MTP: The GOP is ROE

You know that you are a completely hooked political wonk when you set your alarm clock on Saturday night so that you are sure that you wake up early enough on Sunday morning so that you don’t miss the 9 AM CDT live airing of NBC’s Meet the Press. That, sadly, has been the state of things in my life for several years now.

And you know that you are completely hooked on MTP when you find yourself missing the deep cuts that former MTP moderator Tim Russert used to apply to the bloviating orators of obfuscation, regulars that appeared on his show weekly.

I miss the "Russert Pounce."

Up until today that is.

Because today, David Gregory was channeling Tim Russert’s spirit. Either that or he has finally acquired the brass appendages that we have all been missing on our Sunday morning politics fix.

This morning, the entire program was devoted to a roundtable discussion between Gregory and the respective chairs of the NRSC, the DSCC, the NRCC and the DCCC. That is, the four gentlemen who are responsible for raising money for Democratic and Republican Senatorial and Congressional campaigns.

At issue was presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs’ unfortunate and unqualified comment that Democrats could lose the majority in November.

Of course they could. But the problem is, Gibbs never addressed the whole concept of “likelihood.”

At this moment of weakness Republicans pounced, and I saw the effect at the Pete Olson town hall meeting last Monday when conservatives in the meeting asked Olson what the plan was after the GOP retakes the House in November. The air sparked with the electricity of certain knowledge of a complete rout in November.

NRCC Chair Pete Sessions attempted to maintain the façade in his opening remark:

“I think the, the public sees this as a long-term debt issue of big government, more spending. The president and the House, at least, are two-tenths through a big government agenda. And the bottom line is, is that people back home see it where government is doing quite well and the free enterprise system and jobs back home are not doing so well. I think change is in the air.”

And it went on like that for the longest time. Gregory danced around the subject of a Republican agenda, but the discussion remained unfocused for what seemed an interminable amount of time.

Bob Menendez, chair of the DSCC and Chris Van Hollen, chair of the DCCC were being overly cautious, having been put there by a desire not to look like whiners that endlessly bemoan the fact that they and their party were put in that position by the policies of George Bush and the Republican Party.

So it looked like a stalemate was shaping up, if not a tilt toward a GOP victory in the debate.

Then at the beginning of the 2nd half hour, David Gregory pounced.

Addressing Pete Sessions (making this not a fair fight at all), Gregory posed this question:

“This has been a debate so far this morning about, you know, the relative merits of Republican rule during the Bush years and what this president has or has not accomplished so far. I think what a lot of people want to know is if Republicans do get back into power, what are they going to do?”

A very pointed question at which time Sessions executed the old Texas Two-Step when he replied [and believe me, I am only including the statements of substance here] 

“…we need to live within our own means…we need to make sure that we read the bills …”

To which Gregory responded (as nicely as he could, I think):

“But, Congressman, that's a, that's a pretty gauzy agenda so far.”

"So far."

Giving him credit that there was more to the GOP agenda than he actually revealed, and Sessions then gave lie to that idea, reasserting that the only two things that need to happen is to balance the budget and read the bills.And that’s it, I swear.

Appearing exasperated at this point, Gregory delved further. This is a questioning strategy not unlike that which 3rd grade teachers use to evoke some higher level critical thinking skills in their students.

“How do you do it? Tell me how you do it. Name a painful choice that Republicans are prepared to say we ought to make.”

Eliciting this response and subsequent exchange:

REP. SESSIONS: Well, first of all, we need to make sure that as we look at all that we are spending in Washington, D.C., with, not only the, the entitlement spending but also the bigger government, we cannot afford anymore. We have to empower the free enterprise system. See, this is where...

MR. GREGORY: Congressman, these are not specifics.

REP. SESSIONS: Oh, they...

MR. GREGORY: And voters get, get tired of that.

REP. SESSIONS: That, that...

MR. GREGORY: You want to deal with entitlement spending...

REP. SESSIONS: They are...

MR. GREGORY: ...will you raise the retirement age on Social Security, will you cut benefits in Social Security?

REP. SESSIONS: Let, let--let's go...

And so he went. Nowhere. Sessions never answered. He never stated specific policies that Republicans are willing to put out there to the American people. Policies that empower Americans to decide who they want to clean up the mess that George Bush left us.

So Gregory turned to RSCC chair John Cornyn. [Not fair really, Two Texas Republicans on the same side in the same room].

MR. GREGORY: Senator, I'm sorry, I'm not hearing an answer here on specific--what painful choices to really deal with the deficit. Is Social Security on the table? What will Republicans do that, that, that would give them--like '94, there was a Contract With America. What are voters going to say, "Hey, this is what Republicans will say yes to"?

And guess what John Cornyn, my senator came up with? The Debt Commission. The commission assembled as a Democratic initiative to determine where cuts should be made. That is, the Republican agenda to revamp the economy is to do what the Democratic Debt Commission comes up with.

MR. GREGORY: But wait a minute, conservatives need a, a Democratic president's debt commission to figure out what it is they want to cut?

Cornyn, backed into a corner, fought his way out by attacking Obamacare. Gregory switched topics and asked about the recently-passed Financial Reform bill. And Cornyn started sputtering about how the bill was too long to read.

“Well, I think--I mean, this is a 2,300-page bill that not even Chris Dodd, the principal Senate author, knows--he said, "We don't know exactly how this will impact the economy or our financial systems for some time to come." I mean, that's part of the problem, as Pete said, passing legislation with unintended consequences and based on an ideological approach as opposed to, "Let's solve the problem" and to help encourage the growth of the economy. As the folks in the business roundtable said, the job-killing agenda of this administration is to make...”

Sigh.

Then the grownup in the room interrupted.

SEN. MENENDEZ: Well, I think, actually, when you look at the choice between where the president has taken the country from what he inherited vs. what our colleagues espouse, which is in essence the Bush voodoo economics, the reality is, in that choice, they have a very clear preference for the president's economic policies. Let me answer the question that my dear friend John wouldn't. Yes, they want to repeal health care, and they say replace. Well, you'll have a whole host of issues that you enjoy today that won't be enjoyed anymore. You won't see seniors closing that prescription drug gap that they have, you won't be able to have pre-existing conditions no longer be a bar to you getting insurance; you won't have a child born at birth who now will be able never--if they have a defect--to no longer be denied insurance. And yes, we have cost controls in that bill. On Wall Street reform, look, two weeks before, two weeks before the Wall Street reform bill was passed, you know, a hedge fund manager ultimately raised a million dollars for Republican candidates two weeks before the bill was being voted on, and they tried to stop us four times in the Senate before we got the Wall Street reform. I think that people in America believe in a free market as we as Democrats do, but there's a difference between a free market and a free fall market.

I’m sorry that this went overly long, but I think we all need to see this for what it is. Republicans are simply out of ideas. It has gone beyond having a knee-jerk reaction to every Democratic plan of “NO.” I think today we have been served a dish called the Republican agenda, a dish served on a silver platter with a silver cover to keep it warm.

And upon having the cover removed, we now see that there is nothing on the plate. There is nothing there. Not because Republicans are incapable of coming up with an idea, not at all. It has become all too clear to me why Republicans offer no new ideas anymore.

The Republicans have run out of fuel. They are running on empty.

White Beats Perry in Cash On Hand: Some Answers

In my previous posting on how Texas’ Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White has out-performed the fundraising machine known as Re-Elect Rick Perry, I sat in amazed wonderment over the fact that Bill White has $3 million more than Rick Perry has in cash on hand, but the question still begged: how did that ever happen?

Republicans are absolute geniuses at raking in the lucre from lobbyists and all manner of influence buyers. The GOP has a vice-like grip on the throat of power in Texas. They are the go-to people if you want to buy someone’s favor or interest.

So what happened?

Well as it turns out, as revealed here, two things.

First, as the Austin American-Statesman reports, Rick Perry paid the Chris Bell campaign a $426,000 settlement out of his campaign coffers earlier this year. This payment was, as it turns out a settlement that came out of a lawsuit that Chris Bell filed as a result of some pretty shady dealings that went on during the 2006 gubernatorial race that pitted Perry against Bell and two (or was it seven?) other gubernatorial candidates.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“Asked to explain why the Perry campaign settled with Bell, Perry spokesman Mark Miner said, ‘Due to the unnecessary cost and time factors of litigation, both parties have decided to pursue other strategies.’ He declined to elaborate on those other strategies.”

“Bell alleged that Houston homebuilder Bob Perry tried to hide a $1 million contribution to Rick Perry (no relation) late in the 2006 campaign by sending it to the Republican Governors Association, which then sent $1 million to Perry.” 

“Bell named the Perry campaign and the governors association in his lawsuit. Because the campaign did not properly identify the group on state finance reports, donors to the governors' group were not properly disclosed to the public, Bell alleged. Perry's lawyers have previously said that, at worst, Perry made a reporting error”

A “reporting error” that cost Perry over 400 large. It makes one wonder if this was indeed a “reporting error,” and there is no reason to believe that at all, but even if that were the case, how is it that in light of this “reporting error” Rick Perry is able to balance his checkbook let alone a state budget?

No, it is very clear from news of this settlement that wholesale exchanges of cash from one fund to another, not unlike the Tom DeLay ARMPAC/TRMPAC shenanigans that got DeLay indicted and then chased out of DC, are the kinds of things we are seeing still going on, only this time Perry cut his losses by settling.

Unfortunately it does show up rather glaringly when the January-June TEC filings went public this week.

According to the article, Bell is not finished here. Perry has bought himself out of the lawsuit but Chris Bell is still holding the Republican Governors Association feet to the fire.

“Bell is still suing the governors' group, alleging that it did not take all of the steps required by state law before contributing to Perry's campaign. The suit is currently before state District Judge John Dietz , an Austin Democrat.”

Maybe this explains part two of why Rick Perry’s campaign war chest has lagged behind Bill White’s. Cause and effect notwithstanding, it‘s probably no coincidence that Rick Perry’s campaign fund has yet to receive a contribution from the Republican Governor’s Association. It is, after all, not over for them yet. It is possible that they may have to withhold funds from Perry’s campaign in order to make a future settlement with the Bell lawsuit.

Bill White’s campaign doesn’t have that problem. The Democratic Governors’ Association has, in fact, made campaign contributions to White’s campaign, something to the tune of $1.5 million since February.

So there you have it. White is $3 million ahead of Perry, half of that from a contribution from the Democratic Governors’ Association that is unmatched in Perry’s campaign from the RGA, plus an unexpected outgo to settle a pretty embarrassing lawsuit out of court.

In evaluating the Perry campaign versus Bill White's things tend to "add up" in more than just the usual ways.

Obama Rebuked for Vacationing with the Yankees

You know, you have to have a pretty thick skin to be President of the United States. I remember whenever George W. took a trip to Crawford to clear some brush of some such nonsense we all used to mark the number of days he spent on vacay.

By my count, from January 21st 2001 until January 19th 2009 Bush spent 490 days on his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

He spent 487 days at Camp David.

That, by the way, is 2.68 years.

So, OK. Obama is spending a third weekend on vacation while oil is spewing into the Gulf.

Or wait . . .

They capped that, didn’t they?

No matter. This is Barack Hussein Obama, the Kenyan we’re talking about here. No holds barred if you are a shrill rightwing media political hack. So what is the latest beef?

Well just that rather than take his family to vacation on the Gulf Coast, as he is encouraging Americans to do, he took his family to a National Park in New Hampshire.

Where the Yankees live.

But according to the RNC, Obama makes poor choices vis-a-vis his vacation spots. From CNN:

"The Republican National Committee launched a website blasting what it considers Obama's "leisure activities or missteps" during the oil disaster, like playing golf, attending concerts and vacationing in Asheville, North Carolina; Chicago, Illinois; and now Maine."

"Obama has also faced criticism for scheduling a trip up north, instead of vacationing in the Gulf, as he advised other Americans to do."

Why, oh why, wouldn’t President Obama want to spend some quality family vacation time in the Deep South?

Still confused?

Bill White Campaign a Money Magnet?

I never thought I would live to see it. The January-June 2010 TEC filings are in and the totals show that Bill White’s campaign out-competed the Republican money machine that is the campaign to re-elect Rick Perry by three millions of dollars.

In their news release, White spokesperson Katy Bacon reports that in the 6-month filing period Bill White has become the money magnet that brought over 16,000 individual contributions that totaled just over $7.4 million. 75% of these donations were for $100 or less. 11,700 of these supporters, representing 73% of all of White’s donors, are brand new to the campaign donation scene.

The other 25% of White’s donors are the high-roller and PAC donations that are part and parcel of Texas politics. And yes, as a true believer in grassroots campaigns, I wish it were different, but Republicans wrote the rules here. The rules that they have recently written in Texas Limestone say that you can’t get your message out to Texas, with its 5 major mass media markets, unless you have the wherewithal to get that done.

This brings the Bill White Campaign fund total to a cool $9 million in wherewithal.

And according to the totals I have heard about, Bill White with his $9 million in campaign cash on hand has outstripped Rick Perry’s $6 million total cash on hand.

A table turner if there ever was one.

Pati Jacobs in a Winnable Texas HD 17 Race

One of the things that results if you attended the Texas Democratic Party State Convention this year is that you get your email address on a “good guys” list. So I have been receiving email from candidates left and left.

One candidate for State Rep really impressed me at this past state convention in that everywhere you went, there was Pati Jacobs. She made appearances at all the Education caucuses. She was featured in the General Session as one of the three candidates that are going to tip the Texas State House to a Democratic majority.

So I took a deeper look today, after getting my second email from her campaign, and frankly I have become thoroughly satisfied that in Pati Jacobs we not only have a great candidate, but it also looks like she can be a winner in what otherwise looks like a Republican-leaning house district.

These are exactly the kinds of places/districts we need to win this year.

First, who is Pati Jacobs? She runs a cattle ranch in Bastrop with her brother. They raise grass-fed beef on their ranch, and she is known locally as a community leader.

Now on Jacobs’ cattle ranching, if you have never tasted grass-fed beef you have been denying yourself one of the great pleasures in life. At this juncture in my life I tend toward chicken and fish, so if I cross over and have some red meat, it has to be special.

And grass-fed beef is just the ticket when you want it special.

True story: At work we science teachers sometimes have potluck lunches to celebrate birthdays and special occasions. Last year I made a big pot of Texas-style chili and used a kilo of grass-fed ground chuck that I had bought at a farmer’s market. It was a special occasion for me so I splurged a little, varying from my usual pasta salad. To this day, though, when the subject of chili comes up at lunch, my colleagues still talk about my chili as though it is all I ever made for them.

So there is another association you can make with Pati Jacobs: good Texas chili.

Jacobs’ Republican opponent is the incumbent. By habit, HD 17 voters have voted Democratic when it comes to their state rep, but vote for Dark Side candidates in all other races. So when State Rep Robby Cook decided to hang up his spurs after winning in 2004 by 5,247 votes (53.66% to 44.18%), and by 415 votes in his final term during the 2006 midterm election, the seat was open in 2008. So it came as no surprise that because of the huge turnout in the historic 2008 presidential election brought McCain/Palin voters to the polls in HD 17, the open seat went to the Republican. The numbers though, say everything.

In the 2008 election, McCain got 60.9% of HD 17 voters (37,331 votes) to Obama’s 37.5% (22,980 votes), but in the House race, now incumbent Tim Kleinschmidt got only 32,220 votes (just shy of 54%) to his Democratic opponent’s 25,528 votes (just shy of 43%).

That, friends and neighbors, represents 5,111 swing votes. Over five thousand HD 17 voters who vote for Republican national candidates, but want a Democrat to represent them in the state house.

In short, then, if even half of these five thousand voters show up in the lower turnout mid-term election HD 17 is eminently winnable by a Democrat.

Especially in a mid-term election where the Republican opponent, Tim Kleinschmidt, has been labeled by the Texas Monthly as “Furniture.”

People don’t cross over to vote FOR “Furniture,” they cross over to vote AGAINST “Furniture.”

And lastly, all of those pundits who are expecting an anti-Obama bounce in the mid-term election here have not realized, and will not realize that in Texas, this election is more of a referendum on Rick Perry, his Trans-Texas Corridor, his worldwide laughingstock of a state school board and his and his party’s $18 billion budget shortfall.

So HD 17, with Tim “Lay-Z-Boy” Kleinschmidt as the incumbent, has a big blue target painted on it. And Jacobs has just announced that her campaign is in the enviable position to boast an intake of $100,000 in the January to June TEC reporting cycle. No small thing in a rural district like HD 17. If you are as delighted as I am by the prospects in this race, a race being waged by a very smart and energetic woman, then why not drop by her ActBlue page and drop a couple of dead presidents in her campaign fund?

Because while winning is fun, funding a winner is even more so.

Deficit is Not the Enemy, Deflation Is

As conservatives rock and rattle over unfunded federal spending that would bring relief to hundreds of thousands of American families that have been impacted by intractable unemployment, as they, in an amazing reversal of logic, shriek and wail over the loss of tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans – those tax breaks also being unfunded, both sides of the aisle are acutely aware of the growing federal deficit. Neither, however, can agree on what to do about it.

From my point of view, though, concentrating on the federal deficit is a distraction we can ill afford right now. As a matter of fact, having a deficit, something that is known to drive up inflation sometimes, is not altogether a bad thing right now.

That’s because we now face a more dire circumstance: deflation.

We haven’t seen deflation, that is, a decline in the prices of goods and services, since the Great Depression. Deflation is to a recession what a good barefoot jog in subfreezing weather while battling pneumonia is to health.

It makes it much worse.

But that is apparently where we are heading right now. From AP, through the Chron:

“Wholesale prices dropped 0.5 percent last month, following declines of 0.1 percent in April and 0.3 percent in May, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy, posted a modest 0.1 percent increase.”

“The third month of declines in Labor's Producer Price Index raised new concerns about the possibility of deflation, a prolonged period of falling prices which has not been seen in the United States since the Great Depression of the 1930s.”

Want a preview of what deflation will do to the US economy? Behold Japan.

From Paul Krugman’s Op/Ed yesterday:  

“Back in 2002, a professor turned Federal Reserve official by the name of Ben Bernanke gave a widely quoted speech titled, ‘Deflation: Making Sure 'It' Doesn't Happen Here.’ Like other economists, myself included, Bernanke was deeply disturbed by Japan's stubborn, seemingly incurable deflation, which in turn was ‘associated with years of painfully slow growth, rising joblessness and apparently intractable financial problems.’”

Years of painfully slow growth.

Krugman offers that the Fed, which is unlike the Senate in that it doesn’t need 60 votes to do anything useful, is stalled on doing anything about deflation right now.

“Now that the nightmare has become reality, however – and yes, it is a nightmare for millions of Americans – Washington seems to feel absolutely no sense of urgency. Are hopes being destroyed, small businesses being driven into bankruptcy, lives being blighted? Never mind, let's talk about the evils of budget deficits.”

What should the Federal Reserve be doing right now? Anything other than what it is doing, according to Krugman, which is absolutely nothing. According to Krugman the Fed has some options.

“It can buy longer-term government debt. It can buy private-sector debt. It can try to move expectations by announcing that it will keep short-term rates low for a long time. It can raise its long-run inflation target, to help convince the private sector that borrowing is a good idea and hoarding cash a mistake.”

My guess is, however, that there is so much hand-wringing over the deficit, and no long-term memory over what exactly eventually drew America out of the Great Depression (a massive federal spending program known as World War II), that our fate has already been drawn in the sand above the swash zone.

And I sit here waiting in vain, I think, for a spring tide to erase our fate, because on the one hand, we have talked ourselves into this, and on the other hand, Republicans would like nothing else than a complete economic collapse to capitalize on in November.

Lebron and Mel Do Have Their Uses

Sometimes it is good to sit back and look at he world the way those of us who are not complete political wonks see things. Drew Sheneman has it exact I think.

For Texas SBOE District 10: Marsha Who?

Today the Texas Democratic Party sent a message to all of us about Judy Jennings’ sometime opponent in her race for a seat on the Texas State Board of Education.

Something to the effect of: Marsha Who?

That is, since July 3rd, when Marsha Farney (oh yeah, Farney) addressed a crowd of Teabaggers and expressed her relief that she was before them and not a bunch of America-bashing Democrats.

To wit:

“I'd rather be here than with those America-bashing Democrats.”

But since then, and the feces storm that ensued, no one has seen neither hide nor big hair of Dr. Farney. The Houston Chronicle admits that they were rebuffed from getting an interview, nor have they received any explanation of her July 3rd remark despite repeated quests via email or phone.

“She has not responded to e-mails or phone calls spread out over the past few days”

Judy Jennings, her opponent in the election was unabashedly taken aback by the whole thing, and asked for her take on the remark offered this:

“‘I guess she believes that anyone who's a Democrat is an America- basher, which maybe means that we don't love our country as much as others do who aren't Democrats,’ Jennings says. ‘I don't know what else it could mean.’”

To which I say, how about this? How about that Marsha Farney is just as rightwing and just as politicized as the board member that she hopes to replace, Cynthia Dunbar. How about that Marsha Farney, upon seeing the recent poll taken across the political spectrum, revealed that Texans oppose the politicizing of Texas educational policies to the tune of 72% opposed, has taken a dive for cover?

How about the fact that Marsha Farney, who proudly displays the banner “100% Pro Life Answers” on the home page of her campaign website, uses the issue of Abortion Rights as a litmus test to attract social conservatives to her cause?

In her most recent statement, Judy Jennings has been on point and on the nose in characterizing Marsha Farney as just another political hack that wants to have her reactionary neoconservative way with the Texas school curriculum.

“‘For weeks I have called on Farney to explain to Texas families whether she would join those already on the SBOE in ignoring the advice of teachers and experts, by continuing to push hyper-partisan ideology on our school children., For weeks she has remained silent. Now that she's proven the extent to which she will pander to a fringe element, she has quickly returned to her 'undisclosed location' and refuses to answer any questions, in hopes that Texans won't notice,’ Jennings said.”

“‘I have been clear from the start. When I am elected to the State Board of Education, I will not inflict ideology on the schoolchildren of Texas. Instead, I will listen to the advice of experts and teachers, and will remain focused on the task at hand - providing our Texas children with a world-class education,’ Jennings said.”

“‘Shamefully, it's now clear that we cannot expect the same from Marsha Farney.’”

I know times are tough. I have had to contend with some unexpected expenditures this summer, too. But it’s worth a $5 or a $10 donation to the Jennings campaign to get her message out to the sprawling District 10 electorate that extends from Houston to Austin.

It’s time to take back our educational system from the political hacks. It’s time to support Judy Jennings in an uphill but winnable battle to retake District 10.

Perry vs. White: A Study in Education Contrasts

What are the two largest areas of state financial responsibility? Arguably they are just about evenly divided between public education and public health services. And today we see that Bill White and Rick Perry are measuring themselves against a scale of who has the best ideas to knock down Texas’ high school dropout rate.

First, you have to agree on what the rate is. According to Perry, who appointed the state’s education commissioner, the figures at the Texas Education Agency are solid gold. And statewide, the TEA says that the dropout rate is 10.5%. According to nearly everyone else, this rate estimate is hopelessly optimistic. Nationally, according to just about every other measurement than the Texas official one, or in this specific case, Texas ranks just ahead of Mississippi in an annual dropout rate of 30.4%.

10.5% versus 30.4%.

You would think, then, that your plan to correct this depends upon which figure you are willing to believe. And in that you would be correct.

Perry, who must ascribe to the lower figure or label himself an incompetent fool who supervises a one-third annual dropout rate, has come up with a plan to encourage high school dropouts to return to school or obtain their GEDs: a business tax incentive.

I first read about that deal here.

He says it will only cost the state $15 million annually, and it will give businesses who allow their employees to go back to school or get their GEDs by giving them 2 hours per week paid time off to do that a $1500 per student tax credit.

Doing the math, that means Perry is willing to spend $15 million per year in order to get 1000 high school dropouts per year their high school diplomas, or the equivalent. Now if the state only had 1000 dropouts per year, that would plug the leak nicely wouldn’t it? Trouble is, even with Perry’s own accepted figures, that is a mere 1/4th of the total annual dropout rate.

Accepting the higher figure found here this figure is a mere 1/12th of the total high school dropouts – annually.

Clearly, Perry proposes to repair what amounts to arterial bleeding with a band-aid.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Bill White, has another more robust plan that seeks to plug the leak at its source. This is the educational equivalent, to use a BP oil blowout analogy, to drilling a relief well and killing the gusher at the source rather than attempting to fit a loosely fitting cap at the wellhead.

Bill White knows, because he listens to educators who have learned, that a person's valuation of education begins in pre-Kindergarten. The first of his 5-point education plan is to fund pre-K programs for more children.

This is key. Everything proceeds from there. As a matter of fact there is now enough data to identify probable high school dropouts as early as the 5th grade. If this kind of data is available, this gives teachers and districts a lot of time to institute corrective strategies.

White also outlined a strategy of direct intervention to go directly to the homes of students who do not return to school in the fall. Instituted in Houston, this resulted in the return of 8800 students to high school.

That’s nine year’s-worth of Perry’s program.

Finally, Bill White wants to take Texas off the High-Stakes Testing Standard that has become institutional since George W. was governor.

It. Simply. Doesn’t. Work.

Like it or not, all that has changed in education since the institution of near-complete reliance on TAKS not only for student achievement ratings but for district and campus accountability ratings, has been a change in emphasis from teaching writing, reasoning and critical thinking skills to teaching how to pass a multiple choice test.

Perry, having the ultimate supervisory responsibility with what is happening in public schools, must defend it all.

Must defend the indefensible.

And how does he do it? Perry does what he does best. Perry slaps lipstick on a pig and calls it beautiful and then throws a bone at business. A very small bone.

One can only hope that this latest can of spam issued by Perry will be seen by Texas voters for what it is: a laughable attempt to plug a hemorrhaging wound with a post-it note that says "lern gud".

Pete Olson Holds a Republican Love Fest

Last night’s town hall meeting hosted by Congressman Pete Olson went off pretty much as expected. Predictable. Town hall meetings were the place to be last summer during the Angst of August when healthcare reform was being beaten about the heads of voters and votees alike. Not so this summer. The crowds stayed away.

Now it could be because the event was held on a weeknight and not on the weekend, but I doubt that had much to do with it. No, this was a town hall meeting attended by those who attend town hall meetings when there is nothing to talk about. And they get there fully fed because the Early Bird dinner hour is over at Luby’s.

Attendees were mostly white people, old white people.

And outside of one or three of us, all of the attendees seem to make it a habit to watch Fox News.

It was, in a word, a Republican Love Fest.

After the flag ceremony, the event began with an introduction from the County Judge, Bob Hebert who allowed that Olson was able to win in his election in 2008 without his help.

Then Olson had a 30 minute presentation where he outlined his views on four issues.

Energy Policy. Concentrating on the BP oil spill, and not necessarily on how it has impacted the lives of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who are directly or indirectly related to fishing and tourism. Concentrating on the moratorium – that is, the idling of 33 offshore oil drilling rigs.

Figures lie and liars figure, but Olson finally admitted toward the end of the evening that whether there was a moratorium or not, not one of these rigs was going to spud a well in the deepwater any time in the near future. Olson intimated that this was due to uncertainty in having their work halted in court; not mentioning at all any that the oil industry itself may have concerns about its own internal readiness to react to an accident. Over whether those BOPs which work perfectly well in shallow water, have a tendency to malfunction in deepwater.

Healthcare. Or should I say “healthscare?” It’s back to the Angst of August where Olson marched out a small boy whose mother was afraid that insurance companies wouldn’t pay for the birth of her son. Did you know that as a direct result of healthcare reform doctors are not accepting Medicare/Medicaid patients and companies are going to drop healthcare coverage for their employees? Doctors are going to go out of business? Hospitals are going to go out of business? “This is all a result of this healthcare bill," said Olson.

Those dire predictions alone were enough to scare the bejesus out of the collection of geriatrics we had in the meeting. I give you the Republican Party - Scaring old people since 1952.

Then he rolled out the Republican plan to replace the historic healthcare reform bill, now law. What was amazing to me was that the plan he unveiled looked oddly like the one already passed. He left out the jargon, though. “Let [small businesses] pool together for insurance purposes.” That is exactly like the "insurance exchanges" created by the healthcare reform law. Add to that, though, torte reform.

“Every Texan here knows the benefit of medical torte reform. We passed it in 2003 and almost immediately in the next two years we saw over a 30% reduction in the insurance rate that the doctors were being charged for torte reform.”

That was nice for the doctors. But my medical bills didn’t go down. Did yours?

Olson admitted that any attempt by Republicans (should they regain the majority) to overturn healthcare reform will be stopped by presidential veto. He promised, though, not to fund any portion of healthcare reform.

I actually look forward to having that conversation should it ever come up.

Economic Solutions. In four steps: Freeze then reduce federal spending, Energy solutions that are market-driven (i.e. coal, oil, nuclear), repeal healthcare reform, decrease government regulation.

Fun stuff that should make the Great Depression of the ‘30’s look like a walk in the park.

NASA. On Pete Olson’s watch, NASA dumped the “manned” part of “manned space exploration.” He admits to being caught completely unawares when the Aries/Constellation project was axed. He’s mad about that.

This despite the fact that NASA actually had a slight increase in its budget (he didn’t mention that). This despite the fact that, using his own analogy, when a family has to trim their budget during hard times, the annual family vacation to Gstaad is probably the first to go.

Then came the Q and A. This was when you become acutely aware, if you weren’t convinced before that this was a political event bought and paid for by federal taxpayers, that this was a Republican event for a Republican crowd.

One woman’s question wasn’t even a question. It was an expression of gratitude that Olson was her congressman. Other questions had to do with the unquestioned certainty that Republicans were going to retake both houses of congress in the fall and what were they going to do when that happened.

Two questions were revealing on Olson’s take in the whole area of privatization. One where he reminisced over Bush’s attempt to put Social Security in the hands of Wall Street which in retrospect, seems pretty much like the worst idea . . .ever, and the other where he speculated about privatizing the United States Postal Service. You know, like FedEx and UPS.

One question about his Hispanic business community outreach allowed Olson to branch into a discussion of a Republican/Teabagger issue on immigration. Olson defended Arizona’s SB 1070, saying it was “Arizona’s cry for help.” Defended the racial profiling that will ensue because “that can’t happen in the bill. It doesn’t sanction racial profiling.”

No, that’s what he said, I played it back over and over.

My fear is that in making this poor choice of words, he actually got it right.

And finally, confirming my speculation that the audience gets all of its news from Fox, this question came up:

“Can the House investigate the DOJ for dropping the Black Panther voter intimidation case?”

Here is Olson's answer, minus a reference to American Indians:

“Yeah we’ll look at that. The House probably won’t do it because the majority won’t let us do that but that’s something to look at. I mean the Black Panthers . . . there were a lot of allegations of voter intimidation, voter fraud . . . and, ah, the Department of Justice – it’s pretty solid evidence from what I understand – the Department of Justice dropped it. They said we’re not going to pursue that case. Um, as my former boss Phil Gramm said, and I believe this from the bottom of my heart, uh, you know, voter fraud is one of the most serious offenses that an individual can commit under our constitution because you effectively take another person’s legal vote and cancel it you can make their vote irrelevant. And that is just, again, we’ve got men and women overseas today fighting for our rights and one of those is the right to vote. So voter fraud is something we can’t tolerate. And the Black Panther case right here is a great example of that. The DOJ needs to step up to the plate regardless of party affiliation what have you and make sure that there is justice.”

Fun stuff, huh? Yes, it is an absolute fact that the Department of Justice dropped the criminal charges against the New Black Panthers, preferring to pursue a civil case against them. And that happened on January 7th 2009.

Eleven days before Obama took office.

But then those are facts and dates. What bearing do facts and dates have here when what we want to have is a taxpayer-supported Republican Love Fest?

Kyl: Unfunded Tax Cuts for the Rich is Sound Economics

Did you hear? If we allow the Bush Tax Cuts for the super-rich to continue, something that no decent Republican wants to pay for, that’s a good thing. However, if we extend unemployment benefits for the middle class, something that is also unfunded, well that’s bad. Evil. Socialism. Promoting laziness.

That’s what Arizona Senator John Kyl told Fox News yesterday. And covered at HuffingtonPost. Here is what Kyl, in all earnestness, truly believes:

“You should never raise taxes in order to cut taxes. Surely congress has the authority, and it would be right, to – if we decide we want to cut taxes to spur the economy – not to have to raise taxes in order to offset those costs. You do need to offset the increased spending and that’s what Republicans object to, but you should never have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans.”

Now that makes sense, right? In giving tax breaks to the richest among us, we should never pay for that through other taxes. But if we are to increase spending, by say, extending unemployment to the middle class, well that must be paid for.

That is, it’s OK to add to the deficit if it benefits the rich, but not so OK to add to the deficit if it helps the middle class.

And why is this twisted logic so true? Well, it seems if you give tax breaks to the rich, they will hire the middle class, and that spurs the economy.

On the other hand, if the middle class, whose consumption of goods and services is the basis upon which our economy depends, has no money to spend, then that doesn’t affect the economy at all.

That’s a logical leap that only borrow and spend Republicans can get behind. Saying that an unfunded $30 billion for the unemployed is bad, but an unfunded debt service cost of $678 billion for tax cuts for the rich over 10 years is good simply boggles the mind.

White Campaign Earns “Pants on Fire” Award from Politifact

Well I warned about it here. The Bill White for Texas campaign made a serious mistake, I think, when they tried to argue that Rick Perry was shortchanging Texans by working only 7 hours a week in the first half of the year.

First, given that what the White Campaign was saying was entirely true, that Rick Perry only works at being governor for 7 hours a week, that’s not necessarily a bad thing if you are a Democrat.

Assuming a 40-hour work week, that’s 33 hours per week that Rick Perry is not working to drag Texas further and further down the hole that he and his party have dug for the state.

The more time Rick Perry spends reading his taxpayer-bought and paid for “Food and Wine” magazine, the less time he has to devote to further ruining the Texas system of public education. The more time that he spends tasting Merlot and eating spinach quiche, the less time he will spend devising ways to cut spending in essential services in order to knock down the looming $18 billion state budget shortfall.

But no, they kept it up and this was too much for the people at Politifact.

They knew better.

They knew what every teacher in Texas knows, that the salaries of state employees is online thanks to the Texas Tribune. You can go here and see who are the top-salaried people on the state payroll and Rick Perry doesn’t even make it in the top 25.

The top five people in Texas who bring home the biggest state payroll paychecks are as follows:

Mack Brown - $5.1 million per year

Richard Barnes – $2.15 million per year

Michael Sherman – $1.7 million per year

Thomas Tuberville – $1.5 million per year

Gail Goestenkoers - $1.04 million per year

Even Goestenkoers makes, on an hourly basis (40 hours times 52 weeks), more than the White campaign projects that Rick Perry makes.

Oh. Who are these five top payees?

Coaches. All of them are coaches. Hey, what the heck did you expect, anyway? This is Texas where they invented the term “Friday Night Lights.”

Indeed, you have to click down to the 11th page (at 25 names per page) in the Texas Tribune’s State Employee salary list before you come across the name Rick Perry.

Oops.

No problem. It was a nice try, just doomed to failure given those irritating things known as facts.

Really, to me, in running a campaign against Rick Perry there is such a target-rich environment that it is actually ill-advised to go out and gin up this criticism, especially when what Perry is being criticized for, not working for Texas, is actually a good thing.

It’s Only the Most Popular Sport in the World

Take a poll. What is the most popular sport in the entire world? Ask that question to a provincial American and you might get “baseball” as the answer. Ask that question to nearly anyone else in the world and you get as the answer “football.” Or maybe “futbol.”

And even then your average provincial American will have, in his mind’s eye, visions of “first and goal” and “roughing the kicker.” Because in America, football is . . . well . . . football and soccer is soccer. But to the rest of the world, soccer is football and football is the most popular sport in the world.

And the equivalent to the World Series, the Superbowl and the NBA Finals all rolled up into one event that is held once every four years is taking place today: The World Cup Finals.

Over the years, soccer and the World Cup has given us cultural icons such as Pele, and now a cultural irritation called the vuvuzela. And it has also now given us Paul the psychic octopus.

As for myself, yes I have played soccer. It was one of the “foreign” sports activities that we had to learn about and play in junior high school. And as a parent, I assumed the rank of parents lined up along the sidelines shouting encouragements at our Peles-to-be all the while completely unconsciously making kicking motions with our feet.

And then there was my one encounter with a World Cup Final. In Paris. 1998.

True to form, when I arranged my family’s tour of Europe all those years ago I was completely ignorant of the fact that 1998 was a World Cup year, let alone the fact that it was to be held in France that year. Completely ignorant of the fact that the day after we arrived in Paris the World Cup Final was to be played at the Parc de Princes in Paris between France and Brazil.

I received a quick education, as did my children, when walking down the Champs-Élysées, we encountered a young man wearing only a thong and painted from head to toe in red, white and blue (or as they say in France, bleu, blanc et rouge).

Things quickly devolved from there, but let’s move on.

In Paris, in July, the sun sets around 10 PM so we lost all track of time, and only sought a place to eat dinner after realizing we were all famished. We found a restaurant that looked open, but no one was eating there. Everyone, it turned out, was in the bar watching the World Cup Final. The hostess assured us, though, that dinner was available so we sat alone in the dining room watching as the staff rotated between us and the bar.

The upside is that we made the acquaintance of everyone who worked tables in the restaurant, and got news flashes, in French, about the ensuing action on TV.

“C’est tres chaud, tres chaud,” is one observation that I recall, news to me that the French and Americans had the same concept of “hot” when it came to expressions of excitement.

Then when France, the home team, beat Brazil, the winners of the 1994 World Cup by 3 to zip, the whole place came unglued. A million souls spilled into the Champs-Élysées. Celebration continued into the wee hours as you can see from this photo taken from my hotel window at 2 AM.

So yes, I have my TV tuned to the match of matches and will watch it all. But watching it on television is nothing, I can assure you, compared to having a meal in an empty Parisian restaurant on July 12th 1998.

TEA to Dump TPM?

I’ve been following the series at the Chronicle by Rick Casey on how the TEA is using TAKS scores in their campus rating system, something called the AEIS. Casey is looking at something that we educators have all had our attention turned toward lately, the Texas Projection Measure or TPM.

This is because raw scores notwithstanding, how the TEA uses the TPM, especially in borderline cases, greatly influences which of the four categories your campus will fall into.

Will the campus be rated as Exemplary, Recognized, Acceptable or Unacceptable. And how will the district be rated?

This is because, depending on how your campus is rated, it is then determined how many or how few hoops you must jump through as the school year progresses. The higher the rating, the fewer the hoops.

State Rep. Scott Hochberg (D-Houston) is also concerned with this measurement, as we read through Casey’s pieces. As he is chairman of a House education appropriations committee, he is a little worried about the jump in Exemplary campus ratings last year and wondered why that happened. As it happens, 73 of the 74 newly rated exemplary districts made that cut because of the TPM.

That is, actual student performance did not determine a district's exemplary status in 73 cases. Instead it was a statistical projection of the number of students who will eventually pass the TAKS test that did the trick.

And that is well and good if the TPM is an accurate predictor. The trouble is, that isn’t necessarily the case.

In his first piece, Casey revealed that a student could receive a passing TPM score after answering none of a TAKS test’s questions correctly. That is, a student who received a zero on a TAKS text could be scored as a student who would eventually pass the test.

Asked to defend this, Associate Commissioner in charge of the accountability system, Chris Cloudt claimed that the TPM was a “growth measure” of performance. One would assume that this was a comparison of performance from previous tests, and in doing so, one would assume wrongly. It is actually a formula applied to a student’s test score that looks back on “thousands of prior results.” It is, to use an industry term, a “fudge factor.”

The “fudge factor,” as it turns out, was devised by the national testing company Pearson Education. And when the “fudge factor” is applied to a theoretical student who scores a zero on a TAKS test, it transforms the zero to a passing score. Not based on the student’s own improvement but based on improvement of a pool of students.

It is, in short, fiction. Or better yet, it is, in short, wishful thinking.

The upside is that more and more campuses will be awarded Exemplary or even Recognized ratings, and teachers will be less beset by paperwork.

There is a downside, however. If the “fudge factor” skews all test scores upward, then schools that are actually in trouble with attaining an Acceptable rating will fly under the radar, and some necessary corrections and controls will not be applied that should be.

Politically, this could be disastrous. If public schools are viewed as having escaped poor ratings because of a state-sanctioned “fudge factor” that creates test scores that are more myth than fact, this only provides fodder to the rightwing that scream for school accountability by diverting public school funds to private, hopefully religious schools.

It gives those that raise a hue and cry for school vouchers the ammunition they need.

Ammunition that might penetrate Kevlar.

My guess, then, is that the TEA may be poised, as this article in the Austin American-Statesman suggests, to eliminate the TPM as a measure of student progress.

Unfortunately, old habits die hard as we see with what is being entertained by Education Commissioner Robert Scott, who lists three options: “the suspension of the measurement, continued use of the measurement for districts that choose to and modification of the measurement's calculation.”

Hochberg seems unimpressed:

“You don't make an invalid measure valid by doing less of it. I think we should start from scratch and develop a real measure of the progress students make in schools.”

Putting “lipstick on a pig” is how Hochberg characterized this.

Probably the only silver lining in this whole thing is that the state is about to dump TAKS as an accountability standard, replacing it with the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness or . . . ahem . . . STAAR. That is, instead of 4 high-stakes tests in high school, students will take 12.

Silver lining? At least for awhile the statisticians won’t have enough data to do their magic with projections of student achievement.

5th Circuit: No Lifting of Moratorium Stay Necessary if They Don’t Drill Anyway

In a curious leap of logic, the 5th District Court of Appeals in New Orleans refused to lift a stay on a deepwater drilling moratorium because, as they reasoned, there wasn’t going to be renewed deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico for the foreseeable future anyway. These are two of the 3-judge panel findings:

1. 
   
   The motion for stay pending appeal is denied because the Secretary has failed to demonstrate a likelihood of irreparable injury if the stay is not granted; he has made no showing that there is any likelihood that drilling activities will be resumed pending appeal.
2. 
   
   The Secretary has the right to apply for emergency relief if he can show that drilling activity by deepwater rigs has commenced or is about to commence. Any renewed motion for stay will be evaluated on existing circumstances.

Get that? They didn’t rule on the merits of whether the oil industry can prevent future deepwater blowouts or whether they are equipped to handle another one should it occur. Neither did they rule on the merits of a having oil service companies idled with resulting layoffs if the moratorium has its effect.

The ruling was solely based on the fact that the Interior Secretary could not show that in not lifting the stay it would result in renewed drilling in the deepwater. Indeed, if renewed drilling should occur, according to point 2, they will revisit this.

Meanwhile, two Republican congressmen, Pete Olson and Kevin Brady, lauded the decision as a blow for the working man.

From the Chron:

“‘It's the hard working men and women of the Gulf Coast not the federal government that will suffer “irreparable injury” if this ban persists,’ [Brady] said.”

Olson, on the other hand, was watching the rig count.

“Olson said the administration should ‘take this latest ruling to heart’ and not attempt to reinstate the ‘arbitrary and unnecessary’ moratorium. Diamond Offshore's decision on Friday to move one of its rigs to Egyptian waters is just the first of many, Olson said.”

Now, correct me if I’m wrong. The justices refused to lift the stay because they didn’t think that there was going to be any renewed drilling in the deepwater anyway, whether or not there was a moratorium. As a matter of fact, if someone did decide to spud a well in the deepwater, the Secretary of the Interior would have standing in a claim that drilling would cause irreparable harm. Something he can’t claim now because there is no drilling.

And this helps the working man how? This keeps parts and supplies moving from the factory floor to the deepwater offshore how? This keeps deepwater certified drill ships from up anchoring and moving to Brazil or Angola how?

Near as I can tell, this is a lose-lose-lose situation. Commerce is lost, jobs are lost, and rigs are lost anyway, whether there is a moratorium or not.

Congressmen Brady and Olson have nothing to celebrate.

Nothing to celebrate except for the political hay they hope to make as they obfuscate the truth in the press – a specialty of theirs.

Irony: 10th Amendment Used to Strike DOMA

If you ask your run-of-the-mill Teabagger what is contained within the Bill of Rights you will get them to recite at least one and a half of them: the second half of the Second Amendment (…the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed) and the Tenth Amendment (The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people).

Indeed, the Teabaggers are a wholly owned subsidiary of “The Tenthers,” a political stratum in America who holds that many actions of the federal government are unconstitutional because they are not specifically allocated to the federal government by the constitution.

You know, things like Medicare and Social Security. Those things, if you listen to the Tenthers, are unconstitutional.

So it might come as a surprise to the Tenthers that someone in an unanticipated corner is listening to them, specifically US District Court Judge Joseph L. Tauro.

Because yesterday Judge Tauro, in deciding the case of Nancy Gill and Michelle Letourneau et al. v. Office of Personnel Management et al. ruled that Section 3 of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was unconstitutional as it denied people legally married in the State of Massachusetts of equal protection of the law. A PDF of the decision may be read here.

Massachusetts, which recognizes the union of same-sex couples as a marriage in the same way that heterosexual couples have enjoyed, and allows same-sex couples the same benefits of marriage as heterosexual couples, affords same-sex couples the same rights and benefits as heterosexual couples. The federal law, however, forbids the federal government to make federal benefits available to the same couples.

This, Judge Tauro ruled, was in violation of the equal protection principles embodied in the Due Process clause of the 5th Amendment.

Judge Tauro, in analyzing DOMA’s intent, found that its underlying principle was arbitrary and irrational:

“As such, a law must fail rational basis review where the “purported justifications ...[make] no sense in light of how the [government] treated other groups similarly situated in relevant respects.”

But Tauro went further, ruling that, as any Tenther would agree, it is the states that have purview over marriage. Marriage is not something that is mentioned even once in the US Constitution.

“There can be no dispute that the subject of domestic relations is the exclusive province of the states. And the powers to establish eligibility requirements for marriage, as well as to issue determinations of martial status, lie at the very core of such domestic relations law. The government therefore concedes, as it must, that Congress does not have the authority to place restrictions on the states’ power to issue marriage licenses.”

Indeed, Tauro points out that state marriage laws vary from one state to another, and the federal government has never sought to standardize any aspect of marriage until it enacted DOMA.

Indeed, Tauro points out that sixteen states maintained miscegenation laws up until 1967 when the US Supreme Court ruled that these laws denied mixed-race couples “constitutional guarantees of equal rights and due process.”

In short, DOMA introduces complexity in a situation that should be straightforward. A same-sex couple should have all rights and benefits afforded to heterosexual couples notwithstanding the fact that some rights or some benefits originate from federal programs. Where heterosexual couples have no problem, same-sex couples who are legally married in the eyes of state law do.

Clearly this is because the federal government overstepped its purview, and sought for the first time in history to define marriage only in terms of the awarding of benefits under federal programs.

This is using federal law as a tool to discriminate against a sub-population of Americans, something that should be anathema to all freedom-loving citizens.

Finally, Judge Tauro rules DOMA unconstitutional:

“To further divide the class of married individuals into those with spouses of the same sex and those with spouses of the opposite sex is to create a distinction without meaning. And where, as here, “there is no reason to believe that the disadvantaged class is different, in relevant respects” from a similarly situated class, this court may conclude that it is only irrational prejudice that motivates the challenged classification. As irrational prejudice plainly never constitutes a legitimate government interest, this court must hold that Section 3 of DOMA as applied to Plaintiffs violates the equal protection principles embodied in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

Now, one would ask, will this be appealed? President Obama has stated that he wants DOMA to be repealed, but I doubt that will happen now. It will be up to the Justice Department to decide whether they will pursue an appeal, but really they have no choice.

A federal judge has overturned a federal law. An appeal is guaranteed, almost as much as it is guaranteed that the case will find its way to the Supreme Court. And from there we’ll just have to see how or whether the five conservative justices are willing to allow big government to intrude on what has historically been a province of the states.

Oh how the worm has turned.

Commissioners’ Court Diverts Federal Dollars to Women’s Shelter

It’s an interesting turn of events when you see the Fort Bend County Commissioner’s Court do an amazing thing right out in the open, but that is what happened this week when they voted 3 to 2 to take $20,000 in federal grant money and reallocate it from one charitable organization to another.

Voting, this time, against County Judge Bob Hebert.

What could be behind this, I had to ask myself. So I perused the rest of the article found here in the Chronicle’s Fort Bend County blog and thought I had an answer, but question marks still kept appearing.

The 20 grand in question was targeted to benefit the Fred and Mabel Parks Youth Ranch, Inc. a facility currently under construction in rural Fairchilds. This is a facility meant to house abused troubled and homeless children in Fort Bend County. A homeless shelter for children does not exist in Fort Bend County. Well not one for those who are not charged with a crime, anyway. The facility was funded by the Fred and Mabel Parks Foundation and the Mamie George Foundation. Management of the construction of the facility was donated by Asset Plus Companies.

This endeavor, it seems is a multi-million dollar undertaking.

An undertaking that has as one of its board members the very same County Judge Hebert who voted in favor of sending the 20 large to this charity. His charity.

Instead, Commissioners Morrison, Prestage and Meyer voted to divert that money away from Hebert’s project and direct it toward the Fort Bend County Women’s Shelter, an organization that houses and shelters abused women and their small children. This organization, by the way, was the beneficiary of $60,842 from the same federal emergency shelter grant, bringing their total up to $80,642, or 94.8% of the total federal grant.

Hebert said that the vote was “political.” From the Chron:

“I can’t sit there and vote to withhold money from a charitable organization whose only mission is to help homeless children. I think it’s a terrible precedent that members of the court made a determination on what charities are worthy of receiving federal money.”

In seeming answer to Hebert’s charges of politicization of charities, the article then concentrated on community opposition to the youth ranch and specifically how neighbors have been negatively impacted by the ranch’s construction.

So what is it? Was the vote to divert funds to the Women’s Shelter a vote in support of Fairchilds residents who opposed the project? Was it a vote to overturn what seemed to be an obvious conflict of interest on the part of Bob Hebert? Or was it simply a choice of which charity needed the funds more, a well-funded youth ranch or the women’s shelter, which gets its funding from donations and proceeds from the sale of used goods in their thrift store?

Whichever it was, one or all, I really don’t care.

Here’s why.

It took a little digging but I discovered that the Fred and Mabel Parks Youth Ranch will be run by the Arrow Child and Family Ministries, or Arrow Ministries for short. This is a Christian organization that endeavors to create “communities of children and families who have experienced healed hearts and changed lives enjoying a whole and meaningful life through faith in Jesus Christ.”

I also discovered that Arrow Ministries is in some way associated with the Michael Reagan Center for Advocacy and Research. The self-same ultra rightwing organization that conducts robotic telephone push polls all over the country pushing their conservative agenda.

So you see, I really don’t care what or why the 3 commissioners voted the way that they did. I simply do not want my federal taxpayer dollars, and that is what this federal grant is, to be used to support a sectarian cause. It is in absolute violation of the Establishment Clause to the US Constitution.

And I really don’t want a cent of my taxpayer dollars to benefit an ultra-rightwing political organization.

There are lots of private foundations to support sectarian and rightwing causes. Let them handle all of that and let’s let the federal taxpayer money benefit non-sectarian apolitical causes.

This is America, after all. Not a sectarian state like the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Rick Perry: I See Nothing

Imagine that. Rick Perry had no knowledge that not one, not two, but three of his current or former campaign operatives/chief of staff had dabbled in some scurrilous politics when they arranged for money to fund and/or engineered the collection of signatures so that the Green Party could appear on the November ballot.

He knows nothing about it. He sees nothing.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“GOP Gov. Rick Perry, asked today at what point he learned about the efforts of some Republicans to get the Green Party on the ballot, said: ‘I have no knowledge of that at all.’”

Funny the verb tense he used, “have” instead of “had.” It’s as if the things that the reporters were telling him about his former campaign workers, and a former chief of staff were things that he had not heard of at all.

It is as if Rick Perry’s brain is a tabula rasa, something that contains no knowledge at all of past or present events in this matter.

It reminds me of my favorite television character from the 1960’s comedy series, “Hogan’s Heroes.” Sergeant Schultz, upon being presented with clear evidence of wrongdoing would utter his famous tagline “I see nothing . . .”

Present tense.

Common thread? They both look like buffoons.

TDP to Greens: Run if Corruption is What You’re About

Today the Texas Democratic Party filed a motion to drop their lawsuit against the Green Party, challenging the legality of the signatures that they submitted to get their candidates on the November ballot

The TDP, it seems, didn’t want to look like it was standing in the way of a third party’s ability to field its candidates. Admittedly that was a fatal flaw in their effort. The legality, or rather the illegality of the signatures, gathered by an anonymous out-of-state corporate contribution it seems, was denied by the 9 Republicans who sit on Texas’ highest court. This is despite the fact that new evidence has emerged that now three operatives that can be directly linked to Rick Perry or his campaign. These operatives had direct involvement with funneling the money to enable signature gathering, putting Republican fingerprints all over the Green Party signature gathering effort.

From the TDP’s press release:

“The Texas Democratic Party filed this lawsuit because Texans deserve to know who secretly spent over half a million dollars to influence the 2010 elections. Just a few years ago, Republicans in Texas engaged in the Tom DeLay TRMPAC scheme to illegally use corporate money to affect State House races. Now, it appears that Republicans have again used corporate money from a secret donor to improperly influence Texas elections”

In dropping the suit this virtually assures that Green Party candidates will appear on the November ballot along with Democratic, Republican and Libertarian candidates. Of the three other parties, the Green Party stands to derive many of their votes from those who would otherwise vote for Democrats.

This was obviously the intent of the Republicans who funded the Green signature drive.

In competing with Democrats for liberal votes, TDP Chairman Boyd Richie remonstrated to Green Party candidates that their candidacy was tainted with money callously donated to them by those who hold them in vile contempt. Said Richie:

“Green Party leaders should remember that actions speak louder than words. It is up to the Green Party candidates to decide whether they want to continue candidacies that were bought and paid for by Republicans who hold the Green Party in contempt. If the Texas Green Party ever wants to be taken seriously, their candidates should heed the advice of Texas progressives, step down and dissociate themselves from a Republican corporate money scheme that flies in the face of everything the Green Party claims to believe.”

My message to The Greens then is this: OK Greens, the Democratic Party is dropping its opposition to your presence on the ballot, this despite the damage that it could do to its own candidates in close elections – and all statewide elections will be close this year. Now the ball is in your court either to show Texans that you have no moral convictions and will act as spoilers in your own selfish interest, or to show that you are serious in your liberal progressivism and have no desire to let Republicans buy themselves another election.

Your choice.