The One Hundred Degree Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance congratulates all new high school and college graduates as it brings you this week's roundup.

Dr. PDiddie is now in session at Brains and Eggs, and state senator Steve Ogden is on the couch. (He ought to be in the public stocks.)

The Seliger-Solomons Congressional redistricting plan is finally out, and though it's been modified from its original form, Off the Kuff still thinks it's a joke.

Last week extremist GOP state Sen. Dan Patrick referred to public education as an entitlement. WCNews at Eye On Williamson points out it is actually part of the Texas Constitution: Education is a right in Texas, preserving the liberties of the people.

At TexasKaos, libby shaw tells us Show Horse Rick Perry fast-tracks Texas to third world squalor. The sad part is that she is NOT exaggerating!

Neil at Texas Liberal wrote about the recent death of Houston police officer Kevin Will. Officer Will was killed when struck by a car that was driven by a man who was allegedly drinking and, also, not legally in the United States. Neil wrote that incidents like this one leave people with a choice to respond with hate, or with a resolve to move forward with solutions to immigration concerns.

McBlogger observes that Ambassador Jon Huntsman has apparently decided to remake Being There in real life.

Sunday Funnies

The sociopathy of Steve Ogden

Teachers, parents and school administrators urged Texas lawmakers Thursday
to reject a school finance plan that would allow the state to cut
$4 billion from public schools over the next two years.

But one key senator cut off their pleas to tap into the state's $10 billion reserve fund, sending a clear message such an option won't be considered.

"It's not going to happen," said Sen. Steve Ogden R-Bryan, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Ogden nearly didn't run for re-election in 2010, you may recall, but he thought he was the only person smart enough to solve the budget crisis he knew was coming. He sat in that hearing yesterday and said to those teachers and parents testifying: "It doesn't make any difference what you say. Nothing is going to change." In other words, fuck all y'all for wasting my time.

"You have a choice to use your savings but you are choosing not to," Sue Diegaard, who has two children in Houston public schools, told the House Appropriations Committee. "You cut $4 billion from public education, and you expect us to think it's a gift."

Carol Fletcher, a Pflugerville schools trustee, said her district, which has more than 50 percent of its students on reduced-cost lunch plans, is already one of the lowest-funded in Central Texas and more cuts will hurt.

Comparing her district to a car, "Right now, we're driving a '72 Ford Pinto, not a Cadillac," Fletcher said.

After hearing several witnesses urge lawmakers to use the reserve Ogden pointed his finger and told them to forget it.

"Hope is not a plan," Ogden said shortly before the bill passed the committee.

[...]

Ogden also said he doesn't believe what he called threats of "draconian" cuts to local schools.

"We're not cutting school budgets," Ogden said. "We're just not giving them as much money as they think they are entitled to."

Now that's a demonstration of sneering contempt that borders on -- no, actually goes ahead and crosses over to -- sociopathy. Anybody who knows Ogden is well aware of his opinion of everyone who hasn't reached a station in life similar to his own. And keep in mind that this is what passes for Republican moderation in Texas (Ogden was the only Republican senator opposing the carry-guns-on-campus bill). If he had not run again, there would likely be someone much, much worse in that seat.

Honestly, 'sociopath' is an understatement, since so many people are actually going to suffer and die as a consequence of his actions. The proper label for Ogden is 'psychopath'.

Psychopaths, on the other hand, often have charming personalities. They are manipulative and easily gain people’s trust. They have learned to mimic emotion and so appear “normal” to other people. Psychopaths are often educated and hold steady jobs. Some are so good at manipulation and mimicry that they can have families and other long-term relationships without those around them ever suspecting their true nature.

And another brutal truth is that Steve Ogden is far from the only -- or even the worst -- psychopath in the Texas Legislature.

But what do I know? I'm just a shade-tree psychologist.

Update: The Rise of the Second-String Psychopaths.

Sarah doesn't want to be queen, she wants to be kingmaker

Sarah Palin's bus tour took her to Philadelphia's Liberty Bell and a pizza dinner with Donald Trump in New York on Tuesday, moves that may not have telegraphed serious presidential intentions but at least gave her another day of something immeasurable: attention.

Republican candidates who are intensely wooing early-state voters found themselves eclipsed for another day by the former Alaska governor, who repeated Tuesday that she was pondering whether to run. Unlike them, Palin found herself surrounded by reporters and voters, her bus tour bringing her back to the forefront of GOP politics regardless of her ultimate decision.

"Whether she runs or not, Palin needs to stay relevant in order to leverage her celebrity, influence and earning capacity," said Mark McKinnon, a Republican consultant who helped coach Palin when she was preparing for her vice presidential debate with Joe Biden in 2008. "She just proved that she still can generate crowds anytime she wants. Her machine just got oiled and taken out for a test drive."

Yes, she's playing the LSM like a Stradivarius:

There is nothing that the U.S. media wants more than something it thinks it can't have. Hence the power of news leaks that manipulate the thrust of their initial presentation. Hard-to-get is a rigid rule of human behavior. Ask any teenage boy or girl.

And there are few things more sweet to Palin and her fervent supporters cheering their TV sets this week than the image of a hungry know-it-all "lamestream media" caravan of 15 or more vehicles traipsing along behind her red-white-and-blue bus enroute to they-know-not-where to do they-know-not-what.

To make it worse, each one of the frustrated, confused chasers knows that Fox News' Greta Van Susteren is riding along with the not-yet-and-possibly-never Republican presidential candidate, filing exclusive conversations for her audience to gobble up that only enhance Palin's already million-dollar value to FNC.

Can you hear the teeth grinding?

The day's best line came from a CBS News producer who tried to claim that the lack of information from Palin's lumbering bus was endangering the dozen competing media vehicles trailing behind, uninvited.

As Michelle Malkin puts it so succinctly here, "The boys behind the bus."

Speaking of CBS, Katie Couric's unemployed now. And forget that front porch in Alaska. Sarah Palin can see revenge from her rear window.

This confirms what I have suspected all along: Sarah Palin isn't running for president. Loathe to quit a job that actually pays her a comfortable living, happily bereft of any actual work, Palin is quite busy assuming her position in conservative pop culture. She is transforming herself into a Tea Party version of a Kardashian; famous for essentially nothing and getting a lot of attention -- and making a lot of money -- doing it.

Besides, it's so much more powerful to be able to dictate terms to the eventual nominee. Sarah may be dumb, but she's not stupid.

The biggest excitement in recent days has surrounded Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee. Her bus tour, which stopped Tuesday at the Gettysburg battlefield, the Liberty Bell and New York City, is equal parts carnival, photo op and breezy history lesson.

Her meeting and dinner with real estate mogul and almost-candidate Donald Trump did nothing to tamp down the frenzy and frothiness.

Palin refuses to give reporters her schedule, and then gently upbraids them for their pell-mell efforts to locate, photograph and interview her. It's not clear that she will run for president, and some suspect her "One Nation" tour is designed mainly to support her lucrative book sales and TV appearances. If Palin does run for president, many Republican strategists feel she will do poorly, as her combative nature has driven down her approval ratings among GOP voters and others.

Yet by some counts, more than 100 journalists trooped alongside Palin in Philadelphia, an entourage that Pawlenty and others can only dream of. "It's quite chaotic anywhere we get off on the bus," Palin acknowledged.

Rich Nutinsky of Chadds Ford, Pa., returned to downtown Philadelphia on Tuesday after failing to find Palin there Monday. "I wished her luck and told her I supported her," Nutinsky said. "To me, she's a breath of fresh air."

Palin said she has not decided whether to run, even as she fueled speculation by saying her bus tour eventually will reach New Hampshire and Iowa.

Palin is effectively constructing a powerful brand. She will use its populist power to control who gets the Republican nomination for president, who gets picked for vice-president, and what their campaign's message should be. If there is ever going to be a Tea Party unbeholden to the Republican Party, it will only happen when Sarah decides to get a divorce from the GOP. That split could come in the 2012 presidential cycle.

But she can't really afford to have Karl Rove, Roger Ailes, et.al. call her bluff, and they are too afraid to do so anyway. Half-successful third-party movements are so 1992.

The odds are much more favorable that Palin will continue snapping her fingers and making the Republicans heel. The dogs are just too cowed by the Mama Grizzly to do anything else. And if her "Lamestream Media" keeps running along behind her like a pack of males after a bitch in heat ... well, all the better for her.

Special session Wrangle

It's on:

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said GOP leaders couldn’t resurrect a school finance plan and will be back in a special session in the morning.

“As hard as I’ve tried, we have not been able to get an agreement to suspend the rules, so we will be back tomorrow morning,” Dewhurst said. The chamber adjourned minutes later.  A Sunday night filibuster by Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, derailed a compromise plan for distributing $4 billion less to school districts than they’d get under current law.  Without the school finance plan, no money will be distributed to schools under a budget-cutting state spending measure for the next two years.

There’s little legislatively to keep Republicans from passing the plan in a special session, since they hold a House super-majority and leaders said a Senate rule protecting the voice of outnumbered Democrats will no longer be in force.

No matter what the Republican legislators choose to do, the Texas Progressive Alliance is grilling the meat, icing the beer, and settling in for a long hot summer as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff suggests that maybe a Rick Perry presidential campaign might not be such a bad thing after all.

The demise of the 'sanctuary cities' bill in the closing days of the Texas Legislature's 82nd session represents a "strategic victory" for Rick Perry, according to Mark Jones at Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs also notes, in other news, that a Blue Angels-like formation of flying pigs is circling the state capital.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants to know why Bill Gates is helping Republicans destroy our public education system. Could it be all of that potential revenue from computerized curricula?

At Left of College Station Teddy wants to know: who is the Texas Public Policy Foundation? Then he takes a look at the power, influence, and money at work on the board of directors on the TPPF, and the man behind the so-called 'breakthrough solutions', Jeff Sandefer.

McBlogger takes a look at the compromises Speaker Straus had to make to the Teabaggers and their allies, compromises that will more than likely return Texas to recession.

Neil at Texas Liberal noted that Democratic Houston Mayor Annise Parker has proposed a city budget that is balanced on the backs of city workers and on citizens of Houston who are most in need of city services.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson has an update on what's been happening in Williamson County.

Memorial Day Funnies

Special education

Updated at 12:03 a.m. Sen. Wendy Davis’ filibuster to kill Senate Bill 1811 has just ended and with it, likely the session.

Members say it may be the shortest filibuster ever in the upper chamber.

Sen. Royce West interrupted the filibuster by asking Lt. David Dewhurst for the time.

12:03, said Dewhurst.

Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, then raised a point of order on SB 1811, noting that consideration of bills is prohibited in the last 24 hours of a legislative of order.

“The point of order is sustained,” Dewhurst said.

Senators then broke into applause for Davis.

And they agreed to return at 10:30 a.m. (today) to figure out what to do next. That probably means returning to the Capitol on Tuesday for a special session.

Mad props to Wendy Davis, who has been insulted as well as hopelessly redistricted this session. She stuck it in Rick Perry's eye. Good for her.

Of course he's going to stick it right back in hers, yours, mine, and every other Texan's, fine fellow that he is.

As Senate Democrats consider whether or not to filibuster the must-pass SB 1811, reliable sources close to the Governor’s office tell QR that there will be direct and immediate consequences.

Should SB 1811 go down, Governor Rick Perry will call what is expected to be a very quick special session to convene this coming Tuesday, May 31. In addition to SB 1811, the Governor will add “sanctuary cities and other matters related to immigration onto the call.”

With no blocker bill, passage of legislation in the Senate requires only 16 votes.

Does the threat of resurrecting 'sanctuary cities' mean that Rick Perry is headed for a strategic defeat?

School finance bill may be passed in dead of night, without debate

The TexTrib provides the explanation:

The 2012-13 budget has been approved by both the House and the Senate, and now, with less than two days left in the legislative session, lawmakers have to pay for it by passing one more piece of legislation that raises $3.5 billion in "non-tax revenue" and revises school finance law to allow the state to reduce aid to public schools by $4 billion.

Without that legislation — SB 1811 — the budget doesn't balance and lawmakers will be forced to come back in a special session to deal with the issue. ...

If SB 1811 doesn't pass and the budget doesn't balance, lawmakers have to fix it before September 1, when the current budget ends and the new one is supposed to take effect. The budget, approved on Saturday along mostly partisan lines in both the House and the Senate, is $15.2 billion smaller than the current budget, doesn't require major new taxes and doesn't immediately require the state to use its Rainy Day Fund. Budget writers left $4.8 billion in Medicaid spending out of the budget in the hope that economic and program changes will make it unnecessary, but left money in the Rainy Day Fund to cover that spending if needed in 2013.

Without SB 1811, it doesn't balance.

At the time of this posting, Postcards is reporting that SB 1811 is scheduled to come before the House in about an hour, and the Senate some time after 9 p.m. Harvey Kronberg has the insight:

Should a school finance plan that was only revealed yesterday, has never had a hearing, has never had any questions asked about it or any public vetting be passed in the dead of night when members are exhausted? Do Republicans have any clearer understanding of what the bill does than do Democrats?

Sure, Democrats could chub the bill. Sure, Republicans could call the previous question.

But there is something larger at stake. This is the first school finance plan passed in modern times absent a court order. It could have profound consequences to real people. It could also end political careers. It deserves more than a ten minute question and answer period. ...

Republicans obviously have the cards to do whatever they want. If they want to pass a school finance plan under under those conditions and only ten minutes of questions, they also bear all the responsibility.

When those who went to the polls just seven months ago voted a straight Republican ticket, they created the atmosphere for this perfect storm. It's not hyperbole to say that what happened earlier this month in Tuscaloosa, AL and Joplin, MO doesn't really hold a candle to the damage this budget will wreak on the lives of Texans. Yes, there will be hundred of lives lost as a result of the financial decisions the Republican super-majorities are making. The only real difference is that the carnage in Texas will be in slow motion, and the tornado-ravaged cities are already on the road to recovery.

Texas won't recover for a generation. Or longer.

Update from HK:

May 29, 2011 7:32 PM
IF SB 1811 FAILS, GOVERNOR WILL PUT SANCTUARY CITIES AND MORE ON THE CALL

Special will be called for Tuesday, May 31

As Senate Democrats consider whether or not to filibuster the must pass SB 1811, reliable sources close to the Governor’s office tell QR that there will be direct and immediate consequences.

Should SB 1811 go down, Governor Rick Perry will call what is expected to be a very quick special session to convene this coming Tuesday, May 31. In addition to SB 1811, the Governor will add “sanctuary cities and other matters related to immigration on to the call.”

With no blocker bill, passage of legislation in the Senate requires only 16 votes.

Follow the Trib's liveblog.

Sunday Funnies

Sanctuary bill's demise: "strategic victory" for Perry

One of the nearly-completed legislative session's most stubborn zombies may have finally had a stake driven through its heart.

Despite Gov. Rick Perry's renewed call for its passage, legislation banning "sanctuary cities" appeared dead in the Senate, where 12 Democrats pledged to block consideration of the bill until past Wednesday's midnight deadline for House bills.

The legislation, passed by the House, would have banned local governments from creating "sanctuaries' for illegal immigrants by prohibiting law enforcement officers from inquiring into the immigration status of individuals they detain. Perry, who accused Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill White of turning Houston into a sanctuary city during his tenure as mayor, made passage of the legislation one of his priorities.

On Wednesday, Perry said he would leave the issue to the Legislature but added, "it's a very important piece of legislation" that "people in the state of Texas want to see addressed."

House Bill 12 has been fought by Democrats, who say it will lead to racial profiling by police of Hispanics. They also point out that many police chiefs testified against the bill, saying it would take time away from local law enforcement duties to fill in as federal immigration officers. ...

Wednesday evening, state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said he hoped the bill would be revived.

"I don't think we're ready to give up," he said. "All of the governor's other emergency measures have passed but this one."

But before we celebrate, let's treat ourselves to some of the most delicious spin ever written, courtesy Mark Jones at the Baker Institute for Public Policy:

(Governor Rick) Perry will receive credit from the Republican Party’s conservative base for prioritizing legislative efforts to end the presence of sanctuary cities in Texas. However, by not having to sign the bill into law, Perry will not incur the wrath of the large proportion of Hispanic voters who view such legislation as discriminatory — nor will he provide Democrats with an issue around which they could possibly mobilize (i.e. increase) Hispanic voter participation in 2012 (both at the state level in Texas’ county, state legislative and congressional elections and nationally in the event of a Perry presidential candidacy).

Last year, Perry carefully walked a tightrope in regard to his position on Arizona immigration reform legislation (SB 1070). He was very supportive of the Arizona legislation (thereby not alienating conservatives) but also proclaimed that it was not right for Texas (thereby not antagonizing or threatening Texas Hispanics). With the demise of HB 12 this past Wednesday, Perry has once again displayed his acrobatic abilities by strongly supporting legislation to prohibit the presence of sanctuary cities in Texas while at the same time avoiding having to sign that same legislation into law.

That crafty governor; he won by losing. If you blinked, you missed it: Rick Perry just three-dimensional checkmated the Democrats and flummoxed the TeaBaggers in one incredible political jiu-jitsu backflip.

Some people would call that 'considerable political acumen'.

With considerable political acumen, Perry has managed to promote the agenda of the conservative wing of the Republican Party without going so far as to either significantly diminish his support among Hispanics (recall that Perry garnered 38% of the Hispanic vote in 2010) or give Hispanics an issue around which to mobilize against either him or other Texas Republicans in 2012.

Why, the governor of Texas is such a stinkin' genius he ought to run for Prezdent. And maybe Jones could be his campaign manager.