Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Incarcerating debt in Harris County

(Open Source Dem contributes the following as my business continues to slow my own posting. If you wish to comment send me an e-mail ... that contact data is in my profile. For reading on background consult these two posts from Scott Henson's Grits for Breakfast, "Incarceration rate is a dysfunction indicator" at Informed.org  -- enjoy its TeaBagger slant; this from John Floyd and this from Tom Kirkendall.)

The high incarceration rate is more an executive or legislative than a judicial issue. More immediately, it is the other side of the coin from the low and biased political participation rate which could blow Democrats away this fall. Other than full employment for lawyers, what will our entire ticket be running on in November?

What one concrete platform plank will deliver Harris County Demnocrats a majority in county government despite opposition from the other party in county or, for that matter, city government?

Building and staffing jails is the main focus of county government after roads and bridges, before even providing public financing private development of commercial real estate, entertainment venues, or mega-churches. Buying vehicles, and recently computers, is in fourth place. The only technical proficiency we exhibit in any of this is paying for it with debt, serviced by regressive and indirect taxes.

Our core competency in government appears to be “press”, “clerical”, “optics” or “cosmetics” -- nothing like public health, public works, public safety, or public finance. These are all in the hands of private consultants or public employee unions.

Moreover, our involvement in all of this is little more than deals. Not plans, not standards ... deals.  No Democrat in county or city office is against any deal that benefits the main contributors to both parties. We cannot even exploit a “bidding war”.  Annise Parker made some noises about the 'one jail/two arenas' deal, but capitulated in the end. I sort of thought maybe we would get a dog bone out of that deal in the form of a public defender program, but I see no sign of that now.

What did we get? Chump change, I expect.

Once Democratic and Republican office-holders are all “read-in” and “bought-off” every deal goes through unanimously.

This is epitomized by the unusable jail ($68 MM) at the intersection of Commerce and Austin. Tilman Fertitta’s rumored amusement park may set a new record for absurdity in government, beyond even Bob Lanier’s Giant Sewage Pump.

Nobody in jail over any of that; both parties utterly complicit.

Politically, the problem with this bipartisan concession-tending and collusive bargaining is that it leaves the dominant party in Harris County free to raise money as the ruling party while running as the opposition party. We are left on the sidewalk holding the bag, wringing our hands, and apologizing for a government we are no more than decoration in.

I fail to see how we rouse the “new base” or “surge” voters by telling them we are smarter and nicer than the other candidates, mailing out the same sort of family portraits, and promising to do precisely nothing in return for their straight-ticket votes.

We are furnishing little more than a racial medley of groundskeepers and paper-shufflers for the bond lawyers, land developers, slumlords, and car dealers who literally own our debt-driven county and city government. The debt and derivative book -- a secret hiding in plain sight -- drives everything.

If the Tea Party/GOP runs on repudiating public debt, don’t be surprised if they win. Democrats did exactly that here in 1874. I am not for that today, but only because the IMF has other third-world regimes to worry about.

The Tea Party/GOP program makes no sense fiscally at any echelon of government. But, then neither does ours, assuming we even have a program other than whatever the usual suspects push past the Chamber of Commerce and onto our office-squatters.

At least the Chamber gets dues. We have a “brand”, but they have a lien.

Monday, April 12, 2010

The Weekly Wrangle

Barbecue grills and air conditioners are getting fired up; bluebonnets and baseball are in the air, crawfish are being boiled, suntan lotion is being slathered. Here are the weekly spring-at-long-last highlights from the Texas Progressive Alliance.

At Texas Vox, our thoughts remain with the victims of the West Virginia mining disaster, the worst mining accident in 25 years.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants to know why Republicans like Victoria's DA Steve Tyler, Nueces County's DA Anna Jimenez and (who could forget) Alberto Gonzales abuse their offices?

The Texas Cloverleaf thinks Rick Perry is eyeing 2012 before 2010 is even over with.

WhosPlayin is watching the situation in Flower Mound, where a group of citizens successfully petitioned to have an oil and gas drilling moratorium put on the ballot only to get some mostly frivolous ethics charges filed against them by a former Town Councilman.

Continuing his examination of partisan voting trends, Off the Kuff looks at how voting changed in judicial races between 2002 and 2006.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson has an update as the runoff to determine the challenger to Rep. Diana Maldonado approaches: HD-52 GOP Runoff - issues take a back seat.

Bay Area Houston compares Sarah Palin's intelligence on safe sex and nuclear disarmament.

They're everywhere! They're everywhere! Emissions, which are really toxins, are throughout the entire Barnett Shale area. Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

McBlogger loves it when Bill Hammond of the Texas Association of Business let's Teh Stupid flow freely.

FOX News' 24-hour "War of the Worlds"-styled fearmongering caught the attention of PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

This week on Left of College Station Teddy reports on how the campaign in the Republican primary for Texas Congressional District 17 has turned negative. Also, Teddy takes a first look at the College Station City Council Place 2 candidates and at the Bryan City Council Single Member District 3 candidates. Left of College Station also covers the week in headlines.

Libby Shaw asks a simple question over at TexasKaos -- So, How will Rick Perry deliver access to affordable health care to Texas? . She points out that "According to new federal regulations, Rick Perry and the health insurance companies in Texas have 90 days to deliver a plan that will cover uninsured Texans".

Neil at Texas Liberal posted about an '80's icon: Disco Inferno!Learn The Interesting History Of Disco Music Despite the bad historical reviews disco receives, a new book says that the music was an important social indicator in a time of societal gains for women and gays.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

The 1965 Houston Astros in 2010

Last night's turn-back-the-clock promotion was greatly anticipated by this fan, and we got to Minute Maid Park yesterday in plenty of time to receive the freebie, a shooting-star jersey similar to the ones the team wore when they broke in the gleaming new Astrodome 45 years ago.


Jimmy "Toy Cannon" Wynn, Larry Dierker, and a handful of others who took the field in '65 were on hand to sign autographs and reminisce. The Jumbotron was in black-and-white for the entire evening and the original Astrodome organist replaced the loud rock and country music normally heard between innings and during pitching changes. See more photos here and here.

But the '10 'Stros played like the '65 version, losing 9-6 to the Phils on the strength of a mammoth shot by Ryan Howard and better bullpen pitching after old-timer-in-waiting Jamie Moyer left the game. 

One of the things I really like about Drayton McLane's stewardship of the Astros has been his consistent respect and celebration of the franchise's history. The Bagwell and Biggio retirements over the past couple of seasons, and last night's ceremony as well, serve to provide a real link for those of us who grew up with this team.

But one of the things I really don't like about Drayton McLane has been his consistently poor personnel decisions, from GMs to managers to free agents (anybody remember Doug Drabek and Calvin Swindell? Start there and come forward). They are currently 0-6 on the season, can't hit a lick and are woefully talent-thin on the mound. It's going to be a very long season for these guys if they continue to be as dreadful as they have been so far.

But as long as a day at the ball park can keep beating a day at the office, I suppose I'll still be a fan.

Sunday Funnies






Friday, April 09, 2010

Justice Stevens retiring

Thanks for your service from a grateful nation.

“I don’t think of myself as a liberal at all,” (Justice John Paul Stevens) told (New York Times reporter Jeffrey Rosen) during a (September 2007) interview in his chambers, laughing and shaking his head. “I think as part of my general politics, I’m pretty darn conservative.” Stevens said that his views haven’t changed since 1975, when as a moderate Republican he was appointed by President Gerald Ford to the Supreme Court. Stevens’s judicial hero is Potter Stewart, the Republican centrist, whom Stevens has said he admires more than all of the other justices with whom he has served. He considers himself a “judicial conservative,” he said, and only appears liberal today because he has been surrounded by increasingly conservative colleagues. “Including myself,” he said, “every judge who’s been appointed to the court since Lewis Powell” — nominated by Richard Nixon in 1971 — “has been more conservative than his or her predecessor. Except maybe Justice Ginsburg. That’s bound to have an effect on the court.”

He was appointed by Gerald Ford in 1975 to replace William O. Douglas.

Stevens was able to draw the support of the court's swing votes, now-retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justice Anthony Kennedy, to rein in or block some Bush administration policies, including the detention of suspected terrorists following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, its tilt toward protecting businesses from some lawsuits and its refusal to act against global warming.

He also penned the dissent in Bush v. Gore, writing:

What must underlie petitioners' entire federal assault on the Florida election procedures is an unstated lack of confidence in the impartiality and capacity of the state judges who would make the critical decisions if the vote count were to proceed. Otherwise, their position is wholly without merit. The endorsement of that position by the majority of this Court can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land. It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today's decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.

A life well-lived, and time left to enjoy the remaining winter.

A member of a prominent and wealthy Chicago family, Stevens spoke proudly of being a Cubs fan who was at Wrigley Field for the 1932 World Series game when Babe Ruth supposedly pointed to the spot where he would hit a home run. He met many celebrities of the day when they stayed at his family's hotel in Chicago, including aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart. ...

Even in his late 80s, Stevens said he swam every day and continued playing tennis several times a week. He described reading legal briefs on the beach, noting his colleagues' jealousy when in court one day he opened a brief and grains of sand spilled out.

Speculation on his successor abounds.

Update: Katie Shellnutt notes that Stevens is the only remaining Protestant on the Court -- all the other justices are Catholic or Jewish, and two of the leading contenders to replace Stevens are Jewish as well.

Newt Gingrich 2012

No question about it.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a potential presidential candidate in 2012, called Barack Obama on Thursday "the most radical president in American history" who oversees a "secular, socialist machine."

Gingrich reminded conservative activists why he was one of the nation's most polarizing leaders in the 1990s, opening the Southern Republican Leadership Conference with a biting assessment of Obama's policies.

"The most radical president in American history has now thrown down the gauntlet to the American people: 'I run a machine. I own Washington and there's nothing you can do about it,'" Gingrich said. He urged his fellow Republicans to stop what he called Obama's "secular, socialist machine." ...

Gingrich has not declared his intentions for 2012, but his appearances in New Orleans had all the trappings of a fledging presidential campaign, from an intimate meeting with tea party activists — his staff photographer took grip-and-grin pictures of Gingrich posing with every activist — to his wade-through-the-crowd entrance at the GOP conference, with the thumping beat of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" drawing the crowd to its feet.

He said Obama's policies — particularly health care and economic stimulus legislation — have put the United States on the road to socialism. The former speaker did not specifically explain why he thought Obama is a secularist, though he did say the GOP wasn't afraid of recognizing faith's role in American society.

The code word "secular" is designed to motivate evangelicals whom Newt hopes will be forgetful about his personal moral corruption. If the Lamestream Corporate Media can't bring itself to challenge his lies, then maybe he has a good chance to be the nominee.

Will he say yes to a presidential campaign?

"That will be up to God," he said, "and the American people."

Yes. Well Newt, I can't speak for God but on behalf of the American people would you kindly fall down a well or collapse of a heart attack or find some other less painful way to just go TF away?

Quintessential Fox

Via TPM and TNR.

Everything you need to know about Fox News is captured in this screenshot: the American flags, the fear-mongering image in the upper-right corner, the blond anchor with a facial expression that somehow combines sneering with absolute terror.

Please view it in context:



FOX News is a modern day, 24-hour "War of the Worlds" radio program made for teevee. It isn't a news channel, it is an entertainment channel dressed up like a news channel feeding its viewers the worst-case scenario for everything Democrats, liberals, and now Republican moderates do. It has the same mass-hysteria impact War of the Worlds had also; just less sudden and longer lasting.

The constant fear-and-loathing narrative is designed to keep an audience of dedicated viewers slightly on edge all the time, eventually stoking desperation and anger into violent action. Even its creator has deluded himself about what his creature has become.

FOX has become probably the most dangerous internal threat to the Republic.

What do you think should be done about it?

Update: Doctor Biobrain wonders why there haven't been more instances of FOX viewers taking the code words to heart and acting on them. I believe that there will be more such instances, and wonder myself why we should wait until someone dies to do something about the source of the instigation.

Monday, April 05, 2010

Opening Day Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance welcomes the start of the baseball season with another highlight reel of the week's political blogging activity.

Off the Kuff looked at how voting returns changed in Texas from 2004 to 2008 in the Presidential and judicial races.

Aruba Petroleum: The Epic Fail of the Barnett Shale. Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS brings you 55 posts to document this failure of epic proportions.

Marshmallow Peeps make sweeping endorsements of Democrats on The Texas Cloverleaf.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders why Republicans and Republican suck ups act like bleeping thugs? Perry appointee Nueces County DA Jimenez threw out the board certified attorneys to bring in her cronies, and HD 76 incumbent Norma Chavez channels Karl Rove.

At Texas Vox everyone is a-twitter about the upcoming appliance rebate program. Want to trade up your tired old appliances for shiny new energy-efficient ones? The guv'ment will send you a check for it...

The last chapter (?) in the sad saga of Stay Bailey Hutchison is read aloud by PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Sure April Fools Day is over, but this was funny enough to share again. Sarah Palin to Replace Michael Steele as Chair of the GOP. Bay Area Houston continues to be full of wit.

This week on Left of College Station Teddy takes a first look at the Bryan mayoral candidates, and includes the candidates for College Station City Council Place 2 and Bryan City Council Single Member District 3. LoCS also covers the week in headlines.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the GOP's latest posturing, noting that it's time for Perry and the Texas GOP to put up or shut up.

Neil at Texas Liberal wrote about undersea volcanoes in the Gulf of Mexico that shoot out asphalt. Who knew?

WhosPlayin says that animal welfare actvists in North Texas are claiming a victory in their fight against puppy mills. After months of weekly picketing by Texans Exposing Petland, the Lewisville, Texas Petland store is closing down.

Sunday, April 04, 2010

More Funnies

April fools every day of the year

"Tea Party Survey: Old, Conservative, Hate Obama, Like Fox News".

I think they must have left out "Caucasian, obese, and lacking a high school education".

The individuals who make up the Tea Party movement are largely conservative and get their news from Fox; they're generally old and of moderate to low income; and they're fairly convinced that their taxes are going to rise in the next few years, even though they likely won't.

Those conclusions are part of a new study put together by The Winston Group, a conservative-leaning polling and strategy firm run by the former director of planning for former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. And they provide a telling new window on the political force that has revamped the Republican Party and altered the landscape of the 2010 elections.

Quick: what was the percentage of those who voted for Debra Medina a month ago?

In the course of conducting three national surveys of 1,000 registered voters, Winston was able to peg the percentage of the public that identifies itself with the Tea Party at roughly 17 percent. (Emphasis mine.) The group pledges that it is independent of any particular party (indeed 28 percent of Tea Party respondents in the Winston survey labeled their affiliation as such). But on pretty much every defining political or demographic issue, the movement lines up with the GOP or conservative alternatives.

Sixty-five percent of Tea Party respondents called themselves "conservative" compared to the 33 percent of all respondents who did the same. Just eight percent of Tea Party respondents said they were "liberal."

Forty-seven percent of Tea Party respondents said that Fox News was either the top or second source of news they turn to, compared with 19 percent of the overall public who said the same thing.

More than 80 percent (81 percent) of Tea Party respondents expressed very little approval of Barack Obama's job as president, which exceeded disapproval levels held even by Republicans (77%) and conservatives (79%).

The GOP has even funded paraphernalia at TeaBagger rallies, but don't pay any attention to that. What's important is that TeaBaggers say they aren't Republican.

All these data points suggest that the Tea Party crowd is comprised predominantly of conservatives. And, not surprisingly, the demographics of the movement seemingly align with those who traditionally vote for the conservative candidate as well. Fifty-six percent of Tea Party respondents are male; 22 percent are over the age of 65 (compared with just 14 percent who are between the ages of 18 and 34); and 23 percent fall in the income range of $50,000 and $75,000.


It's the type of group that would likely benefit the most from Democratic governance, with commitments to Social Security, Medicare, and middle-class job creation. But the Tea Party crowd is decidedly sour on the Democratic agenda. Fifty-six percent of Tea Party respondents said they believe cutting spending will create jobs. And while a huge chunk won't see their taxes affected if the Bush tax cuts expire for those making over $250,000, 82 percent think they will, in fact, go up.

You used to have to go deep into the bowels of Appalachia to find ignorance this powerful, but now it is spread far and wide throughout the South, and of course we have our particularly rancid strain prevalent here in Deep-In-The-Hearta.

Update: Geoff Berg of Partisan Gridlock has more on this "oppressed" minority.

Sunday Funnies





Friday, April 02, 2010

A little secular teasing for Good Friday

If the Jews hadn't killed Jesus, then there would be no Easter. And that means no Easter Bunny, no Easter chocolate ... and no Peeps.

So thanks, Chosen People! (I'm certain the potential retail sales bonanza was merely an unintended consequence.)

Another observation, this one thanks to Gary Wright: do you think -- had Jesus been capitally punished in, say, the 1960s -- that Christians would be wearing miniature electric chairs around their necks?

It's long been my perception that Christians are only slightly less easily offended by aspersions cast against their Savior than Muslims, who will death-panel a person simply for drawing a cartoon or writing a book. It's those damn Zen Buddhists whose feathers don't easily ruffle.