"Real Texas heroes"

Mrs. Diddie and I arrived about two hours into the event, so we missed meeting some of our fellow blogonians, but we did manage to make the tail end of the program honoring Texas Democratic legislators (plus, the food was good).

Among the pols in attendance were candidates Chris Bell, Nick Lampson and Barbara Radnofsky, US Congresspersons Sheila Jackson-Lee and Al Green, and Texas House members Hubert Vo, Al Edwards, Garnet Coleman, and Melissa Noriega (serving in the stead of her husband Rick, who is completing his tour of duty in Afghanistan).

One of the really marvelous things about being an activist in a city like Houston is the opportunity to meet personally so many of the most important people serving us; people who are not just in the headlines but on the front lines, doing the real fighting.

And next weekend we'll be in Austin for DemocracyFest, and that lineup includes Howard Dean, Congs. Jesse Jackson Jr. and Lloyd Doggett, Jim Hightower, Molly Ivins, a blogger's caucus and breakfast with Kos and Jerome of MyDD, a seminar focusing on "The DeLay Factor" with Chris Bell, Richard Morrison, and Lou Dubose, and Nathan Wilcox of DriveDemocracy.org and Glen Maxey of Democracy for Texas and many more.

Yes, we'll keep ourselves entertained as well.

I hope all this hobnobbing with the powerful and famous doesn't go to my head ...

RFK Jr. speaks here Monday June 13

He'll be in the Sarofim Hall of the Hobby Center for Performing Arts, along with Mayor Bill White, talking about our environmental challenges in a speech called “A Contract with Our Future,” which explains how our natural surroundings are linked to our work, health, and identity as Americans, and how good environmental policy is good for business. He also wrote Crimes Against Nature, whose first chapter is entitled “The Mess in Texas.”

I'll blog more about his talk on Tuesday; for now here's a sample of an interview he did with SierraSummit2005:

Planet (editor Tom Valtin): What is the biggest environmental problem we face in this country today?

Kennedy: George W. Bush, without any rival.

Planet: The Sierra Club obviously feels much the same way. But we found during last year’s elections that when we criticized Bush the person, many people—including Sierra Club members—were angered, and consequently less open to our message. How do we oppose the policies without criticizing the person?

Kennedy: I think you have to do both. Winston Churchill said that you have to just keep telling the truth, and telling it, and telling it. And ultimately, people are going to believe it. It can be frustrating, and of course industry and its indentured servants use every method to discredit you, including saying that you’re tree-huggers, or radicals, or against the president. But you have to persevere. There’s a huge systemic problem in our democracy now, which is the endless negligence of the American press and the huge corporate consolidation of the media. That’s the principal threat to American democracy, and it’s an issue that environmentalists have to take an interest in curing. We have to develop outlets and methods of getting our message across to the American public that don’t rely on the mainstream press, which is now controlled by the right wing and giant corporations who are interested not in informing the public but in entertaining us in order to increase their own revenues.

Rest at the link above.

If you haven't read The Rude Pundit's take on Howard Dean...

... then by all means please go do so now.

It's filled with salty sailor talk, so if that sort of thing bothers you, then don't click here.

Here's just a sample:

Challenged on the Today show yesterday by Matt "Behold My Stubbly Mane That Indicates I Am a Grown-Up" Lauer, Dean picked up Lauer, slammed him on the faux coffee table and whispered, calmly, in Lauer's ear that Democrats are tired of being the bottoms of the political f*** machine. He said, "They have the agenda of the conservative Christians...the Republicans don't include people. Look, they are outside the mainstream." And Dean wasn't afraid to invoke truly inclusive Democratic ideas: "They have used words like quota to try to separate black from white Americans. They did scapegoat gay Americans by putting an anti-gay amendment on it--in 11 states where gay marriage is already against the law. And they are attacking immigrants. Two--two Republican congressmen, Jim Sensenbrenner and Tom Tancredo, have incredible anti-immigrant legislation. This is not the way America needs to be." Calling out motherf***ers for f***ing their mothers is as brutally truthful as politics gets.

Believe me, that's not even the best part.

Hands down Moneyshot Quote of the Week (in a week filled with worthy contenders).

GOP stooges end the week losing their minds

A FOX News reporter named Brian Wilson went "batshit crazy" in Harry Reid's office yesterday when nobody aknowledged his screamed questions, and again when no one recognized who he was.

House Judiciary committee chairman Jim Sensenbrenner took his gavel and left his own hearing this morning when he didn't like what was being said. That was either before or after he wrote a note to Howard Dean -- after watching the good doctor slice him and dice him on "Today" -- calling the Democratic chairman "delusional", and then asked him to refrain from personal attacks. (!)

There's more, but I'm laughing too hard to finish typing it ...

... OK, I've caught my breath now.

Bush poll numbers hit a new low, the Coingate scandal is bubbling over, five more Marines killed in Iraq today by the so-called weakened insurgency -- no wonder they're losing it.

Now if our side could only convince Joe Biden to keep his mouth shut ...

John Danforth is one angry Democrat

Oh, right; not. Democrat, that is. Is upset that the Republicans have "transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians ..."

Dayamn.

An Episcopal minister and former GOP Senator is actually saying blasphemous things like:

... Republicans have allowed this shared agenda to become secondary to the agenda of Christian conservatives. As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around.

Wait a minute; isn't this what the SCLM (and even DINOs like Joe Biden) have been calling Howard Dean out about this week?

I'm so confused.

(Thanks to AMERICAblog for the lead.)

Rick Perry to gays: Relocate

If our governor had his way, there would no longer be steers and queers in Texas -- it'd be just steers and homophobes:

"Texans have made a decision about marriage and if there is some other state that has a more lenient view than Texas then maybe that's a better place for them to live," Perry said.

Governor, Texans have made no such decision yet; the very legislation you signed in church last Sunday establishes your definition of marriage and calls for the referendum where they will decide. (But I hold no illusions about the decision some majority of bigoted Texans will make in November: you and your Old Testament followers will, verily, succeed in legislating this appalling discrimination. And probably do so by a comfortable margin.)

"A nurturing home with a loving mother and loving father is the best way to guide our children down the proper path," said Perry, who was joined by several legislators.

Unless, of course, they stray from the proper path and engage in the love that dare not speak its name. Then you cast 'em out. Make 'em move to Oklahoma, or Louisiana.

Unless they go to Texas A&M and become cheerleaders. Then they're on the path to the Governor's mansion, where nasty rumors linking them to homosexual affairs with the Secretary of State are quelled by drawing the most fundamentalist Christians they can find -- such as Rod Parsley -- close to their bosom.

Governor, your days in Austin are sooo numbered.

"The DeLay Effect"

That's what Republicans are calling it:

After enlarging their majority in the past two elections, House Republicans have begun to fear that public attention to members' travel and relations with lobbyists will make ethics a potent issue that could cost the party seats in next year's midterm races.

In what Republican strategists call "the DeLay effect," questions plaguing House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) are starting to hurt his fellow party members, who are facing news coverage of their own trips and use of relatives on their campaign payrolls. Liberal interest groups have begun running advertising in districts where Republicans may be in trouble, trying to tie the incumbents to their leaders' troubles.

The article names specific Republicans in danger -- Bob Ney of Ohio, Richard Pombo of California, Tom Feeney of Florida, and Charles Taylor of North Carolina and quotes GOP officials as saying they will likely lose seats in the House in the midterm elections.

Pair that with this news about Bush's latest polling (also from the WaPo via the Chronic):

A clear majority of Americans say President Bush is ignoring the public's concerns and instead has become distracted by issues that most people say they care little about, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The survey found that 58 percent of those interviewed said Bush is mainly concentrating in his second term on problems and partisan squabbles that these respondents said were unimportant to them ...

Ominously for Bush and the Republicans, a strong majority of self-described political independents — 68 percent — say they disagreed with the president's priorities.

That suggests Bush's mixed record in the second term on issues the public views as critical, particularly on Iraq and the economy, may be as much a liability for GOP candidates in next year's midterm election as his performance in his first term was an asset to Republican congressional hopefuls last year and in 2002.

Currently, 52 percent of the public disapproves of the job Bush is doing as president.

This is the first time in his presidency that more than half of the public has expressed negative views of the president's performance.

It appears the tide may be turning. Trend or mirage?

Today's scuttlebutt is:

that John Sharp will run for governor, and that John Cornyn is on the list -- the long one, not necessarily the short one -- to be the next Supreme Court nominee.

Both developments are, if they turn out to be accurate, rather hideous.

John Sharp running for anything would simply be a mistake for both Sharp and Texas Democrats (I mentioned this just the other day). Sharp is a fine fellow, was a capable state comptroller, and has both won and lost on statewide ballots, most recently to Lite Gov. Dewhurst in 2002.

But his time has passed.

I wasn't aware that sparks have already been flying between Sharp and presumptive gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell for awhile now. So what that tells me is that he's gearing up to take a run at the top of the ticket.

There could be a few worse things, though, and one would be a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land for Senator "Box Turtle", who just a few weeks ago created a firestorm as a result of his ill-considered remarks on judicial activism.

Let me borrow from the Republicans for my advice on these two:

Flush the Johns.

Update: Pink Dome says the same thing, only a lot wittier; reveals heretofore-unknown-to-me information about Sharp's voting record in the Texas House being more conservative than Rick Perry's (of course, he was a Democrat then) and her comments posters keep the sarcasm amped.

Regarding that call yesterday no one picked up

Billmon's probably right; it may not be all the liberal media's fault:

But it's still hard to escape the conclusion that the American people have had, generally speaking, plenty of opportunities to learn the filthy truth about this administration and this war -- that is, if they were actually interested in the truth, which many of them (up to 51%, judging from the last election) apparently are not.

What the health of the Republic requires, in other words, may not be a new crop of leakers and whistleblowers, or a fresh young generation of Woodwards and Bernsteins -- or even a more independent, aggressive media. What it may need is a new population (or half of a population, anyway), one that hasn't been stupified or brainwashed into blind submission, that won't look upon sadistic corruption and call it patriotism, and that will refuse to trade the Bill of Rights for a plastic Jesus and a wholly false sense of security.

That's a much taller order than asking the Gods to send us another Deep Throat -- or even a Luke Skywalker. It's also not an easy thing for liberals, with their old-fashioned faith in democracy, to face: That the Evil Emperor might have a majority (a narrow one, but still a majority) on his side. But a truth isn't any less true for being politically unpalatable.

Which is why right now it's easy for me to imagine Richard Nixon, looking up from the inner circle of hell and lamenting his immense bad luck in being elected to the presidency 30 years too soon.

God damn it.

I have another rant going over here about the people on our side who keep surrendering. I suppose I'm just a bit pissed this morning, so I better go hit the gym (before I hit someone).

"SCLM, call holding, line 2"

"If there's another Deep Throat out there, give us a call, won't you. We're waiting for your call."

-- Tim Russert and Tom Brokaw, at the end of their discussion of "Deep Throat", aka W. Mark Felt, earlier this week.

Well fellas, (s)he got tired of waiting for you to pick up the phone, and hung up.

I think it was Richard Clarke, but it may have been Sibel Edmonds. It could have been Karen Kwiatkowski, or Coleen Rowley. Or Paul O'Neill or even Joe Wilson. It might have been Gen. Eric Shinseki; I guess it could have even been John DiIulio, but if it was him, he sounded like he was already changing his mind even as I was putting him on hold.

Pick up your pages a little quicker in the future, guys.