Monday, January 10, 2011

How much is three years' worth of soap-on-a-rope?

Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay today was sentenced to three years in prison for his conviction on a charge of conspiracy to commit political money laundering. He also was sentenced to five years in prison on a money laundering conviction, but the judge probated that to 10 years of community supervision.

DeLay was taken into custody by Travis County deputies, but will be released on $10,000 bail pending appeal.

DeLay pleaded for himself before visiting District Judge Pat Priest.

"I don't feel remorseful for something I don't think I did," DeLay told the judge.

Yes, he'll bond out on appeal and his chances are much better with the Republicans at that level, but today goes down as a good day for justice.

Even as Republicans in both Washington and Austin prepare to overreach once more, a ray of light on a cold day in Deep-In-The-Hearta is enough to warm my heart just a little. Matt Angle at the LSP reminds us, though ...

Given the confirmation of a $27 billion Texas budget deficit, a purely partisan Republican vote on the State House Speaker, and the tragedy in Arizona, the sentencing today of Tom DeLay for felony money laundering may seem like yesterday’s news. In reality, the timing is fitting and relevant. DeLay’s extreme and ruthless partisanship has imprinted on Texas Republicans and his style will be on display today and throughout the legislative session.

“Whether DeLay spends 24 minutes, 24 days or 24 months in custody, his punishment will not undo the damage he has done to hundreds of thousands of Texas voters," said Matt Angle, head of the Lone Star Project.

“Tom DeLay – with enthusiastic help from Rick Perry, David Dewhurst and the Bush Department of Justice – not only robbed Hispanic and African American citizens of their voting strength, but made all other Texans subject to an extreme brand of partisanship that is even worse than Washington's.

“There is little reason to feel comfort in justice being served to Tom DeLay today. His corrupt, partisan legacy lives on in Austin and is being practiced enthusiastically by the Republicans currently in control in Texas.”

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is keeping all of the victims of the Arizona shooting in its thoughts as it brings you this week's roundup.

Refinish69 at Doing My Part for the Left has misgivings about the border patrol shooting at teenagers because they are throwing rocks. The hate mongering expressed in the immigration bills for the 82nd Texas Legislature will only add fuel to the fire.

Off the Kuff writes about the upcoming legislative battle over class size limits.

Bay Area Houston gives the bird back to the Harris County GOP. (With video.)

Hydraulic fracturing brings PEAK WATER to the Eagle Ford Shale as residents find their water tables dropping. A resident found Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS and contacted TXsharon about their flammable water.

This week on Left of College Station Teddy covers Texas Congressional District 17's new Republican congressman Bill Flores' first days on the job in Congress. Also, as the 82nd Texas Legislature prepares to gavel into session facing a possible $25 billion budget shortfall, Teddy asks what's the matter with Texas?

BossKitty at TruthHugger is watching with amazement the current events unfolding after the Arizona tragedy. The venom being spewed by extreme groups toward the victims and praise for the shooter is absolutely incredible. BossKitty tries to unravel the reasons these events are now mainstream in this country in the op-ed Wounded America On Life Support.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme sees the republican priority: cronies, cronies, cronies.

nytexan at BlueBloggin looks at who we have become: Arizona Shooting, Political Discord and American Disrespect. Americans should be ashamed of what we have become: gun-toting, hate-mongering Neanderthals. We are continually pointing fingers at each other, continually shouting, continually spewing incorrect information, continually exhibiting disrespect. This has now become a national pastime.

Neil at Texas Liberal posted the fourth annual version of his Martin Luther King reading & reference list. It is the best such reference on the web.

Texas is not like Arizona, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs observes. In Texas we don't arrest people for looking "illegal", or let Medicaid patients die because the governor doesn't want to pay the bill, or shoot Congresswomen in front of supermarkets. Yet.

WhosPlayin is disgusted by a city council that refused to table a vote on 12 gas wells and a wastewater facility when the operator submitted a weaselly P.R. document instead of a real emissions reduction plan. It's time to replace some councilmen, because one is an illiterate fool and the other is unethical enough to push an ordinance backed by his employer.

After the Texas Eagle Forum weighed in on the House Speaker's race, Letters From Texas weighed in on the shenanigans of the Texas Eagle Forum.

Over at TexasKaos, libbyshaw, has a reality pill for Rick Perry and his minions. Check out The Great Texas Failure: A Smoke and Mirrors Economy.

TexasVox has a complete rundown of last week's vote to allow the nation's radioactive waste to come to Texas. Long story short? We got screwed.

Sunday, January 09, 2011

No Sunday Funnies today

I'm going to do my part to "tone down the rhetoric", as they say.

But if you want to see how the local conservative contingent is doing in that regard, go here and read the comments. All of them.

Yesterday at our "Blueprint for a Blue Harris County" the fifteen breakout sessions all had a common theme: Pushback. Rapid response to the misinformation and deception and prevarications of the extremist right.

Last November In Harris County we had the most activist network ever assembled to harass, intimidate, and thwart minority voters at their precincts. That won't happen in 2012; among other reasons, the early voting judges will be Democratic.

With the news that yet another organization will organize here to stop the invisible "voter fraud" epidemic, we will need all hands on deck:

Anita MonCrief, a former Project Vote/ACORN employee who testified against the organization as part of a voter registration fraud lawsuit in Pennsylvania, has announced the formation of a new Houston-based Tea Party organization. The Crispus Attucks Tea Party will hold its first meeting later this month.

"We are based in a former ACORN neighborhood represented by Sheila Jackson Lee," MonCrief wrote in an email message. "We have been meeting/planning since late November, and our inaugural meeting is January 18th. The path has not been easy, and though we have been shut out of black churches and community centers, we managed to find a place literally two blocks from Sheila Jackson Lee's home. She is of course invited."

Press release and comments.

I would not encourage the Congresswoman to attend unless she has a contingent of HPD or sheriff's deputies as bodyguards. And wore a flak jacket.

I'll refrain from responding to this and other provocations at least until tomorrow out of deference to the victims of yesterday's tragedy.

Saturday, January 08, 2011

Now they're shooting Congresswomen in Arizona

A natural progression, I suppose, since they are arresting people for "looking illegal" and letting mortally ill Medicaid patients die because the governor doesn't want to pay the bill:

Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot and critically wounded Saturday morning while hosting an event outside a Tucson grocery store, according to local news reports. Doctors said she survived the attack, but six others did not.

Federal law enforcement sources said that John M. Roll, the senior U.S. District judge in Arizona, was shot and killed in the incident. The Pima County Sheriff's office said that five others including a nine-year-old child had died, and a total of 18 people were injured.

A 22-year old man was taken into custody after being tackled by people on the scene after the shooting. One pistol was recovered and it had what police described as "an extended clip."

The man was identified as Jared Loughner of Tucson, according to the Associated Press.

Giffords, who in November narrowly won reelection to a third term, was hosting her first "Congress on Your Corner" event when a gunman ran up and began shooting her and others in her entourage with a Glock handgun, according to law enforcement sources.

Eyewitness Steven Rayle, a Tucson doctor, said he saw a young man wearing sneakers and what appeared to be navy blue sweats approach Gifford with a semi-automatic handgun raised. The man shot Giffords once in the face, he said.

After Giffords fell, he said, a number of people near Giffords sought to flee but were trapped--hemmed in by the table and a concrete post. The gunman fired into the crowd, he said.

Giffords had a sighted rifle scope symbol over her district on the map at Sarah Palin's SarahPAC website, as well as Palin's Facebook page. Palin had endorsed Giffords' Republican challenger in 2010, who used this tagline: "Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly."

This isn't the first time someone showed up at one of Giffords' events with a gun.

Gary Hart's comments are perhaps the best to heed:

Gradually, over time, political rhetoric used by politicians and the media has become more inflammatory. The degree to which violent words and phrases are considered commonplace is striking. Candidates are "targeted". An opponent is "in the crosshairs". Liberals have to be "eliminated". Opponents are "enemies". This kind of language eminates largely from those who claim to defend American democracy against those who would destroy it, who are evil, and who want to "take away our freedoms".

Today we have seen the results of this rhetoric. Those with a megaphone, whether provided by public office or a media outlet, have responsibilities. They cannot avoid the consequences of their blatant efforts to inflame, anger, and outrage. We all know that there are unstable and potentially dangerous people among us. To repeatedly appeal to their basest instincts is to invite and welcome their predictable violence.

So long as we all tolerate this kind of irresponsible and dangerous rhetoric or, in the case of some commentators, treat it with delight, reward it, and consider it cute, so long will we place all those in public life, whom the provocateurs dislike, in the crosshairs of danger.

That this is carried out, and often rewarded, in the name of the Constitution, democratic rights and liberties, and patriotism is a mockery of all this nation claims to believe and almost all of us continue to struggle to preserve. America is better than this.

Hart didn't mention "second amendment remedies", or "reload", or some other choice words.

Homeland Security director Janet Napolitano -- a former Arizona governor who had an explosive package mailed to her just a few days ago -- has spoken about the threat of violence from right-wing extremists as early as 2009.

What do you think it will take to curtail the deadly virus of hate and violence spreading like wildfire among the far right and those who enable them?

Thursday, January 06, 2011

Sessions violates Constitution ... on the day it is read

So yesterday I mentioned that I wouldn't be paying much attention to what the House of Representatives would be doing except to note the more hypocritical and atrocious aspects. On Day One, the Republicans hit the daily double.

Two House Republicans have cast votes as members of the 112th Congress, but were not sworn in on Wednesday, a violation of the Constitution on the same day that the GOP had the document read from the podium.

The Republicans, incumbent Pete Sessions of Texas and freshman Mike Fitzpatrick, missed the swearing in because they were at a fundraiser in the Capitol Visitors Center. The pair watched the swearing-in on television from the Capitol Visitors Center with their hands raised.

Fundraisers are forbidden at the Capitol due to House ethics rules, so I suppose the Capitol Visitor Center isn't actually a part of the Capitol. Oh, and there is nothing in the Constitution about being sworn in at a remote location via teevee.

You just can't make this shit up.

Update: As Matt notes in the comments, it is a kind of a small deal that these two guys stood before a teevee set to take their oaths. Goofy and irresponsible, but still small potatoes. The six votes they cast were nullified without consequence, and Weeper Boehner bailed out Sessions and Fitzpatrick by swearing them in properly today, but not before Cong. Anthony Weiner (D- NY) called for them to forfeit a day's pay.

The big deal is why they were MIA from their oath-taking in the first place: the fundraiser.

Democrats and congressional watchdog groups accused Republicans on Friday of illegally holding a campaign fundraiser in the Capitol complex during this week's swearing-in ceremonies for lawmakers.

More (and a reiteration of the citation above):

Holding a fundraiser in the Capitol could be both unethical and illegal, according to the Committee on Standards and Ethics.  And, in fact, the Capitol Visitor Center says in the document outlining its official uses, "Visitor Center space may not be used for any fund-raising purpose.... Visitor Center space may not be used for political activities, including political campaign, political party, or political action committee activities." That's the rules.

Fitzpatrick's spokesperson says it wasn't a fundraiser, but they just charted a $30 fee for "transportation costs for the festivities." Nonetheless, the event was sponsored by the Fitzpatrick campaign, which sure makes it seem like a massive violation of the rules.

Following the Constitution? Adhering to the House ethics rules? Those are supposed to apply to Republicans ... right?

Update II: Then again, it may be barely legal, and thus only sleazy.

Dear Americans who are not rich:

Can't afford health care? Screw you.

Want the food you eat to be safe? How quaint.

Deficit reduction? Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!

Want Social Security to be preserved? You're an idiot.

In foreclosure hell? La la la we can't hear you!

Concerned about the environment? Treehugger. Eco-terrorist.

You want stronger unions? You want ANY unions ? Good luck with that, commie.

Unemployment benefits running out? Quit whining and get a job, you lazy bum.

Muslim? Latino? Gay? You nasty un-American, you.

Looking for fresh new government ideas to solve problems? Move to California -- or better yet, Scandinavia. Socialist.

Think you can count on us to stimulate job growth? Hell no you can't!



Reproductive freedom? We own your private parts, little lady.

Don’t want the government to default on its debts? Too bad!

Want the rich to be taxed more? In a pig's eye.

Wish we'd put America's interests above our own? Keep dreaming.

Love and Freedom Fries,

The New Republican House Majority

P.S. Like cake? Eat all you want.

The changing of the guard

This article is revealing for the behind-the-scenes minutia ...

The House and the Senate have a split personality by design, but Wednesday's debut of the 112th Congress revealed a stark contrast between the two chambers that could define the direction of every major debate over the next two years. 

I won't be very interested in what goes on in the House of Representatives for obvious reasons. Beyond pointing out the hypocrisy and documenting the too-frequent atrocity, the House will be consumed with demagoguery, personified in the orange form of Weeper Boehner. The Senate is much more interesting, with its new cast of characters and dynamics.

A group of Senate Democrats elected in 2006 and 2008, who provided the critical margins for Obama's early agenda, has begun an effort to change the chamber's filibuster rules to limit the minority's power to stall or block legislation. Reid, who as minority leader five years ago beat back a similar effort by Republicans, has expressed support for the junior Democrats, but he is in private negotiations with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to reach a compromise that would nominally change the rules without diluting the potency of the filibuster. ...

The Senate's Republican expansion brought only a few true outsiders and many more veterans of past Congresses and presidential administrations.

Among the notables: Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio), a former House member, White House budget director and U.S. trade representative under President George W. Bush; Sen. Roy Blunt (Mo.), a former House leader; and Sen. Dan Coats (Ind.), a former congressman, senator, ambassador and top Washington lobbyist, were sworn in after easily winning seats that were once considered toss-ups. Sen. Pat Toomey (Pa.), a former congressman, recently served as president of the conservative group Club for Growth.

These experienced freshmen mingled on the Senate floor with the confidence of longtime committee chairmen. Portman, a fiscal expert who is well liked in both parties, greeted a parade of new colleagues who approached to wish him well. Blunt, who learned the legislative trade while working alongside the sharply partisan former congressman Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), exchanged a few private words with Vice President Biden.

Other newcomers took time to soak in their surroundings. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), a former businessman who defeated Sen. Russell Feingold (D), opened the lid of his mahogany desk to explore its interior. Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), who also won her first election in November, scanned the packed visitors gallery.

The Senate Class of 2010 seems downright youthful, compared with many of the veterans of the chamber. Sens. Ayotte, Toomey, Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) are younger than 50. Rubio, a star of the tea party movement, is 39.

Gone from just two years ago, of course, are liberal lions Kennedy and Byrd, along with Feingold, Chris Dodd, and Byron Dorgan. Moderates -- this term is used loosely and in comparison to their replacements -- Arlen Specter, George Voinovich, Evan Bayh and Robert Bennett retired, voluntarily as well as in-.

The House GOP's healthcare 'repeal' gambit is designed to cast Democrats in the Senate as obstructionists -- a tired reprise -- which lays the groundwork for 2012's call to "send us more reinforcements". Frank Luntz has gotten so predictable.

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

36 states will send their radioactive waste to Texas

Thanks, Rick Perry:

HOUSTON — A Texas commission approved rules on Tuesday that pave the way for 36 states to export low-level radioactive waste to a remote landfill along the Texas-New Mexico border.

The 5-2 vote by the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Commission came after last-minute legal maneuvering on Monday failed to delay the meeting, environmentalists warned the dump would pollute groundwater and more than 5,000 people commented on the plan.

You may recall the posts here about this.

...(T)he site's owner, Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists, convinced the commission the West Texas landfill was a secure solution to permanently dump radioactive waste. Until now, the site has only accepted waste from Texas, Vermont and the federal government.

"We are certainly very pleased and happy," CEO Bill Lindquist told The Associated Press after the vote in Andrews, Texas.

As Texas Vox noted two weeks ago, Waste Control Specialists is owned by Harold Simmons, a big Perry contributor. Imagine that.

Harold Simmons, whose company owns this dump, has spread his cash far and wide, giving Governor Perry over $1 million since 2000 (making him the governor’s 2nd largest individual donor) and funding campaigns for every member of the Texas Supreme Court among others. While Simmons gets to make billions off this waste, Texans will get the responsibility for managing it for 10,000 years and cleaning it up -- Mr. Simmons’ license expires in just 15 years.

But the other crony involved here is Perry appointee and nuke waste "czar" Michael Ford, chairman of the TLLRWDCC.

Ford brought up this bad idea last summer, but polls showed a majority of Texans didn’t like the proposal. Bill White made it an election issue, accusing Governor Perry of making the state a radioactive waste dump to benefit his donor. So Perry’s Waste Czar pulled the proposal, waiting until day after the election to announce that the process would move forward once more.

But announcing a meeting the day after the election with just 10-days notice for people to travel to Midland (where the capitol press would be unlikely to follow), and then posting the rule itself such that the comment period would meet the literal definition of “the holidays” was only the beginning for Mr. Ford.

A commissioner named Bob Gregory who, like Ford, was appointed by Governor Perry asked that the comment period on this rule be extended to 90 days since a 30 day comment period would transpire during the holidays when most people are too busy to pay much attention to matters of civic engagement. Mr. Ford and 4 other members of the TLLRWDCC voted against Mr. Gregory’s very reasonable solution for this very obvious problem.

The bottom line is that Mr. Ford and several of the commissioners are afraid of public scrutiny. Last spring they received over 2,000 comments from Texans opposed to the rule. That was before the issue made the front pages of newspapers all across the state, so they have good reason to be afraid.

HuffPo and Yahoo have moved the AP story through the wire, but no mention yet at Houston's newspaper of record. Will link here when it finally appears. Although they do have the report yesterday of the 15,000 gallons of beef tallow that spilled into the Houston Ship Channel, along with the usual tasteless sarcasm of the Chronically Conservative Comment Regiment. One classy sample:

"Throw in some produce and make soup for the homeless."

Update:

The Coast Guard says a nearly one-mile stretch of the Houston Ship Channel will be closed for at least four days as workers use pitchforks and fishnets to corral, pierce and remove 15,000 gallons of beef fat. ...

On Tuesday, about 250,000 gallons of beef fat leaked from a storage tank, and some reached the waterway through a storm drain. The fat solidified when it hit the colder water.

Initially, the Coast Guard thought the channel would reopen early Thursday. But Brahm says the cleanup is taking longer than expected. By late Wednesday only 25 percent of the mess had been removed.

Oh, and did we mention that Greg Abbott found a federal judge to stall EPA's takeover of the permit process for Texas' air-fouling refineries and chemical plants?

Monday, January 03, 2011

2011's first Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance wishes everyone a happy and prosperous New Year as it brings you the first blog roundup of 2011.

Off the Kuff took another look at the coming fight over class size limits.

Who decides who suffers in the Barnett Shale? TXsharon ponders this question at Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS. Unless you are a decider, you will eventually suffer.

With "Death Panels" being resurrected in 2011, Bay Area Houston has posted "An Idiots Guide to Surviving Obama's Death Panels".

Reverend Manny at BlueBloggin takes an in-depth look at Bankster Privilege and the Threat of Right Wing Terrorism in 2011-2012. Since the Bush Cabal was thrown out after 25 years of profiteering and warmongering, and the centrist Obama put in place to preside over a bankster-collapsed economy, there has been a 250% increase in bankster-sponsored racist and/or separatist right wing groups that openly brandish their capability and willingness for violence. There is a convenience of more than just happenstance for the large corporations that dominate our society. For every "tea party" stance they support -- for example, smaller school budgets -- there is a huge profit margin for the corporates. Those same companies fund most of the paranoid right-wing politicians, who in turn cater to both their violent racist base AND to their banker sponsors.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes that the republicans will use any excuse to kill public education in Texas.

An update on the Keystone XL pipeline, the proposed nuclear waste dump in west Texas, and the prospects for DREAM in the next Congress are all part of this aggre-post by PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Neil at Texas Liberal marked the 165th anniversary of Texas statehood. This post includes links to a number of good reference sources so we may learn more about our state. Also included is a picture of President Obama, meant to indicate that Texas is just one state of 50 in our federal union. Let's all get it through our heads: the federal government in Washington is the supreme governmental authority of the land.

Sunday, January 02, 2011

Political races to watch in 2011 *with updates*

Via Texas on the Potomac's Richard Dunham (no, Houston's municipals did not make his cut):

One sign of the off-year election malaise: The vote with the greatest national significance all year long might be a summertime presidential straw poll in Iowa.

[...]

The Chicago mayoral race

Can former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel come home again? The trash-talking, hard-charging Democrat is the favorite to replace Mayor Daley, but he can't afford to take anything for granted. The diverse field includes former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, Rep. Danny Davis, former Board of Education president Gery Chico and City Clerk Miguel del Valle.

Davis has already pulled out and called for African-American voters to support Moseley Braun against the Rahminator.

The Iowa Republican presidential straw poll

The most important vote in 2011 isn't even a real election. It's the Republican Party of Iowa's 2011 Iowa Straw Poll, set for Aug. 14 at the Iowa State Center in Ames. This is an early test of White House wannabes' organizational skills — and an early chance for presidential campaign "spinners" to practice their craft.

Iowa is Huckabee territory. He'll win this beauty contest, and I'll join others in predicting that the Huckster becomes the eventual 2012 Republick nominee.

Dunham's less intriguing picks are here. The only other item worth noting is that Dallas mayor Tom Leppert may step into a GOP primary for the US Senate in 2012. That would be against the enigmatic Kay Bailey, should she deign to stand again for re-election (I predict she will not). He'll be the only non-Teabagger in that race if he does, which means he'll get slaughtered. As far as that primary goes, pay attention only to those who prostrate themselves before the Tea Pees, such as the Williams twins ... Roger and Michael.

Jockeying  for Houston city council positions has barely begun, as several incumbent Democrats in both the statehouse and the courtrooms hit the unemployment line with the changing of the calendar. Some decisions will wait to be made until the redistricting maps for the four new 2012 Congressional seats are known, sometime this spring. Recently retired Sylvia Garcia would be at the top of anyone's list, to be sure.

My favorite municipal elections rumor du jour has former state representative Ellen Cohen considering a run for the 'C' seat being vacated by term-limited Anne Clusterfuck Clutterbuck, who's already not-so-quietly marshaling forces and funds for a challenge to Mayor Annise Parker.

Update III: Kuffner links to Houston Community News, which has more on this development.

Then there's good ol' Bill King, who's busy giving everybody on both sides "tips". Campos likes him, so he's not entirely friendless.

For those of you plugged in to the local rumor mill, what are you hearing? Let me know in the comments. Who -- besides Aaron Pena in the RGV, of course -- wants to run for Congress in 2012? And/or city council or mayor in 2011?

Update: Kuffner, as always, has more.

Update II:

In addition to former police chief and current City Council Member C.O. Bradford, one potential candidate that has warranted frequent mention is former Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt.

The "Taxman," as he often refers to himself, has grown into a foil for Parker on water rate increases and the city's upcoming fight to pass a drainage fee after it was mandated by Proposition 1, a referendum voters narrowly approved in November.

Parker didn't have much to say about a potential Bettencourt candidacy, except a dig or two:

"One can only hope," she said at her Wednesday press conference, laughing loudly.