through her committee. She was approached by Alastair Rami who recorded his conversation with her, and asked her why some ads were saying that the bill inadequately funded the military.

Here is the conversation courtesy of BurntOrangeReport and You Tube



Now, I didn’t see the connection, exactly, with the inadequate funding claim and how the ad is inaccurate in that as well. I want to speculate that the version I have is brand spanking new. But it was nice to see that Kay Bailey Hutchison was so easy to set up against Olson and the NRCC.

I also thought that it was nice to see that the NRCC thinks that putting a tax on private health insurance is a bad, bad idea. Nice because it is something that John McCain thinks is a very good idea.

Odd, isn’t it? Usually the Republican Party is the party that has all their ducks in a row and stand arm in arm in solid agreement with each other, and it’s the Democrats that often look like buffoons as they disagree with everyone else, especially those in their own party.

Are we seeing yet another example of role reversal here?

Olson Alibi: A Bucket So Full of Holes It Won’t Hold Water

I’ve mentioned this before in a previous posting. The Lone Star Project charged that Republican candidate for Congress in CD 22, Nick Lampson’s seat, none other than Peter G. Olson, has violated Virginia law in having voted in another state, Connecticut specifically, while a registered voter in Virginia.

It’s a felony offense.

Well today FortBendNow, which is watching this thing closely, took statements from the Olson campaign, statements on the lawsuit filed in Virginia. The lawsuit filed by the Lone Star Project.

From FortBendNow:

“In response to the complaint, Olson issued a statement through campaign spokesperson Amy Goldstein early Wednesday afternoon, saying that on the day of the Connecticut election, he was traveling between Washington and Texas. The campaign also provided a U.S. Senate travel voucher for Aug. 12-15, 2003 to document the trip.”

Oh well. Case closed, right? How could Pete Olson have cast a ballot in Newtown, Connecticut, where his parents live, when he was nowhere near Connecticut on the day of the special election?

Holy H-E-Double-Hockey Sticks they sure took care of that problem handily.

And then slam. Olson campaign spokesman Amy Goldstein said:

“… while a Peter G. Olson may have voted in the August, 2003 special election in Newtown, it was not candidate Olson.”

Well, obviously. The Peter G. Olson that cast the Connecticut ballot can’t be the candidate because the candidate was on a plane to Texas that day.

Or so he said. That day.

One reason Matt Angle, who filed the criminal complaint in Virginia, grew to suspect voter fraud was Pete Olson's multiple explanations. Said Angle:

“Rather than giving a straightforward answer, he had two or three different answers.”

At first, Olson spokeswoman Amy Goldstein told reporters that Olson was in Washington that day working all day. Then another story emerged: why would Olson drive to Connecticut and back in one day to vote when his son has just been born 4 months before? Then the story that they finally settled on. Olson was on a plane to Texas that day (the plane departed at 7:30 PM).

With alibis like that, who needs enemies?

Is Pete Olson Guilty of Voter Fraud?

Voter Fraud. A Republican mantra these days if ever there was one. To the extent that Indiana now has a law on the books, upheld by the US Supreme Court, that allows it to require that voters present a photo ID at their polling place to verify their identity.

To make sure that they aren’t voting fraudulently.

Like, apparently, Pete Olson did in 2003. Yes, that Pete Olson, the guy who is the Republican nominee to run against Nick Lampson for his Texas CD 22 seat in the US Congress.

That Pete Olson.

It is all in a Lone Star Project email blast that is summarized in the current posting at the Lone Star Project’s website.

The Lone Star Project has papers that they say prove that in 2003, Pete Olson voted in the 2003 Virginia general election, but also voted that year in a special election in Newtown, Connecticut. This based on the fact that he owned property in Newtown. And before that, voted in Virginia.

Virginia state law strictly forbids its residents from being registered to vote in Virginia AND another state. Something Pete Olson has to answer for.

Because, according to Lone Star, that is a felony offense in Virginia.

As it should be.

Hey, I own property in California, but I never, ever even considered registering to vote there based on that residence address.

That would be wrong.

And Pete Olson should know better (and probably does).

Nick Lampson Opens Mobile Office for Hurricane Victims

When my congressman, Congressman Nick Lampson votes in congress, he sometimes votes with the party of the Dark Side, and when he does that you hear about it from me. But everyone has always praised Nick Lampson for his excellent constituent services record, and this time I think I need to give credit where credit is due: Nick Lampson is doing a stellar job for hurricane Ike’s victims.

It’s in The Chron today, and I also received a message from Boyd Richie, Chairman of the Texas Democratic Party extolling the efforts of Nick Lampson and his district staff.

Lampson, whose congressional district boundaries encompass the I-45 corridor – the freeway that Hurricane Ike took – secured the mobile communications unit owned by the House of Representatives that includes 225 Wi-Fi capable laptop PCs and 225 cell phones, and a satellite uplink truck. The unit is parked outside the American Legion Hall at 11702 Galveston Rd, Houston, TX across the street from Ellington Field. Between the hours of 9:00 AM and 7:00 PM hurricane victims can come in and use the system to apply for FEMA housing assistance. FEMA will pay for a one month hotel stay for families whose homes are uninhabitable, but they have to apply.

Nick Lampson is providing the means for them to do this.

Now the occurrence of disasters during an election season ironically seems to favor incumbent candidates. There are a couple of theories why this is so. First challenger activities are curtailed after a disaster hits – their efforts seem inappropriate. And second, incumbents are seen working the problem and helping the community with all of the government resources at their disposal. For the most part, incumbents here in Red Texas are Republicans. But Nick Lampson, a Democrat, is clearly an exception.

And luckily, he seems to know how to deliver the goods when disaster strikes.

Lampson Goes Back to High School

I wonder what it is like, really, to have been a teacher in Texas public schools, and then to move on to eventually become elected a US congressman, but then to back to a Texas high school campus to talk to a standing room only crowd of 120 high school students?

Nick Lampson, my congressman, did exactly that today.

I wonder if he noticed any similarities or differences between the students he taught those many years ago in Beaumont, and the ones at the school I now teach.

Frankly I was amazed at the level of questions that the students were throwing at him. Well, the first one was a no-brainer question that many of the audience were there to find out about. The question: “Uh . . . who you gonna vote for?”

I was sitting next to one of Nick’s staffers and commented to him “first one out of the chute has to be that one”, and he kidded me that I had prepped the kids. Not so. This was their show organized and run by them.

Nick told the students that he is going to stay neutral for now. That has a conclusion of mine for awhile now, but I nevertheless provided him with some data on where he should be leaning – in the same direction as his district. Later he mentioned that he has been involved in meetings with both camps.

He fielded a question from a student about what kinds of legislation, in what areas, were there the most partisan conflicts being fought. Nick answered that the areas were very wide-ranging and cited the partisanship that resulted when the GI Bill was not presented in committee where Republicans could affix their amendments, and that this had angered them so much that they created stalls on all kinds of legislation.

Interestingly, Nick did not mention that on this bill, HR 2642, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, a bill that passed in the House by a vote of 256 – 166, with 32 Republicans joining Democrats, Nick voted No. Yes, sorry to say that Nick Lampson joined 159 Republicans and six other Democrats and voted against our troops.

Even most of the Blue Dogs voted for this bill once they got what they wanted. I am guessing that it was the fact that the bill had no plan to pay for the extra benefits being given to our veterans, and then was redrawn to soak the rich with a 0.5% tax increase in order to pay for this.

There are lots of single people in CD 22 who make over 500 grand a year, or couples who pull down a million. They have votes AND checkbooks. Besides, they had a big majority to get the bill passed, so why not vote against it and again give the Republicans a headache as they fruitlessly try to paint Nick Lampson as a Pelosi Liberal?

But I think the question of the day went to a young lady who asked Nick what his position was on the strife in northern Uganda. “Oh, no”, said the Lampson staffer. This was very clearly something that Nick, or anyone I know (including me), know anything about. She indicated that she had brought with her some information she could let him have, and asked him to contact the Secretary of State about this.

It wasn’t too long after this that Nick’s handlers started pointing to their watches, indicating that he had better leave . . . .now . . . in order to make their next meeting. Two students passed out information on being an intern in DC, and just before leaving Nick was asked about McCain’s Iraq comments, Nick shared his opinion on how the War in Iraq is not fighting the War on Terror, that it was a sectarian war with our troops caught in the middle. That the war against Al-Qaeda is better fought in other countries with Special Forces.

Then there were the obligatory poses for photos with the congressman, and then they were out the door.

Hillary Clinton’s Metric Allows Her to Claim She Won Texas CD 22

I have to wonder about the quality of the rope that Hillary Clinton’s statistics group is smoking these days. On Talking Points Memo, Clinton has a slide show up for congressional superdelegates to view, showing that she wins “in the tough districts”. In that PowerPoint presentation, on Slide 4 to be specific, Clinton’s people clearly indicate that Hillary Clinton carried Nick Lampson’s CD 22 in the March primary.

Now I know that Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff have come up with numerous metrics to prove to superdelegates that she is the one, and not Barack Obama, who is the strongest candidate to face John McCain in the fall. These metrics have been quite creative in their construct, with many of them taking advantage of one aspect, let’s say being able to carry a district in the primary, without due consideration of another key aspect, let’s say being able to win against a completely different opponent, a Republican one, in the same district in November. That winning against Obama is in some way a measurement of how she will win against McCain.

But now I have come to find out that Hillary Clinton claims that she carried Nick Lampson’s Texas CD 22, and I know that this is, to use Barack Obama’s more tactful way of putting it, “an inaccurate statement”.

I don’t know where her people got this information, but it was obviously not the way I got mine. I got mine by looking at the precinct-by-precinct vote totals for Fort Bend, Harris, Brazoria and Galveston Counties where Nick Lampson was on the ballot. It’s laborious but it gets you to the truth so there’s some value in that.

Could they have come to the conclusion the way this Hillary Clinton blogger/supporter came to his? By making the erroneous assumption that Senate District 11’s boundaries were a virtual overlay to CD 22’s, and that Clinton carried SD 11? At the time I saw that I thought at best this was sloppy statistics, and at worst another attempt at statistics of whatever the truth is conveniently supposed to be.

Whatever.

Whatever the case, CD 22 definitely did not go to Hillary Clinton, and Clinton has no claim on winning in Lampson’s tough district. That honor goes to Barack Obama.

OK, OK. At the top is the graphic. Here is the math. County breakdowns go like this:

Fort Bend County: 28,512 Obama (61.1%), 18,209 Clinton (38.9%) – 98 precincts
Harris County: 13,650 Obama (43.8%), 17,501 Clinton (56.2%) – 76 precincts
Brazoria County: 7,170 Obama (59.2%), 4,948 Clinton (40.8%) – 20 precincts
Galveston County: 5,440 Obama (53.1%), 4,814 Clinton (46.9%) – 21 precincts
Totals: 52,072 Obama (53.4%), 45,472 Clinton (46.6%) – 215 precincts

But now this is what I have to ask myself. If this is something that I know with a certainty, and Clinton’s people have it wrong, if they are mistaken in an area that I definitely know about, can they be mistaken in other areas that I don’t know about?

In short, where else is the Clinton campaign ly . . . er . . . making inaccurate statements?

Only One Texas Congressman Is An Undecided Superdelegate

News came tonight that one of the two remaining Texas Democratic congressmen who has held himself in the undecided column has now declared allegiance.

On The Chron tonight is news that Ciro Rodriguez (Texas CD 23) has declared his support to the flagging campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Josh Rosenblum, Ciro Rodriguez’ congressional aide offered these words in explanation:

“A big reason is because his district voted so overwhelmingly for her, that's one of the biggest reasons.”

That’s a big reason. I’ve been waiting to hear this and frankly ask myself why it has taken so long. Ciro Rodriguez’ newly reconstituted district did vote for Hillary Clinton. His district was the victim of Tom DeLay’s twice in a decade redistricting. The US Supreme Court found in 2007 that the design of CD 23's district boundaries violated guidelines on drawing them based on racial distributions and ordered that new boundaries be drawn. Rodriguez subsequently won the CD 23 seat from DeLay’s stooge, Henry Bonilla, by a huge margin in a special election.

So that’s settled.

Now all we have to do is wait for Texas’ final uncommitted congressman, CD 22’s Congressman Nick Lampson, my congressman, to make his allegiances known.

Just one more Texas congressman.

Our Nick.

In a previous posting, I have pointed out to Nick and his staff that his district’s Democratic primary voters voted for Senator Barack Obama in the majority. In fact, I have provided the CD 22 breakdown in excruciating detail:

“CD 22 Totals: 52,072 for Obama (53.4%), 45,472 for Clinton (46.6%)”

So how about it? Ciro Rodriguez, the other Texas freshman congressman who has withheld his endorsement has weighed in, and based his presidential choice on his district’s preference. Is it not time for my superdelegate to respond in kind?

Will my congressman, Congressman Nick Lampson, honor the voters in his district, the majority of whom voted for Barack Obama in the March 4th primary, and do the honorable thing and throw in for Barack Obama?

It’s not the safe bet, mind you. Nick Lampson has a Republican constituency to worry about and there are lots of them. But I have to wonder whether the idea is to throw in for the guy the majority of your constituents want in the White House, or the one that Rush Limbaugh wants his beloved John McVader to run against in November.

Tough decision.

Naahhhhhh.

Colombia Free Trade Agreement Killed By House Democrats

Remember the dustup between Hillary Clinton and her former chief strategist, Mark Penn? Remember how he and his company was hired to help the Colombian government get the free trade agreement through to a quick signing? A bill that Clinton opposed? Remember that?

Well maybe then it is a relief to us that the Democratic leadership in Congress saw to it that the bill will never see the light of day in this legislative session. Or ever.

From The Hill:

“The House adopted a rules change Thursday that freezes the Colombia free trade agreement by waiving a requirement that Congress act on it within 90 days. The rule passed mostly along party lines by a vote of 224-195 with one lawmaker voting present.”

Pretty darn slick if you ask me. Republicans, you might imagine, are livid.

“‘The Democrats want to make an unprecedented rule change to abrogate their responsibility under [Trade Promotional Authority],’ said Rep. David Dreier (Calif.), senior Republican on the Rules Committee. ‘They're sabotaging our relationship with our best and closest ally in South America.’”

Best and closest ally? Colombia? Is it because the Bush Regime has completely alienated all of the rest of South America? All except the one country whose government agencies are complicit in the drug trade which is institutionalized there? All except for the one South American country that actively suppresses trade unions?

That ally?

So while Democrats and Republicans trade barbs over who broke procedural rules first, the bill remains dead.

As the story mentioned, the vote pretty much went down party lines, but then I had to ask myself about that 224 number. I’m pretty sure there are more Democrats in the House than that, so I read further.

Yep, ten Democrats voted against the rule change, and six Republicans voted for it. The Republican congressmen who voted for it, voted for it, surprisingly enough, because non-union overseas competition has taken jobs away from their constituents.

Ten Democrats voted with the Republicans, and with Bush. One of them was my congressman, Congressman Nick Lampson.

Now I know that Lampson represents a conservative district, and has to get his “Votes with Nancy Pelosi” numbers below 77%, but now I have to ask whether that vote was worth the voter angst that is going to result. Truly.

There are plenty of bills, I think, that Congressman Lampson can bolt to the minority over, bills that fit his “Blue Dog” brand of Democratic politics. But this one rates right up there with his FISA vote, the one to surrender our constitutionally guaranteed rights against unlawful search and seizure.

And I know that the question will always be asked of me “what are you going to do, Half, vote for Pete Olson?” And you know that it’s impossible to vote a straight Democratic ticket and vote for Olson.

But I have to ask now, with votes like this, does it really make a difference who represents the 22nd district?