Friday, November 03, 2006
Even more GOP scandals erupt
-- the Bush administration posted online the guidelines for constructing a nuclear weapon, and left it up for several months. In Arabic. When the New York Times asked them about it, they took it down.
Do you feel safer?
-- someone from the campaign of state representative John "Dufus" Davis flushed grease from a fish fry down a commode in the community center where the event was held. It clogged a lift station, which is how it got traced back to Davis. (Two questions I don't really want answered: what is a lift station, and how does one 'trace grease'.)
You simply cannot make this shit up. Go see Bay Area Houston and Musings (for the Fox26 video).
-- Pastor Ted Haggard, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals -- a group that claims thirty million members -- resigned yesterday after a male prostitute alleged that the minister had paid him for sex for three years and used drugs with him.
-- Don Sherwood, R-Allentown Pa., paid an ex-mistress nearly $500,000 to keep the affair quiet until after Election Day. Oops.
And this man wants to invest your Social Security money. Pshaw.
-- the mad-dog Republicans in Fort Bend County, led by Commissioner Andy Meyers, are terrorizing their neighbors with signs and direct mail. Since scaring them regarding terrorist attacks isn't working, they have resorted to scaring them about brown people in general. I wonder if the conservatives in Fort Bend are stupid enough to fall for this ...
-- Greg Abbott got chastised by the Austin American-Statesman editorial board, and made fun of by John Kelso for his videotaping crimes, but that's all. Damned liberal media.
I'm sure I missed some of yesterday's news, since I have been busy working get-out-the-vote efforts in my precinct. Would you please add the ones I've overlooked in the comments? The myriad electronic voting-machine irregularities, for example...
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Power to the people
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
WFAA continues the beatdown on Abbott
Last week, we revealed Attorney General Greg Abbott is using video shot at taxpayers' expense in his commercials.Tonight we report that the video is evidence of a sweeping change in the way his communications office is run.
Wearing jackets labeled 'Texas Attorney General,' armed law enforcement officers sweep into an apartment house. The video, shot by an attorney general videographer at taxpayers' expense, now shows up in Abbott's television commercial.
One critic says it blurs public service and self promotion.
“It's disgusting. And that's why I took early retirement. It's just blatant misuse of state funds to promote Greg Abbott's name recognition,” said Bill Barnes, who worked for 18 years in the video departments of four Texas attorney generals, both Republican and Democrat.
He retired after Abbott took office. He says he saw the video department change from supporting the attorney general to promoting him.
“To increase general Abbott’s name recognition, there was nothing more important to the press office than that. That was what they were going to do,” Barnes said.
Salaries of press office staff increased to what amounts to more than $380,000 a year. A videographer was hired at $70,000 a year, just $22,000 less than the attorney general himself made at the time. Videos, such as one depicting busts being made by the attorney general's staff, were produced. Burns says he recognizes the videotape now being used in the attorney general's commercials.
The attorney general also built himself a TV studio. He says the world has changed with the internet and his beefed up operation is just trying to keep up.
Press secretary Jerry Strickland showed us the studio known as "the bat cave," which used to be a storage room. He says the attorney general did spend money for equipment here, but he doesn't know exactly how much. He says the studio produces videos on open government which are distributed to state officials.
The office also produces edited versions of the attorney general's press conferences and legal activities, which are distributed to television stations. We checked with attorney general offices in New York and California. Neither have a department like the one in Texas.
The attorney general's videos are edited for content. How is that not propaganda?
“It is a way for us to convey what people need to know in the state of Texas. We are providing information to the taxpayers and if the taxpayers would like more information we can provide that as well,” Strickland explained.
Strickland says unedited video shot by his office can be obtained by any citizen by filing a public information request. That's where all this material now on the website run by Abbott's political campaign came from. And how the campaign got the video now used in Abbott's commercial. The campaign says it's all totally legal.
The Abbott campaign is wrong. But -- as I asked previously -- who will charge the Attorney General with this felony?
Abbott rocked by scandals
It looks like a scene from TV's "Cops."
Instead, the arrest video highlighted in a campaign commercial for Attorney General Greg Abbott was shot by a state employee at taxpayer expense. In fact, video of everything from Abbott's news conferences to the latest bust of suspected child predators can be found on his campaign and official state Web sites — all shot by his $70,000-a-year state-paid videographer.
In essence, candidate Abbott filed an open records request to Attorney General Abbott for the videos produced by the state. ...
As legal rationale, (Abbott campaign staffer Daniel) Hodge cited one line from a Texas Ethics Commission advisory opinion: "Any candidate may use publicly available government information for campaign purposes and an inherent advantage of incumbency is knowledge of what kind of government information is available to the public."
But the opinion continued, "The lawful advantages of incumbency do not, however, extend to the use of work time of government employees or other government resources to gather or otherwise prepare information for campaign purposes."
The legal fine line would be intent: Was the video shot to inform the public or further Abbott's political career?
The attorney general's office has a communications department with six employees, including videographer Neftali Gonzalez. It spends more than $500,000 a year informing the public about the office's activities. ...
Wow. Is this sort of thing ... unusual?
Bill Burns, a retired state employee who was a videographer for four attorneys general, including Abbott, said the job changed when Abbott took over four years ago. It became more about promoting Abbott, he said, as opposed to doing the legal, internal work.
"There is nothing more important to the Abbott administration than his name identification," Burns said. "It's all about him."
No, I mean, do other Republican incumbents do this?
Representatives of Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn said Monday that they have not mingled video paid for by taxpayers with their campaign work.
OK. So what exactly is going on here?
"It's stealing the taxpayers' money," said David Van Os, Abbott's Democratic opponent. "Greg Abbott is so sure of his entitlement to public office, he thinks he has a special privilege to steal public equipment and resources to promote himself."
So with the millions of dollars Abbott has raised --and spent on TV -- in contributions from "Swift Boat" Bob Perry and the state's largest corporations, with the apparent violation of the Texas Penal Code regarding abuse of office, this is the article's moneyshot:
He said it's inexplicable why Abbott, who has a $7 million campaign bank account, would rely on state video for his campaigns. ...
Last week, as his commercial aired, Abbott wrote his supporters, complaining about the high cost of campaigning and urging them to donate more.
All-righty then.
Why is Greg Abbott so worried? What is so worrisome about his name recognition as an incumbent that he has to spend millions of his own money -- as well hundreds of thousands of the taxpayers' dollars -- on television commercials showing his armed agents busting into a house and arresting someone? Or surrounding himself with laughing children?
Another question: why isn't Abbott's wheelchair visible in any of his commercials?
And a third question: Have you seen any polling in the election for Attorney General? Considering what a publicity whore he is, do you think that if the polling were favorable to Abbott you would have heard about it in the media by now?
Fund-raising and electoral troubles aside, we're not even close to the end of Abbott's legal woes. From The Lone Star Project:
Judge Blocks AG Abbott's Vote Suppression Scheme
A short while ago, US District Court Judge T. John Ward granted a preliminary injunction stopping Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams from enforcing a Texas Law that makes it a crime to simply mail or posses a sealed ballot. This year, Abbott has aggressively prosecuted at least 13 individuals, most of whom had done nothing more then help senior citizens vote by mail. Virtually all of those prosecuted are minority senior citizens and all are Democrats. Judge Ward's order says:
For the reasons set forth in the court's findings of fact and conclusions of law, the court orders Defendants, Greg Abbott, in his official capacity as the Attorney General for the State of Texas and Roger Williams, in his official capacity as Secretary of State for the State of Texas, their employees, agents, representatives, attorneys, and servants, and all other persons acting in concert, privity, or participation with the defendants, immediately to:
1. cease enforcing, pending a trial on the merits, Tex. Elec. Code § 86.006(f) under circumstances in which a person, other than the voter, has merely possessed the official ballot or official carrier envelope and such possession is with the actual consent of the voter"
(Source: Preliminary Injunction, Willie Ray v Texas)Read the Preliminary Injunction Here
Read the Findings of Fact HereOver the past several months, the Lone Star Project has issued a series of investigative reports highlighting Greg Abbott's abuse of the flawed statute. Read the reports here. The Lone Star Project called for legal action against Abbott's efforts and has supported the legal challenge mounted by the six citizen plaintiffs and the Texas Democratic Party.
The Lone Star Project Director Matt Angle said, "Greg Abbott was not only improperly enforcing a flawed statute, but creating an atmosphere of intimidation and fear. Abbott has acted in a shameless manor, and Judge Ward's order is welcome protection for voters in Texas."
And from Boyd Richie:
The Texas Democratic Party has won a preliminary injunction stopping Attorney General Greg Abbott and Secretary of State Roger Williams from prosecuting voters who are trying to help seniors exercise their right to vote. Texas Republicans know that they would lose fair and free elections. That’s why they’ve done everything they can to stack the deck … even if it means willfully ignoring the law and abusing the power of their office. The examples of Republican misdeeds are numerous:
· Republicans blatantly broke the law when they pushed through an illegal redistricting plan that disenfranchised thousands of Hispanic and African American voters.
· They broke a long standing state law when they illegally used corporate money to fund state house elections.
· And, most recently, they tried to override the results of a legally held primary by attempting to remove Tom DeLay from the ballot when he decided to quit, instead of facing certain defeat at the ballot box.
It seems clear that the current Attorney General of Texas has created numerous problems for himself through misapplication of several laws, to put it as kindly as possible.
(Strangely, this message from the TDP chairman trumpeting his efforts never once mentions the Democratic candidate for Texas Attorney General. There could be a posting about whatever this means at a later time.)Tuesday, October 31, 2006
The incredible shrinking senior senator from Texas
--If this is what is happening to her body, imagine what's going on with her brain.
-- Do we really need another preening, fawning harridan in Washington?
-- Most Republicans running for Congress are cutting and running from Bush as fast as they can. Not in Sugar Land, though. They eat this up like a dog eating another dog's vomit.
Three suggestions:
-- Turn off your TV so you won't be subjected to any more of the GOP's incessant attempts to control the minds of the poor fools like those gathered around the people you see in the picture above.
-- Ignore the Houston Chronicle, the Dallas News and the urban daily newspapers throughout the state. They have all veered hard to the right -- through the weeds and into the ditch -- trying to get their Republican friends re-elected. Update (11/1): This is what I'm talkin' about. It's so shameless I almost feel sorry for them, except when I note their plummeting circulation figures. I'm sure they're all sitting together in their respective boardrooms wondering why.
-- Vote.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
More postpourri
-- the poor mistreated corporations of America are banding together to fight back against the enormous and unrelenting legal persecution they have endured of late. See also Tom's blog for frequent commentary on this subject, usually focusing on the "harassment" of corporate executives accused of wrongdoing.
This is just about the most miserably obnoxious commentary proffered by conservatives of late (ever since they managed to take immigration nationwide, that is).
-- CNN's 'Broken Government' has been excellent; even the hit piece by Candy "Butterqueen" Crowley on the Democrats wasn't unwatchable, but the other parts of the series were examples of good solid political reporting. And among Houston media, KPRC's political page stands head and shoulders above the Chronicle and the other two broadcast outlets. Their on-demand video and coverage of local and state races is simply the best, by far. I rarely if ever watch their news, but the online resources they have assembled blow away the competition. Yesterday they televised "Straight Talk from the Candidates", where state- and county-wide party representatives were given 2.5 minutes uninterrupted to make their case directly to the voters. (This program will re-air on November 5, and is well worth watching.) Even for a political junkie like me, there are people running for office whom I have not seen nor heard speak, and this was an opportunity to gauge that intangible , emotional response to their face and voice.
Honorable mention goes to the Chronic's opinion and politics pages, and particularly cartoonist Nick Anderson's blog, deserving of special recognition for their interactive ease. The op page regularly links to local blogs, including this one, on topics not necessarily political.
-- the Republican television advertisements here are non-stop and nausea-inducing. Greg Abbott's commercial featuring his misuse of state resources just aired again. According to the Texas Penal Code Section 39.02, the state's top law enforcement officer may have committed at least a second-degree felony.
Who exactly is responsible for arresting, charging, and prosecuting the Attorney General when he commits a crime?
-- and don't miss the double edition of Sunday Funnies: Limbaughtomy and Election Day Countdown.
Postpourri
-- The following two links are an example of the dichotomy that currently exists in my fair city. While janitors strike for $8.50 an hour and health insurance, the Tony-est restaurants in Houston are packed full of Republicans eating truffles at $300 a plate.
Seventy-dollar-a-barrel oil (even sixty, on its way up and down) and a 12,000 point Dow don't seem to have trickled down very far.
-- Early voting is way up across the state, but e-voting issues in predominantly Democratic Jefferson County remain a source of concern. Update (10/30): Dos Centavos links to this KFDM video detailing the notorious ES&S vote-switching machines, which had problems during the primary earlier this year.
-- Crime in Houston has not increased as much as conservatives would like you to believe. And it is not due to Katrina evacuees, either.
-- Karl Rove is apparently marshaling the goonbats in order to save the GOP from certain defeat. The last mystery left for this cycle -- besides, of course, whether our votes have been counted accurately or not -- is whether he will be successful. Fear just doesn't seem to be as effective a motivation this time.
-- The Saint Louis Cardinals defeated the Detroit Tigers to win the World Series, and the nation yawned. I didn't even see much gloating by Cards fans in the places I usually look.
-- The Houston Rockets could win the NBA champeenship this season. No, really.
-- Vaya con Dios, Joe Niekro and Red Auerbach.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Abbott spends taxpayer dollars on his TV ads
WFAA in Dallas reports, and pulls no punches.
For those of you unable to view the video, here's the summary:
Three years ago and shortly after he was elected attorney general, Greg Abbott ordered the OAG to purchase video equipment worth $66,000, and hired a videographer at a salary of $70,000 -- all at taxpayer expense -- to record, among other things, arrests of alleged child predators (the tapes show armed agents invading a home and subduing a suspect) . These videos have been seen in his recent barrage of television commercials.
They are also available for viewing at his campaign website.
Tom Smith of Public Citizen is quoted in the WFAA report saying that the law is clear in these cases, and that what the Attorney General has done is illegal. Abbott refused comment, but his campaign chairman responded with an e-mail statement indicating the videos were "obtained" through the FOI act.
David Van Os had this to say:
"I'm not surprised. It is representative of how Abbott has used his office for four years, and that is to promote himself."
I can't really add any outrage to this except to ask, "Have you had enough?"
Update: The Associated Press picks up on the story, and the Fort Worth Startle-Gram runs with it.