Too (un)funny to wait for Sunday

Kay Bailey veering all over the road

Mostly she's got two wheels in the right-hand bar ditch. Yesterday:

Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison announced Tuesday that she would oppose confirmation for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor after the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to send the jurist's nomination to the full Senate for confirmation next week.

Going after the freak base already committed to Governor MoFo. That'll sure pick up the moderates and crossovers. And today ...

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said today that she will resign her Senate seat in October or November to challenge the re-election of Gov. Rick Perry in next year's Republican primary. ...

“Well I'm going to announce in August. Formal announcement: I am in. Then the actual leaving of the Senate will be sometime – October, November – that, in that time frame,” she said. ... “I had hoped that he wouldn't (run for re-election again.) You know, no one expected him to run again. And I thought, you know I stepped back last time, Mark. I tried to give him a, really a free ride with no primary because I thought it was right for Texas. But, for him to try to stay on for 15 years is too long,” Hutchison said.

But she actually backpedaled from this, "clarifying " her comments like so:

"I was trying to say that I stepped back once before," Hutchison said, referring to two occasions on which Hutchison has eyed and then backed away from challenging Perry. Hutchison said that "nobody expected [Perry] to run for 15 years, and I think there's a chance that he wouldn't run because he would see how divisive it is and that he's trying to stay too long and that he can really help in many ways if he doesn't run, in which case I could then be able to stay in the Senate all the way to the end."

Hutchison said her preference would be "to stay all the way through the election but for it being very difficult with the governor continuing to run."

"I was really trying to say to him he could step back here, and he's really trying to hang on too long and maybe he'll rethink," she said.

So the senator wanted to send the governor a message, and she took out her frilly scented stationery and wrote it out in long hand. Team Goodhair's response?

“The senator is clearly putting her own political ambitions above the needs of the people of Texas,” Miner said. “We would want to be sure to name someone in that position who wants to be there and wants to do the job they were elected to do.”

And ...

“I got some very important decisions ot make on a daily basis," Perry said. "Trying to follow a moving target of there’s going to be a senate opening, there’s not one. Why waste one bit of my energy? We’ve got work to do in this state. I’m going to stay focused on leading this state.” ...

"For us not to have someone in the United States Senate looking after Texas interests, I think, is irresponsible," Perry said. "Maybe the Senator should think about that rather than the other things she’s thinking about."

When told by a reporter that Hutchison had remarked that 15 years in the governor’s mansion is too long for one person, Perry said, “I guess 15 years in the United States Senate is not too long.”

You're still losing ground, Kay.

Update: Rick Perry's crew reads this blog.

A few photos from Bolivar Peninsula

This is a still-quite-damaged home on the harbor side, just before Rollover Pass:



It has some warning signs posted, including "claim pending". This is the side that faced the wrath of Ike, obviously. Despite the condition of this one, and more signs of devastation -- dunes several hundred yards inland and spread evenly across the coastal prairie, some wrecked and rusted autos -- the peninsula is looking good, with lots of new construction, many RV parks full, lots of activity.



While I waited for the ferry (less than five minutes), a gaggle of gulls dropped by to squawk and beg for a handout.



A very large container ship passes in front of our ferry.



And on past, on its way out to the Gulf of Mexico.

The Weekly Wrangle

Still difficult finding time to post. Here again is the Texas Progressive Alliance weekly blog roundup.

Off the Kuff takes closer look at that story about Texas turnout in last year's election.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson adds some context to what's being said in Texas about unemployment insurance, the stimulus, and Gov. Perry.

This week at McBlogger, Krispy Kreme takes a moment to tell of her personal experiences with folks desperately in need of adequate health care.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston thinks Clear Lake Hospital has a heart of cold.

No matter what Governor Rick Perry says or hopes for, Texas is part of the federal union. Neil at Texas Liberal offers a video this week of him reading Federalist Paper #9 on the site of the San Jacinto battlefield. Federalist #9 talks about the need for a strong union (and San Jacinto is where Texas won independence from Mexico,of course).

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes that John Cornyn chooses to be an a**hole over Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation.

TXsharon is combining Principles of Community Organizing (POCO) training with a vacation in Colorado so several of her posting this week contained pictures of the Durango & Silverton train ride, clean air, huge deer and breathtaking beauty. But be sure to check out the progress made from working on the Railroad in regards to land farming toxic drilling waste.

Over at TexasKaos, lightseeker explains why the language we use in defending health care reform matters more than we may think. Hint: They want to have a discussion of government takeover of health care. We should want to discuss the necessity and fundamental fairness of publicly assisted health care for all. We can win one of these debates, but probably not the other. Check it out...

Miss Hypocrisy, meet Mr. Ignorant. Kay Bailey pricked Rick Perry for snubbing stimulus money she voted against. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs serves.

WhosPlayin was on vacation all week, but still ended up spending some time reading the health care bill and has written a summary of the 'Public Option' part of the bill, noting that it looks an awful lot like a PPO.

This week Teddy from Left of College Station covers the Bryan-College Station Chamber of Commerce resolution to oppose any national health care, and reviews what the resolution says and what the resolution means. Left of College Station also covers the week in headlines.

After Citizen Sarah at Texas Vox read the Austin American-Statesman's report on how poorly the Green Choice power program was selling, she felt motivated to write a rebuttal on how Austin Energy's pricing of wind energy left something to be desired. And this week, the Statesman reports that Austin Energy may re-evaluate the price of their latest batch of clean energy When folks start asking questions, the powers that be (get it?) pay attention. Ya gotta agitate to get the dirt out!

Sunday Funnies (Sick of it edition)

Kay pricks Rick for not taking stimulus $$$ that she voted against

How about another cup of our steaming GOP hypocrisy, Texas Special Blend?

Back in February, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) voted against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in part because she said the bill “doesn’t actually stimulate.” Today, however, in an early move in the 2010 Republican primary for Texas governor, Hutchison attacked incumbent Gov. Rick Perry for turning down the very stimulus money she believed would do nothing for the economy:

“Governor Perry recklessly turned down the federal unemployment insurance money,” Hutchison said. “He never even looked at cutting the ridiculous federal strings attached to that money like I would have done. He didn’t even attempt to negotiate a way to relieve employers from a tax increase while helping Texans affected by the economic downturn.

“But now, because of a purely political decision to turn down UI funding, Texas has to go into debt and beg the federal government for a $650 million loan,” she said. “And like all loans, this one has to be paid back. And who will pay it back? Texas businesses and hard-working taxpayers already facing enormous hardships.

“It’s not conservative. It’s irresponsible.”

Perry, of course, originally opposed the stimulus, but was recently forced to ask the federal government for a $170 million loan to cover unemployment insurance.

Heh-heh. She said "reckless".

So to be fair, there is a difference between a senator and a governor saying (or voting) no on this matter. When a senator votes no to the stimulus plan, they were voting to kill it before it even got out of the gate.

When a governor says no to stimulus money that has already been approved for distribution, he's just being an idiot for refusing free federal grant dollars which the state and their taxpayers will have to pay back anyway as part of the national debt, regardless of whether they took the money or not.

So the difference is that what Governor MoFo is doing -- besides acting ignorantly -- is worse for Texas then what Hutchison did (hypocrisy notwithstanding).

I am confident, however, that the morons who vote regularly in the Texas Republican primary will not understand this, and instead reward Perry for "bein' true to conservative principles".

You're still not making up any ground, Kay.

Update: Eye on Williamson links to Rachel Maddow's takedown, points out the embarrassment, and suggests that it still might be OK for Kay to get to Austin. I don't agree with that part, but I sure like the way he makes his point.

Comeback

More to post in the next day or two, including some photos of Bolivar Peninsula (starting to look good down there). But this article is humorous for its assembly of jabs, some light-hearted, at the Secretary of State.

Those of you who read here regularly would already know that I was not a supporter of Mrs. Clinton's candidacy (and was lukewarm of Obama's, right up to the Texas primary in March). But I think she's a perfect SoS -- perfect for Obama, perfect for the country. Apparently some would say it's been a rough time lately for her:

And Hillary Clinton thought she was having a bad day when she broke her elbow ...

Today, a meeting of Asian leaders in Thailand turned into the set of "Mean Girls": North Korea called the Secretary of State a "funny lady" who "looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping." Ouch. To be fair, Clinton stirred it up earlier this week when she compared North Korea to "unruly teenagers."

For the Secretary of State, this latest scrap must feel like the cherry on top of a big fat banana peel of a month.

This is Clinton's first trip abroad since she fell and broke her elbow in the White House basement last month. (Does the White House offer workman's comp?) Clinton's duties, naturally, were curtailed somewhat during her recuperation, but political pundits quickly jumped on the fact that while she was laid up, President Obama was gallivanting around the globe sans his Secretary of State.

Fox News asked whether it was a broken elbow or "sinister forces at work" to sideline the Secretary of State. Tina Brown at The Daily Beast blogged that it was "time for Barack Obama to let Hillary Clinton take off her burqa," while the New York Daily News dubbed her plight "The curious case of the steadily shrinking Hillary Clinton." Foreign Policy website noted that Obama has been to several countries without her.

So while Clinton was recuperating from surgery on her broken elbow and handling her job as best as she could from home, she has also had to defend her boss and reassure everyone that, yes, she is, in fact, happy with her job.

Clinton responded to the rumors, speculation and analysis with a quippy "I broke my elbow, not my larynx." ...

More of this if you like. Strikes me as a tempest in a teapot.