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.

“Guns” Gorman

If you are a habitual watcher of Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC program “Countdown,” as I am, then you didn’t miss his unveiling of Pamela “Guns” Gorman’s campaign advertisement last night. It was completely over the top – the advertisement I mean.

Now I am not going to give the whole thing the air time that it doesn’t deserve, I just want to isolate the one small bit of the ad that Olbermann also delightfully highlighted. You know, the part where Gorman is shown firing what looks like a fully automatic Thompson machine gun.

Now, you know where this comes from, don’t you? It comes from a fairly gratuitous website that I don’t usually find myself visiting except that I know such sites exist and this particular fantasy is what Gorman’s ad is obviously evoking.

Girls and Guns

John Boehner: Friend of Democrats

Did congressional leader John Boehner just hand over the midterm elections to Democrats? He did if the words he uttered to a Pittsburgh newspaper reporter yesterday get widespread play across the country.

I mean, really. Three guesses. Which age group is the group of people, Republican or Democrat it makes no difference, that is most likely to show up at the polling booth in the fall?

Old people.

People who are retired or about to retire.

People who are going to take these words that John Boehner uttered in all seriousness with not just a little alarm. From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

“Ensuring there's enough money to pay for the war will require reforming the country's entitlement system, Boehner said. He'd favor increasing the Social Security retirement age to 70 for people who have at least 20 years until retirement, tying cost-of-living increases to the consumer price index rather than wage inflation and limiting payments to those who need them.”

“‘We need to look at the American people and explain to them that we're broke,’ Boehner said. ‘If you have substantial non-Social Security income while you're retired, why are we paying you at a time when we're broke? We just need to be honest with people.”

Limiting payments to those who need them? Moving the retirement age to 70? All so we can pay for endless war?

And this is a good idea? This is what John Boehner will advocate when he gets his 39 congressional seats this fall and sits in the Speaker’s chair in Congress next year?

This, in the end, is all that Democrats are going to need this year. All we need is a few candid words of truth from Republicans on what they will do when they retake congress.

The Trib-Review’s video showing how surprisingly willing Boehner is to hit the third rail by his very real threat to postpone and even eliminate social security payments is below.

Truth is truth

To the end of reckoning

- William Shakespeare

Texas Democratic Party Platform is Published

Amazing. When the TDP Platform committee made its presentation last Saturday, and Chairman Boyd Richie characterized it as a platform to be proud of and not one to run from, they said that it would be made available for public viewing by Tuesday.

And now that it is Tuesday, I decided to go and check the TDP website. And by golly there it is, the 2010 Texas Democratic Party Platform. You can download the entire PDF file from here.

Where it gets really instructive is to compare the TDP’s 2010 platform to the Republican Party of Texas’ platform. Boyd Richie is right. If I were a Republican I would have a hard time defending that document.

A document that virtually drips of fear, hatred and intolerance.

Case in point. Here is what Democrats have to say on how our Constitution should be used:

“We believe our Constitution is intended to protect our freedoms. Republicans seek ways to ignore or deny those protections. Democrats believe our Constitution is intended to prohibit discrimination in all forms. Republicans wish to make it a tool of discrimination.”

Republicans, on the other hand want to use the US Constitution to ban sodomy.

“Texas Sodomy Statutes – We oppose the legalization of sodomy. We demand that Congress exercise its authority granted by the U.S. Constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy.”

Sodomy. They put the word “sodomy” in their party platform. My guess is that this affords Republicans a reason to say the word, write the word, and engage in envisioning the act that the word entails. Sexual titillation, in other words.

Oh, and then there is religion. Republicans love to wear their religion on their sleeves. Democrats love to celebrate diversity.

From the TDP Platform on religion:

“Texas Democrats believe government should scrupulously honor every Texan's right to religious freedom, as guaranteed by the Texas and U.S. Constitutions and protected by the separation of church and state.”

Republicans?

“Safeguarding Our Religious Liberties – We affirm that the public acknowledgement of God is undeniable in our history and is vital to our freedom, prosperity and strength. We pledge our influence toward a return to the original intent of the First Amendment and toward dispelling the myth of separation of church and state.”

And near and dear to my heart, how do we compare Democrats and Republicans with regard to educational practices and policies. The differences couldn’t be more stark:

“Texas Democrats believe all children should be able to attend a safe, secure school and have access to an exemplary educational program that values and encourages critical thinking and creativity, not the “drill and kill” teach-to-the-test policy Republicans have forced on students and teachers. To fulfill this commitment, Texas Democrats continue leading the fight to improve student achievement, lower dropout rates, and attract and retain well-qualified teachers.”

Republicans, on the other hand are perfectly willing to “drill and kill” the 3 R’s and continue the insanity of administering high stakes multiple choice tests

“Basic Standards – We favor improvements on the quality of education and a return to the traditional basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic with sufficient discipline to ensure learning. We support standardized testing to ensure minimal standards are met.”

Did you get that?

Not “minimum standards.” Minimum standards are the standards that something must meet, in order for some desired outcome to be certified.

“Minimal standards” has a whole different connotation. Minimal means “only barely adequate.”

But then again, with that rightwing Republican domination we all have seen on the state school board, and the board’s recent revamp of curriculum guidelines in English Language Arts, Science and Social Studies, maybe that wasn’t a misapplication of the word.

Maybe they mean it.

Judge Rules Against Grade Inflation

I read about it first at the Dallas Morning News. Yesterday, Judge Gisela Triana-Doyal of the 200th Judicial District Civil Court ruled in a lawsuit brought against TEA Commissioner Robert Scott by eleven Texas school districts that districts may not require their teachers to issue grades that are higher than a student actually earned.

I have two previous postings on this matter. The reason the school districts gave for flouting what became state law last year was that the provisions in the law were vague and that they applied to individual grades on class assignments but not to actual progress reports or semester reports.

This despite the fact that Commissioner Scott issued a directive to all school districts in the state that clarified the issue, and that State Rep Jane Nelson (R – Flower Mound) clearly indicated the intent of her bill, SB 2033 that became law in unanimous passage last year, was to address grade inflation on report cards.

And apparently the judge had an easier time reading the law than the school boards. From DMN:

“But the judge dismissed their arguments, saying the legislation was ‘not ambiguous’ and reflected the Legislature's intent to protect teachers from having to give grades that weren't earned.”

Significantly, the Houston Chronicle reports that the judge was not deciding the case on the merits of each sides' arguments, both of which, she said, had valid points. The decision was simply a judgment on the merits of the ambiguity in the language of the law as claimed by the school districts.

Asked to comment on the decision to allow teachers to accurately report on their students’ mastery of subject matter, State Senator Nelson seemed pleased:

“This ruling is a victory for Texas teachers, students and parents because now all grades – on class assignments and on report cards – will accurately reflect how well students have mastered their coursework. Knowing the truth about a student's progress is important information for helping all children succeed in school.”

Going forward, what comes next is still apparently up in the air. Richard Morris, the lawyer representing the eleven school districts was rather vague, himself, on possible actions. An appeal was a possibility, he offered. Otherwise the districts might be lobbying the legislature to reverse itself.

But quite frankly, I think Morris might have to look for other cases to occupy his time, otherwise known as “billable hours.” Mainly because in public school education, money is so tight right now that school districts are cutting staff and trimming bus routes. I doubt that taxpayers would take it very kindly if they learned that their school boards were engaged in cutting services but were still spending taxpayer dollars in order to guarantee their continued stranglehold over a teacher’s grade reporting decisions.

Rick Perry Is In It for Himself

You might have heard the new mantra that has been unveiled by the Bill White For Texas campaign: Rick Perry is in it for himself.

I think this should play well in Texas, mainly because it explains so much when you see or hear about Governor Perry pulling another bone-headed act – one that doesn’t make much sense when you look at the facts.

You know, stuff like vetoing a bill to outlaw school busses running their engines in school parking lots for hours on end, or you know, like presiding over the largest state budget shortfall in living memory.

How can you explain these things, simple says Democratic candidate for Governor Bill White, Rick Perry is in it for himself.

If you want to understand Rick Perry, all you have to do is understand his colleague, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Palin couldn’t see how she was going to pull down the big bucks and still be governor of Alaska, so she quit and signed on to the gravy train of Tea Party USA. Rick Perry, however, being a career politician, sees no other way to pull down the big bucks than to stick with his present job for an unprecedented 3rd term.

Now understand, Rick Perry isn’t in public service because of the salary. At $150,000 per year, Perry is earning a tenth of what someone in the private sector pulls down for the equivalent executive job. No, it’s all that other stuff.

Other stuff like getting people to pay for your magazine subscriptions, international vacations and all of those campaign contributions. Like doling out taxpayer money from the Texas Enterprise Fund to corporations, only to have those corporations return the favor by making huge cash donations to Perry’s campaign.

Rick Perry has spent such a long time in Austin that he holds all of the cards, and knows how to use his office to rake it in. Bill White has his number though, and unleashed the new mantra that we are going to hear over and over again for the next 4 months.

Here is a video clip, about 5 minutes long, of Bill White explaining all of this to thousands of Texas Democratic Party convention delegates last Friday.

Texas Freedom Network Survey: Just Educate

So I mentioned here that I attended the Texas Freedom Network’s caucus at the TDP state convention. The event was well-attended.

On each seat was placed a pamphlet entitled “just educate.”

The title, as it turns out, was an instruction to the Texas State Board of Education to stop using that obscure branch of state government to promote the political views and religious beliefs of individual political hacks who sit on the state school board.

The purpose of the state school board, the TFN asserts, is not to “undermine science education, call evolution a lie and doubt the existence of global warming.” Their purpose, the TFN maintains, is that they “just educate.”

You can turn the pamphlet into a post card simply by filling out the information on one side and cut along the dotted line, stamp it, and send it back to the Texas Freedom Network.

Or, you can save yourself the postage and go here to fill out the same information and click the “Submit” button.

According to the TFN presentation, only 19% of Texans agree that the school board is on the right track in their bid to reshape and mold the minds of the next generations of Texans in their own images. The grand majority of Texans finds the whole process appalling and decry the fact that Texas has become a national, and some say worldwide, laughingstock because of the SBOE’s recent actions.

So there really isn’t any excuse, is there. Go now and register your opinion.

Peppers and Pigs

I scored a killer place to sit at the recent Texas Democratic Party state convention in Corpus Christi this past weekend. Somehow my senate district delegation wrangled a section on the convention floor. So I was actually close enough to see the speakers at the podium without having to look at the screen projections.

And I was able to make videos of some of the speakers almost unimpeded. I didn’t bring a tripod though so there is a tradeoff between camera steadiness and distance. My favorite convention moment you will see in the You Tube video below. I shot lots of video but this one is definitely the fun one and the one everyone needs to see, so it has been uploaded first.

The speaker is Linda Chavez-Thompson. Chavez-Thompson, former executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, is running for Lieutenant Governor. She has a story worth repeating. She is the daughter of immigrants who had to drop out of high school to help her family in the cotton fields. At 23 she came to work for the Construction Laborer’s Local 1253 as a secretary and worked her way up the ladder to become the first “person of color” of either sex to become an AFL-CIO officer.

On Saturday, Linda Chavez-Thompson had some choice words to say about Texas’ governor, Rick Perry, and how he hopes to lure Hispanic voters to vote for Republicans.

In other words, how to convince Hispanic voters to vote against their own interests, all the time.

Here is a clip from her speech:

You know you have a really good punchline when you repeat it and you get a bigger laugh out of the audience the second time you say it than the first.