Perry declined border briefing from Napolitano

The man is is just an ass.

(Rick) Perry greeted Obama at the foot of the stairs from Air Force One, clapping for the president as he descended. The two shared a hearty handshake before Perry pulled the letter out of his suit pocket and handed it to senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, who was standing behind the president.

A White House official said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano sent Perry a letter last week describing the administration's border security efforts and offered him a "top-level NSC briefing." The official said Perry declined.

What a jackwagon. Let's dispatch him to the border with his Coyote Special  -- after we boot him out of the $10 grand-a-month rental governor's mansion in November.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is pretty sure its invitation to President Obama's events in Texas were lost in the mail, and we will keep saying that to ourselves as we bring you this week's blog highlights. (Regular -- or more frequent, at least -- posting to resume here in short order.)

Off the Kuff continued his interview series with Congressional candidate Ted Ankrum and State Representatives Senfronia Thompson and Garnet Coleman.

Staggering levels of formaldehyde in Barnett Shale air and the attempted cover up, breaking news by TXsharon on Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

This week on Left of College Station, Teddy reports that the Republican electoral strategy is to conceal their policy agenda, and notes that Congress should do nothing because the Bush tax cuts should be allowed to expire. LoCS also covers SMUT and says Texas Dominates the Recession at a price.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders why Republicans like John Cornyn want to take us back to pre-Civil War days when blacks were not full citizens of the United States.

What part-time governor is also a real estate genius or maybe instead a sleazy grifter? Read Libby Shaw's take at TexasKaos in Rick Perry Stuffed His Pockets with $500K from Murky Land Deal.

NatWu at Three Wise Men says that however bad the economic news seems these days, things are actually much worse.

WhosPlayin stepped in it this week by pointing out how the local school district is giving an across-the-board raise to all administrative personnel, many of whom are already highly paid, while some highly-experienced teachers could go without raises this year.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has been skewing the child support statistics to his favor, reports PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

On a day trip to Galveston, Neil at Texas Liberal took a picture of a portion of the seawall mural that showed workers in hazmat suits cleaning up muck from the sea. While Galveston is a great place to spend a day and spend a few dollars, the folks there are long acquainted with toxic spills.

Friday toons: rights edition

Prop 8 declared unconstitutional

It's been a real bad go-round for conservative attempts to codify discrimination. Last week, Arizona's SB 1070 mostly nullified; this week, a New York city commission approved the location of an Islamic community center near the site of the former World Trade Center, and California's Prop 8 is rendered a massive fail at the hand of the Ninth Circuit's US Judge Vaughn Walker.

Proposition 8 cannot withstand any level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause, as excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to a legitimate state interest.

Rather, the evidence shows that Proposition 8 harms the state's interest in equality, because it mandates that men and women be treated differently based only on antiquated and discredited notions of gender.

Moreover, the state cannot have an interest in disadvantaging an unpopular minority group simply because the group is unpopular.

A private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples is not proper basis for legislation.

Here, the purported state interests fit so poorly with Proposition 8 that they are irrational. … What is left is evidence that Proposition 8 enacts a moral view that there is something "wrong" with same-sex couples.

The evidence at trial … uncloaks the most likely explanation for its passage: a desire to advance the belief that opposite-sex couples are morally superior to same-sex couples.

Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians.

I would really like to see how a conservative SCOTUS argues to overrule this decision. And if it should dare to do so, the corresponding outrage and backlash.

As my friend Neil noted elsewhere...

Yes to birthright citizenship. Yes to the "mosque" in NYC. Yes to gay marriage. Yes to universal coverage. Yes to an inclusive, decent society.

Houston Votes

Last week I lunched with Houston's political blogger nation -- Kuff, Neil, Stace, Martha, David and also Big Jolly -- and the traditional media, Rick Casey -- as well as representatives of the League of Women Voters (Christina Gorczynski) and Texans Together's Houston Votes project (Fred Lewis, Maureen Haver, Sean Caddle). Their goal is to register 100,000 modest- to low-income citizens of Harris County, and then get at least 50,000 of them back to the polls in November. A vigorously non-partisan affair, their mission is to give voice to the historically disengaged.

In Harris County, as you may already now, this is a sizable problem: the best estimates are that 600,000 eligible adult citizens are not registered to vote, and they are mostly disadvantaged minorities; Asian-American, Latino and younger voters along with those in the lower-income strata. Houston Votes conducted this work for the first time here in 2008, registering 24,000 and turning them back out to vote at a 65% clip (without any allegation of impropriety).

The door-to-door-canvassing is happening now. This mobilization is an added effort to their storefront registration drives (which was their only point of contact two years ago, thus the more ambitious registration goal this cycle). The HV project extensively trains all deputy voter registrars, carefully checks collected voter reg cards,  and otherwise closely monitors the process. Once the registration deadlines passes they will call or contact at the door every person registered, encouraging them to vote and providing poll location information.

A couple of events around this effort:

-- Tonight, Thursday August 5, the Kickoff Party at Pearl Bar.

-- Saturday September 18, at the George R. Brown: the LWV will co-sponsor with the ASCE a candidate meet-and-greet for the public. Every single candidate on the Harris County ballot, from governor to precinct constable -- Democratics, Greens, Libertarians and Republicans -- have been invited to attend. After an early evening reception there are two debates currently on tap: candidates for county judge and tax assessor/collector will square off.

(Thanks to Big Jolly David Jennings for the comprehensive post -- despite his obvious misgivings -- as well as for many of the links I used here. His post on the LWV event is worth a click also.)

Abbott's child support statistics skewed to his favor

In my conference call with Barbara Radnofsky last week, she alluded to a developing scandal within the Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's department of child support collection. Theodore Kim of the Dallas News broke the story today.

"During my tenure as attorney general, the child support division has been elevated to the No. 1 national ranking," Abbott, a Republican, said in an interview last month in his Austin office. "And it is recognized around the country as being the top child support agency anywhere in the land."

Yet the full slate of numbers provides a more varied picture.

Texas lags in the percentage of overdue support it collects, according to an analysis of federal data by The Dallas Morning News. Delinquent cases and amounts owed are rising faster here than in many other states.

And Abbott's critics, including Democratic rival Barbara Ann Radnofsky, accuse the state of chronically underreporting how much child support is owed. State officials deny the charge.

"This attorney general is very bent on making his numbers look as good as possible," Radnofsky said.

Abbott's signature issue -- he ran millions of dollars of television ads in his re-election campaign of 2006 about his success in the endeavor of 'bringing deadbeat dads to justice' -- employs 2600 people and has an annual budget of nearly $300 million.

But he cooks the books.

Abbott, above all, underscores Texas's top rating, which the federal Department of Health and Human Services determines by comparing amounts collected with collection costs. The federal government rewards high-ranking states with additional money.

In fiscal 2009, Texas took in $9.80 in child support for every dollar it spent. That was more than double the national average of $4.73, federal statistics show. California collected $2.10 per dollar spent, putting that state 48th.

Abbott credited the statistics to a streamlined corporate culture and a caring workforce.

...

Comparing Texas with other states is difficult since each state collects child support and child support data differently.

Abbott says his numbers account for only the most challenging cases. Other states include all cases in their reports to the federal health agency, which gathers the data.

In truth, many problem-free cases are included in Texas's numbers.

Most big cities – including Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio – automatically add all child support cases, including ones involving willing payers, to the attorney general's database. Parents must opt out to avoid inclusion.

It gets worse, though.

Ginger Weatherspoon, who was fired from the attorney general's office in 2008, blamed the state for relying on a computer system that she says misinterprets state law and has generated widespread discrepancies.

"The state is collecting money that they are not owed, and they are not collecting money that is owed," said Weatherspoon, now in private practice. "There are major problems that need to be addressed."

There's also unnecessarily suspended payments to families.

Monica Attura, 44, of Plano has a different view. She and daughter Beatrice have received support for eight years.

But when a judge increased her ex-husband's biweekly payments from $600 to $750 earlier this year, Abbott's office began withholding payments as it verified the change.

Attura said she has not received child support for nearly two months, despite her attempts to resolve the matter. Her bills are adding up.

"It doesn't make sense to me, what is going on," said Attura, an interior designer who makes about $35,000 a year.

And apparently "liberal" definitions of what constitutes a father's income. From the comments there (typos left uncorrected):

(Abbott) looked at my Annul income based on a W2 form, and never consider my other child support in Oklahoma city. and Oklahoma did the same. So now I pay $975.00 a month in the State of Texas and $975.00 in the State of Oklahoma. And guess what? with the economy being the way it is overtime is scarce, and I haven't seen one bonus. Your next story should be "Those faithful fathers and mothers who pay child support in the State of Texas now living under bridges".

It seems Abbott's version of the truth leaves a lot to be desired by all parties involved in the child support matter. The big finish:

Radnofsky, Abbott's general election opponent, accused Abbott of issuing misleading numbers.

She argued that the state has incorrectly calculated the amounts owed for a large number of families since a 2002 change in state law.

"All of the bragging of success depends on ignoring the failure of the attorney general to collect or even acknowledge the legal debts that noncustodial parents have had written off," Radnofsky said.

Abbott intends to challenge the comprehensive healthcare plan passed into law earlier this year; he blustered about doing the same thing regarding legislation to cap greenhouses gases (no longer under consideration in the Congress). He wades into every fundamentalist conservative issue from gay marriage to the Ten Commandments on the state Capitol grounds.

He has a big fan club of enthusiastic freaks supporters.

Greg Abbott -- and I've been writing this since 2006 -- is the most dangerous politician in Texas.

It's long past time to elect an Attorney General who is capable of representing more than the most extreme faction of the Texas Republican party.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance sends its congratulations to Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky on the occasion of their wedding, and to Mrs. PDiddie on her 50th birthday today, as it brings you this week's blog roundup.

This week on Left of College Station Teddy reports on a Texas-size failure that finds our state's children are among the nation's most disadvantaged. Also this week: why justice is not color blind and the week in headlines.

Off the Kuff kicked off his 2010 candidate interview series by talking to three Democratic SBOE hopefuls: Michael Soto, Rebecca Bell-Metereau, and Judy Jennings.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders why the Catholic church is so preoccupied with teh gay when people are going hungry and war is all around.

WhosPlayin was out on business all week, but had to update his post on the history and status of gas drilling in Lewisville, since more permits continued to be filed in light of the failed moratorium.

It's rare that anyone on the pages of McBlogger has something nice to say about Joe Lieberman. So you should take special note and check it out when it does happen.

Contrary to everything else you've been hearing, there are at least ten signs that the Republicans will get blown out in the midterm elections. And they're now playing at PDiddie's Brains and Eggs.

Liberaltexan  over at TexasKaos brings us up to date on the plight of Texas children under the Repug administration of Dear Leader Perry, and it ain't pretty. Check it out here: Texas Size Failure: Children in Texas Among the Nation's Most Disadvantaged.

Despite the recent court ruling against some aspects of the Arizona immigration law, Texans can expect that harsh immigration measures will be proposed when the legislature meets again in 2011. Neil at Texas Liberal asks if liberal and progressive forces in Texas will mobilize in advance of this attack.

Suing Wall Street for negligence

Two weeks ago, Goldman Sachs settled fraud allegations brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission by agreeing to pay over half a billion dollars in fines regarding their role in the meltdown of the mortgage market that triggered the financial collapse of 2008.  But they also managed to avoid the stain of a confession of fraud. Instead, GS made the extraordinary admission that it made "a mistake" by not disclosing that the securities it sold were secretly designed by Paulsen and Co. to fail; indeed, the products -- known as Abacus 2007-AC1 -- were never to make money for the purchasers.

These admissions did not relieve Goldman of all of their potential punitive burden, however. While there has been a paucity of investor lawsuits to date, the states -- on behalf of injured parties such as their pension and retirement systems for teachers and public employees -- are taking matters into their own hands.

While at least one state's attorney general has gone after a Wall Street outfit on behalf of her residents -- Martha Coakley of Massachusetts, and Morgan Stanley -- so far the attorney general of Texas, Greg Abbott, is unable to respond in similar fashion for Texans, despite the fact that the legal brief and complaint has been prepared for and delivered to him. Along with an offer on behalf of several attorneys to pursue the case for no fee.

Of course since it is his Democratic challenger, Barbara Radnofsky, who has done the legwork in this matter, Abbott must think that pretending not to notice her efforts is the best course of action ... for his re-election prospects.

But even former Texas Governor Mark White -- who also served as Texas attorney general -- called on Abbott to file suit, explaining: "Radnofsky's proposed suit versus Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms is greatly aided by Goldman's concessions announced (July 16). The State of Texas has suffered as a result of Wall Street negligence and fraud. And the harm to the State we love is physical as well as economic."

Sign the petition calling on Greg Abbott to go after the Wall Street crooks. Since we bailed them out with taxpayer money (which they then spent on executive bonuses), isn't this the very least he can do?

Sunday Funnies: Declaration of Incoherence edition

Apparently now we not only hold SOME truths to be self-evident, but also just about ANY POSITION we happen to prefer. It's pretty self-evident that Obama is not a U.S. citizen because we don't like him. It's clear that he wants to take everybody's guns away because that's what a president who isn't a real citizen would do.

He's somehow against white people because he just MUST be. The economic rescue package didn't do any good because it was Democrats spending money. It's Democrats who are the worse deficit offenders because Republicans keep saying so. Tax cuts pay for themselves because we don't like taxes. Climate change is a hoax because we don't like the implications.

Even the most cursory examination of evidence is now too much to ask. Climate change deniers continue to send me their strange little clutch of misleading factoids and sly questions as if I had never seen that stuff before. But it's pretty clear that they have not themselves read the overwhelming case for climate change, or simply are unable to evaluate or even grasp the concept of PREPONDERANCE OF EVIDENCE.

It's not that the political spectrum drifts left or right, it's that's it is cascading into absolute fantasy. It is impossible to engage in debate with these strange fevers, because they emanate from HOT HEADS. Excuse the cold water, but all opinions are NOT created equal. -Tom Toles

Friday Postpourri

-- "This Week in Rick Perry's Lies" may have to become a DAILY feature. Did you know the governor called Texas' 46th-ranked health care system "the best in the United States"?

-- Look for weekend postings on Barbara Radnofsky's efforts to wake up Greg Abbott with SueWallStreet.com, as well as the incompetence and willful negligence associated with the attorney general's signature issue, child support collection.

-- I also attended a luncheon sponsored by Houston Votes, which has ambitious plans again this election cycle to register 100,000 disaffected Houstonians in time for them to vote in November. Long post due on their efforts.

-- No sooner did I call Rick Perry a cartoon character than we learned that the Bill White campaign was putting out a casting call for a "clueless" Perry look-alike for some comical campaign ads. I think Josh Brolin -- he also played W in Oliver Stone's movie -- would have been perfect for the role.

--  BP will take a $10 billion tax credit for costs associated with the Gulf oil disaster. Even Goldman Sachs gasped when they heard the news. (Ten billion dollars was the amount of the taxpayer bailout they received.)

-- Time once again to remind our Washington representation to preserve net neutrality. As Al Franken put it:

If no one stops them, how long do you think it will take before four or five mega-corporations effectively control the flow of information in America, not only on television but online. If we don't protect net neutrality now, how long do you think it will take before Comcast/NBC Universal -- or Verizon/CBS Viacom, or AT&T/ABC/DirectTV, or BP/Halliburton/WalMart/Fox/Domino's Pizza -- start favoring its content over everyone else's? How long do you think it will take before the Fox News Web site loads five times faster than Daily Kos?

Top ten signs Republicans will lose the midterms

Though the GOP can rub their flat hooves with glee over Charlie Rangel's ethical troubles (he's no Duke Cunningham or Tom Foley; certainly no Tom DeLay, but FWIW he should still resign from Congress) their opportunities to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory continue to mount. Let's count the ways ...

1. Former 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is still in the national spotlight, meaning that either there are no Republicans more qualified than her, or that she will follow through with her plans to carve off so-called "Palinistas" from the national Republican Party and form her own ultra-conservative political party.

2. Former vice president Dan Quayle believes that the Republicans will make big wins this fall. Given who is making this prediction, it has a lot of Republicans nervous.

3. A lot of the polls showing Republican candidates in the lead were taken by pollsters who "polled" a variety of zoo animals, the majority of which were elephants.

4. Though George W. Bush appears to have quietly retired to his ranch in Crawford, there are rumblings that his book "Decision Points", which will hit shelves this fall, is full of meaningless ramblings about knowing when to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

5. Though President Obama's approval ratings are "only" hovering around 40%, this is pretty good considering that we are in the middle of Great Depression 2.0 and the worst national natural disaster since Godzilla invaded New York has befallen the Gulf coast. However, vice president Joe Biden -- making a characteristic gaffe -- said that his boss's numbers could "go a whole lot lower."

6. Rumors of an alien spaceship landing this summer in Ohio have lead many to conclude that the 2010 midterm elections will be postponed a year so that Congress and the President can prepare for a Martian invasion.

Rest here. In the spirit of bi-partisanship, the ten reasons why Democrats could still choke, including these gems:

2. Odds in Las Vegas are now only 2 to 1 that Democrats will hold onto the House of Representatives, and 3 to 1 that Levi Johnston's marriage to Bristol Palin won't make it to its one year anniversary.

3. Bo the White House dog has held several press conferences in which he has stated his willingness to work with a Republican majority in the Senate.

4. South Carolina Democratic candidate Alvin Greene, who is facing federal obscenity charges amid rumors he is a Republican plant, plans on switching his party affiliation to the newly formed "Greene Party" should he lose in November.

...

6. Lobbyists trying to bribe public officials are, for the first time in four years, spending a slight majority of their money on Republicans instead of Democrats.

Seriously though, if you cannot comprehend the scenario that a change of leadership hands in the House portends, then please don't watch this. You'll have nightmares.

Hey, Greg Abbott! Here's a case of voter fraud

Your only problem is that he is a Republican state senator.

The newest member of the Texas Senate, Brian Douglas Birdwell, voted in the November 2004 presidential election twice, choosing between George W. Bush and John Kerry in Tarrant County, Texas, and again in Prince William County, Va., according to election records in the two states.

Voting in the same election twice is a third-degree felony in Texas.

What's more, Birdwell's record of voting in Virginia from 2004 through 2006 would seem to place his residency in that state, not in Texas, which could imperil his spot in the Legislature. Birdwell voted a Virginia ballot in November 2006; if that's enough to establish him as a Virginia resident, an issue that can only be settled in court, it means he's not eligible to serve in the Texas Senate until at least November 2011.

Abbott, you may recall, has had his goons peeping into little old ladies' bathroom windows in his quest to find any examples of voter fraud in Texas.

"It's a piece of evidence that's hard to refute and usually fatal," says Randall "Buck" Wood, an Austin lawyer and a Democrat respected across the political spectrum for his mastery of election law. The residency question, as Wood sees it, puts the courts in the position of deciding whether someone did something illegal — voting in an election in a place where they don't reside — or simply is ineligible to run in another place because of that vote. He thinks most judges would choose the second option rather than deciding the candidate in question did something criminal. The crime, if there is one, would be voting in Virginia while residing in Texas. Wood thinks a court would most likely see no crime, saying instead that the voter was a Virginia resident and voter who is simply not eligible to run for Texas Senate.

So will Birdwell resign? Will the Texas Attorney General prosecute him whether he does or doesn't? Or will the judge who eventually hears the case do what Buck Wood thinks they will do?

Inquiring minds and all that. Charles Kuffner has more.