All Hail the Texas Navy

Bet you didn’t know that the Free State of Texas, as it should be called, has its own navy. It has a fleet of gunboats. Gunboats armed to the teeth with fully automatic machine guns.

Six of them to a boat.

These boats patrol the border waters, three in the Rio Grande River to interdict drug smuggling operations, and three of them in the intracoastal waterway. A channel that allows ship traffic to safely traverse the Gulf coast barrier island system.

Lots of people see this as typical Texas grandstanding, stepping up, so to say, where the federal government has gone all lax and lackadaisical.

But who knows what these gunboats can be used for. Given the Republican rhetoric in this election year, why not turn these machine guns on those who cross the Rio Grande in hopes of getting a minimum wage job washing dishes in any given restaurant in Texas? Why not?

These people are taking jobs away from our youth after all. You know, the ones who spend all their time texting each other on their $300.00 phones. Know why they do that? Because they cannot get those highly desirable jobs washing dishes, harvesting produce and hosing down slaughter houses.

Best to just turn these 50 cals on all these people when they are most helpless. Mid-river.

But you know, Texas isn’t the first state to launch a fleet of border patrol boats. When I was growing up in California I got to experience first hand the launching of the country’s first state navy. The world famous Baywatch lifeguard boats.

Boats that made Pamela Anderson possible.

Sledgehammer

Oh it just gets better and better. Rush Limbaugh has been dealt some serious setbacks as a result of his attacks on a well-meaning Georgetown law student last week as he called her “a slut” and demanded to see naked videos of her posted online.

The first was unforgivable. The second was just icky coming from a fat bald old white guy.

His program has lost some serious advertisers, most recently AOL.

Rock artist Peter Gabriel, upon hearing that Limbaugh used his hit single “Sledgehammer” to accompany his attacks on this young earnest woman, was horrified. He has directed his representatives to demand that Rush Limbaugh never use any of his music in his hateful radio broadcasts.

This might just be the worst blow to the Limbaugh hate-mongering radio program ever. After all, I have to ask myself which ISP does his audience subscribe to. And the answer is the ISP that makes it so easy to be online that you need no brains at all.

Because his listeners have that tendency.

Like Taking Candy from a Baby

The ultimate in cowardly acts is to filch candy from a toddlers hands and run off with it. You think was the ultimate cowardly act. But it isn’t. Here in Fort Bend County, Texas we have reinvented what a true coward is.

Someone who would steal the cash box from a Girl Scout Cookie sales booth in front of a store in broad daylight.

Now I as a rule stay away from buying Girl Scout Cookies because I can’t work off the calories. Pounding a keyboard in my spare time is a poor form of exercise. But today, upon exiting my market, I bought two boxes just to make a point that these creepoids cannot kick a Girl Scout when she is down.

So Fort Bendites, keep an eye out for a beat up black Camry. And go buy some Girl Scout Cookies. Thin Mints and Caramel Delites have my full endorsement.

Poor John Cornyn

According to Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post, my senator, John “Box Turtle” Cornyn had himself the worst week in Washington this past week. Now considering what we know about all the bad news being handed Republicans this week as the national economy seems to be picking up steam again, much to their consternation, this came as somewhat of a surprise to me. What, I asked myself, had he done?

Well, it’s not so much what he did, but what was done to him. His job, as the National Republican Senatorial Committee leader just became harder. In 2010 Cornyn cruised in a downhill run picking up six senate seats and closing the door on the progress of any decent legislation in the senate. He had done his job. But in retrospect, in 2010 a 2 year old could have done a pretty decent job.

This year all eyes will be on Cornyn to close the deal and regain the senate majority. And what the heck, with 23 Democratic senators up for re-election compared to a mere 10 Republicans, Cornyn must have been feeling pretty good about his chances of becoming the next Republican hero.

Then came Olympia Snowe’s sandbag job. Just a few hours before announcing that she would not be running for re-election in her fairly liberal state, Snowe informed Cornyn of this. Now New Hampshire, which went for Obama by 58% in 2008, will most certainly go back to the Democratic side of the aisle. Then, Cornyn was rubbing his hands together over the retirement of Nebraska’s Senator Ben Nelson. Nebraska is as red as can be and this was going to be an easy pick up. But then former senator Bob Kerrey announced he was going to try and get his old seat back. Kerry is most likely the only Democrat in the state with a fighting chance to win says Cillizza.

In short, in the space of just a couple of days, Cornyn got two pretty bad pieces of news over what he was seeing as two easy races.

And the icing on the cake is that they both came about because of all the crazy rightwing rhetoric coming out that is literally chasing centrists and moderates back to the private sector.

My advice to the senator would be for him to read his Bible more often. Here’s one I like:

“He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.”

Proverbs 11-29.

My Generation’s Music: The Best Ever

Music has always been very important to me. I grew up loving rock and roll. I had a brief foray with Country and Western but have since regained my senses. Today I spent not an insignificant amount of time going through my collection of music, it is vast and diverse. My students sometimes remark on the wide variety of music I play over my classroom’s speaker system.

It was for good reason that I went through it. This summer I will be reuniting with the people I went to junior high school with. And elementary school. Music defined my generation and those tunes will all be played there.

And I keep playing this one over and over. It is by far my most favorite Diana Ross and the Supremes tune ever.

It holds new meaning for me.

Limbaugh Lights the Path of Democratic Victory

I sure am liking Rush Limbaugh these days. Rush Limbaugh is illuminating the conservative wing of the Republican Party like no one since Barry Goldwater. Not only has he found himself on the wrong side of an issue supported by 63% of Americans, but he has verbally assaulted a young woman whose only offense was springing to the defense of a friend who needed birth control to preserve her ability to conceive.

Rush Limbaugh is defining the Republican Party, and defining the 2012 election.

And I could not be happier.

Rush Limbaugh defines the Republican Party as a party of misogynistic old men who lash out on women by attacking their ability to receive health care.  His line of logic is so obtuse that it takes great leaps of logic just to keep up with the fact that he thinks Ms. Fluke’s desire for free contraceptives somehow qualifies her as a floozy.

And the online comments are so full of invective that you have to wonder where it all comes from. I personally think it is payback for young women not really wanting to have anything to do with these old, fat, bald, fluffy white guys.

Because they are kind of…what’s the word…icky.

I think Rush needs to keep up the good work. He is doing more to help Democrats retain the White House, and regain a majority in the House than anything a single Democratic Super PAC can do.

Beelzebub and Breitbart Finally Meet

In a wonderful visitation by the goddess of karma, Andrew Breitbart is now and forever a nutritional source for worms. Early this morning Andrew Breitbart finally met his god.

Beelzebub.

Satan.

But wait it gets better. Today on the House floor, Breitbart’s life was eulogized by none other than Louie Gohmert (R - Krazytown) the wackiest Congressman that the state of Texas has ever sent to DC.

OK, why am I being so unkind to a man who just lost his life well before his time? Well let’s just say payback is a bitch.

Upon hearing the news of Teddy Kennedy’s passing, Breitbart took to his Twitter account and wrote impolite thoughts about the former senator. Breitbart called Kennedy a "villiain," a "prick," "a big ass mothe*******," and a "duplicitous bastard." Breitbart even called Kennedy a "special pile of human excrement."

The rumor has it is that Breitbart suffered from heart problems last year and this is being offered as a probable cause of death. How ironic, First Davey Jones, then Andrew Breitbart, sudden massive heart attacks.

But I really doubt it. The reason I doubt it is that Andrew Breitbart did not actually have a heart. He had something, but a heart? No. Rather he had something akin to that of a spider, something that pumps pure black ichor.

And no, there is no truth to the rumor that Seal Team 6 has been unaccounted for, for the last couple of days. Obama killed Osama, but Breitbart died of suddenly noticing that he had no soul.

Run Scott Walker, Run Like a Rabbit

What I saw today coming out of the Public Policy Polling website, found here, is that Wisconsin’s governor Scott Walker is standing at the edge of a cliff with Democrats poised to toss him over it.

Not only have Democrats been wildly successful in getting a gubernatorial recall petition qualified for a recall election, it now seems likely that he would go down to defeat if a vote were held today.

Yep, the darling of the Tea Party and the Koch brothers, Scott Walker is about to be skewered and turned on a spit over hot coals.

Scott Walker’s overreach has come home to roost, it seems. His anti-union, pro-fat cat tax cuts for the rich political stance has uncovered him as anti middle class, and a supporter of the 1%. A 1% that he perhaps would like to join someday.

But the numbers don’t lie. The state seems evenly split on dethroning Walker 49% to 49%. It could go either way. But given the fact that he gets the axe, the numbers are even more telling. In a race against his 2010 opponent, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, Walker will lose by 49% to 46%.  Former Senator Russ Feingold, if he should decide to enter the race, would beat down Walker by 52% to 45%.

In short, this is an election for Democrats to lose.

And given the primary results in Michigan and Arizona yesterday, it should be painfully clear to anyone that the Tea Party is in full retreat. Run and hide, Tea Party, run and hide, Scott Walker.

Run like a rabbit.

The New Congressional District Map is Out

Perhaps right in the nick of time before the Texas Primary would have to be moved back (again) into June, the Federal District Court in San Antonio has issued a new congressional district map that pretty much goes along the lines of the compromise between State Attorney General Greg Abbott and 7 out of 10 groups that opposed the highly discriminatory maps drawn last year by the Republican super majority in the Texas legislature. Click here to view the new district map.

I’m happy with the CD 22 boundaries. It puts my county all in the same congressional district rather than being divided. It puts the East Side of the county in Pete Olson’s district, a part of the county that came out heavily for President Obama in 2008.

However on the negative side, the African-American woman who is seeking the Democratic nomination to run against Pete Olson, Kesha Rogers, gains advantage as well.  African-Americans I know unabashedly admit that a huge factor in helping them decide who to vote for is race. But I have news for her. The word on her, and her looney tunes ideas about Barack Obama being a puppet of the British monarchy is starting to get out.

Lloyd Doggett will have a problem though. Doggett lives within the newly formed CD-35, a heavily gerrymandered district that includes Hispanic areas of Austin, then goes screaming southeast along a narrow corridor that straddles Interstate 35 (a coincidence? I don’t think so) and takes in a heavily Hispanic east San Antonio. Doggett will have to run in the primary against a popular Hispanic man whose name escapes me right now.

And word is coming out on state senate districts. Apparently Wendy Davis’ district will be preserved. Republicans hold grudges, it seems. And Wendy Davis single-handedly dealt them a temporary defeat in the last legislative session. They don’t like being outmaneuvered by an attractive woman.

It makes them look stupid.

But they have it all turned around. It is they who make Wendy Davis look like a genius.

And she probably is anyway.

An Aircraft Carrier for the Republic of Wyoming?

This should not surprise me, but I continue to be surprised by the lengths that the uber-conservative right of the Republican Party go to differentiate themselves from the rational moderate wing. You know, the Republicans that we Democrats have gone to in the past for a compromise.

In Wyoming, which has not had a Democratic majority in decades, we have had House Bill 85. House Bill 85 is a bill to create a commission to do the planning for when there is wholesale meltdown of the federal union, when, who knows, the Chinese call in their chit and make us pay it all back. You know, in fantasy world.

Here in Fort Bend County, we have 500,000 souls as of the last census. We have as many people in the county as in the whole state of Wyoming, and NOT A SINGLE plan for food distribution in an economic crisis.

But the good men and women of the Wyoming state house and senate are considering just such a scenario. The first of 50 states to make plans for an economic Armageddon.

We have, after all, a black president. How can we avoid economic meltdown with a black guy in the White House? But more to the point, how can we as a country survive 4 more years of a black presidency? A reality that seems to be hitting these cowboy (and cowgirl) lawmakers full in the face nowadays.

So they must plan. And actually it does my heart good that these people are planning for the worst. That is my approach after all. They must plan for a very Libertarian return to a metal based currency, which is central to House Bill 85. They must plan for a food distribution system to feed the teeming throngs of a half a million Wyoming-ans who would face certain starvation under Chinese rule.

But it gets better. Someone in Wyoming has just been tipped to the fact that the 2^nd Amendment rights to gun ownership will not be enough in the coming crisis. They are going to need planes and bombs. Jet planes.

And a platform to launch them from.

An aircraft carrier.

Wyoming needs to have its own aircraft carrier.

An aircraft carrier to cruise the waters of Lake Yellowstone maybe?

People tell me that I am too hard on my Republican fellow Americans. Be fair they say. And then you get these stories, true stories, and all I have to say is…are you kidding? These people are pure whack jobs.

They need to check the Strontium-90 content in Wyoming’s aquifers.

What Dyslexics Must See

Someone put up an image on Facebook last night that I had never seen before, but have seen similar ones, ones that demonstrate that the mind doesn't process letters of words when you read, it matches patterns. Substitute a "7" for a "t" a 5 for an "s." The shapes are similar. Here is the image:

Now I know what dyslexics must be seeing when they attempt to read some text. I once had a profoundly dyslexic student whose writing was unintelligible to me. It was like a foreign language. Then one day I figured it out. He was embedding whole words inside of other words. The breakthrough was in answering a question on a lab worksheet. What he wrote was "Heatiting." What he meant to write was "Heating it."

Kent Grusendorf: He’s Baaaaack…

Former State Rep. Kent Grusendorf, the guy who personally led the charge for Texas education to go over the cliff until his constituents put a stop to him, is back. He is back with a vengeance. He is back to end public education as we know it.

 
While people of good intentions toward public education, and their concern about how the Texas legislature has shorted the state’s school children so badly have filed lawsuits to right this terrible wrong, Grusendorf has joined in on the fun with his own disingenuous litigious campaign.

He has joined the other groups that have filed suit to challenge the unconstitutional act on the part of the state legislature to deny public education the funds they need to educate. His claim, horrendously, is that charter schools are being shorted. Charter schools that by far outperform public schools. A claim that is a complete myth.

First, by what measure? Charter schools do not have to comply with state testing requirements. How can you compare apples to tomatoes?

Grusendorf’s motives are completely transparent and joining in these lawsuits to right these terrible wrongs to our school children is, in a word, callous. But why should I be surprised? I am not surprised at all that someone with such ill intentions toward public education as Kent Grusendorf enter this legal fray with complete disregard for what matters most: the education of our children. What he is looking out for is the best interests of the people who want to seize public education and privatize it.

Grusendorf wants to take what has worked for 200 years and turn it on its ear to the benefit of those who can pay for education, to the detriment of those who cannot.

Grusendorf wants to make the story of Barack Obama, someone who battled against the tide to better himself, an impossibility in the future.

His own constituents rejected him. We must  do no less.

The Science and Economics of Legal Murder

Poor Texas. Here in Texas we like to kill our convicts. We kill them with the greatest frequency of any other state in the Union. We kill some of them and then find out afterward that the evidence that convicted them was based on bad science or poor information.

Or lies.

Poor Texas. Texas is running out of options in what to include in its cocktail of chemicals to humanely waste our fellow man.

It says so right here in this article in the Austin American-Statesman:

“As Texas prison officials face the likelihood that one of the three drugs used in the nation's busiest execution chamber might no longer be available, they are facing another reality: The cost of executions is skyrocketing as well.”

“A year ago, it cost the Texas Department of Criminal Justice $83.35 to carry out an execution. But since the state was forced to switch from one powerful sedative to another, the cost is now $1,286.86.”

So you see, not only has the price of whacking a convict risen by 15,439% the product used in the whacking, pentobarbital, is most likely going to be taken off the availability list by its manufacturers if it is to be used in executions.

See, if we can’t get the death penalty overturned legally, there are other means including putting pressure on drug companies not to sell its powerful sedatives to corrective institutions.

So now it looks like the sedative of preference will come down to the drug of choice by the convicted former care giver to Michael Jackson. Propofol.

After all, if it can kill the spirit of the King of Pop, it should do just fine against Texas convicts – innocent or guilty.

Personally, I would much prefer it if executions were done in public squares, and the preferred method of execution was a combination of evisceration followed by beheading.

Legalized murder should be horrible in its enactment, and not softened by the humane use of expensive drugs. Because in the end, the result is the same.

Birth Control is a Debate I Welcome

Has the entire Republican Party gone insane? The Uber Right Wing seems to have no boundaries. Now they are going after birth control?

A pro-life argument it seems.

An “every sperm (and egg) is sacred” approach to big government intrusion into the personal lives of millions of Americans.

Good Lord, have Democrats gotten that lucky?

In a recent Quinnipiac poll, it has been revealed that 82% of Americans “support the use of birth control” and in addition to that, 71% think health insurance should cover it.

12% think birth control should be banned. That’s half of what I would consider are the number of conservative Republicans out there.

This is a debate I want to have. It’s a debate question I am waiting to be asked at this fall’s presidential debates with unabashed joy.

Political cartoonists are already having a field day with this.

My President Sings!

Is there no end to the talents this guy has?

Rick Perry’s Shady Math Shorts Texas Students

Now here’s the thing, according to Rick Perry’s report card while he was at A&M Perry received a B in Algebra (a course that is taken by 8^th graders these days) and a D in Plane Trigonometry (a 9^th grade course at my workplace).

Rick Perry, you could say, is math-challenged.

So suffice it to say that when Rick Perry cites that the State of Texas is forking out $10,000 per student this year in public school education funds, and so there is no need to have a re-look at next year's education budget, he may not have done his sums very well.

One has to resort to Chinese algebra to come up with that fact.

According to this piece in the Houston Chronicle, Rick Perry thinks we are seeing to our students’ needs just fine thank you very much. A claim that is hotly disputed by TSTA spokesman Clay Robison (TSTA is a Texas teacher’s union much like my beloved AFT).

“Robison cited new rankings and estimates from the National Education Association, which reports that Texas is spending $8,908 per student this school year, based on average daily attendance (ADA).”

“‘That is $538 less than the $9,446 per student Texas was spending in 2010-11, when we ranked 41^st in the country,’ Robison says. ‘The national average of per student expenditure (ADA) for 2010-11 was $11,305. The national average for 2011-12 is $11,463.’”

And guess what, that figure is down from the 2009-10 revenue per student in Texas ($10,630) when Texas was ranked number 36 in the nation.

In short, over the past 3 years Texas education has slowly but surely been put on a starvation diet. Class sizes are up, textbooks are falling apart. But Rick Perry keeps playing his fiddle in his $10,000 per month rented mansion as Texas education faces yet another $2 billion shortfall in the 2012-2013 school year.

People, we are being governed by a guy who thinks SOHCAHTOA is an Indian woman that led Lewis and Clark on their historic expedition to the Pacific Ocean. Perry can’t do the math. Perry has no business in government.

(OK sorry, for the oldsters among us SOHCAHTOA is a mnemonic device for Sine, Opposite over Hypotenuse, Cosine, Adjacent over Hypotenuse, Tangent, Opposite over Adjacent).

Double Dipping or Triple Dipping at the Public Trough

You know, today something that has been flying below the political radar for years in Fort Bend County suddenly popped up. You’ve heard the stories about how Governor Perry, still the sitting governor of Texas despite how much time he is spending carrying on the people’s business, has also officially retired from state government service, earning him a pension on top of his $150 grand a year paycheck as governor.

Double dipping.

Something he argues as perfectly legal. Maybe so, maybe so. But not ethical. Ethics and Rick Perry have had a formal disagreement for years, enriching Perry beyond human belief.

Now come to find out, one of Fort Bend County’s local Justices of the Peace, one Gary Janssen running for re-election in Precinct 1 Place 1 this year, has not one, not two, but three count ‘em three jobs. Two public service, one private practice.

All of this coming at a time when jobs are stretched so thin. Why does one guy need three jobs?

Judge Janssen is not only the Fort Bend County Justice of the Peace in Needville, he is also the Needville Municipal Judge. He also runs his own law firm. Yep, you’ve got it, three jobs. Some Americans would like to have just one.

Leading me to ask, are Fort Bend County taxpayers getting the most bang for their buck? I have to ask myself, why am I paying a full time salary to a part-time judge? Appearing at a Justice of the Peace court here is dicey at best. They set their own hours and you have to take time off of work to appear. You lose money sometimes, and not just because of the traffic fines.

You know, these people have to learn to share. They have to learn to spread the wealth and not dip so heavily into the public trough.

Word has it that Judge Janssen is being primaried. A lawyer named Gregory A. Thompson apparently has filed to oppose Janssen.

And you know, I have no knowledge of his politics and don’t care really. But if I ever voted in a Republican Primary I definitely would never vote for a triple dipper. I’d vote for a guy who would very probably take a pay cut to opt in to public service.

I’d vote for Gregory A. Thompson.

Newt is On Fire

Got a nice surprise on the Houston Chronicle’s website today. Nick Anderson, who usually comes up with pretty clever political cartoons has made a short video of Newt Gingrich – The Marshmallow Man.

It is just so off the wall that I must share this one.

Houston – We Have a Problem…

Or more specifically, Congressman Pete Olson has a problem. Pete Olson is being primaried by the Tea Party, and the Tea Party is painting Olson as an “establishment incumbent.”

This has been so under the radar, my radar. I had no idea that the Tea Party was not pleased with the voting record of the Olsonmeister. Particularly I remember at a Tea Party rally in 2009 Pete Olson spoke there and had a big trunk open in front of him where he was accepting donations of tea bags that he was going to take back to DC with him.

The Tea Partiers applauded Olson that afternoon.

But now it seems Olson has drawn a challenger, a “Constitutional Conservative” (for that read “Obama hater”) in the person of Barbara J. Carlson.

She has a campaign website that you can find here. On it you will read that she is a mother, a widow, a businesswoman, an author, a widow, against Obamacare, and a college graduate. Oh, and did I mention she is also a widow?

What does that have to do with anything? Is Pete Olson a heartless boor because he chooses to run a campaign against a widow? Ooooh. He IS isn’t he?

You will also learn that Barbara Carlson won the Saddle Up Texas straw poll against Olson in a squeaker 51.5% to 48.5%. I never heard of the Saddle Up Texas straw poll. But apparently the preferred presidential candidate of the voters who participated in this straw poll was none other than Ron Paul.

And you’ll also learn that Ms. Carlson keeps showing up at Republican candidates’ forums and Pete Olson doesn’t. On the website you read this:

“Monday evening, February 13, was the first congressional debate for District 22, held at the Alvin Senior Center. While Barbara J. Carlson arrived early and was prepared, unfortunately, Olson was a no show, not even extending a courteous apology to both the Alvin Area Republican Women’s Club and the Bayou Republican Women’s Club for his no show. Both clubs went to great lengths and personal financial outlay in preparing the excellent homemade food for this all-important forum.”

Oh, Pete, Pete, Pete. Say it isn’t so. Say you didn’t snub these fine ladies and did not partake of the potluck that they labored over hot stoves to prepare?

Pete’s got a problem and her name is Barbara Carlson. I’ll bet he will continue to ignore his opponent, especially when she invites him to debate with her in the “When Was the Last Time You Beat Your Wife?” debate.

Amanda Knox Cashes In

See? I say it here it comes out there. Last year as the world was stunned to see an Italian appeals court overturn American foreign exchange student Amanda Knox’s controversial guilty verdict in a highly publicized trial, I wrote this: “But if Amanda Knox doesn’t write a book and a screenplay and become deliriously rich over this, I’ll eat my hat.”

Well I guess my hat, and my GI tract are both safe.

Amanda has a book deal.

From the Seattle Times:

“The young exchange student whose conviction in Italy and eventual acquittal on murder charges made headlines worldwide has an agreement with HarperCollins to tell her story. The 24-year-old Seattle resident, imprisoned for four years in Perugia, Italy, has not publicly discussed her ordeal beyond a brief expression of gratitude upon her release last October.”

“‘Knox will give a full and unflinching account of the events that led to her arrest in Perugia and her struggles with the complexities of the Italian judicial system,’ HarperCollins said in a statement Thursday.”

The deal? A cool $4 million. That’s a million dollars for each and every year she languished in a Perugia jail knowing that she had been railroaded by junk science, a lascivious press, and for the crime of being a pretty American girl.

Now…about that screenplay…