DeLays’s TRMPAC Spent Money It Didn’t Have

Well the prosecution in the Tom DeLay money laundering trial is about to rest its case, I hear. Today another nail was driven in the coffin that represents Tom DeLay’s future freedom of movement with the testimony of a “forensic accountant.”

That’s an interesting term, forensic accountant. Interesting because usually you see the term forensics used in a scientific investigation of evidence in a crime. This is the equivalent in the world of dollars and sense (or should I say nonsense?).

The forensic accountant, Marshall Vogt, pored over the accounting records of TRMPAC and asked some very important and pointed questions?

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“Why would a political committee that intended to function beyond the 2002 elections donate money it didn’t have to a larger, better-financed organization?”

Why indeed?

TRMPAC had two separate accounts, one containing contributions from individuals and one containing contributions from corporations. The check that Jim Ellis gave to the RNC was drawn on the corporate account. It was corporate money. But it gets even better than that.

According to the accountant, there weren’t enough funds in the account to cover the $190,000 check. It would have bounced had not John Colyandro made a personal loan of $40,000 to the PAC.

Why give a check for more money than the account contained to the RNC, an arguably better funded money raising organization than TRMPAC? Did it have to do with party building? Was TRMPAC just a flash in the pan temporary PAC meant to go out of business when it’s funds were all spent for the 2002 elections?

Did it have to do with the fact that 7 state rep seats needed to be picked up so Tom DeLay could have a second congressional redistricting party when his party won the majority in the mid-term elections?

Is this a trial about a crime committed or politics being committed? Frankly, yes, it’s about both. The irony is that in 2002 this was a felony punishable by up to a life sentence, now we live in a world where this is not only commonplace, but applauded as an exercise in freedom – that corporations have as much right to buy elections as anyone else.

I have the answer. It has been there all along. It’s still the law of the land that only US citizens may donate to campaigns, foreigners aren’t supposed to, at least not legally. It’s right there in the 14th Amendment that a citizen of the United States is born in this country or is naturalized.

Corporations are neither.

So, OK, let’s let corporations be people. They can be people. They just can’t be Americans.

No “Constitutional Republican” could hardly disagree.

Money Laundering for Drug Kingpins 101; And About That Bus . . .

If drug dealers want to find out how to make their dirty drug money clean drug money, they need not look further than today’s testimony at Tom DeLay’s money laundering trial.

Today, the defense had former GOP chief financial officer Jay Banning on the stand defending Tom DeLay’s methodology. Banning swore up and down that the $190,000 that went to seven Republican state house candidates in checks ranging between $20,000 and $40,000 did not come from the same account that they deposited a check for $190,000 from Tom DeLay’s TRMPAC fundraising organization.

It came from a different account altogether.

“‘The bottom line is the money that came to these Texas candidates was not the same $190,000 that’ DeLay's PAC sent to the Republican National Committee, asked Dick DeGuerin, DeLay's lead attorney. ‘That's correct,’ replied Banning, who testified before the prosecution has finished its case because of a scheduling conflict that would have prevented him from appearing later.”

This ridiculous assertion, that money in one hand taken in cannot be equated to money in another hand given out, was immediately challenged by prosecuting attorney Beverly Mathews, who got a little too cute in her analogies. Not that I mind at all.

“‘If a drug dealer gave the Republican National Committee $100,000 of drug money and asked the Republican National Committee to put it into a different account ... could the RNC put the money into a different account and turn around and send that money back to Texas candidates?’”

No word on what Banning’s answer was.

Now here’s the other thing I noticed. This scheduling conflict that prevents Banning from coming in to testify when the testimony is needed most, in rebuttal to the prosecution’s case, is suspicious. I wonder given that this testimony is clearly not given at its most optimal time, but is, rather, buried in the prosecution’s presentation, is a signal that the RNC is ready to throw ol’ Tom under the bus. That they manufactured this schedule conflict so they would testify at a very inconvenient time for DeLay’s defense.

There may be nothing to it, but I am suspicious by nature and tend not to believe in coincidences.

Texas to Opt Out of Medicaid?

The very notion of opting out of one of the largest government health services program seems crazy on the face of it. No way, I would have said before November 2nd. But now that we know the count, and what the numbers are in state house and senate, it seems this, too, is possible.

Texas could opt out of Medicaid.

In so-doing, Texas would be turning up its nose at $16.6 billion in federal dollars.

Rick Perry thinks it’s a fabulous idea.

So does State Rep Warren Chisum (R - Wackoville) who has said this:

“Too much of taking money with strings attached is just not good for the people.”

This has precedence. Last year Rick Perry passed on collecting $555 million in federal dollars to help pay unemployment to thousands of out of work Texans because the funds came with strings attached. So turning down sixteen billion dollars in federal money with strings attached seems not so big a reach.

Chisum said that his good ol’ buddy John Zerwas agrees with him and actually got some legislation passed last year to study the idea. Zerwas, who is a gas passer (an anesthesiologist) is probably the last one in the capitol building who wants to see Medicaid go bye-bye. My guess is that he wanted the study to get done so that these yayhoos could see what a truly bad idea the whole notion is.

That’s my guess, anyway. This is what he actually said:

“Zerwas said that looking seriously at opting out would be ‘a good exercise for us to go through’ but that it wasn't his study that put the idea on the table. ‘Opting out really comes from national and statewide think tanks’ such as the Heritage Foundation and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, he said.”

And Zerwas knows that opting out would be a disaster for the medical services industry in Texas, and not just for those who receive Medicaid benefits.

Because if you think the medical industry will just shrug its shoulders at the loss $16 billion and bring their collective belts in another notch or two, you have truly been drinking the kool-aid.

DeLay: Texans are “Inarticulate and clumsy”

I knew there had to be more to it.

Tom DeLay explained to reporters how he “misspoke” when he revealed to an Assistant DA that he knew the “soft cash for hard cash” money exchange was about to happen, because Jim Ellis told him so, because of “Texas vernacular.”

You know, the Texas vernacular in the sentence answering the question “Did (Ellis) indicate why he was telling you about that?”

To which DeLay replied:

“I think because it was - it's such a large amount of money, he wanted to make sure that - that I knew it was - that it was happening.”

The Texas vernacular in that sentence.

But I have to say, that’s how we all talk in California, too. I don’t see a single “he’s all hat and no cattle” in that. There’s no “he’s fixin’ ta gittaholdayew” or anything even remotely like that.

In this article, Tom further explains what he means by “Texas vernacular:” “Inarticulate and clumsy.”

Is he kidding?

Did Tom DeLay just label the 20 million people in his home state of Texas as “inarticulate and clumsy?” That it’s not just him that is inarticulate and clumsy, but everyone else in his state as well.

This is wrong on just so many levels, but the level that I’d like to address here is to defend “the Texas vernacular” as anything else than inarticulate and clumsy. As a foreigner to these parts, I am often amused by the clever turn of a phrase that arises from the Texas vernacular. Phrases that say so much more than the words do.

Like these time-honored Texas sayings:

"Never ask a man if he's from Texas. If he is, he'll tell you on his own. If he ain't, no need to embarrass him."

"Evil thoughts are like chickens--they come home to roost."

"You can always tell a Texan, but you can't tell him much."

"Tend to your own rat killin'."

"That’s good enough to make a rabbit spit in a bulldog's face."

"If you've done it, it ain't braggin'."

"That's tellin' him how the cow ate the cabbage."

So having now disparaged every man, woman and child in Texas as being inarticulate and clumsy on top of everything else Tom DeLay has done to CD-22, Texas, and America, when Tom DeLay receives his life sentence for his crimes I’m going to be as happy as a gopher in soft dirt.

Token Cuts in State Spending: Let the Games Begin

Imagine my surprise today when I saw this headline at the Austin American-Statesman’s Postcards web page:

“Lawmakers' plan to share budget pain: per diem cuts”

Holy smokes, I said to no one, these guys are getting serious. Imagine proposing cuts to an already meager existence: the payroll of Texas’ Citizen Legislators. I mean, the level of state compensation of its 181 legislators is miserable. They could do better if they got minimum wage.

But there it was.

So I opened the article and in so doing, re-entered reality.

Two Republicans are proposing a 10% cut in the per diem, from $168 per day to $150. The per diem, if you didn’t already know, is most of what a state rep or state senator makes. He or she gets that amount every day that the legislature is in session.

That is, they get that amount for 140 days every two years.

What is the bottom line then? How much does State Rep Charlie Geren and State Senator Kevin Eltife propose to slash from the budget that is thought to be in arrears to the tune of between $18 and $23 billion? Well that’s $18 times 140 days times 181 legislators. That’s $456,120.

$456,120.

Who are these jokers trying to kid? $456,120? That, in comparison to the looming budget deficit of a possible $23 billion, amounts to chump change. That’s such a small fraction of the impending debt that my calculator reports it in scientific notation.

That’s 1.9831304347826086956521739130435e-5 of the deficit.

Or if that’s confusing, that’s 0.00198 % of the deficit.

Heck that isn’t even chump change. That’s token chump change.

Tokenism has arrived in Austin. We are about to witness the broadest slashes in Education and Health and Human Services ever, but before we see that, we are going to witness Republicans, who have super majorities in both houses now, play the roles of sacrificial lambs.

The reality is this. Starting in January 2011 the Republican-dominated legislature will do whatever they want to do to the Education budget, to Medicaid, to SCHIP and all of that, and they will have a Republican governor to sign off on it.

So get ready, this is going to be bloody. They signaled the reality of this in that announcement. When Republicans say things like “If we're going to be asking state agencies to cut their budgets by 10 percent, then we should do the same,” you know there is trouble on the horizon.

DeGuerin: Calendar Will Acquit Tom DeLay

Now, despite having admitted on tape to an assistant DA that he knew about a future “soft cash” for “hard cash” transaction, an illegal act, Tom DeLay will eventually be vindicated claimed his hotshot lawyer Dick DeGuerin. 

“DeLay attorney Dick DeGuerin told reporters the transcript context indicates DeLay couldn't have known about the money swap until after the deal was done -- and he said he would prove it by showing DeLay's calendar.”

Well that should do it. Nothing like coming up with a trump card like Tom DeLay’s own personal calendar to prove, once and for all, that he knew nothing about a pending cash exchange – an exchange to do something in Texas that you’re not supposed to be able to do.

I even got a peek at the calendar:

September 30 2002:

10:00 AM: Meet with Colyandro. Give him the Bacardi check.

11:00 AM: Lunch, smoke a Cuban cigar. Be the Federal Government

2:00 PM: Destroy somebody.

3:00 PM: Still don’t know anything about RNC soft cash for hard cash exchange.

4:00 PM: Destroy somebody else.

5:00 PM: Go home.

October 1 2002:

9:00 AM: Strut in front of a mirror.

10:00 AM: Still don’t know anything about RNC soft cash for hard cash exchange.

11:00 AM: Lunch. Pray for George Bush.

3:00 PM: Destroy an old lady with blue hair.

4:00 PM: Go get some money from Sears.

5:00 PM: Be completely innocent of money laundering.

6:00 PM: Go home.

October 2, 2002

9:00 AM: Destroy all Texas teachers’ hopes of getting their Social Security.

10:00 AM: Meet with Ellis. Don’t become informed that he is going to arrange an illegal cash transaction with the RNC.

11:00 AM: Lunch. Destroy all Democrats. 

You get the idea . . .

Texas Vernacular: Yeah, That’s the Ticket

Now yesterday, when I wrote about Tom DeLay’s own recorded voice being used to prove that he knew, before the fact, that a crime was about to be committed by his underlings, a crime involving the laundering of $190,000 of corporate PAC money, I hadn’t really heard the audio tape, nor had I seen a transcription of it.

Until today.

And until today I haven’t heard an explanation from Tom DeLay how he “may have misspoke.” But now we know.

First what were his exact words that gave Assistant DA Greg Cox the “mistaken” impression that Tom DeLay knew about the transaction before it took place. Here it is:

DeLay: “Jim Ellis told me he was going to do it.”

Cox: “Before he did it?”

DeLay: “Uh-huh. By the way, it's a very common practice by both Democrats and Republicans. Best I know, remember, is that it was $190,000 from TRMPAC and he (Ellis) was going to get an X amount of money out of the RNC to give to state candidates, hard dollars.”

And that sounds like nails being driven into a coffin if you ask me, but Tom DeLay has an explanation that he revealed to reporters:

“The way I like to put it is Texas vernacular.”

Texas vernacular.

So what he is saying is that because Texans talk a little funny and have their own way of expressing themselves, what he was saying in the above recorded statement is not that he heard about the illegal transaction before it took place, but he actually heard about it after it took place.

So it’s like when you hear a Texan say that he would “like to die.” He really doesn’t like to die, in fact it is the opposite. As in the sentence “When he fell in that mudhole I like to die laughin’” (And the proper pronunciation is “lahk ta dah”).

So when Tom DeLay said “Uh-huh,” normally a Texas vernacular for “affirmative” he really meant “Nuh-uh.”

So that’s it. Everyone misunderstood Tom because he’s a Texan and talks in the Texas vernacular and you can’t find fault in that.

But like the proverbial gnat in a hail storm, his fate may just have been sealed. Tom DeLay’s explanation is just a little too whomperjawed for people to take as a serious explanation.

They Have It on Tape!

Yesterday I mentioned that Tom DeLay, who is on trial for money laundering to illegally allow PAC contributions from corporations to benefit Texas State House campaigns is his own witness against himself.

In fact, he is the only witness to verify that he knew about the illegal transaction before it happened.

This is because in 2005 "The Hammer" agreed to be interviewed by prosecutors who were investigating the money laundering scheme, and ironically it was so that he could keep his job as House Majority Whip.

Something that didn’t happen, largely because of the results of the interview.

But, you know, I have very low expectations so I figured that the only record of the interview consisted of stenographer’s notes or maybe even some rough notes made by the prosecutors. Or maybe someone’s hazy memory that DeLay’s lawyer could pick apart.

But no.

They have it on tape!

And today, the jury was allowed to listen to Tom DeLay say over and over again that this was just business as usual in Washington DC political finance maneuvers.

From AP:

“DeLay said repeatedly in the interview played for jurors Wednesday that the money swap was a legal, common practice done by both Republicans and Democrats”

So I got it right for once. Tom DeLay had no idea that he was committing an illegal act. He is so corrupt that something so obviously illegal, so obviously underhanded, seemed like a natural act to him.

But to have him performing this on tape is just icing on the cake and makes his performance on DWTS, a hard-to-watch performance at that, pale in comparison.


DeGuerin should be considering his next legal tack: Innocent by reason of utter stupidity.

Pants on Fire

Tom DeLay is, quite frankly, his own worst enemy. Maybe it’s his brain function. Apparently in his former job of bug exterminator he inhaled one too many lungful of toxins that went right to his central nervous system and killed brain cells. Either that or it is one, or twelve, too many martinis.

Because as we now read the coverage at his money laundering trial, the prosecution will apparently never directly tie Tom DeLay to the actual request to the RNC to launder $190,000 of corporate PAC donations so they could give it directly to Republican State House campaigns. Those who did make the request, DeLay’s underlings, are on trial separately for this.

No, unfortunately, there is no evidence that DeLay did this, well all except for one witness who gave a statement to prosecutors in 2005: Tom DeLay.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“The prosecution's case could turn on its circumstantial evidence and DeLay's own words when he reportedly told prosecutors in 2005 that he knew about the transaction before it occurred.”

Tom, Tom, Tom. If you are a guilty as H-E-Double Hockey Sticks the last thing you do is admit it to people who can bring you to trial. What is clear to me is that DeLay was so ignorant of the fact that he had committed a crime that he actually bragged about knowing that the transaction was going to happen before it did.

This is exactly what he did in Sam Sparks’ courtroom when he testified that he didn’t know where he would be living on Election Day in 2006. Had he just been a little less coy, had he given Sparks even a hint that he wouldn’t be eligible to serve if re-elected, I think Sparks would have given him the benefit of the doubt.

But he didn’t, and now we see that only a year previous to that testimony he made this other blunder, one that he has had to backpedal on and say that when he testified to that he was in error.

“Since then, DeLay has said he didn't know about the money swap until after it was done, saying he just made a mistake in his comments to authorities.”

Believable?

PANTS ON FIRE!

DeLay Lawyers Charge Trial Is Politically Motivated

And I thought that when you made an assertion in a court of law, you had to back it up with evidence.

Today, Dick DeGuerin, Tom DeLay’s lead attorney in his money laundering case, made a statement that the charges leveled against Tom DeLay were “politically motivated” on the part of retired District Attorney Ronnie Earle.

Gee, do you think?

After all, Tom DeLay’s crimes and misdemeanors were politically motivated to gain an unfair advantage and get a majority of state reps in the Texas House, and then use that to unfairly redraw congressional district boundaries a second time to increase the number of Republican congressmen from Texas.

But prosecutors deny that Ronnie Earle was politically motivated.

But the truth is, political motivation or no, a law was violated. Were Ronnie Earle not to prosecute Tom DeLay for money laundering, that could also be construed as politically motivated. When you don’t prosecute when a crime is committed, that is even more politically motivated than prosecuting when a crime has occurred.

Do you think?

But I can see where this is going. Here is what DeGuerin said about what Earle thought about DeLay’s crimes:

“Mr. Earle's philosophy is corporate money in elections is dangerous to democracy.”

Gee, do you think?

 

As we have seen in the past election, corporate money in elections in effect murders democracy. “Dangerous” is an understatement.

DeGuerin is obviously setting up for the “Citizens United Defense.” That is, what was very obviously thought to be dangerous to democracy in 2002 has evolved to being fair and balanced policy in giving a corporate entity the same rights as an individual and allow them to give campaign contributions to anyone. That is, ironically, if the Citizens United case is the law of the land now, should Tom DeLay’s case be appealed to the US Supreme Court as it now stands, any conviction would be overturned.

But I really don’t think it will come to that. DeGuerin is, I think, ready to make that case right now. Whether he is successful or not really depends on whether his jury agrees that ExxonMobil has as much right to give unlimited billions to Republican campaigns as they do.

If they had unlimited billions, that is.

“Money is absolutely fungible. It’s like beans.”

That’s quoting Senior District Judge Pat Priest, the judge hearing Tom DeLay’s money laundering trial. It was made out of earshot of the jury to Tom DeLay’s hotshot lawyer Dick DeGuerin this past week.

And if I understand the meaning of the words correctly, I think Tom DeLay needs to make plans for a two year vacation. I think the judge has already made a decision on the guilt or innocence of Tom DeLay, and now it’s simply up to the jurors to come to the same conclusion.

What the judge is essentially saying, something that is completely logical and reasonable, is that once you have money you can exchange it freely. It doesn’t matter what pocket it comes from, money is money and if you use it to gain advantage in an election by violating election laws, then that’s a crime.

In essence, the judge came to that conclusion five years ago when he ruled on the defense’s position back then, the same one they continue to argue last week.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“Priest said he had already ruled on the issue in 2005 when the defense wanted the charges dismissed.”

Now all it takes is some appropriate instructions to the jury and we have won a moral victory. And maybe we can say that what started in Texas, the monetization of democracy in America, ends in Texas.

Side Note.

And in my research in this story this morning I made another startling discovery. I discovered that Tom DeLay’s daughter, Danielle, who testified at her father’s trial last week in her capacity as her father’s underpaid campaign manager and event planner for her father’s PACs (she earned only 60 grand as the former, and only 84 – 5 organizing PAC functions) is now a 6th grade science teacher.

A 6th grade science teacher.

I guess the fact that she is still underpaid is the only common theme between her present and her former jobs.

Recount in Texas CD 27

Congressman Solomon Ortiz (D – Corpus Christi) has demanded a manual recount. The unofficial results of last Tuesday’s vote in CD 27 shows Republican candidate Blake Farenthold with a slim lead, ahead of Ortiz by 799 votes.

But with uncounted votes turning up here and there all over the district, it seems clear that this election is far from over.

From the Chronicle:

“Ortiz trailed his Republican challenger, former small business-owner Blake Farenthold, by 799 votes following Tuesday's election in the 27th District, according to unofficial results from the Secretary of State's Office. But he gained seven votes two days later, when previously uncounted ballots from Robstown — all marked for Ortiz — were found and certified.”


“‘We still need to ensure every vote is counted before determining the outcome of this race,’ Ortiz said in a late Friday statement.”

 

Congressman Lucky Duck

So now it begins. Texas CD 27 may just be the first step up and out of the deep hole that Democrats have dug for themselves last Tuesday by staying home and not voting in this vitally important election. Should Ortiz succeed it will be by a very narrow margin, symbolic of how it is going to go in the long climb ahead of us.

And should he not succeed, a narrow win by Farenthold, whose photograph wearing Lucky Duck pajamas standing next to a Corpus Christi hottie dressed in scanty lingerie was pasted into websites all over the nation, is itself symbolic of the poor choices Americans have made in last Tuesday’s electoral disaster.

A disaster that may just make a 2nd term for Barack Obama more than possible.

Keith Olbermann's Suspension: Putting the Playing Field on El Capitan

There’s a mountain in West Texas that has at its acme the eighth highest point in the state of Texas. You can see in the photo at right that it has some very sheer cliffs, nearly perpendicular to a flat plain, and it has on its lower half a nearly uniform planar slope that you could play football on if only you could run up it.

This is where I suggest we put the new playing field that is emerging with regard to political contributions, and play the new game of DeLay Dollars.

The game was invented by Tom DeLay in 2002 when he invented a scheme to pass corporate dollars directly to the campaigns of Texas House candidates, a game that, ironically enough, he is on trial this week in Austin for inventing it. But the game was perfected by the uberconservative justices of the US Supreme Court in the now-infamous Citizens United decision that has put our democracy up to the highest bidder.

But now, today, I read that while conservatives can donate to conservative causes and candidates with wild abandon, liberals are not allowed that option.

I read today that Keith Olbermann, the man that invented MSNBC’s liberal message machine has been suspended without pay indefinitely because he donated to the campaigns of 3 Democratic candidates this year.

MSNBC’s suit dweeves apparently don’t like the fact that Keith Olbermann put his money where his mouth was and denied to him the honor and privilege of doing what any citizen in this waning democracy can do: support a candidate that agrees with their political outlook.

That they did this the very week of a Republican mid-term election sweep that was bought and paid for by corporations, corporations that they are in competition with, supposedly, is just the icing on the cake.

I made it a point to be ready to sit down at the tube by 7 PM every weeknight and watch Keith Olbermann’s entire inspired program from end to end. People know not to call me on the phone during that hour or risk my wrath.

Now no Keith Olbermann.

Guess what? No Keith Olbermann, no MSNBC. I will be boycotting MSNBC and every business that advertises on MSNBC until this wrong is made right.

Is Telfair Over the Proverbial Barrel?

Telfair is a huge master planned community that is going up here in Fort Bend County. It has been tough, I think, to attract new residents during these times of higher unemployment and foreclosures, and I bet Telfair is feeling the pinch as well.

So it comes to no surprise that the Telfair developers find themselves somewhat over a barrel with the promises they have made to people who have already bought homes there. It seems that part of their master plan was to set aside some land to build two schools, with Fort Bend ISD, the school district that surrounds Telfair on all sides, as the obvious choice to buy that land and build the schools.

Having neighborhood schools are a big selling point, you see. It is one of those intangibles that factor in to quality of life.

But now there is a letter circulating in Telfair that is doing some finger pointing at said school district.

From FortBendNow:

“Within the next 18 months, Newland will finish with the planning and development of Telfair. In order for us to timely complete the community we need to definitively understand FBISD’s intention for these two proposed school locations. Newland is strongly committed to working with FBISD to bring the potential high school and second elementary school to Telfair. We have requested FBISD to let us know their decision on whether or not they’ll purchase the land for schools by the end of January, 2011”

Trouble is, while they used this plan to lure customers, no one at Fort Bend ISD had any plans to build anything there.

And now the lawyers are involved. Fort Bend ISD general counsel Leila Feldman planted this little bomb:

“Fort Bend ISD was not consulted in the development of the plan and is not obligated in any way to purchase the sites. This notation by the developer simply means that the potential school sites could be used for schools in the designated areas.”

Could be used. Not will be.

Telfair developers complain that they have offered the land to the school district “at deeply discounted prices,” but I am now wondering whether they may have given the district some bargaining leverage in that they have already sold homes on the basis of their plan, and that plan was never run by the school district.

So get this: this developer is looking askance at a school district to buy its land. Its deeply discounted land. A school district that is so cash-strapped that it lays off teachers, and promises more to come. A school district that is holding its breath waiting to see how the Texas legislature is going to make up that $18 billion budget shortfall. Education makes up more than half the state budget, you see.

Now here is what I think. Schools bring value to a neighborhood like nothing else. Schools bind the community together. Telfair needs Fort Bend ISD more than Fort Bend ISD needs Telfair. My suggestion is that they drop all notions of selling this property they have set aside for new unplanned schools.

My suggestion is that if Telfair wants Fort Bend ISD to play in their backyard, outright donating that land to the school district would be a fine idea. An act that displays the kind of public spirit and commitment to the development and their customers that will simply bring more buyers to their area.

And not to Aliana.

When Democrats Don’t Vote

As if underlining my previous post on voter turnout, it seems the main culprit for a Fort Bend County Democratic Party rout lies in that very voter turnout.

Or more to the point, lack of one.

Or even more to the point, Republican passion to make this election all about a referendum on Barack Obama. He wasn’t even on the ballot, but it seems Republicans all thought he was and turned out in droves.

I’ll use the straight ticket vote to prove my point.

In 2006 and 2008 it was Democrats who led Republicans in straight ticket votes.

In 2008, a presidential year, 68,517 straight ticket Democratic voters showed up to elect Barack Obama, who nearly won in Fort Bend County, outperforming straight ticket Republican votes by nearly 2,000 votes. Democratic enthusiasm was high.

In 2006 another mid-term election, it was about the same in differences, with 25,260 total straight ticket Democratic votes, again just under 2000 more than straight ticket Republican votes.

But this year, the numbers in Fort Bend County look like this

Straight Ticket Republican Early Vote: 34,486

Election Day Republican Straight Ticket Vote: 17,439

Total Republican Straight Ticket Vote: 51,925

Percent of Total Vote: 37%

Straight Ticket Democratic Early Vote: 20,674

Election Day Democratic Straight Ticket Vote: 18,291

Total Republican Straight Ticket Vote: 38,965

Percent of Total Vote: 27%

See what I mean? Republicans who voted straight ticket out numbered Democrats by nearly 13,000 votes, and Republican straight ticket voters were over one third of all voters who showed up versus a little over a quarter of all voters who voted a straight Democratic ticket.

And compared to performance in the last mid-term, while Democrats increased their straight ticket voting by an over 50% increase over 2006, Republican straight ticket votes rose by 120%.

In other words, yes Democratic interest was high, but Republican interest was higher.

Clearly there was a huge enthusiasm gap that more than made the difference in every single race that the Republicans won in Fort Bend County.

That is, every one of them.

California Gets It Done: Governor Moonbeam II

In Texas we couldn’t accomplish a winning vote outside of a wet paper bag. Rick Perry, arguably the most corrupt governor in its history is also the most re-elected governor in its history.

Congratulations Texas, you have lived up to my Californian expectations.

In Paradise, also known as California, people of reason elected a tried and true Democrat to lead the state. Jerry Brown triumphed against a really bad opponent, a rich Republican who tried to buy votes with her millions of eBay money.

Really.

It’s time for me to go.

It’s time for me to rejoin my people.

I hate how the people who live around me vote. Jesus had it correct.

“Father, forgive them for they for they do not know what they are doing.”

-Luke 23:24

Election Day 2010: It’s the Turnout, Stupid

Say what you will about how crazy the GOP has begun, how the Teabaggers have poisoned the well for a Republican comeback. In an age where the decibel level has gone off the charts in terms of the noise you find in the media, in an age of high unemployment, rampant disinformation and ignorance, in an age where people feel entitled to their own opinions and their own facts, it is all about voter turnout.

Like no other time, including 2008, It’s the Turnout, Stupid.

In Nevada, Harry Reid is taking heart over the heavy early vote turnout that seems to favor the Democratic candidates. Nevada is also a strong union state and the unions are good at getting their members to the polls. But without that, and that alone, not only will Nevada deprive itself of a Senate Majority leader, someone who can bring the bacon home to his very unpopulous state way out of proportion to their numbers, but saddle itself with a senator whose antics and statements can only be associated with borderline lunacy and over-the-top racist.

In Florida, there is a recent flap over Charlie Crist’s claims that Kendrick Meek was approached by Bill Clinton and asked to step aside so Crist could get some Democratic votes and defeat uberconservative Republican candidate Marco Rubio. One school of thought has it that black voters would be upset with what would appear to be Democratic party leadership asking a black Democrat to step aside for a white Republican – and not vote. The other school of thought, largely fueled by early vote turnout in black neighborhoods has it that black voters are so upset about this that they will turn out in record numbers to vote for Meek, and also for Alex Sink who is in a neck-and-neck race for Florida governor.

In New Hampshire there is another tack being taken. An interesting strategy that maybe harkens to the fact that New Hampshire Democrats are really an odd bunch. Apparently the Democratic turnout is so high that Ray Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party.feels that his comfort zone has been reached and has actually told voters this in an email today:

“But the reason I am writing, is to tell you that I was just briefed on the voter turnout so far and there is good news! Democrats are turning out. We need just a few more Democrats to go to the polls and we will able to win seats that the pundits say we can't! Its that close!”

To which I say, I hope Buckley’s right. I hope not one Republican gets elected who wouldn’t have because some New Hampshire voters decided to sit this one out this year because the chairman thought it was won.

But Buckley is a party chair so he should know this from first principles: It’s the Turnout, Stupid.

John Boehner: Ally or Enemy?

Today Ohio Republican Congressman and Speaker of the House Wannabe John Boehner is taking umbrage at some remarks that President Obama made on the Spanish language network Univision. President Obama said this:

“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies, and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us’ …. then I think it’s going to be harder.”

Enemies.

The Face of the Enemy

Now, while the President didn’t exactly say who he meant were the enemies of Latino voters, John Boehner figured it out. He knows who Barack Obama thinks are the enemies of Latino voters, and the enemy is him.

He and other Republicans.

And Boehner doesn’t like being referred to as an enemy.

This is what he crafted to say in response this evening:

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a president in the White House who referred to Americans who disagree with him as ‘our enemies.’ Think about that. He actually used that word. When Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush used the word ‘enemy,’ they reserved it for global terrorists and foreign dictators — enemies of the United States. Enemies of freedom. Enemies of our country.”

I guess John Boehner doesn’t like that word.

But here is the truth. John Boehner has it out for Latinos, as does any given Republican. You don’t even have to guess if that’s true because actions speak much, much louder than words. Here are the words of Rep. Luis Gutierrez D-Ill published at The Hill last week:

“On immigration, the question is not whether you are a Pelosi-Obama Democrat, but whether you are a Lamar Smith-John Boehner-Steve King Republican. When it comes down to it, putting people like Smith-Boehner-King at the helm of national immigration policy is a guarantee of more gridlock and chaos. Rep. Steve King of Iowa -- who makes Jim Sensenbrenner look like Dolores Huerta by comparison -- has called for electrified fencing on the border because he has found it effective for controlling "livestock." And if the recent past is any indication, we can expect any number of anti-Latino voter intimidation dirty tricks in the coming weeks in addition to the ads telling Latinos not to vote. We need to make it crystal clear to voters who favor a fair and humane immigration system that a vote for any GOP House or Senate candidate is a vote for the status quo on immigration or worse.”

One definition of the word enemy goes along these lines;

“Enemy (noun). A person who feels hatred for, fosters harmful designs against, or engages in antagonistic activities against another; an adversary or opponent.”

Or if you really want a good definition, look at the meaning of the antonym for enemy, ally.

“Ally (Noun). A person who associates or cooperates with another; supporter.”

John Boehner, is, by definition, the enemy of Latino voters. So are his allies.

If John Boehner objects so much to being called an enemy of Latino voters by the President, then maybe he should stop acting like one.

Free Birth Control Pills

I was waiting for this. Rightwing Evangelicals will soon be on the march and raise a hue and cry to repeal “Obamacare” because it kills children.

Or, as they say, potential children.

This is because, as I see in today’s Houston Chronicle, there is an interpretation of the Mikulski Women’s Health Overhaul amendment that would “require insurers to cover preventive care and screenings for women at little or not cost to them” is actually wording that guarantees free birth control pills to all comers.

Evangelicals are coming unglued as we see in the article:

“‘We don't consider it to be health care, but a lifestyle choice,’ said John Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, a Philadelphia think tank whose work reflects church teachings. ‘We think there are other ways to avoid having children than by ingesting chemicals paid for by health insurance.’”

Now whether “preventive care” made free goes beyond free mammograms to include prevention of conception, generally not considered a disease, is neither here nor there. [But wouldn’t it be great if indeed birth control was not something someone has to opt out of because of the added expense?] The article goes on and strays back into the world of reason, pointing out that birth control pills is very mainstream these days.

“The use of birth control is ‘virtually universal’ in the U.S., according to a government report this summer from the National Center for Health Statistics. Nearly 93 million prescriptions for contraceptives were dispensed in 2009, according to IMS Health, a market analysis firm. Generic versions of the pill are available at Walmart stores, for example, for $9 a month.”

“Still, about half of all pregnancies are unplanned, and many occur among women using some form of contraception. The government says the problem is rarely the birth control method, but "inconsistent or incorrect use," such as forgetting to take a pill.”

“Advocates say free birth control would begin to address the problem.”

“‘We can look at other countries where birth control is available for no cost, and what we see are lower pregnancy rates, lower abortion rates and lower teen pregnancy,’ said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood.”

Yes. Wouldn’t it be nice if America was more like other countries where there are lower teen pregnancies and lower abortion rates?