Letters from the "Dark Side"

It looks like the Republican National Committee is long on money and short on brains. I went to the mailbox today to get my mail – I go get the mail once a week whether I need to or not – and what do I find but an invitation to fill out their “Republican Party Census Document”.

They had my name and address correct, my voting district and my registration number. So my voting record must be deep in the recesses of the RNC’s database. To the RNC I am a “grassroots supporter” of the party of the Dark Side.

Me, one of 75,000 voters of Fort Bend County who voted in the Democratic primary last March. One of a million voters in Texas who caucused at Democratic precinct conventions later that evening.

Those puffy old white men who run the party of the Dark Side need to check to see if their computer geeks are really doing their jobs or just hanging around playing Halo 3 while cashing their fat paychecks.

Now not only do I get to let you see what drivel the RNC is sending out to their supporters and provide commentary [between brackets], but then I get to answer these questions and send it back to them in their business reply envelope.

They break down the issues under major headers in bold. This is to help the census participants shift their brains from one foul, mean-spirited, and spiteful political theory to another. You have 3 answer choices: “Yes” “No” “Undecided” [they left out H-E-Double hockey sticks No]

HOMELAND SECURITY ISSUES

[Is it just me or is anyone else getting tired of that term? Why didn’t they just name it “Fatherland Security”?]

1. Should Republicans do everything they can to prevent liberal Democrats from repealing the USA Patriot Act and other important laws that help our intelligence agencies protect America?

2. Should Republicans stop the Democrats from cutting funding for our intelligence agencies or bringing back Clinton-era restrictions on inter-agency communications?

3. Do you support the use of force against any country that offers safe harbor or aid to individuals or organizations committed to further attacks on America?

4. Should we do everything we can to stop Democrats from weakening border security?

ECONOMIC ISSUES

[Yes, after waving the bloody flag they go on to what really matters: where can they get themselves some more money]

1. Should we make our fight against the Democrats’ massive tax hikes a central part of the 2008 campaign?

2. Should we continue working to permanently repeal the Death Tax?

3. President Bush’s successful income and capital gains tax cuts are set to expire – should they be made permanent?

4. Should Republicans fight for a balanced budget?

[Why? Because they haven’t yet?]

5. Should Republicans unite to keep our pro-growth achievements from the past seven years intact by blocking new federal government bureaucracy and red tape?

[You have to admit they didn’t specify which growth they were pro, like pro-growth of overseas jobs and pro-growth of debt to the People’s Republic of China]

6. Should Republicans in Congress oppose the new, wasteful government spending programs proposed by the Democrats and their leaders, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid?

[Yes, the Republican wasteful spending programs are so much better, aren’t they, especially when the profits go to KBR and Blackwater]

DOMESTIC ISSUES

1. Do you agree that we must stop illegal immigration?

2. Should Republicans oppose Democrat plans for one-size-fits-all, government-run health care?

3. Should we continue working for serious tort reform to protect individuals and small businesses from predatory lawsuits?

4. Should we make sure President Bush’s judicial nominees receive fair hearings and up or down votes in the Senate?

[waitaminute, are they planning on having some judges for the Senate to vote on between now and January 21st or do they have something else in mind?]

5. Should Republicans in Congress protect our private property rights from eminent domain?

[…just as they do in Texas with the Trans Texas Corridor?]

SOCIAL ISSUES

1.Do you think Congress should pass the Federal Marriage Amendment protecting marriage as a union between one man and one woman?

[First out of the chute? What else? Gay bashing]

2. Do you want Republicans to defend the recently-passed partial-birth abortion ban from attacks by the Democratic majority?

[Yep, get out of the way you sentimental fools and let us kill us some babies]

3. Do you support President Bush’s initiatives to allow private religious and charitable groups to do more to help those in need?

[That’s it? Just three issues? Nothing about adultery, pederasty and casual sex in men’s rooms? Hmmpf!]

DEFENSE ISSUES

1. Do you think US troops should have to serve under United Nations’ commanders?

[Geez, I never thought about that, but now that’s a darned good idea. Leave it to the Republicans to think up new ways for the UN to maintain peace in the world]

2. Do you agree that our top military priority should be fighting terrorists?

3. Should Republicans fight Democrat efforts to impose Clinton-era cuts in the Pentagon’s budget?

[Ah. I remember that. We called it the “peace dividend”. Bush replaced it with a war kleptocracy]

4. Do you support economic sanctions against North Korea and Iran to stop their nuclear weapons programs?

[Wait. I don’t get it. Neither of these countries have a nuclear weapons program. So if they don’t have one, does that mean we will send grain to North Korea and iPods to Iran?]

5. Do you agree that sowing the seeds of democracy and freedom in the Middle East is a worthy goal?

[As in, they are going to be free and democratic if it kills them?]

Then they go through some rigmarole and you look past the donations boxes to check to come down to the check box that I truly admire. The one that I will select.

“No, I favor electing liberal Democrats over the next ten years”

Now, these questions are meant to do one of two things. Either to inflame the cold, cold hearts of Republicans to agree to each and every one of these questions so they drop a check payable to RNC in one of the following amounts: $500, $250, $100, $50, $25, or Other.

Or to find out what Republican voters out there are truly thinking, and take those results into the room when they sit down to draw up their fall campaign strategies.

What are the chances they are really opting for the second alternative?

No, I didn’t think so either.

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.

Strategic Petroleum Reserve: It’s A Matter of Economics, Not Gas Prices

The House and Senate just passed HR 6022, a bill to direct the president to suspend purchase of petroleum for storage in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Its rationale, and the reason it made the news was that this would decrease overall demand for crude and drive down the price of a barrel of oil.

The Bush Regime was completely against it, but passage of the bill, unanimously in the Senate, and overwhelmingly (385 - 25) in the House, guarantees either Bush’s signature or a veto override.

Bush rationalized that purchase of 70,000 barrels of crude per day is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the 21 million barrels that the United States consumes every day and won’t affect the futures price.

That’s 0.33% of all of the oil consumed in the US per day. I don’t often say this, but Bush is probably right, it probably won’t do a thing to the oil prices. The Chron labeled the bill “feel good legislation” for just this reason. Legislation like this, and ideas like the proposal to suspend the federal gas tax this summer, are merely, as Obama puts it, “an election-year gimmick” as well as an attempt to show the voters that Washington is trying to do something about the soaring cost of petroleum.

But that doesn’t mean the bill is a bad idea. I like it that the Feds are going to stop buying $126 per barrel oil and sticking it into the ground. Filling the petroleum reserve should always be about supply and demand. Right now there is no demand to fill the reserve but the oil speculators have driven up the price of oil, they say, based on future demand. Buying petroleum at today’s prices in preparation for some future shortfall is insane. It’s like buying a high-priced cut of meat, like prime rib, in case there’s a meat cutter’s strike someday.

It’s irresponsible to pay $8.8 million per day (in taxpayer dollars, mind you) for oil when its price has been so jacked up. The bill provides that strategic oil purchase can resume when prices fall below $75/barrel. That, friends and neighbors, saves the taxpayers nearly $3.6 million every day.

That’s just good economy.

No, if you want to do something about the price of oil, you have to do something about what is driving the oil speculators to keep on jacking up the futures prices. I’ve looked around and this guy says that these high prices are here to stay, that what we are experiencing right now is no “bubble” that can burst, causing a price drop to more reasonable levels.

He says “This ain't a bubble, folks. Better get used to it.”

If that’s the case then the bill just passed will eventually be repealed or nullified, but I really think the guy is all wet. He’s right about some things though. The price of oil has been driven up by a weak dollar, since oil is traded in dollars. He’s right that both India and China have become greater consumers of petroleum and their demand has placed some pressure on supply.

But there are other things that have driven up the price of oil. Things that speculators take seriously. And things that can be controlled.

Like war and nukes in the Middle East.

It’s hard to quantify how much more a barrel of oil costs because they are in a shooting war in the Middle East, and there’s talk of nukes in (and nuking of) Iran. But I’ll bet there are people who have done exactly that. When you say things like how you will “obliterate Iran,” with little concern for the fact that futures speculators will want to take into account the inability to produce oil in that country for 250 years, you do a little damage, and oil goes up.

I suspect that when peace breaks out in the Middle East, and maybe it will someday, we are going to see oil prices go back to their sub-reasonable levels of, say, $60/barrel. Absent that ever happening, even US withdrawal from Iraq ought to have an effect at the pump.

It’s going to take some common sense, some cool heads, and better economics, but this oil bubble will burst someday.

But for now, that Prius (or, I guess, that Honda Civic hybrid) is starting to look mighty tempting.

John Edwards: Fence? What Fence?

My main man, John Edwards has had a fence to sit on since he pulled out of the presidential primary process in February. And there he sat as the weeks dragged on as the mud was slung across it from Clinton to Obama and then back again.. A hint dropped here and there about how Elizabeth Edwards favored Clinton’s health care plan. But Edwards stayed neutral.

I thought I detected a shift when he came out earlier in the week suggesting that continued internecine angst was okey-dokey unless it was going to be hurting the party in the general election. Words echoing those of Obama surrogates who bemoaned Clinton’s slash-and-burn win-at-any cost sort of politics.

But now, as of this afternoon, John Edwards is officially off the fence and has embraced the candidacy of my other main man, second-best main man, Barack Obama.

I just never thought he would ever endorse the Clintons. Sure they are speaking on the same populist level as Edwards often did, but I never bought that their message was really very sincere. Edwards could do populism because that was him. Hillary Clinton does populism because it makes her sound like the salt of the earth, and not a Wellesly alumnus.

Now what does this do for Barack Obama? Edwards has delegates but aren’t they bound to their candidate? I think so. So this isn’t about delegates, this is about getting others off the fence. Uncommitted superdelegates. Uncommitted labor unions. Edwards, as I recall, has the endorsement of the United Steel Workers and the United Mine Workers, and since he suspended his campaign, the unions haven’t made any commitments to either Clinton or Obama. Is this a signal to them who they should now endorse? If so, I am wondering whether the West Virginia vote would have gone any differently had Edwards made his endorsement a little earlier.

Naaaaah.

But that’s another story.

This is only good news for Obama’s campaign. The party is starting to unite. Will this provide a catalyst for Clinton to end her campaign?

Naaaaah.

West Virginia . . . mountain mama . . . take me home . . .

On this evening of all of us sitting down to find out how many white voters Hillary Clinton can scare into voting for her (instead of that guy who simply can’t attract white working people), there are two short Obama ads on You Tube that show both cleverness and ingenuity. Two traits that personifies the campaign of that less-than-white guy.

By the way, is it just me or is anyone else completely turned off by Hillary Clinton’s “whites only” remarks?

Here’s my fave. Mom . . . sit down . . . I have . . . hope.



And this one. Clearly Obama wants to turn a new page in history. Do I have to draw you a picture?

Somebody Needs to Run Against Fort Bend 3rd Precinct Commissioner Andy Meyers

Really, somebody should.

Now a Democrat will never be able to win in this. Fort Bend County’s 3rd precinct includes the Katy/Cinco Ranch area of the northern end of the county, and anyone with politics to the left of Genghis Khan is going to have a tough go with that area’s voters.

But somebody has to run against him. Maybe so that he can get some idea of what it is you spend in a serious campaign these days. A serious campaign where you have an opponent.

But really, for a lot of reasons, someone needs to run against this guy.

Covered today in FortBendNow and also at Susan’s not-a-blog is the story of her near-total victory over Andy Meyers in her ethics complaint filed a year and a half ago with the Texas Ethics Commission. Meyers agreed to pay $1600 in fines without acknowledging guilt.

Now you can read about all of the particulars at the above links, I just want to make a couple of very simple observations. First, why did Andy Meyers feel the need to spend $38,500 for “political expenditures” from July 2005 to January 2007? Who was Meyers running against? The truth is that since March 2004 Meyers has not had an opponent.

So what is it about this kind of money being spent for “political expenditures”? The only thing I can recall coming from this individual was twenty or so 3 X 6 hate signs that appeared on the scene late in the 2006 mid-term election. Signs that were traced back to Meyers. Signs he paid a little over a few grand for as I recall.

But that leaves a whole bunch more of that balance to account for.

The assertion that Meyers was using his campaign account for his personal benefit seems to have been turned aside by the TEC. They appear willing to accept an explanation of accounting errors as the cause for these filings. It’s a difficult pill to swallow, though, considering the fact that Meyers is, himself, an accountant. In fact, from his own county website he lists himself as having these qualities: “MBA in Finance & Economics - L.S.U., Licensed CPA, Licensed Real Estate Broker, Held Series 7 Securities Dealers License (sic).”

Masters in Business Administration? Certified Public Accountant? Securities licenses?

I recall in past years that he cited these very qualities of business acumen as reasons people should vote for him.

Now he can’t even file a correct campaign expense report? This brings me to my second observation.

Somebody needs to run against this guy because if he is correct, and all of these things were due to his accounting mistakes, then he is a self-admitted incompetent. Self-admitted, and also an incompetent as indicated by the TEC itself. Didn’t they make note of the fact that his $6,800 emended report also had errors?

Frankly, I don’t know what is worse: an incompent accountant in public offce or accounting incompetently in an emendation when the errors have already been revealed to him.

House Republicans Vote to Table Mothers Day

This is a bit of old news but I wanted to save it for today, Mother’s Day, in case I didn’t have anything good to say about yesterday’s election – which I don’t.

One hundred and seventy eight Republican congressmen voted against Mother’s Day after they voted for it.

This is a true story.

Nebraska congressman Jeff Fortenberry (R – NE 1) sponsored a house resolution, HR 1113, to honor Mother’s Day on its 100th anniversary of observation. It had words in it like this (I trimmed it a little but kept the best parts):

"Whereas Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of each May;

Whereas 2008 is the 100th anniversary of the first official Mother's Day observation;

Whereas in 1908, Elmer Burkett, a U.S. senator from Nebraska, proposed making Mother's Day a national holiday;

Whereas it is estimated that there are more than 82,000,000 mothers in the United States;

Whereas mothers have made immeasurable contributions toward building strong families, thriving communities, and ultimately a strong Nation;

Whereas the services rendered to the children of the United States by their mothers have strengthened and inspired the Nation throughout its history;

Resolved, That the House of Representatives celebrates the role of mothers in the United States and supports the goals and ideals of Mother's Day.”

The resolution passed by unanimous vote and the House was about to move on to other business when Congressman Todd Tiahrt (R – KS 4 ) stood to move to reconsider the vote. I asked myself whether Tiahrt was maltreated as a child, or maybe abandoned, but the actual explanation was that Congressman Tiahrt was simply engaged in Republican politics-as-usual and simply wanted to put a stall on proceedings in Congress. He was mad that he wasn’t allowed to make any changes in a bill dealing with supplemental funding of our troops. Republicans, in retaliation, were taking every opportunity presented to them, and some that weren’t, to stall proceedings. And why not call for a revote on Mother’s Day?

Democrats countered by moving to table the call for a revote and this is the motion that will haunt Republicans, because 178 of them voted against tabling that motion.

Voted against Mother’s Day.

So yes, the Republicans won in putting the House through yet another groaning vote, but shot themselves in the foot by publicly voting against American mothers from coast to coast.

Indeed, Fortenberry, the bill’s sponsor, voted against mothers everywhere.

I suppose it is going to take real boners like this one to show Americans that there is a huge need for change in this country. It is going to take super majorities in both houses to do it, and a Democratic president in the White House.

It’s either that or who knows what will happen next.

Unless we get this majority maybe there will someday be a vote to repeal apple pie.

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.

Down to The Wire: Vote For Jonita Reynolds on May 10th

Tomorrow the voters living within the boundaries of Fort Bend ISD will have a final opportunity to repudiate the “reform” Gang of Four that turned Fort Bend ISD on its ear for two memorable years.

Two years that saw mass exodus of teachers and administrators. Two years that saw hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars flushed down the commode from the expenses incurred in replacing these people, and the lawsuits that resulted from board member actions.

Two of the original gang of four are standing for re-election and are being challenged by members of the education community. Of the two, former educator Susan Hohnbaum has the easiest task to unseat trustee Stan Magee, who claims that he does not have the time to campaign for his seat – and by correlation, does not have time to serve on the Board of Trustees. So unless the voters in Fort Bend ISD are truly asleep, look for a fond farewell to Stan Magee. In the other race, however, long-time Texas educator and administrator Dr. Jonita Reynolds has the steepest slope to climb to defeat her opponent, Laurie Caldwell.

Caldwell, whose personal and educational qualifications for this position are dwarfed by those of Dr. Reynolds, apparently has attempted to make up for that in having some help from fellow board member, Steve Smelley.

Smelley, a former supporter of Dr. Reynolds’ husband’s run for state representative in HD 27, has no similar feelings toward her. So much so that a story has emerged that Smelley, in his attempts to discredit Dr. Reynolds, has suggested that Jonita Reynolds bought her PhD degree in Education. All of that blew up in his face, however, when it was revealed that two of Dr. Reynolds’ professors in her quest for the degree at the University of Houston were none other than former FBISD Superintendents Betty Baitland and Don Hooper.

These attempts to defame Dr. Reynolds by casting doubts upon her honesty and integrity must be answered by the voters. Smelley’s insinuation is actually an accusation that Dr. Reynolds is in violation of Texas law by claiming a doctoral degree from an unrecognized institution. This is a practice that was recently abandoned by a couple of Republican elected officials in Fort Bend County when they were informed that they were committing Class B misdemeanors. Voters must reject these political ploys as the disingenuous things that they are.

Show your support for education in Fort Bend ISD by showing up at the polls tomorrow, May 10th 2008, and show even more support for education by voting for Dr. Jonita Reynolds for Fort Bend ISD Trustee Position 5.

Burma: Stricken With a Cyclone and Paranoid Kleptomaniacs

Six days after Cyclone Nargis made landfall in Burma’s Irrawaddy delta, wiping out towns and villages and destroying houses as far north as Rangoon, only a very limited amount of foreign aid has made it to any of the 1.5 million people who are now homeless in this dirt poor country.

Burma, now called Myanmar by its rulers, a junta of generals who have kept an iron grip on the country since 1962, should be by all rights a rich country. Its Irrawaddy delta is exceedingly rich farmland. Its highlands are rich in minerals. Oil has been produced from British-run oil fields since the 1920’s. Burma should be a country basking in its riches, but its people are among the poorest in the world. Its rulers, the generals and their coterie are, by sharp contrast, wealthy beyond all imagination.

I have called our present Bush Regime a “kleptocracy”, a government of people who reserve vast quantities America’s wealth for their cronies, but these people are pikers compared to the generals of Burma. And when you spend your life stealing from the very people governments are supposed to serve, you darned well have to know that they will get extremely paranoid when outsiders want to come in to help these very people.

That’s what you read, right now, about outside groups that want to bring in aid. The generals will only deal with people already in-country, not anyone else. And certainly not America. The news indicates that the generals are suspicious of outsiders, and there may be something to that, because these kleptomaniacs are ever-guarding their source of booty.

But there’s more to it than that.

The generals want to deal only with those already in-country because they already have an understanding with them. These groups originating from Bangladesh, China, India, Singapore, Italy and Thailand, already have the wheels greased. The generals are already getting their cut, you see.

That’s right. The generals need to be bribed in order for them to let these humanitarian groups bail out these stricken people.

Some humanitarian groups are disinclined to help out specifically because they want to distribute the aid directly to the people, and not just hand it over to the Burmese government for them to distribute. That’s not the way it works in Burma, however. If you want to donate aid packages to Burma, you give them to the junta, they take their cut and then, their friends take theirs, and what’s left goes to whoever can reach the farthest or jump the highest.

That’s why, when I learned this afternoon that the United States was sending a small convoy of warships to Burma to help out, I burst out laughing.

“The Navy has three ships participating in an exercise in the Gulf of Thailand that could help in any relief effort - the USS Essex, the USS Juneau and the USS Harper's Ferry. The Essex is an amphibious assault ship with 23 helicopters aboard, including 19 capable of lifting cargo from ship to shore, as well as more than 1,500 Marines.”

The last thing the generals want to see steaming up the Irrawaddy are American warships.

No, my guess, if things play out as they have in the past, it will go very much as outlined in the article I quoted. The generals will say that they appreciate all the help but really if these countries, and America, want to help, they should just give them the money and then they will use it to go and buy the supplies for these poor, poor prople who will sicken, starve and die otherwise.

I guess this should be a lesson to us all. What the Bush Regime did, or actually didn’t do, on the heels of Hurricane Katrina, to help the hundreds of thousands of evacuees and thousands of people still trapped in the disaster areas, pales in comparison to what the Burmese generals are capable of doing.

Or not doing.

Hybrid Autos: Silent But Deadly?

My next automobile will be a hybrid. Of that I have no doubt. I’ve previously chased off that notion because of the extra added surcharges you get to pay when you take a hybrid in for servicing. But with gas here in Texas over $3.50 and oil futures making records with each and every passing day, it looks like buying a hybrid is not only cost effective right now, but for the foreseeable future.

I lean toward the Honda Prius because of all the rice burners I have ever owned, Honda has been the best. But now we come to hear about a new threat that these cars are to the unsuspecting: they’re too darned quiet.

Four generations of Americans have lived with automobile traffic. Sometimes human flesh and bone has mixed it up with chrome, steel and (now) plastics and composites; sometimes to a fatal end for human or auto (or both). One preventative measure we humans have adopted over the decades is to listen for oncoming traffic. And truly, for the legally blind, that is most certainly a primary deterrence to getting mashed to atoms by oncoming traffic.

But now, with the advent of quiet battery-driven hybrids that can steal about town in complete silence, the human race is faced with either solving the global warming pickle we find ourselves in, or becoming future road kill by muted stealth machines.

The video on this can be viewed at CNN.

Now it sounds to me like something’s got to give. If humans are unwilling to adapt to these quiet machines of death, they are going to have to put some kind of noise maker on the cars to warn people that one of these silent but deadly autos is in the neighborhood. It could be as easy as legislating that hybrid owners must cruise the neighborhoods with their drivers’ side window down and their left hand manipulating a pair of maracas. Or maybe a tambourine.

Who knows, it might make for some interesting jam sessions at long traffic lights.

Clinton Metrics: What Counts is What Helps

Olberman had me rolling on the floor yesterday evening. Now with polls in Indiana and North Carolina about to close, maybe now is the time to include his Hillary Clinton’s new metrics rant here.



He hit just about every way the Clinton campaign has attempted to spin this primary season using every line of reasoning they can dream up.

All except for the only one that matters.

2025 delegates.

Oh, that’s right. It’s not 2025 now, it’s 2209. Clearly, the Clintons want to take the fight to the convention floor in August.

For Democrats this year, the White House is theirs to lose, and apparently they’re trying their level best to do just that.

6 Present and Former Fort Bend ISD Trustees Endorse Dr. Jonita Reynolds

Quite a few of us here in Fort Bend County received an email message today from six present and former members of the Fort Bend ISD Board of Trustees. This message was a very unusual move for this group, but these days, the unusual is more de rigueur.

Unusual in that these six present and former BOT members are endorsing Dr. Jonita Reynolds in her quest to unseat incumbent trustee Laurie Caldwell.

Unusual but quite understandable. Here. Read the message they sent this morning:

Dear Friends –

We are writing to ask for your assistance in electing three new people to the FBISD board of trustees.

As long time current and former board members, we are fully aware of the demands made upon the trustees. We feel that there are three candidates that have the skill set and demeanor to contribute in a positive manner to FBISD.

Former educator Susan Hohnbaum is running against Stan Magee. Dr. Jonita Reynolds is running against Laurie Caldwell. Both of the incumbents were a part of the Lisa Rickert “new guard”. They were a part of the dysfunction and major disruption in FBISD over the past four years. FBISD taxpayers are well aware of this dysfunction and understand that it will continue if we fail to vote.

We witnessed and experienced the malicious, unethical behavior of this group. It is time for a clean slate. It is time for FBISD to march forward unencumbered.

Additionally, we feel that Daniel Menendez will bring a great deal of professional understanding to issues surrounding bond expenditures.

Please do not be swayed by the political misrepresentations that will certainly be spread by desperate people over the next week.

Don’t miss this opportunity to let your voice be heard.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact any of us.

Early voting ends on Tuesday and Saturday, May 11 [it's the 10th really] is the School Board Election. Please VOTE.

Bruce Bain Jane Clarke Rita Drabek
Sue Hauenstein Cynthia Knox Arthur Pace

Now these 6 signatories endorse more than just Jonita Reynolds, but I want to focus on this one candidate because she is running against a trustee that is actively campaigning. Stan Magee is not

As written in the email, Laurie Caldwell, as well as Stan Magee, represents the last of the “New Guard”, a neoconservative "reform" voting bloc. These members were elected to the board on promises of increased accountability for spending. They succeeded in slashing tax rates for taxpayers (that is, decreasing district revenues), oursourcing tasks that had been taken care of in-house, chasing off skilled and talented teachers and administrators, and running up expenditures with all of what went into replacing the administrators they ran off as well as to pay the legal expenses that resulted from actions they provoked.

Fort Bend ISD is just coming out of a long nightmare, and it is time to put this sordid past behind us for good. The time is now to support Dr. Jonita Reynolds by voting for her in this Saturday’s school board election. Dr. Reynolds brings huge assets to the table: a locally educated (U of H) teacher and administrator, CEO of . . . wait a minute, she says it better than I. Just go here to look at the impressive skill set this candidate offers to us. Compare that list to that of Laurie Campbell: past PTA president, parent volunteer at her kids’ schools, a teacher courtesy of the state’s “emergency certification program”, and owner of a pet sitting company.

This is not a difficult decision here so go and vote. Vote and take two friends with you and tell them who to vote for.

And tell all the rest of your friends to go and vote, too.

Early voting ends tomorrow, May 6th, so if you have missed it, and a whole bunch of people have, go and vote on Election Day. That’s Saturday May 10th. Go here for a list of voting locations and hours. Don’t know your precinct? Go here and they’ll tell you.

Let's finish the job we started.

Happy Birthday Sara

Wherever she is tonight, whether it is afloat on the Nile or hoofing it through the world's largest open air museum, my Sara is another year older.

Happy Birthday, Sara.

Be safe and continue to berate the touts that so intimidate Western visitors to these important ancient shrines. If I were to face an Egyptian tout who falsely advised of this concern or that, I would want my daughter, Sara, by my side to lay into them with coarse invective. This is a young woman with an attitude.

The kid is going places, world. You just don't know it right now.

Cowboy Diplomacy in the Middle East: McCain and Clinton Rattle Their Sabers

First it was John McCain issuing bomb threats to the Iranian people:



Then, with Pennsylvania on the line, McCain's saber rattling was brought to Democratic politics when Hillary Clinton donned her spurs and Texas ten-gallon hat and assumed the position of the character that Slim Pickens played in the classic dark comedy Dr. Strangelove, when she gave these remarks:



And Barack Obama? What does Barack Obama have to say about John “Lucas” McCain and “Hopalong” Hillary Clinton? He held forth today on “Meet the Press”. In case you missed it:



Again, you have to take into account that two of these candidates aren’t so much talking to the electorate but to the superdelegates whose support they want or whose support they don’t want to lose. What is Clinton’s message to them here? It’s obvious, isn’t it? Over and over again you hear Clinton saying that the issue of the fall election will be security and defense. It has become obvious that Clinton’s people have decided that the best way to go up against McCain is to agree with him. It negates his advantage.

Ironic, isn’t it? These contests were fought in the past by having the candidates show how different they were from each other. This is how Barack Obama plans to do it, a strategy that promotes change as opposed to a 3rd term for Bush, and this is ironically similar to what has traditionally been done in the past. Hillary Clinton plans to fight McCain by embracing his ideas and making them hers. A strategy that promises the same old thing, but ironically, this is a new approach to woo the voters.

Conclusion? Obama’s is a campaign for change. Clinton’s is a change for campaigning.

Of the Coffee, By the Coffee, For the Coffee . . .

Now let me get this straight. Barack Obama is the Chardonnay-sipping elitist, right? How then do we explain the fact that the man shoots some mean hoops, yet Hillary Clinton can’t operate a mini mart’s coffee machine?



Perhaps this multimillionaire just needs to call a spade a spade and have her staff make her the usual cup of Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee. The coffee that is served at the White House.

Only $28.90 per pound.

Guam Caucuses Reporting In

I swear this campaign, this endless presidential campaign, continues to amaze me.

Guam is in the news.

Today, May 3rd, is the Territory of Guam’s day to caucus for their choices for their 8 pledged Democratic National Convention delegates. Yep, eight, count ‘em. But these days it’s a news item when a single superdelegate makes his or her preference known, and an even bigger day when a single superdelegate switches sides. That’s like a net gain/loss of two. So with 8 delegates on the line, all eyes and ears are now on . . . Guam.

But Guam has 8 delegates? Well no, 4 really. Because Guam is a U.S. Territory, and not a state, their delegates only have a half vote each.

So Guam has 4 pledged delegates.

I had to ask myself, is anything going differently on Guam? Come to find out, no. Well . . .yes and no. No, in that Guamanians and Chamorros (that’s what they call themselves) have shown up in record numbers at their 20 caucus centers in schools and community centers. Twice as many as showed up for their 2004 caucus. Guamanians are also showing up undecided, but leaning toward Clinton. Female Guamanians tend to vote for Hillary Clinton.

But one difference I found was that one Guamanian, at least, was leaning toward Obama because he grew up in Hawaii. Hawaii, you know, is a mere stone’s throw from Guam. A mere 4000 miles. Out in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean I think they do distance differently.

Another similarity, they assign delegates pro rata, like most states. So if the vote goes for Obama by more than 56.25%, then Obama wins Guam by ½ of a vote. But it’s not looking very good for an outright net pledged delegate gain for Obama today. It looks like the candidates will split those 4 votes 2-2. How do I know this? CNN. CNN is watching the Guam caucuses. With 79% of the caucuses reporting 1420 votes are for Obama (%53.3) and 1246 (46.7%) are for Clinton. Things could turn rapidly around, though. Votes from the village of Dededo have not come in yet, and Dededo has a bunch of Guamanians and Chamorros.who vote.

Who they vote for no one seems to know. No one knows whether Guamanians prefer beer and shots or Chardonnay. Are they into bowling or basketball?

No one knows.

Interestingly enough, though, Guam has as many superdelegate votes as it has pledged delegates. 4. But these are whole people. So there is another similarity. It is going to be the superdelegate votes that are going to decide who ultimately will win.

In Guam.

UPDATE (8:28 PM):

With all caucuses reporting, it looks like Barack Obama has won the popular vote on the Territory of Guam. By 7 votes. That's Obama 50.1% to Clinton 49.9%.

Over 5000 islanders showed up to vote in the Democratic caucuses this year, far outstripping the 1500 that came to vote in 2004. In all, with a population of 175,000, this represents 2.8% of the total population. However, considering that many of these are children under 18 and, and that many of these are Republicans, it is not unreasonable to assume that this number is close to the turnout we have been having on the mainland.

Methodists to Bush Library Foundation: Not In My Backyard.

It is truly a sign of the times when a presidential library is having trouble finding a place to build itself. With an 81% disapproval rating (or, let’s say, a 19% approval rating), George W. Bush’s legacy, his presidential library, may find itself homeless.

And this time it’s all the fault of the Methodists.

The Methodists held their annual General Conference this past week. It adjourned just at about this writing. This conference is where they all get together annually and decide on policy. What hymnals to purchase, which countries to condemn and which to support, adoption of a new mission statement, the list goes on and on.

And one item on the agenda was a petition to The United Methodist Church’s conference to prevent the establishment of the George W. Bush Presidential Library on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas. This particular agenda item was voted out of committee to be presented to the entire conference where it received 844 Aye votes, and 20 No. That, by the way, amounts to a 97.7% disapproval rating.

The petition, written by one Diane Smock of Greenville, South Carolina, reads like this:

“I hereby petition the UMC General Conference to prevent leasing, selling, or otherwise participating in or supporting the presidential library for George W. Bush at Southern Methodist University. We should support separation of church and state, and if the Bush library goes on the SMU campus or property it will appear to the country and the world as an endorsement of that president by the United Methodist Church. Texas is a big state, surely there are other venues.”

Did you like that? Here is another petition signed by Methodist Church bishops and college professors.

Smock’s petition got overwhelming approval and was also approved by a huge majority to be referred to the South Central Jurisdictional conference, the group with immediate oversight of SMU.

Local rule and local policy and all that.

But when you get a message like this from the national conference it is going to look a little odd when you ignore it. South Central is going to have a problem explaining to the rest of the church why they went ahead and built a presidential library to commemorate the presidency that will make that of James Buchanan, long-regarded as the worst president in US history, seem absolutely brilliant by comparison.

Quite frankly, I am a little disappointed. I was looking forward to having the Bush Foundation spend half a billion dollars building this monument to stupidity. I was especially looking forward to the Bush Library “Think Tank” that was supposed to be included in the package. A George W. Bush “Think Tank”. Truly the mother of all oxymorons.

I am also disappointed that some of the library designs submitted to “The Chronicle of Higher Education” will all be for naught. There were some real doozeys. The most important rule in the competition was that the submissions must all be drawn on the backs of envelopes. They received over a hundred designs, and put up their favorites on their website to be voted upon. My favorite one, shown at right, was the winner.

My favorite part was the reflecting pool, where visitors to this library, which actually has no public access, can stare down at their reflections in the water, to “see in the reflection below who is to blame: themselves the voters.”

Senate Says McCain Can Run For President

Now, something tells me that nobody has been reading the US Constitution lately. When the Bush Regime negotiates with a foreign power on the deployment of troops within that foreign power’s borders, that’s called negotiating a treaty. But not according to the Bush Regime. According to them it’s a “Cooperation Agreement.” It’s a SOFA.

So we have the Executive Branch negotiating treaties and then ratifying them. But, you know, that’s what the Senate does. That’s in the Constitution.

No one is surprised, though. Time and time again the Executive Branch has ducked oversight and run ends-around on the concept of Separation of Powers.

And now we have the same thing happening in the Senate.

Today, the Senate passed a bipartisan resolution that it was OK for John McCain to run for President. That’s fine. They can do that. They can just as well pass a resolution that John McCain is 35 years old (and still eligible to run for President) if that’s what floats their boat. It still doesn’t make it so.

No, I’m afraid the Senate has overstepped their authority. This question lies with the courts. It is, by long tradition, the Judicial Branch that interprets the Constitution.

Now I’m not saying that the courts are going to find that John McCain is ineligible to be President of the United States because he was born on a military base in Panama, and not on American soil. That would be giving the courts, and in particular, the US Supreme Court, too much credit. After all, by a 6-3 decision the US Supreme Court has just ruled in favor of the question on whether states can charge a poll tax, in their requirement of a government issued photo ID, in order for a person to vote in an election.

If states can charge a poll tax, then most assuredly John McCain can be a natural born citizen.

But let’s do it correctly, OK? Let’s not follow the Bush Regime down that garden path to institutional urination on the US Constitution. After all, there are too many standing around and over it already and the drying out won’t begin until January.

Rick Noriega Speaks to Young Democrats in Austin

It happened a couple of weeks ago. Rick Noriega addressed the Young Democrats on April 11th. He was introduced by Texas Democratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie.

A good short speech that didn’t overdo it on platitudes, just a good speech recognizing the work of the Young Democrats in getting new voters registered, and recognizing his colleagues in the State House. He finished with this:

“We are at a critical time in our nation’s history. Perhaps one of the most critical that we have ever known. And I just can’t emphasize enough what your leadership and what this next election cycle is at stake. Now. I will share with you what Chairman Richie has said, I will underscore this again: I don’t care if you are for Obama, and I don’t care if you are for Hillary, but you had better be for Noriega."

That pretty much says it in a nutshell. No matter who you back for president, this is the guy that all Texans can get behind.

Because God knows, Texans don’t need to vote for that other guy. Not that other guy. That other guy who is temporarily holding Lyndon Johnson’s seat in the Senate. That other guy who votes against our troops every chance he can get.

No, whoever we want in the White House, Rick Noriega is the man we want in the Senate.

Why are Clinton and McCain Singing the Same Gas Tax Holiday Tune?

I’d swear McCain said it first. I mentioned it way back here. John McCain’s solution to the straining economy is a summer gas tax holiday. And now we have Hillary Clinton calling for the exact same minimalist approach.

Now what is with that? Are we back to basic government as usual? Why is Hillary Clinton making it look like we don’t have a clear choice between her and John McCain? Really, I have to ask myself, if she is going to agree with McCain in her proposal of a gas tax holiday this summer, what else is she going to settle down and agree with him about?

As mentioned in my piece knocking McCain on this, not only will this not do ANYthing for the economy or an average American’s monthly bottom line – I think I estimated it would save me $13.32 for the entire summer – it takes away federal revenue that we use to maintain our infrastructure.

Our crumbling infrastructure.

Clinton goes one better than McCain, though, claiming that the holiday will have a trickle down effect where gas savings will be passed on to the downstream consumers.

“You’ve gotta bring those logs in; you’ve gotta send the finished products out. And the costs are sent down the supply chain, from the factory floor to the corner store.”

Now, where did I hear about that before . . . trickle down.

Oh, that’s right. That was Herbert Hoover’s and Dick Nixon‘s and Ronald Reagan’s way to justify tax cuts to the corporations and the rich. From Rolling Stone (2004):

“Every GOP administration since 1952 has let the Military-Industrial Complex loot the Treasury and plunge the nation into debt on the excuse of a wartime economic emergency. Richard Nixon comes quickly to mind, along with Ronald Reagan and his ridiculous "trickle-down" theory of U.S. economic policy. If the Rich get Richer, the theory goes, before long their pots will overflow and somehow "trickle down" to the poor, who would rather eat scraps off the Bush family plates than eat nothing at all.”

Now, for the first time, a Democrat (and, let us not forget, her Republican foe) is using the idea of the “trickle down theory” to justify a minimalist approach to an economy on the ropes.

The question posed at the top of this piece is “Why”. Why is Clinton doing this? Obama’s campaign has called it “a gimmick”. Basically true, a gimmick it is, but not only that, but an elitist gimmick. A “let them eat cake” gimmick. Clinton hopes to capture the votes of Americans for 18.4¢ per gallon, and she expectes them to be enthusiastic about the prospect. Clinton expects Americans, in the year of Change, to embrace the same old tired politics that go back to Herbert Hoover.

If anything, Hillary Clinton has just illustrated and underlined how her policies are to those of Barack Obama are . . . excuse me . . . as white is to black.

As Republican is to Democrat.

As old tired politics of smoke and mirrors are to the new politics of a new generation.

You have to ask yourself then, if the people Hillary Clinton is playing to these days is not the electorate in primary states, but uncommitted superdelegates, is this her message? Is she telling the superdelegates that the old politics still fit the Democratic Party like a glove?

Like a silk glove?

Democratic National Committee Slams McCain in TV Ads

There are two of them now. I have seen both of them aired on MSNBC. I assume Fox News won’t run them, but will never know because I am one of those people who don’t ever tune in Fox News because I don’t like to waste my time.

The DNC says that McCain is howling over this ad because it quotes him out of context. They say that McCain has threatened to sue TV stations if they air the piece so that pretty much decided it for me that I would embed the ad here.



I recognize that guy’s voice. I think it belongs to an actor named Stephen Tobolowsky. It has a very innocent quality. A perfect voice for someone who is just trying to understand why John McCain is promising Americans a US presence in Iraq for the next 100 years.

This ad was closely followed on by a slam on McCain’s domestic policies, or rather, his lack of them. It’s a play on Ronald Reagan’s famous and effective question to voters in 1980 when he asked, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Brilliant, because then, as now, the country was in a severe economic downturn. This video takes some video clips of McCain from a while ago and runs then effectively with present-day reality.



The beauty of these clips is that it captures McCain’s voice just as he delivers it today. That calm analytical voice that always goes up a half a note on the final word or syllable.

It’s good to see these ads come out right now. What with Obama having to put up with the mainstream media (and Fox News) taking Wrighteous dumps on him, and Clinton stalking about challenging Obama to a “Lincoln-Douglas-style” debate (something nobody in this century would ever want to sit through), someone has to do their job.

Texas TAKS Attack Starts Tomorrow

With the dawn here in Texas, the most tested generation in history will sit down for the last series of Knowledge and Skills tests of the school year. It’s true you know. While the Great Generation met and mastered the tests of the Great Depression and World War II, the current generation of primary and secondary school children in Texas are, bar none, the most tested generation when you consider the kinds of tests where you “bubble” your answers inside little circles.

The only thing good about that is that at least when they go into their testing rooms tomorrow they pretty much know what is going to take place for the next few hours. I could go on and on about how tedious this is for everyone, and how disruptive it is of the curriculum calendar (all learning comes to a screeching halt), but I won’t. At least not anymore. No, I want to briefly examine what goes into test question development.

TAKS test questions are developed through a partnership between TEA, the Texas Education Agency, and Pearson Educational Measurement. Pearson develops the test questions and the TEA reviews them. Ten questions under review are usually administered to students along with their regular test questions, and student answers are analyzed. Questions that pass these rigors are then included in future tests as actual test questions that the students receive scores on. Test questions originate from individuals who contract with Pearson. I have done some of this with the Educational Testing Service so I have some experience with this. Typically one is asked to write several test questions, provide multiple choice responses, and then review several more questions developed by your peers. It’s interesting work.

Several times in the past, however, I have noticed that Pearson has allowed through a few bungled jobs. This is really through no fault of their own as they typically do not employ PhDs in their fields, unless you count PhDs in Education, and then I’ll bet that they are all over the place. The problem, as I see it, is that it is sometimes difficult to come up with a well-worded question for a concept that you are testing. Sometimes there are complexities that require a question’s words to be carefully chosen.

As an example, I cite a 5th grade science TAKS question that was asked a couple of years ago. A question for which there was no correct response.

Which two planets are closest to Earth?

A. Mercury and Saturn
B. Mars and Jupiter
C. Mercury and Venus
D. Venus and Mars

What is your answer? The question tested on the 5th grade science concept of the order of the planets in the solar system. Students in this case were supposed to reason that Earth lies in its orbital path between Mars and Venus, and therefore choice D was the correct choice. The trouble is, given the actual wording of the question, no response was correct. Had the question been reworded to “Which two planets have the closest orbital paths to that of Earth”, choice D would have been the correct one. The way it was worded, however, the two planets that are most often close to Earth are Mercury and Mars. Mercury, because, as opposed to Venus, it is most often on the same side of the Sun that Earth is, and Mars, because its orbital path brings it closer to Earth than Venus when they are on the same side of the Sun.

No 5th grader could know that, as it is an application of basic astrophysics. Only someone’s father or mother would ever be able to call the TEA out on that question. And they did, as a matter of fact. Texas, after all, has NASA within its borders. No, the question was poorly written and reviewers didn’t catch it. When it was tested with a previous year’s 5th grade class, it seemed to be a good question because 5th graders are not astrophysicists and they answered the question predictably with what they knew about the solar system.

So I think that given the specificity of questions on TAKS tests, especially the science tests, students will occasionally be visited with these kinds of erroneous questions. The problem isn’t having the wrong answers. It’s having correct questions.

Justice Department: Torture of Prisoners is Justified Despite Geneva Convention

The New York Times has just released Justice Department letters stating the government’s official opinion on the torturing of prisoners, vis-à-vis the Geneva Convention, illuminating for the first time the rationale behind still-secret CIA interrogation rules.

It seems, according to the Justice Department, that how you interrogate a prisoner very much depends on who the prisoner is, and how desirable is the information they hope to extract. Once a prisoner is classified as a “terrorist”, new rules apply. If the person is deemed to possess information that is considered important, new rules apply. From The Times:

“‘The fact that an act is undertaken to prevent a threatened terrorist attack, rather than for the purpose of humiliation or abuse, would be relevant to a reasonable observer in measuring the outrageousness of the act,’ said Brian A. Benczkowski, a deputy assistant attorney general, in the letter, which had not previously been made public.”

Torture, then is OK when it is done on someone in order to extract desirable information on future terror attacks, but not OK when the whole idea is to inflict humiliation on prisoners, or to generally abuse them.

In other words, if you are inflicting pain on a prisoner because of it gives one some sadistic pleasure, that’s bad. Only when you hope to get some useful information is it justified.

And the prisoner must be labeled a terrorist. That seems to be an important element of the opinions.

The casual observer would wonder what is the harm in that? Isn’t that a reasonable approach in a terrorist situation?

The problem is one of definition. One nation’s “terrorist” is another nation’s “freedom fighter”. Were the Minutemen of Massachusetts terrorists? Were the Sandinistas? What about the soldiers and militias that have put into power several African governments? If we go about labeling each and every person who takes up arms against America or any sovereign government, terrorists, especially when they are fighting on their own soil, it at least calls into question America’s credibility. At most, it gives each and every future adversary of the United States a rationale for torture of our own soldiers.

Something that the signatories of the Geneva Convention hoped to avoid.

Senator Ron Wyden (D - Oregon), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, seems to agree with this assessment:

“If the United States used subjective standards in applying its interrogation rules, he said, then potential enemies might adopt different standards of treatment for American detainees based on an officer’s rank or other factors. ‘The cumulative effect in my interpretation is to put American troops at risk,’ Mr. Wyden said.“

I guess the next time we hear about our troops being abused at the hands of their captors (and that day will come, as it has now been guaranteed) we will all know who to blame: George Bush and his malignant Department of Justice.

28% of Clinton Supporters Will Vote For McCain

Sometimes I can’t believe my ears when I hear people whose politics run to the left run on about John McCain. “He’s not that bad,” they say, or “I could live with him as president.” Most often what you hear in Red Texas is this: “Well, he won’t be as bad as Bush was.”

“Is,” I keep reminding them, “he’s still president and McCain is still his lapdog.”

“Nooooo,” they exclaim, “McCain is a maverick. McCain won’t be another Bush.”

You have to ask yourself where these people get their information. Fox News seems to be out and I literally don’t speak to people who listen to Rush Limbaugh unless it is to answer their questions on directions to the Museum of the Confederacy.

So where?

Could it be the mainstream media? Is John McCain being remodeled and reformed in the mainstream media in the image of some fantastic embodiment of Republican perfection? I have to say I think so. John McCain is being reformulated and repackaged for centrist American consumption.

A maverick. Unbeholden to the corporations. Not Bush’s man.

Lies. Duplicitous lies.

And now these lies are starting to be considered by moderate Democrats who support Hillary Clinton for president. If Hillary Clinton doesn’t get the nomination, they are saying they will vote for McCain in the fall. Or 28% of them will, anyway.

At first blush, when I heard this news, I thought that these Clinton supporters, these Hillarycrats, were simply making idle threats at best, or considered McCain as the most viable alternative between he and Barack Obama, at worst.

I am now characteristically opting for the worst-case scenario.

Now the mainstream media is making it very hard, you know, hard for truth to reach the ears of Americans considering a vote for McCain. And once word reaches them, it’s very difficult to get past the first word that comes to their minds when the name “McCain” is uttered, and that word is “maverick”.

Well get a hold of these facts and figures:

John “Maverick” McCain voted with the Bush Regime 95% of the time (when he voted) in 2007. 95%. That’s more than our own junior senator, John “Rubberstamp” Cornyn. True enough, John McCain has flip-flopped on so many issues it is hard to figure out just what his opinion is on things, but I tend to settle on his final flop rather than his original flip.

Like how he flopped a couple of months ago on the Intelligence Authorization Bill. The bill that forbids government interrogation by waterboarding. McCain, himself the recipient of government-sponsored torture, unbelievably voted against this bill that passed 51-45. McCain, who was so vehemently opposed to US torture of its prisoners because of fear of reprisals from other governments in how they treat our soldiers, resolutely spoke out against waterboarding in the past.

But now he favors government-sponsored torture.

In his attempt to distance himself from Bush in the Katrina disaster, McCain recently said that, referring presumably to Air Force One he “would have ordered the plane landed at the nearest air force base, and I would have been over here . . . OK?” That would have been fine, except that The Huffingtonpost, found photographs taken of McCain on the day after Katrina hit New Orleans, in a Hillaryesque photo op, McCain found himself meeting Air Force One and George Bush where he landed to present McCain with a birthday cake. It was John McCain’s birthday. The president was giving him a cake, and apparently not listening to McCain’s exhortations for him to get back on that plane and get over to New Orleans.

McCain is no friend of Katrina victims. He voted against a $28 billion appropriation for hurricane relief. He voted against a 5-month program to put Katrina victims on a Medicaid emergency health care.

Economy? Iraq? Has anyone who is seriously thinking of voting for John McCain stopped to think that he is in lockstep with the Bush Regime on these issues? McCain actually now wants to extend and deepen Bush’s tax cuts to the richest Americans. Tax cuts in wartime. McCain sees a US presence in Iraq to rival our presence in South Korea. Decades.

This is the person Hillarycrats will opt for if their candidate fails to get their party’s nomination? What kind of person is that? Obviously, quite obviously, this kind of person is more “heart” than “head”. Common sense tells any Democrat that John McCain is simply unacceptable as a voting option. Common sense and rational thought.

Things that I think these 28% of Clinton supporters clearly lack.

Universal Health Care: It’s About That Job You Hate

Senator Ron Wyden (D - Oregon) is hyping his universal health care bill in a big way. He has it highlighted on his website StandTallForAmerica.com. His bill, S. 334, The Healthy Americans Act, is co-sponsored by 14 fellow senators, will guarantee that every American has health insurance. The angle Sen. Wyden is plugging is that too many Americans stay in jobs that they don’t want, live lives that they hate, and all because they are afraid of going without the health insurance that their employers provide.

It’s a good angle. Not because it is the most important consideration in all of this - there are, after all, millions of Americans without health insurance – but it is a fair point.

A point that Wyden has exploited in this hilarious video that you can find on his website, or just click on the embed below.



Wyden filed this bill on practically day one of the current session, on January 18, 2007. It hasn’t gone very far, nor has its related bill in the House, HR 3163 by Baird Ryan (WA - 3). Taking a look at it, it looks like we the people would fund the insurance from payroll deductions, the richer pay more, the poorer pay less. But most importantly, it appears to be self-funding, that is, tobacco companies can keep their ill-gotten lucre; they won’t have to pay into this, so they don’t have to worry about lobbying against it. The big loser appears to be the health insurance industry. Yes they can compete but under new rules.

And still, I hold very little hope for this bill this year. Universal Health Insurance is something for next year. It is something for next year, when Democrats will have a supermajority in the House and Senate, and a Democrat will be holding the veto stamp.

It’s for next year . . . unless the Democrats blow themselves out of the water. And if that’s the case, then I guess we’ll all have to keep our sorry jobs for a little while longer.

Why Doesn’t Texas Senator John Cornyn Support Our Veterans?

I received an email from the Rick Noriega campaign yesterday. Its sole purpose was to inform us supporters of Noriega that his November opponent, John Cornyn, the junior senator from Texas, remains at odds with the people who have gone to war since 9/11.

Whatever your opinion of whether the war in Iraq is just or moral (I still can’t find anyone opposed to the Afghan war), the men and women who went off to fight that war deserve our support, not only when they are in theater, but when they have rotated back to America.

And when they have left military service.

Enter Senator Jim Webb’s S. 22, the “Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2007”. This is a bill that establishes a program of educational assistance for veterans of Post 9/11 wars. It amends the GI Bill to provide up to 3 years of assistance in getting a education and training after graduation from high school. It encourages veterans who are high school dropouts to get that high school diploma so that they qualify for this program.

It is a good, solid pro-education bill. Solid pro-veteran bill. A win-win for America.

Here, I could see a list of 56 senators who have signed on as co-sponsors. It is a bipartisan list.

But John Cornyn’s name does not appear on that list. Big surprise, huh?

John Cornyn, our Texas senator that sat out the Vietnam War with his 2-S student deferment (while others born the year of Cornyn’s birth were drafted and served in Vietnam), has not signed on as a co-sponsor for this bill, just as he refused to support our troops. He has actually voted against bills that provided funds for enhanced body armor for our troops, voted against the bill that allowed our troops to rest and recuperate at home an equal amount of time that they were in a war zone.

John Cornyn makes himself available for photo ops with uniformed troops but won’t support them when push comes to shove. This has to change, and Rick Noriega has thrown down the gauntlet by asking us to send emails to Cornyn demanding that he show his support by signing as a cosponsor to S. 22, the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2007.

Click here to sign this petition.

Why has Cornyn refused to support this bill? It all comes back to the Bush Rubberstamp that Cornyn carries around. The Bush Regime opposes this bill. What forever for? This is either going to make you laugh in disgust or fly off the handle in rage, as quoted from Noriega’s email message:

“The Bush Administration opposes Senator Webb's GI Bill because they fear soldiers will leave the military to attend college. As someone who has defended this nation, I'm outraged by the notion that we should limit benefits in civilian life to force our troops to stay in the military.”

So not only does the Bush Regime run his troops into the ground with 3, 4 or even 5 rotations into battle zones, he wants them to keep on going instead of leaving the military to get an education. An education to give themselves, and their families, a better life. An education that they most certainly deserve.

It’s just plain awful and our senator is playing right along. Why not help out? Why not send a message to Cornyn that we are sick of his hypocritical words of support for our troops?

It’s free and you don’t get hit with a pitch for a campaign contribution. So why not?

If Hillary Was a Republican (and We Were, Too) She Would Be the Nominee

Sometimes I can’t believe what I read. Sometimes the people I admire (or once did) are so lame in the words that they put together that I envision an incredible, an almost Clive Barker world. Here is what Bill Clinton said today. And make no mistake this is not a Bill Clinton mis-speakism again, Hillary Clinton is saying the exact same thing:

“‘If we were under the Republican system, which is more like the Electoral College, she'd have a 300 delegate lead here,’ Clinton told the Washington Post. ‘I mean, Senator McCain is already the nominee because they chose a system to produce that result, and we don't have a nominee here, because the Democrats chose a system that prevents that result.’”

I never would have thought that I would ever hear a Clinton, let alone two, wish that they were Republicans. If the Republican system of nomination appeals to the Clintons, then maybe their political affiliations need to be altered. What with their combined politics of 11th hour fear attacks on a fellow Democrat, maybe it’s time to make the move.

Maybe it’s time for Hillary Clinton to reconcile herself with her former Republican opponents. Their rules, obviously, are superior to her own party’s rules. Their rules get the job done after all.

Makes sense to me.

I hear that John McCain is still looking for a vice-president. This might be Hillary’s best chance. The old man can’t last too much longer after all. He’s starting to dodder and forget. Maybe they can work a mental competency thing.

Maybe Hillary Clinton will be the next, and first, Republican woman President.

Whatever the cost, right?

Hillary Clinton Has a New Ally: The North Carolina Republican Party

The North Carolina Republican Party will come out with a new TV ad on Monday that they hope will cause Democratic voters to turn away from two strong Democratic candidates for governor in their Democratic primary. Both Bev Purdue and Richard Moore, North Carolina’s State Treasurer and Lieutenant Governor, respectively, are running for their party’s nomination for Governor against Dennis Nielsen. On Monday, Supposed Democrat Nielsen will receive a little gift from the North Carolina Republican Party. As will Hillary Clinton. Nielsen, by my own estimate is a Republican in name only. And both of his opponents have endorsed Barack Obama.

So what did North Carolina’s Republican Party do? They created a TV ad that they are will show in North Carolina’s media markets starting Monday. An ad that clears a path for their man, RINO Dennis Nielsen.

And incidentally, an ad that does a pretty good job for Hillary Clinton’s campaign as well.

Don’t believe me? Take a look for yourself.



That Barack Obama is "too extreme for North Carolina"?

That’s a little freebie for Nielsen courtesy of the Republican Party. And it couldn’t possibly hurt the chances of Hillary Clinton, either, could it? After all, Clinton gets gratis from the Republican Party some negative trash talk of Barack Obama. Their enemy is her enemy.

How about that? Clearly the message is that the North Carolina Republican Party, the party of Jesse Helms, would not only like their shill running in the Democratic ticket for Governor, they also would like to see Hillary Clinton win their presidential primary.

By the way, John McCain has asked the party to pull the ad.

“I don't know why they do it. Obviously, I don't control them, but I'm making it very clear, as I have a couple of times in the past, that there's no place for that kind of campaigning, and the American people don't want it.”

Oh, no, counters the NCRP. This isn’t an attack against Obama. This is a “local issue” (wink, wink, nudge nudge).

So what began as a Rush Limbaugh exhortation to his ‘ditto heads’, to get out there and vote for Hillary Clinton, has now become policy of the North Carolina Republican Party. McCain has denounced it, thus getting its coming some national news air time. Giving it a national audience. Win-win for McCain.

Not surprisingly, Hillary Clinton has not denounced it, and in not doing so, has given tacit approval of the actions of the opposing party.

Tonight, Hillary Clinton has gone on TV proclaiming that Barack Obama is not electable in the fall, a big flip flop from the recent debate’s “Yes, yes, yes” response when asked whether Obama could win in the fall. Now I am beginning to wonder if Hillary Clinton has a tacit agreement with the McCain campaign. That, since she has no chance at the nomination this year, she and her surrogates (surprisingly now, the North Carolina Republican Party) will issue punishments to Obama in the primaries so McCain can finish him off in the fall.

Setting herself up for a more successful run in 2012.

Talk about victory at any price. Now things are starting to make sense. Hillarycrats saying that they would vote for McCain in the fall instead of voting for Obama.

It makes a lot of sense. I wonder if any superdelegates have put this thing together and will now move in to stop this anti-Democratic Party insanity.