Corndog is bubbling in the grease

A second poll confirms what the first one earlier this week revealed: Republican voters do not support a second term for John Cornyn as US Senator from Texas.

Even though Texas isn't yet in play for the Democratic nominee for president, a far greater number of Lone Star conservatives would vote for amnesty for illegal aliens, 100 more years in Iraq, more reactionary judges on the Supreme Court and no chance of health care for millions of Americans (aka John W McSame) than would vote again for a Box Turtle for the Senate.

That is a pretty significant and striking disconnect, even for Texas Republicans (never known for their discernment of hypocrisy in voting patterns).

Texas Blue, BOR and Burka have more.

Rural Texas finally collapses from GOP "leadership"

(This sinkhole in Daisetta, which suddenly opened up today, may -- or may not -- be the end result of eight years of Bush administration pillaging of the environment, and the day-to-day mismanagement by their junior partners in Austin.)

Signed, I Have Changed My Middle Name to Hussein

No less an authority than Newt Gingrich says that the GOP is headed for electoral disaster in 2008, from the top of the ballot to the bottom:

The Republican loss in the special election for Louisiana's Sixth Congressional District last Saturday should be a sharp wake up call for Republicans: Either Congressional Republicans are going to chart a bold course of real change or they are going to suffer decisive losses this November.

The facts are clear and compelling.

Saturday's loss was in a district that President Bush carried by 19 percentage points in 2004 and that the Republicans have held since 1975.

This defeat follows on the loss of Speaker Hastert's seat in Illinois. That seat had been held by a Republican for 76 years with the single exception of the 1974 Watergate election when the Democrats held it for one term. That same seat had been carried by President Bush 55-44% in 2004.

But... what about John McLame? There's all those Chaos Agents who have voted for the Hill-debeast in the Democratic primaries, and all of her supporters who claim they can't vote for a black man in November. We'll win by division just like always, right?

Senator McCain is currently running ahead of the Republican congressional ballot by about 16 percentage points. But there are two reasons that this extraordinary personal achievement should not comfort congressional Republicans.

First, McCain's lead is a sign of the gap between the McCain brand of independence and the GOP brand. No regular Republican would be tying or slightly beating the Democratic candidates in this atmosphere. It is a sign of how much McCain is a non-traditional Republican that he is sustaining his personal popularity despite his party's collapse.

Second, there is a grave danger for the McCain campaign that if the generic ballot stays at only 32 % for the GOP it will ultimately outweigh McCain's personal appeal and drag his candidacy into defeat.

Bu-bu-bu ... can't we win by tearing down Barack Obama for being a socialist liberal Muslim who sat listening to his radical lunatic preacher for twenty years without wearing his flag pin?

The Republican brand has been so badly damaged that if Republicans try to run an anti-Obama, anti-Reverend Wright, or (if Senator Clinton wins), anti-Clinton campaign, they are simply going to fail.

This model has already been tested with disastrous results.

In 2006, there were six incumbent Republican Senators who had plenty of money, the advantage of incumbency, and traditionally successful consultants.

But the voters in all six states had adopted a simple position: "Not you." No matter what the GOP Senators attacked their opponents with, the voters shrugged off the attacks and returned to, "Not you."

The danger for House and Senate Republicans in 2008 is that the voters will say, "Not the Republicans."

The majority of Chron.com posters -- angry white men (with computers, in the suburbs) -- no longer represent the majority of opinion in America, in Texas ... or even in Houston.

Harris County, and Texas, is going to elect dozens and dozens of Democrats in 2008. And the United States of America will have a black president.

Thank God.

Signed,

I Have Changed My Middle Name to Hussein

Craddick again demonstrates his defiant corruption

It's DeLay-ish in its sinister sociopathy about using government for one's personal gain in every imaginable way. It's almost like the serial killer who dares the police to "stop me before I kill again". Except that -- if you don't count the thousands of poor Texas children who have died due to his arrogant, willful, callous neglect -- Tom Craddick is only raping you, the taxpayer:

Embattled Republican House Speaker Tom Craddick is cynically encouraging critical news reports and investigations about members of the Legislature who compensate some employees by making health care coverage available to them. Last week, Craddick said "If some legislators are paying employees with taxpayer dollars who are performing little or no work, that is an egregious misuse of state money." (Austin American-Statesman, May 02, 2008)

Craddick did not acknowledge, however, that he personally supported and helped pass special legislation providing health care coverage to his adult daughter Christi Craddick, even though Christi makes hundreds of thousands of dollars working for her father’s political operations and provides no service to the State of Texas.

As Speaker, Tom Craddick is ultimately responsible for administering and enforcing the rules of the House. It is his job to appoint competent colleagues to the Committee on House Administration and provide members accurate information on employee health care eligibility. Clearly, the same Speaker who worked to deny health care coverage to hundreds of thousands of children, failed in his responsibility to manage the House properly. (Fort Worth Star Telegram, January 25, 2005) Rather than take responsibility for his failure, he is lashing out at his political enemies.

The only way to get rid of this miserable bastard is to elect a Democratic majority in the Texas House.

The (GOP's) War on Voting Rights

Once again, for emphasis (courtesy clammyc at Booman):

According to The League of Women Voters, close to 11% of Americans (21 million) have no photo identification. They break this down a bit further:

he following statistics reflect those individuals who do not have photo identification:

• 11% or as many as 21 million Americans
• 36% of voters in Georgia over the age of 75;
• 18% of Americans over 65 (6 million);
• 25% of African Americans;
• 10% or 40 million people with disabilities;
• 15% of low income voters

Here are a few more numbers:

• 650,000 registered voters in Georgia have no photo-ID (law recently passed);
• 200,000 Missourians of voting age, including 16% of seniors, have no photo-id;
• 5.5 million African American voting age citizens have no photo-ID;
• 6 million senior citizens have no photo-id

And just for good measure, here are a few other breakdowns:

People with disabilities:

According to disability advocates, nearly ten percent of the 40 million Americans with disabilities do not have any form of state-issued photo identification. Source: Center for Policy Alternatives

Low income people: Citizens earning less than $35,000 per year are more than twice as likely to lack current government-issued photo identification as those earning more than $35,000. Indeed, the survey indicates that at least 15 percent of voting-age American citizens earning less than $35,000 per year do not have a valid government-issued photo ID. Source: NYU and Brennen Center Survey

Forget the e-machine vote hacking (can't be proved beyond a reasonable doubt). In fact, forget about calling them "stolen elections" any more, because of the same "It's always happened/you can't prove it" rebuttal. Dismiss the thousands and thousands of anecdotal instances of vote-flipping, along with exit poll discrepancies for the same reason. In fact ...

It seems like the whole “War On [insert boogyman here]” theme works well, and the fact is, all of the above - not to mention the few other matters that have come to light over the past few years with respect to election-related issues and questionable vote suppression laws and actions.

So let's just forget all that. The real challenge to democracy this go-round is voter suppression and intimidation, like what happened in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, except this time rolled out nationally, as the Republican brand managers might say. clammyc summarizes:

You do it by rigging the system from the inside - by massive voter roll purges that are designed to purge the very demographics that are most likely to hurt the other party, by challenging districting in order to “make it more fair for people’s votes to be reflective of the district”, by implementing laws that are meant to keep millions of people who are likely to vote for the other party from voting and by stacking the deck in the positions where the voting machines are selected and monitored, where the federal and state election laws are “interpreted”, where the decisions are made with respect to voter registration and how the elections are run and even having cousins in the very media outlets who are calling the races for their candidate-cousins.

Make no mistake - this is a more than just a major partisan initiative. This is an all-out assault on the voting rights of millions of potential Democratic voters and therefore, votes. This is a premeditated, long term, wide ranging attack against millions of Americans’ voting rights. But it isn’t just an assault on Democratic voters. It is an assault on the most basic right that a democracy affords.

And it should be referred to accordingly.

The Weekly Wrangle

Time for the Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Blog Round-Up, assembled by member blogs from last week's postings.

CouldBeTrue from South Texas Chisme notes Republican-run government favors crony money over Texans' health. Asarco, a proven polluter, is given a permit to start polluting again and Greg Abbott says lead poisoning landlords have a right to privacy.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston thinks Bob Perry should go to hell.

Doing My Part For The Left's Refinish69 joins Austin high school students in Breaking the Silence.

WhosPlayin writes about the disturbing trend for hospitals to require payment up front for expensive services like chemotherapy. Even "non-profit" hospitals like UT's M.D. Anderson are doing this, even while reducing free care and racking up huge surpluses.

Off the Kuff looks at the race for Harris County Sheriff and foresees immigration issues playing a big role.

The Texas Cloverleaf wonders why Governor 39% appointed a policy nerd to chair the Transportation Commission, rather than someone who knows anything about roads. Cronyism perhaps?

In the wake of the SCOTUS decision approving voter ID legislation last week, PDiddie of Brains and Eggs fact-checks the need for it.

North Texas Liberal's Texas Toad takes a look at the new Republican culture war over something just as useless: allowing guns in national parks. Thank you, John Cornyn.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson has this post on the reaction To Perry's TxDOT appointments.

McBlogger take a moment to talk about the state of the TTC and Gov. 39%'s appointments to the Transportation Commission.

Lightseeker shares his opinion On Trusting Free Market to Regulate Government over at Texas Kaos.

Vince at Capitol Annex shows another example of Voter ID idiocy, this time highlighting an editorial from the Texarkana Gazette's pseudo-ivory-tower-intellectual editorial board and explains why such thinking is typical of suburban newspaper editors.

Cornyn 47, Noriega 43

Rasmussen. Also from Eric at Talking Points ...

Noriega will have his work cut out for him, though -- the latest FEC reports show Noriega with only about $300,000 cash on hand, compared to the incumbent's $8.6 million cash on hand.

God damn right he does. Can you help us get rid of Senator Box Turtle?

Update: Kos has more, including the presidential numbers. Texas is already purple and right on the verge of turning blue. Right now.

Does pastorbation lead to blindness?

Or is it the other way around?

Now that the corporate media has completed another week-long Pastorbation, the question remains: did the people see through it -- or fall for it? Will voters in North Carolina, Indiana, and the other remaining states read the reporters' game of pursuing trivial wedge issues and exacerbating cultural tensions for the sake of ratings? Or will they succumb to the base appeals of fear and prejudice?

We will sure enough get some answers on Tuesday. And so let's discuss ...

-- Why did our presstitutes pastorbate with such enthusiasm again?

Does our media see their children and the future of this country in the same way as the rest of us do, or do they divorce themselves from their patriotism in order to do their jobs (i.e. get paid handsomely)? Do they see the harm that their yellow journalism costs our nation, or do they just not care? Do they rationalize their actions and words to themselves, or do they simply shut their eyes to their handiwork?

We are all guilty of buying into what they sell us time and time again. Hillary supporters loved it when she was "inevitable" for a year, and Obama supporters likewise when the press cherished him during some of that same time. There were those of us who became fans of John Edwards in 2004 when he was held up as being able to talk owls out of a tree -- and encouraged to be selected as vice president to John Kerry. Kucinich, Richardson and Biden supporters, whose candidates never even saw the light of day, know this best of all, as they have rarely if ever been pleased about anything that the media had to report.

In other words, we have all been through "it" to varying degrees.

-- So what's the lesson (for those of us who haven't learned, or have forgotten it) ?

I had pretty much learned this in 2000, 2002, and in 2004, but it appears -- like many others -- that I fell prey again this year. Believe me, these world-class manipulators understand exactly how to push our buttons, line us up one against the other for their own purpose, which has nothing to do with information, fairness, reason-ability or patriotism or any of that.

How else can we explain eight years of George W. Bush?

Allow me a digression. The us v. them, good guys versus bad guys mentality pervades everything in our society. Case in point: last weekend I attended the San Jacinto Festival, where a re-enactment of Sam Houston's famous charge and capture of Gen. Santa Anna in the pivotal battle for Texas independence was reprised. As I stood near the line where the Mexican encampment was recreated -- in order, I correctly guessed -- to watch the charge of the Texicans to victory, I heard someone behind me say: " We're on the wrong side. Let's go stand on the Texas side." I turned and remarked, "If you wait a minute, this will BE the Texas side." A few people around me chuckled in low tones, but the woman and her children moved on down without looking back. I then turned back and said, "This isn't a football game, is it?" to more hearty laughter.

So what can we do? If one POV is always being played against the other, and the corporate media successfully retains the appearance of objectivity to at least enough of the viewers, aren't we really ALL being played?

I try not to watch a lot of cable news these days, because I simply cannot afford to be fooled time and time again. I see how they set off one faction against another, which is why they keep winning the battles and are indeed having a larger voice than they should as they wrestle for control of our democracy.

I believe that it is all of our jobs now to turn off the corporate news, particularly the Sunday Talking Heads. Whether they are on our side This Week versus being on the other side the next, we are enabling them to have power and influence over us when and how they want it. Today it is Barack Obama they are against, but tomorrow it will be Hillary once more. Once the Democratic nominee is finalized and the General Election Smackdown foes are established, it will be Republican v. Democrat with the TV talkers taking someone's message and presenting it as news, alternating weeks depending on the salaciousness it. In other words, we cannot support the traditional media and believe that we are being well-informed; indeed we are only being manipulated, and never for the greater good, but rather for their corporate good.

And as always, certainly at some later date, once it no longer matters, the media will re-examine itself, and matter-of-factly admit what it has done ... in hopes that we will believe that they recognize the error of their ways.

Problem is that they will not pay a price, and they will not stop doing what they are doing in the future.

And so I have decided that they will not again manipulate me. I have decided that I will no longer trust, watch or participate in encouraging the corporate media's "news" programs. They are a danger to our democracy, and to believe otherwise is to successfully be taken for a fool over and over and over again at our own collective detriment. I know, because it has happened to me. Over and over again.

"Bishop of the Poor" elected president of Paraguay

Boosh may want to re-consider that large parcel of land he purchased there as insurance for war criminal proceedings against him in the wake of this news, from Democracy Now! ...

AMY GOODMAN: A former Catholic priest once known as the Bishop of the Poor has been elected president. Fernando Lugo will be the first Paraguayan president since 1946 not to be from the conservative Colorado Party. Lugo won 41 percent of the vote, beating Blanca Ovelar, who received 31 percent. Lugo has pledged to crack down on corruption and channel Paraguay’s wealth into social programs.

PRESIDENT-ELECT FERNANDO LUGO: [translated] May we never again, in the political class of Paraguay, never again base our politics on clientism and enticements, because it has done so much to damage our national politics.

AMY GOODMAN: Lugo’s win ends more than six decades of one-party rule in Paraguay. Election officials said Sunday’s voting had the highest turnout, about 66 percent, of any presidential election since 1993.

Lugo is the first bishop ever to become president of a country. Both Paraguay and the Vatican ban clergy from seeking political office, so Lugo resigned in December 2006. Lugo says he was influenced by the liberation theology of the ’60s. He told the Associated Press he would not move to the presidential palace, remaining instead in his modest house in a middle-class suburb. He said the first lady would be his eldest sister.

Washington has signaled a willingness to work with Lugo and hailed his election as a “step forward” in Paraguay, but a State Department official told the Los Angeles Times his victory had left Washington worried about its waning influence in Latin America.

In a pre-election interview with the Los Angeles Times, Lugo noted Washington’s sometimes-contradictory role in Latin America, saying, “The United States…has sustained the great dictatorships, but afterward lifted the banner of democracy.” He went on to say Washington must acknowledge a new scenario in which Latin American governments “won’t accept any type of intervention from any country, no matter how big it is.”

Rest of the story here.

Sunday Funnies

An Offical Moran

"Excellent Point: In Houston, a Texan protesting amnesty for illegal immigrants argues that anyone who can't master English doesn't deserve to live in America."

This moran replaces her counterpart for biggest public conservative fool not a Talking Head...

I believe the tide IS turning.

In all seriousness. And it makes me nauseous to say so.

And I would not have said it even last week, but I now believe it is apparent that Mrs. Clinton is gathering momentum for a late surge to capture the Democratic nomination.

If she pulls out Indiana and makes it close in NC -- as the recent polling indicates she is doing -- her case for the nomination becomes stronger. Obama is having difficulty shaking the seemingly endless Wright controversy, and every day that is the news it hurts him.

One other statistical observation as evidence in the case for Mrs. Clinton: both retail store figures as well as eyewitness accounts across the country report a collapse in sales of thong underwear and a strong increase in that of 100% cotton granny panties.

(Gotcha.)