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.

Pete Olson Goes to Richmond

Now I have it on good authority, because I read about it here, that CD-22 congressman Pete Olson will soon be making his way to the county seat of the largest and most populous county that lies within the Texas 22nd Congressional District, the district that he represents.

He wants to hold a town hall meeting at the McDowell Jury Assembly Building at 212 Houston St, in Richmond [map]. The meeting will be on a Tuesday evening, July 12th starting at dinner time, 6:30 PM and going until 8 PM.

Yeah, dinner time. On a work day. I am wondering if they want to limit the audience to those who make it to the early bird special at Luby’s. For the rest of us who dine watching the sun set, and want to attend, I don’t know if they’ll let you in with a bucket of KFC under your arm but if they do, just remember not to leave the chicken bones on the floor.

If you go, be sure to go armed with some questions. I hear he will ask for questions. Just make sure that if you want your question asked, you ask it with your own voice. Sneaky Pete is well known for having his staffers collect index cards from the audience – he requires that his constituents write their questions down so his staffers can filter them. Nice, huh? Can you say Banana Republic?

Anyway, one question I want to hear him answer is why he voted NO on HR 5618, the Restoration of Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act. This act, passed in the House by a vote of 270 to 153, extends the filing date that families whose breadwinners cannot find work can file for federal unemployment benefits and extends the date of the program until April 2011.

And Pete Olson voted NO. He voted NO while 29 of his Republican colleagues voted YES. They voted yes for Texas families. Pete voted NO.

Clearly, Pete Olson is out of touch with his constituents. Had he looked, he would have seen that his district is hurting. From April 2008 until April 2010 the unemployment rate jumped from a low of 3.7% to the most recently recorded 8.3%. Don’t believe me? It’s here.

That’s more than double the people who were unemployed a mere two years ago.

And it shows in the neighborhoods.

Drive through any neighborhood in Fort Bend County and you see the same thing: a growing forest of “For Sale” signs on front lawns. More go up but none come down.

And then another question that might come up is why Pete Olson voted NO on HR 4173, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The measured passed the Senate (a miracle on the order of the loaves and the fishes) by 59 to 39, and sent back to the House to be reconciled in conference. That report is what Olson voted against.

Now, it is clear to anyone who hasn’t had his or her head stuck in the sand since September 2008 that it was an unregulated, greedy, and rapacious Wall Street that sold our country’s economy into the sewer, and it is also clear that the bill is nowhere near as tough in re-regulating these people as it could be, but these days you get whatever can pass the Senate and that is what we got.

And Pete Olson voted against it.

Pete Olson voted for his lobbyist friends and acquaintances on Wall Street, and against the people who live in the neighborhoods in Fort Bend County.

Now it’s not like we can do anything about it at the ballot box this year. The Democratic opponent he drew is one taco short of a combination plate, but at the very least he can be made aware of the fact that he is now on the firing line.

Literally.

Olson needs 5 years in Congress to get vested in the congressional benefits package. We can cut him off with one year shy of that in 2012 and it is now time to let him know that is going to happen.

A guy’s gotta make plans, after all.

Feds File Suit On "Papers Please" Law

It has been long-awaited but not unexpected. Today the Justice Department filed suit in federal court seeking to halt implementation of Arizona’s “Papers Please” law enacted when Arizona Senate Bill 1070 was signed into law by Governor Brewer last April 23rd.

The law gives Arizona state and local authorities broad powers to detain people within Arizona’s borders whom they believe to be there illegally. People thus detained would be expected to produce proof of American citizenship – something a majority of Americans are generally not prepared to do at the drop of a hat.

The lawsuit, filed by Assistant Attorney General Tony West along with other United States Attorneys, citing the State of Arizona and Governor Jan Brewer as defendants, has two major points:

1. That Arizona, in enacting that law, violates the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, which declares federal law as supreme to state and local laws, and
2. That the federal government has preeminent authority to enforce immigration laws and that “a state may not establish its own immigration policy or enforce state laws in a manner that interferes with federal immigration laws.”

Arizona’s sole mechanism in the immigration policy set forth in SB 1070 is the mechanism of “attrition,” says the lawsuit, where suspects who may or may not be citizens, are rounded up, detained, and exported. That mechanism, the suit claims, interferes with the federal government’s policies under the Department of Homeland Security. Quoting from the lawsuit, found here:

“…it will impose significant and counterproductive burdens on the federal agencies charged with enforcing the national immigration scheme, diverting resources and attention from the dangerous aliens who the federal government targets as its top enforcement priority. It will cause the detention and harassment of authorized visitors, immigrants, and citizens who do not have or carry identification documents specified by the statute or who otherwise would be swept into the ambit of SB 1070’s ‘attrition through enforcement’ approach. It will conflict with long-standing federal law governing the registration, smuggling, and employment of aliens. It will altogether ignore humanitarian concerns, such as the protections under federal law for an alien who has a well-founded fear of persecution or who has been the victim of a natural disaster. And it will interfere with vital foreign policy and national security interests by disrupting the United States’ relationship with Mexico and other countries.”

Really, the only greater fear than being stopped by the Arizona State Police for “having a deeper tan” than most people, is the fear that this heinous law will be upheld in federal court, or worse, by the US Supreme Court.

The possibility is there, and it is more than just a little unnerving what our country could devolve to if the individual states are allowed to nullify federal programs, policies, and laws.

The Balkans come to mind.

Cornyn and Olson Set to Decry Deepwater Moratorium

I was reading a short blurb in FortBendNow, you can read it here, that Texas Senator John Cornyn and my CD-22 congressman, Pete Olson, are setting up to attack the Obama Administration’s 6-month deepwater oil drilling moratorium.

They plan to visit a semi-submersible drill ship that is currently standing at idle in the Texas deepwater, and then a local Stafford family-owned drilling tool maker.

It’s painfully transparent that this investigative tour to “take a look at the impact the Obama Administration’s deepwater drilling moratorium is having on local small businesses, jobs, the local economy, and our nation’s energy security” is nothing more than an exercise in the “politics of No” for local consumption.

“Following the rig tour, Cornyn and Olson will visit Stafford small business Sunbelt Machine Works Corp., which manufactures tools for the oil and gas industry and stands to suffer layoffs and significant setbacks due to the moratorium. Family-owned Sunbelt Machine Works currently employs a staff of 70. Sunbelt has already been forced to cut back hours and productivity as a result of the moratorium, according to a Cornyn and Olson.”

It’s a pretty stunning thing to say that cutbacks in the hours and productivity of a local family-owned business should be given the same weight and consideration as the issue of uncertainty of whether the major oil companies have a plan on what to do when a deepwater well blows out. It should be very clear to all of us by now that they haven’t had a plan, still don’t have a plan, and we don’t know when or whether they will have a workable plan in the future.

Russian Roulette is a game of chance played with one live round and six empty chambers, and that is the game that Cornyn and Olson want us to play with the 11th largest body of water on the face of the earth. Truth is, we now know that it was only a matter of time that a blowout on the order of the Deepwater Horizon’s blowout would occur.

I would also remind Olson that even his congressional leader, John Boehner, agrees that “maybe there is a reason there to pause till we know what happened and we can make sure we can prevent it again.”

Yes he did say that.

How long should the “pause” be? To my mind, 6 months is too arbitrary, and to put a finite time limit to it at this stage of the game seems unreasonable. How long should the “pause” be? It should be long enough to come to correct conclusions on the cause of the blowout, formulation of reasonable contingency plans should one occur again, with once more being too many, and engineering and manufacture of blowout preventers that can reliably operate in high pressure low temperature conditions in a failsafe manner. Currently blowout preventers, the ultimate well control device, are not 100% reliable in the most benign environment, and less so at extreme water depths and pressures. Indeed, one thing that can be predicted as an offshoot of this disaster is that blowout preventers will be redesigned as predicted by Paul Bommer, a UT petroleum engineering professor quoted here:

“…one thing is fairly certain. The Gulf oil spill will probably result in a "re-design" of BOPs, said UT's Bommer, as well as an overhaul of how they're tested and activated”

Leaving us with the plight of businesses that deal exclusively with deepwater oil exploration and production. What lessons should they take from this? Simply this: if your business depends on a special area of the oil business like the Gulf of Mexico deepwater, that is, if you put all of your eggs in one basket, take a lesson from the words of a great American, Mark Twain:

“Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.”

But the Republican plan seems to be to “watch that basket” by letting oil companies resume deepwater drilling before anyone is ready.

And that serves no one but the demagogues and lapdogs of the oil industry.

Independence Day 2010: Tea and Fireworks

The Tea Party Movement was probably too young in 2009 to have much visibility just 2 and a half months after the mid-April rallies, so Independence Day 2009 seems to have been pretty much the same as always.

Not so this year.

This year, with more than a year – and the Angst of August (2009) - behind us, as well as the success of Tea Party-backed primary candidates this spring the Tea Party Movement was loaded for bear this past weekend.

Traditional July 4th festivities had something new in the mix: Teabaggers and teabagger wares.

In Lexington, Kentucky, a Teabagger hub courtesy of the successful candidacy of Libertarian Rand Paul’s bid to become the Republican senatorial candidate we had paranoid Teabaggers being interviewed in this You Tube video selling their Teabagger wares at a 4th of July festival in that city.

Their featured T-shirt was one sporting the slogan “Yup, I’m a Racist.”

The vendors spewed an incredible tirade against all sorts of things, both real and imagined. Business looked brisk.

The website Teapartypatriots displayed over 20 generic Independence Day events all over where Teabaggers would either have a presence, a booth, or a place in the parade.

Closer to home, in Williamson County, a 4th of July Teabagger Rally was held in an airplane hanger at the Georgetown Municipal Airport where speakers ranged from Congressman John Carter (R-Round Rock) to GOP candidate Melissa Gordon running for justice on the 3rd Court of Appeals, to HD 52 Republican candidate Larry Gonzales.

Also present was SBOE District 10 candidate Marsha Farney who I have mentioned before when she was running in a primary runoff against an ostensibly more conservative opponent. I mentioned in passing back then that her traveling caravan was seen parked outside the establishment (at which I no longer eat barbecue) where a Teabagger fundraiser was being held – a patently illegal one in that they are raising money for political expenditures without being registered with the Texas Ethics Commission.

Farney, then, is no stranger to the Teabagger Movement and had this to say to the Williamson County crowd:

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

Leading me to pose the obvious question: given all that we have seen and heard about in the events of yesterday, precisely who are the ones doing the “America Bashing?”

CBPP: Blame Obama on Budget Deficit? Think Again

When I hear the something for nothing Teabaggers whine about how Obama’s careless spending program is driving our country into the ground, and about how their grand children are going to be paying for them, I just want to throttle them, and then slam some things called facts and data on the table in front of them and make them look.

Neither are going to happen. First, I am a peaceful man not given toward throttling anything but my riceburner’s engine, and second, past experience tells me that shoving facts under the noses of Teabaggers does little good.

So let me preach to the choir instead.

Last week the Center on Budgets and Policy Priorities published this graph (at right) in an article you can read for yourself right here. A supporting data table can be found by scrolling down, but the overall trend is clear.

Projecting all of the major areas of government expenditure out ten years you can see what portions of the Obama stimulus adds to the deficit as compared to other areas, specifically, the Bush Tax Cuts and our Two Wars.

After 2011 the budget deficit includes Obama recovery measures that have become miniscule (by miniscule I mean between $60 billion and $37 billion) while the funding for our Two Wars will taper gradually from a high of $193 million in 2012 to a projected $162 million in 2019.

Bush Tax Cuts, on the other hand, will increase in significance as we go forward should they be extended without impediment, from a low of $295 billion in 2011 growing gradually to $705 billion by 2019. The increase is largely due to added debt service costs should the tax cuts not expire.

In other words, if Teabaggers are looking for a direction to point their fingers, if they are looking for someone to blame for the budget deficit, they need look no further than the 2001 to 2003 tax cuts.

In other words, YOUR grand children will pay for YOUR tax cuts.

Now going forward, how do we fix this because it is very much like getting a junkie off of crystal meth. Like an addict’s system, the American economy has become used to and dependent upon getting a fix from time to time. Going cold turkey, while admirable, is sure to cause upheaval in our fragile economy. It’s like “getting clean” while down sick with pneumonia.

But a balance must be struck here. America is addicted to its own inequitable tax policies where the super rich have benefited the most. And so to continue with the allegory, maybe it’s time to start distributing the methadone while we trim the tax cuts from the top down.

White Debates Libertarian Tomorrow; Perry Keeps on Cluckin’

Today, Independence Day, is a day to relax with family and barbecue. Maybe watch a fireworks display, maybe have one of your own if it’s OK, or if John Law ain’t watchin’. But tomorrow, still a holiday for some, it will be back to pounding the campaign trail for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White.

Tomorrow is the first gubernatorial debate, to be held in Kerrville.

A debate between Bill White and Libertarian candidate Kathie Glass.

But no Rick Perry.

No Rick Perry because Bill White hasn’t complied with all of Rick Perry’s demands on financial disclosure.

Funny how that goes.

Funny, because it is abundantly clear that Bill White, as a private sector businessman has done far better than Rick Perry has done as a career politician. On paper anyway. No, the only real thing that Bill White’s financial disclosure tells voters is that Bill White doesn’t need to gain the governor’s office so he can get rich.

He already is.

No, it’s all just stuff and nonsense, isn’t it? Rick Perry won’t debate Bill White because he and his handlers know how poorly he would do if he had to speak extemporaneously – without, that is, prepared remarks and no Chuck Norris standing next to him.

Perry knows that the very thing that voters really wanted to see in 2008 was a debate between Barack Obama and George W. John McCain did an awful enough job in that, but what voters really needed to see was the contrast between what they had and what they were going to have. But here and now, we have that opportunity, don’t we? Texas voters have the right to compare their choices side-by-side, just so they can see what they have now, versus what they could have in 2011.

Rick Perry, or more properly, Perry’s handlers, know this.

Libertarian Kathie Glass is every bit as frustrating an opponent as you will get in any Libertarian opponent. Arguably the Libertarian and Republican platforms track one another the most, but then they are sometimes wildly divergent, where Libertarians support things that only the most liberal of Democrats are in favor of.

So while tomorrow’s debate should be an interesting one, make no mistake that Perry’s absence from the room will no doubt change the dynamics of the discussion.

It may also spur an increase in sales of “chicken suits.”

US House Slams One on Rick Perry

I was impelled to read this article in the Houston Chronicle today because it has two red meat issues that I am watching: Texas’ Governor, Rick Perry and federal dollars being allocated to the states to prevent teachers from losing their jobs during this economic downturn.

Rick Perry has an opponent of significance this fall in Democratic nominee Bill White, you see, and school districts all around me are laying off teachers and slashing their budgets.

See, on Thursday the House passed a supplemental appropriations bill that funded lots of stuff including continued funding of the Afghanistan War, but it also included supplemental funding of $10 billion to help the states fund education and keep teachers in their jobs.

The last time this happened, Governor Perry accepted $3 billion in education funding from the feds, and put it in the education budget on one side, and subtracted $3 billion in state allocations to the education budget on the other side.

He essentially pocketed $3 billion dollars meant to improve state education and keep teachers in their jobs. Last year thousands of teachers across the state were laid off in district cutbacks. But instead of using those federal dollars as they were meant to be used, Perry used them to balance his overstretched budget.

So this bill had something in it that you don’t see every day. It had a special provision for a special state: Texas.

In order for Texas to get its share of the $10 billion, said to be around $820 million, Rick Perry has to promise to behave.

This is such a one off deal that I promised myself to get a copy of the text and check it out for myself. I finally found it and here it is pasted below:

11) ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS FOR THE STATE OF TEXAS.--The following requirements shall apply to the State of Texas:

(A) Notwithstanding paragraph (3)(B), funds used to support elementary and secondary education shall be distributed based on local educational agencies' relative shares of funds under part A of title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 6311 et seq.) for the most recent fiscal year which data are available. Funds distributed pursuant to this paragraph shall be used to supplement and not supplant State formula funding that is distributed on a similar basis to part A of title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 6311 et seq.).

(B) The Secretary shall not allocate funds to the State of Texas under paragraph (1) unless the Governor of the State provides an assurance to the Secretary that the State will for fiscal years 2011, 2012, and 2013 maintain State support for elementary and secondary education at a percentage of the total revenues available to the State that is equal to or greater than the percentage provided for such purpose for fiscal year 2011 prior to the enactment of this Act. 

(C) Notwithstanding paragraph (8), no distribution shall be made to the State of Texas or local education agencies therein unless the Governor of Texas makes an assurance to the Secretary that the requirements in paragraphs (11)(A) and (11)(B) will be met, notwithstanding the lack of an application from the Governor of Texas.

See that? In the special case of Texas, the state governor doesn’t have to ask for the funds. School districts can go right around him and ask for them directly. And even then, the governor has to promise that state support in 2011 be at the same or greater level “prior to enactment” of the Act.

The bill passed by a vote of 239 Ayes (236 Democrats, 3 Republicans) and 182 Nays (167 Republicans and 15 Democrats). It now goes on to the Senate which previously passed this legislation but without the Texas amendment.

Perry, you might imagine, is livid. Politically it exposes him as the charlatan that he is, but having your state mentioned in the act in a special additional requirement because of poor previous behavior of its governor, in an election year no less, has got to sting a little.

As a matter of fact, Perry’s spokesperson turned it around and blamed Texas Democrats that he couldn’t accept the $800 million because the Texas constitution forbids it.

“The House-passed version requires that the governor guarantee the Legislature will provide a certain level of state funding, which is prohibited by the Texas Constitution, for education through fiscal year 2013.”

“It will be at least June 1, 2011, before the Legislature passes and the comptroller certifies the 2012-13 budget. That means Texas would not be able to use any of these funds to save teacher jobs — as Congress has intended the money be used - for at least one full school year.”

Funny, isn’t it, how Rick Perry had no trouble accepting $3 billion in federal dollars meant to save teaching jobs if it had no strings attached to it, but balks at accepting $820 million in federal dollars if he has to let the funds do what they were intended to do by Congress.

That is, if it helps Rick Perry, he as no problem taking federal bailouts. If it helps public school teachers Perry’s hands are mysteriously tied.

The Green Party Needs a New Logo

Don’t you think?

I mean, after all, I didn’t really know what the logo of the Green Party actually was until today when I looked it up.

Here is their logo at the left.

See? It’s not an animal like the D’s and R’s. Obviously, if you are going to name your party after a color, a color whose wavelength is in the range of about 510 nanometers, your logo might want to be in the arena of vegetables, not animals.

But here’s the problem. The logo looks strikingly like that of British Petroleum, doesn’t it? They had another logo, a “BP” inside a green shield but they changed it awhile back.

I didn’t notice when they did that.

So The Green Party and British Petroleum have very similar logos and I think the Green Party might want to reconsider theirs now that BP has committed one of the greatest ecological disasters in all of history (I still think that when the Russians killed the Aral Sea, that was worse).

I have a modest suggestion. Now that the Green Party has become a subset of the Republican Party in that it was through the cash provided by Republican operatives that the Greens of Texas are able to get certified on the November ballot, a deal that was sanctioned today by the nine Republican justices on the Texas Supreme Court, they need a logo that now better reflects their party and their values.

Long green.

White Derides “Part-Time Perry”

It has been somewhat of a mantra this year that Texas Governor Rick Perry doesn’t earn his keep. In fact, for that big paycheck he receives every year, Rick Perry is said to be working between a seventh and an eighth of the time that your average full-time employed person works.

Bill White says that Rick Perry works 7-hour weeks.

Now on the face of it, that sounds really bad and that Texans aren’t getting their money’s worth and it seemed like the White campaign was striking a chord among hard-working Texans from Beaumont to El Paso.

Indeed, Katy Bacon, a Bill White campaign spokesperson said this about Perry’s lazy work habits:

“We aren't getting our money's worth from Part-Time Perry, who's charging taxpayers $428.57 an hour for work and nearly $10,000 a month for an extravagant rental mansion. Meanwhile, under Perry, the state faces an $18 billion budget hole as state spending has nearly doubled and state debt has doubled.”

Then I saw this video where Perry made his defense, one uploaded to You Tube by the Texas Tribune.

The first half of the video, as you could see, was Bill White making his case, and the second half was Rick Perry saying that just because it’s not down on his schedule doesn’t mean that he isn’t hard at work.

This started me thinking.

I started wondering if Rick Perry not working on the looming $18 billion budget deficit was necessarily a bad thing. He is sure to botch it up and make things worse, not better for Texans. Rick Perry’s fingerprints are all over the budget shortfall. He and his policies actually caused it. Do you think that he will be able to fix that which originated on his watch?

So in a way, having a part-time governor, if it is Rick Perry we are talking about, isn’t such a terrible thing. Perry is actually doing Texas a favor by not doing so much.

OK, yes we are losing $428.57 for each and every hour that Rick Perry doesn’t do anything, but considering the nature of what he could be doing, paying him not to do that is pretty much a no-brainer bargain.

Texas Teens: Hang Up and Drive

The story that follows reminds me of one of my most favorite jokes.

Q: What is the most common thing a person says immediately after being in an auto accident?

A: "I have to hang up now."

So what reminded me of this joke today? This story at KXAN’s (Austin) website.  

“In September of last year, the Texas Legislature (passed a law wherein) drivers under 18 can no longer use any wireless communication device while driving. That means talking and texting are out.”

“The restriction only applies to licenses issued after September 1, 2009. If you get caught, it is a class C misdemeanor and might mean a hefty fine.”

The bill was HB 2730 by Lois Kolkorst (R - Brenham). The new rule was deeply buried in and among other matters in the bill dealing with the Department of Public Safety. So the law is unheralded and unknown to most, and given the fact that teens and their wireless communications devices are as inseparable as white and rice, this should make for some interesting times should anyone decide to vigorously enforce this new law.


In truth, this law is both a grand idea and so completely contra-cultural to today’s teens that I truly have my doubts that it will be enforced at all, unless the teen in question gets in an accident.

Rendering accident prevention that is the purpose of the law completely undone.

NRA: Elena Kagan Probably Hates Guns

Today Wayne Pierre and Chris Cox, executives at the National Rifle Association’s headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia sent a letter to the Democratic and Republican ranking members of the Senate Judiciary Committee announcing that, horror of horrors, they probably weren’t going to support Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s confirmation as Associate Justice to the US Supreme Court.

The PDF of their letter to the senators is here.

Most interesting in the letter is the array of reasons that they give to their opposition to Kagan, and by proxy, to any senator who votes to confirm her.

Interesting in that they don’t really have any.

Indeed, Kagan herself has characterized gun ownership rights as “settled law.” In their letter, the two execs even own up to that. So what’s the beef here?

As it turns out, they just don’t believe her.

Here’s what they said:

“During her confirmation hearings last year, Justice Sonia Sotomayor repeatedly stated

that the Supreme Court's historic Heller decision was "settled law". Even further, in response to a question from Chairman Leahy, she said ‘I understand the individual right fully that the Supreme Court recognized in Heller.’ Yet last Monday in McDonald, she joined a dissenting opinion which stated: ‘I can find nothing in the Second Amendment's text, history, or underlying rationale that could warrant characterizing it as 'fundamental' insofar as it seeks to protect the keeping and bearing of arms for private self-defense purposes.’”

They don’t believe her because of what that other female Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor did in the recently decided McDonald v. Chicago case. Sotomayor, voted with the minority in the case, even though she also characterized gun ownership matters as “settled law.”


If Sotomayor, a woman, decided the case like that, then Elena Kagan, also a woman, would do likewise.

More to the point, Sotomayor was absolutely correct. By completely ignoring the first clause in the 2nd Amendment, that a militia is a good thing to have so . . . the Supreme Court’s more narrow definition on why gun ownership is a desirable thing – self defense – is not fundamental. Not fundamental as say, the right to life and liberty. If it were fundamental, wouldn’t everyone own a gun?

Which is, I guess, their point. The gun lobby is there to promote the purchase of guns. If everyone owned a gun because it was as fundamental as breathing oxygen, then the gun lobbyists could all retire.

And that’s not likely to happen anytime soon.

The Politics of God

No, this is not a discussion of whether God is a Democrat or not, although I suspect that the God of the New Testament is, and His evil twin in the Old Testament is most definitely a Republican. No this is about who owns God’s trademark, Democrats or Republicans.

Republicans have a corner on the market in Evangelical Christians. This is the brand of Christian that thinks that God, and by some sort of default, themselves and the government, has the right to demand and regulate what happens in your living room, what you see on television, what occurs in your bedroom, and, if you have one, what happens in your uterus.

And to keep reminding you of this, Evangelicals also want you to mention the word “God” as often as possible. Or read it.

They include the word “God” in the American Pledge of Allegiance back in 1954. In 2006 they included the word “God” in the Pledge to the flag of Texas.

But Democrats don’t want Republicans to have a corner on the God market, even though they do appear to have God well in hand simply by virtue of the fact that they spend more time worrying about God and religion. Witness then the choice of words that you see in the Preamble to the 2010 Texas Democratic Party Platform. Quoting:

“We have faith that democracy, built on the sacred values of family, freedom and fairness, can afford every Texan, without exception, the opportunity to achieve their God-given potential.”

Well that’s not so bad, is it? For a sentence that tells you absolutely nothing, that’s pretty harmless and you get to mention the word “God”. But in fact, it is kind of bad, but not because of the wording. It’s bad because including the term “God-given” actually was the subject of some debate during the Platform Committee’s meeting last weekend, nearly six minutes worth as a matter of fact. I didn’t know this until I saw this video clip at the Texas Observer’s website today. Watch it, it is very revealing.

I was particularly taken with one comment at about 3:30. The committee member simply mentioned that once it was noticed that the Democrats had stricken the word “God” from their platform the conservative media would go into a frenzy.

And he was absolutely correct.

So like it or not the game to get God in your corner will continue to be played and there is nothing that can be done about it. Rightwing conservatives invented the game and play it well. Democrats would likely suffer an image problem if they stop playing at this game.

And a game is exactly what it is.