AG @GregAbbott_TX stands up against lesbian Houston Mayor in briefs http://t.co/ePBYDtFmEB #txlege #marriage #txcot #onemanonewoman
— Texas Values (@txvalues) January 21, 2014
Update: Joe the Pleb at Burnt Orange Report started it.
AG @GregAbbott_TX stands up against lesbian Houston Mayor in briefs http://t.co/ePBYDtFmEB #txlege #marriage #txcot #onemanonewoman
— Texas Values (@txvalues) January 21, 2014
Will all of this have any longterm impact - positive or negative (because it appears to be energizing both supporters and detractors) - on Davis' chances of becoming governor?
A few confessions today.
I'm not a fifth-generation Texan, as I've long claimed. My paternal grandmother informed me awhile back that she believes I'm sixth-generation on her side.
I didn't correct the record because I didn't want dueling claims out there. I regret the error.
When doctors' forms ask the dates of my various surgical procedures, I sometimes just guess. I regret the error.
In a June 2009 column, I wrote that, after my father got laid off when I was a girl, we "lost our house." My mother later explained we sold the house to avoid losing it. Figuratively, the claim was still true from my perspective. One day, we had our own house with a big backyard. Next, we were squeezed into an apartment. Still, I regret the error.
Coming from me, a humble newspaper columnist, you might accept all of the above as innocent inaccuracies that have caused no harm.
Coming from a politician running for, say, governor, they'd be fodder for attack ads and angry blog posts, proof at long last that I was a lying, scheming, spineless climber who would stop at nothing to win higher office. Conflicting genealogical claims would lead some to doubt my Texan heritage altogether. False dates on medical reports would show a plot to deceive voters about my health and physical ability to carry out the job. Wrongly implying that my family had endured foreclosure would be a biographical embellishment shamefully devised to appeal to working-class Texans.
Last year the Texas school finance system was ruled unconstitutional on the grounds that it is inadequate, inequitable, and inefficient. This week, State District Judge John Dietz has reopened evidence in the case to determine if actions made by the 2013 Texas Legislature resulted in any substantial changes to the school finance system.
The primary plaintiffs in the case argued that though the Texas Legislature took a step in the right direction, with a partial restoration of funding, it was too small a step and huge funding disparities still exist between property poor and property wealthy districts. As the Equity Center’s lawyer Rick Gray, who Texas Tribune reporter Morgan Smith quotes in her story, said, “Any and all funding changes are temporary at best. There is absolutely no requirement they be in existence beyond the year 2015…It was an exceedingly small step in the right direction.”
The plaintiffs were also quick to point out that the legislature made a conscious to not study the costs of its education requirements. The House version of the 2014-15 budget contained a rider (provision) that required a re-examination of the cost-of-education index and the weights and allotments within the current school finance formulas. This rider was stripped from the budget before finale passage.
As our post-legislative session analysis of public education funding in the 2014-15 budget explains, the Legislature failed to undo the harm caused by the unprecedented 2011 cuts, which disproportionately affect economically disadvantaged public school students. These cuts, among other inequities, led Judge Dietz to originally rule Texas’ school finance system unconstitutional early last year. (Reread our statement on Judge Dietz’s original ruling here).
The State is sticking by its original argument that the school finance system is and has been constitutional.
As your senator, I’ll wake up every day fighting to restore economic fairness and reform our government by:
Withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan and redirecting the hundreds of billions we are spending there to rebuild America by investing in good jobs, good schools and protecting Social Security and Medicare.
Investing in a quality education for all Texas’ children, not just the privileged few.
Growing our economy by creating good paying jobs in Texas, raising the minimum wage, ensuring equal pay for equal work and protecting the rights of union workers;
Standing up to Wall Street corporations and millionaires by making them pay their fair share, closing unfair tax loopholes and ending offshore tax shelters.
Stopping any attempts to privatize or cut Social Security and Medicare.
Protecting Roe v. Wade from right wing extremists who want government to interfere in women’s health care decisions.
Passing comprehensive immigration reform that is humane, respectful of our laws and provides a responsible roadmap to citizenship.
Fighting for marriage equality.
"At the end of the day, we're paying our school teachers — when you count in cost of living — a very fair salary," Dewhurst said. "We need to have better results. We need to make sure that we're not just paying more money and we need to look at more choice for parents."
Texas consistently ranks near the bottom nationally in average teacher pay according to many groups that track classroom salaries, including teacher unions. One expert testified in the state's pivotal school finance trial last year that Texas' average teacher pay was about $47,300 in 2009-10 dollars — lower than the national average of nearly $55,000, and less than what 32 other states pay educators.
That trial ended with a state judge determining that the system Texas uses to finance public education is unconstitutional. New testimony is set to resume in Austin on Tuesday.
(Patrick) pounded the need for border security by citing "hardened criminals we arrested from 2008 to 2012 -- not illegals who were here for a job, who got four speeding tickets, but hardened criminals -- 141,000 we put in our jails just in four years in Texas."
"They threaten your family. They threaten your life. They threaten your business. They threaten our state," he said, adding that they were charged with 447,000 crimes including 2,000 murders and 5,000 rapes.
(Staples') office in 2010 launched the website ProtectYourTexasBorder.com, which features first-hand accounts of confrontations with violent drug traffickers in videotaped interviews. When a message board on the state-run website quickly filled with postings calling for vigilante justice and killing immigrants entering the country illegally, Staples removed the posts and condemned the remarks, but that episode remains one of the biggest embarrassments of his tenure.
But Staples persisted. He published the book "Broken Borders, Broken Promises" in 2012 and continues to reject federal crime data that show decreasing levels of violent crime and Democrats who accuse Republicans of wildly exaggerating the danger for the sake of politics.
Staples said his office hasn't put a financial number on the losses that encroaching violence has cost Texas crop owners.
"I haven't tried to quantify the cash losses," Staples said. "What we have done though is shown that the violence is real, that we have a failed immigration system that is aiding the drug cartels and giving them cover to come into our nation."
R. Lee Wrights has ended his campaign for the Libertarian Party nomination for governor of Texas. From the former candidate’s website:
We would like to thank the donors who gave when they honestly didn’t have the spare income to justify investing in Lee and his message of Peace and Prosperity. They will always be our beloved friends and family.
[...]
No candidate can persevere unless he has the support of those who wish him/her to run. Unfortunately, I found I had far more broken promises than I had genuine support. Thomas Hill, and Cindi Lewis Maidens before him, are absolutely correct. As nice as they all are I, nor any candidate, can run a campaign on “likes” and “shares” on Facebook. It takes “dollars” and”cents”. Again unfortunately, I had far more of the former than I did the latter.
Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, one of four contenders for the Republican lieutenant governor nomination, Tuesday reiterated his support for creation of an immigrant guest worker program, allowing students to carry concealed weapons on college campuses and policies to promote "smarter building" on the state's barrier islands.
Patterson, a former state senator who has been land commissioner since 2003, dismissed immigration hardliners' calls to "build fences, no amnesty, deport 12 million people."
While Patterson opposes amnesty for undocumented workers and supports border barriers "where tactically called for," Patterson told the Houston Chronicle editorial board "it's stupid" to implement mass deportations. "I don't want to live in a country with that kind of police power, especially at the federal level," he said.
[...]
Patterson will face incumbent three-term Lt. David Dewhurst, Texas Sen. Dan Patrick and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples in the Republican primary.
"There are three good choices ‑ anyone but Patrick," he said. Asked how he would function as speaker of the House, Patterson replied, "Like (former Democratic) Lt. Bob Bullock without the tantrums."
Wendy Davis has made her personal story of struggle and success a centerpiece of her campaign to become the first Democrat elected governor of Texas in almost a quarter-century.
While her state Senate filibuster last year captured national attention, it is her biography — a divorced teenage mother living in a trailer who earned her way to Harvard and political achievement — that her team is using to attract voters and boost fundraising.
The basic elements of the narrative are true, but the full story of Davis’ life is more complicated, as often happens when public figures aim to define themselves. In the shorthand version that has developed, some facts have been blurred.
Davis was 21, not 19, when she was divorced. She lived only a few months in the family mobile home while separated from her husband before moving into an apartment with her daughter.
A single mother working two jobs, she met Jeff Davis, a lawyer 13 years older than her, married him and had a second daughter. He paid for her last two years at Texas Christian University and her time at Harvard Law School, and kept their two daughters while she was in Boston. When they divorced in 2005, he was granted parental custody, and the girls stayed with him. Wendy Davis was directed to pay child support.
In an extensive interview last week, Davis acknowledged some chronological errors and incomplete details in what she and her aides have said about her life.
“My language should be tighter,” she said. “I’m learning about using broader, looser language. I need to be more focused on the detail.”
A former colleague and political supporter who worked closely with Davis when she was on the council said the body’s work was very time-consuming.
“Wendy is tremendously ambitious,” he said, speaking only on condition of anonymity in order to give what he called an honest assessment. “She’s not going to let family or raising children or anything else get in her way.”
He said: “She’s going to find a way, and she’s going to figure out a way to spin herself in a way that grabs at the heart strings. A lot of it isn’t true about her, but that’s just us who knew her. But she’d be a good governor.”
“If there were someone jogging today, got hit by a tree today, suffered the same kind of accident today, they would have access to the very same remedies I had access to,” (Abbott) said.
“Our legal system was abused in this state,” he continued. “There were many invalid claims that were filed in court, that clogged up the courts, that either denied or delayed access for people who had valid claims.”
Tort laws have changed drastically since Abbott’s accident, adding hurdles for people who sue for personal injuries and making it harder for them to win large sums. But there is disagreement about whether Abbott could receive a similar settlement today.
[...]
Not long after Abbott’s accident, sentiment against trial lawyers and large jury verdicts swept through Texas politics, which helped propel Republicans into dominance and laid the groundwork for new lawsuit restrictions.
In 1995, the Legislature capped punitive damages stemming from noneconomic losses at $750,000. Lawmakers also erected hurdles for plaintiffs who try to collect from multiple defendants.
Meanwhile, the conservative Texas Supreme Court, on which Abbott served from 1996 to 2001, began adopting tighter standards for losses that involved pain and suffering and mental anguish.
"So," I said, returning to Garcia's case, "if you were this woman, would you feel like justice had been served?"
"Well, having been a victim myself, on the one hand, you never feel that justice is served because you have to live with it the rest of your life, but also as a victim, I realize that victimology or being a victim doesn't get you anywhere in life. You just gotta move on."
"But," I asked, "what if they had told you that - after your accident, after you were paralyzed? 'You've just got to move on. And this is all you're going to get. Your award is limited.' "
"That's the reality that I face," he said. "I'm never walking again, Lisa."
"But what if they had limited your award and said 'move on?' "
This was the only part in the interview when Abbott stumbled.
"Uh, I mean …" he said. "I wasn't given a limitless award. I was given what the insurance policies had. That was the way it worked for me."
Yes, that was the way it worked out for you, General Abbott. You received a multimillion-dollar settlement that helped you support your family while you got your life back on track. You received what seems fair compensation for the harm you suffered.
The question is why Herlinda Garcia isn't entitled to the same.
Over the last couple weeks, it has become impossible to deny that a civil war has broken out in the largest county Republican Party in America – and the way this fight plays out in Houston before the March primary could have serious implications for the political aspirations of Sen. Dan Patrick in his bid to preside over the Texas Senate.
Patrick, a Houston radio host and lawmaker who has given up his Senate seat, said in his announcement for higher office that the support he enjoys in the Bayou City is key to his statewide strategy. Simply put: Patrick is banking on Harris County in a way that the other three candidates in the race are not. The problem with that now is that Republicans there will also have to make a fundamental choice about who will lead the local party. This year’s challenge to six-term incumbent and conservative flamethrower Jared Woodfill is objectively the most serious one he’s faced but, at the same time, he’s never one to be counted out until the voting is done.
If these people are the best that we Harris County Republicans have going for us, perhaps it is time to walk away from the whole mess. Putting the issue of abortion on the same level as that of gay marriage reduces it to nothing more than the political wedge issue that Democrats have been saying it is for us.
In the age of social media, when cell phones come with camera lenses optimized for selfies, that last question ("Is there such a thing as TMI on the Web?") gets asked regularly. So I am going to answer it, once and for all: No. There is no such thing as TMI on the Internet. We are living in a post-TMI age, and everyone needs to deal with it. Preferably by using the “unfollow” button.
There is such a thing as too much information for you. There is such a thing as information the speaker will later regret. But if an audience is willingly and pleasurably consuming the information, then by definition, that is the right amount of information for them. Assuming the information in question is yours to share — your life, your ideas, your stories, your pictures, your theories about elf genealogy in Lord of the Rings — you cannot share too much of it. There are no captive audiences on the Internet. Whereas discussing your sex life at the Thanksgiving dinner table may be TMI for Grandma, discussing your sex life online does not necessitate Grandma’s participation. If you follow someone on Twitter and you find that her tweets are too much for you, then you may unfollow her. If you continually recoil at TMI, it's because you lack the willpower to stop consuming (or foresight to avoid) the information in question. That’s your fault.
Modern media consumption — particularly digital media consumption — is personalized. This is sometimes to our detriment; it is very easy to surround yourself with the voices of only those who agree with you. As consumers of social media, we are all the programmers of our own personal line-ups, featuring a hand-selected set of soap operas, news sources, and other amusements. If a particular soap opera becomes boring, you click “unfollow” — or maybe you hate it so much that you block it. You can download browser extensions that will turn words you do not want to see into a big black bars, or prevent you from loading web pages that contain material that offends. For instance, if I never want to see or think about Bill or Emma Keller, I could install a content filter like Blocksi and set it to block or limit the amount of time I spend on web pages where the term Keller appears. Or I could set it simply to warn me about incoming Kellers, so that I can summon a third party to preview the material for me.
Rule 34 of the Internet states, “If something exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions.” Embedded in this joking wisdom is a profound statement about taste. If one person likes something enough to imagine, desire, or create it, then somewhere in this wide world of ours, another person feels the same way. In the age of micro-audience — when everyone is famous not for fifteen minutes, but to fifteen people — there is a consumer for everything. No exceptions. Even if the audience is merely the creator himself, gazing at his own selfies for hours on end like Narcissus falling into a pool of glowing computer screen — if he is @MrPimpGoodGame — that is still an acceptable use of the Internet. Embarrassing, perhaps. Awkward, alienating, depressing, enlightening, inspiring, boring — any emotional reaction is possible. But no self-expression on the Internet can be categorically too much, because to someone, that artifact of human existence is just right.
(O)n the 23rd anniversary of the start of their lives together, Mayor Annise Parker and Kathy Hubbard got married in Palm Springs, California.
The marriage had been anticipated for several days, but it wasn't known exactly when it would happen.
The mayor's office also explained that: "Ms. Hubbard has other insurance options available to her and will, therefore, not participate in the new policy granting city health insurance benefits to the spouses of legally-married city employees," which means they've avoided an attack by anyone saying Parker pushed for the change just so she could benefit from it.
David Alameel, the alleged Democrat running for the US Senate, has bankrolled the anti-choice Republican agenda for years. I'm not talking about a couple thousand dollars here. He has given $1.6 million dollars to the Republicans who oppose Roe v. Wade and vote to erode a woman's right to choose at every turn.
Here are a few specifics on Alameel's record on supporting the Republican agenda:
- Alameel gave $150,000 to Lt. Governor David Dewhurst who led the charge to pass anti choice legislation and called women who went to protest in the Capitol an “unruly mob”;
- Alameel gave $4,200 to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who voted to allow any employer to refuse to cover contraception or any health service required under the health reform law for virtually any reason;
- Alameel gave $8,400.00 to Senator Orin Hatch who sponsored an amendment that “would ban any organizations that provide abortions, including hospitals, from receiving Medicaid family planning funds -- even if those abortions are to save a woman's life”;
- Alameel gave $25,000.00 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee who defended the comment that abortions should not be legal even in the case of rape;
So I have a big question that we Democrats need to resolve before the March 4th primary:
If Texas Democrats care about women’s rights and protecting choice, then how can we possibly nominate a candidate who has a long track record of funding the Republicans who are anti-choice?