Help oppose telecom immunity today

... because if they haven't done anything wrong, why do they need to be shielded from crimes that haven't been committed?

Of course, they did. Spy on us, that is. All of us. All of e-mail, our phone calls, everything. Everybody. You, me, your mother, every single American, every single phone call you made, every single e-mail you sent or received.

Chris Dodd has a nifty little tool you can use to see which Senators are for, against, or wavering:



Most haven't decided, so a call today would really be helpful. I called Senator Box Turtle's office, but since he has never represented my views in any way in the past six years, I also called Sen. Leahy.

I told his staffer that since I had no representation in the US Senate, if he would be so kind as to represent me (and all Texas Democratic voters, and several thousand independents and maybe even a few Republicans) by opposing the FISA law granting retroactive immunity to AT&T, et. al. for the blanket spying they did on us.

I was on the phone for ten minutes for anyone in Sen. Schumer's office before I hung up.

Welcome to Houston, Mr. President

Cheney in Dallas last week, Bush in Houston and San Antonio today. You think they're worried about their little box turtle? As political uber-guru Richard Murray noted: "I hope they can raise some money, that's about all they can do for Cornyn."

And as our beloved Pretzledent prepares to do that little fund-raising event here this evening for his bestest buddy in the US Senate, we're going to do a little raising of our own.

And you can join Democracy for America, Wes Clark, John Kerry and many more in giving Dubya a poke in the eye with a $50,000 stick.

The Rick Noriega Express is rolling again today; jump on board. More from my blogsista Share.

The Democrat Party vs. the Democratic Party

I'm officially ready to adopt the Republican terminology of denigration to those who have chosen to wear the label proudly. I'm not going to call them Blue Dogs or moderates or conservative Dems any longer. They are Democrats.

They are not Democratic.

The distinctions have been demonstrated several times just this week, brought into sharp focus by the conduct of Democrats and Democratics regarding the attorney general's imminent confirmation in the Senate and the vote to impeach the vice-president yesterday in the House.

See if you can predict where this goes:

Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein are Democrats; Russ Feingold and Patrick Leahy are Democratic. Steny Hoyer's definitely a Democrat. Dennis Kucinich is obviously a member of the Democratic Party.

Hillary Clinton? Democrat. John Edwards? Democratic.

Democrats kow-tow, appease, relent, capitulate, quaver, acquiesce, give in, and give up. They vote to fund the war in Iraq, they vote for torture, for wiretapping, for immunity for wiretappers, and against S-CHIP and impeaching Cheney.

Democratics do not.

Members of the Democratic Party stand for the people against the powerful. Democrats take a poll to figure out where they stand. Democratics want campaign finance reform, as in publicly funded elections; Democrats crowd up to the corporate trough to suck swill right alongside their conservative swine-brothers.

The thing is that some Democrats are occasionally Democratic, but you nearly never find a Democratic going Democrat. It's a matter of principle that no poll, no lobbyist, no check in any amount can influence. And the other thing is that a Democrat is capable of being made into -- or back into -- a member of the Democratic Party, essentially because of that knack they have of being easily influenced.

I'm only supporting and voting for the Democratic Party from now on.

Mukasey, Musharraf, and more bloggerrhea

The two items of national and global concern that emerged over the past week were the Democratic capitulation on the attorney general-designate and the political crisis in Pakistan. Both left me apoplectic. So let me just point to the snark and the precision analysis of others ...

-- CodePink demonstrates waterboarding to Dianne Feinstein as she enters the CNN building Sunday past for her turn on Late Edition. Keith Olbermann again put the wood to Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, the Democrats, etc., over the reasons for Mukasey's prevarication: because someone is going to have to try them for war crimes, it just isn't going to be anybody currently in charge.

-- Musharraf is nothing more than a tin-pot dictator imposing Chinese-style crackdowns on the judiciary, the media, and the people of his country. But he's Bush's boy -- or more to the point, Cheney's puppet, so "American" support to the tune of a billion dollars a year will continue.

Hey, Pakistan has both nuclear weapons and Osama bin Laden hiding nearby, right?

-- Following on my earlier post which alluded to the rise of Ron Paul and the particular strain of conservatism he appeals to, the man set a fund-raising record yesterday: $4.3 million. That was in part due to the celebration of Guy Fawkes Day. Fawkes was believed to be the inspiration for the character in the film "V for Vendetta", which tells a story of blowing up a neofascist regime in order to start government over fresh.

And I thought that was Howard Dean's job. Oh well, I'm certain Hillary Clinton won't do anything remotely meeting that description ...

-- House Judiciary chairman John Conyers has asked the Bush adminstration's lawyer, Fred Fielding, nine times to cooperate with the investigation into the US attorneys scandal. Yesterday he filed criminal contempt of Congress citations against former White House counsel Harriet Myers and current chief of staff Josh Bolton.

--Today is Election Day and in Texas we have constitutional amendments to vote on, and in Houston a mayor and city council and several bond issues to decide. I'll be doing my regular gig down at the Central Counting Office and missing all the good election night parties.

Vote if you already haven't and hoist a frosty for me.

You're welcome, Rick

And tomorrow you can cast your ballot for Mrs. Rick, the incumbent Houston city councilwoman.

The Weekly Wrangle

Before we get to this week's edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance's Texas Blog Round-Up, we want to encourage all of our readers to vote for two member blogs in the 2007 Weblog Awards: cast a ballot for Three Wise Men here and The Agonist here.

The Texas Cloverleaf looks at the final installment of Trinity Trickery and implores Dallas residents to vote yes on Prop 1 on November 6th!

At Bluedaze we learn from TXsharon that the FWISD participates in a web of deceit with Barnett Shale producers and how the school district helps spread oil company propaganda at the expense of education.

Hal and some friends attended Nick Lampson's (TX-22) NCLB town hall meeting this past week and reports from Half Empty.

Bill Howell of Stoutdemblog links to the firestorm over Barack Obama's knowing use of a homophobe as emcee of a campaign rally in I Love A Tirade.

Are you upset about the enthusiasm of some in Congress for an AG that thinks torture is OK and views constitutional checks and balances as 'quaint'? So is McBlogger.

Off the Kuff looks at the fate of the Astrodome now that the Texans and the Rodeo have come out against a plan to redevelop it as a hotel/convention center.

North Texas Liberal's Texas Toad tells us a Halloween horror story about global warming deniers Fred Singer, Don Erler, and their ilk in Planet Purgatory Parts One and Two.

Would you feel honored if a city named a street after you? What if the street was broken into non-continuous segments and wound its way through backwater sidestreets of town? What if no one even knew where the street was? Well, that's how Lubbock has "honored" Cesar Chavez, notes Blue 19th.

Over at Texas Kaos, there's a report on Texans giving Darth Cheney a well deserved reception up in Dallas. Succinctly put, Don't Iraq Iran!

David Van Os has an opposing viewpoint of several of the constitutional amendments on Tuesday's ballot, and shares it at Brains and Eggs.

Over at Three Wise Men, Nat Wu analyzes the situation in Africa, particularly renewed talk of war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, while Xanthippas takes on Scott Horton's view that being "grown-up" Democrat when it comes to foreign policy is giving Bush what he asks for.

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that if screwing the middle class was a Congressional sex scandal, Texas' GOP congress critters would be making serious headlines.

NYTexan at BlueBloggin explores Bush's endless veto pen and his continued disregard for the Katrina victims.

WCNews at Eye on Williamson asks why every former Bush administration official from Texas is always rumored to running for public office in Texas in The Definition of Insanity.

This week's episode of TheTexas Blue's Who's Blue interview series features former Texas attorney general Jim Mattox, who shares his observations on Texas campaigns throughout his career and how the national mood may affect the coming election cycle.

Additional Sunday Funnies

John Edwards on the "politics of parsing"

More Edwards:

Edwards' campaign has seen a surge of online support of late, often a barometer of how well any candidate is doing. They've raised $500,000 in the last two weeks over the Internet, $200,000 of it the day after the Philadelphia debate, at which Edwards was by most accounts the clear winner. Even more importantly, the campaign says 40% of recent donors were new to the campaign. The cash infusion comes on the heels of a series of important union endorsements for Edwards, who trails in overall fundraising behind both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama by more than $50 million. Edwards has won support from seven Iowa unions — a huge boon to the campaign because it effectively shuts out Obama from bringing in any outside organized labor support. Obama has no Iowa union endorsements; Hillary leads the field with eight.

And from a recent speech, "The Moral Test of Our Generation":

It's time to tell the truth. And the truth is the system in Washington is corrupt. It is rigged by the powerful special interests to benefit they very few at the expense of the many. And as a result, the American people have lost faith in our broken system in Washington, and believe it no longer works for ordinary Americans. They're right.

As I look across the political landscape of both parties today -- what I see are politicians too afraid to tell the truth -- good people caught in a bad system that overwhelms their good intentions and requires them to chase millions of dollars in campaign contributions in order to perpetuate their careers and continue their climb to higher office. ...

And a few weeks ago, around the sixth anniversary of 9/11, a leading presidential candidate held a fundraiser that was billed as a Homeland Security themed event in Washington, D.C. targeted to homeland security lobbyists and contractors for $1,000 a plate. These lobbyists, for the price of a ticket, would get a special "treat" -- the opportunity to participate in small, hour long breakout sessions with key Democratic lawmakers, many of whom chair important sub committees of the homeland security committee. That presidential candidate was Senator Clinton.

Senator Clinton's road to the middle class takes a major detour right through the deep canyon of corporate lobbyists and the hidden bidding of K Street in Washington -- and history tells us that when that bus stops there it is the middle class that loses.

When I asked Hillary Clinton to join me in not taking money from Washington lobbyists -- she refused. Not only did she say that she would continue to take their money, she defended them.

Today Hillary Clinton has taken more money from Washington lobbyists than any candidate from either party -- more money than any Republican candidate.

She has taken more money from the defense industry than any other candidate from either party as well.

She took more money from Wall Street last quarter than Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Barack Obama combined.

The long slow slide of our democracy into the corporate abyss continues unabated regardless of party, regardless of the best interests of America.

We have a duty -- a duty to end this.

I believe you cannot be for change and take money from the lobbyists who prevent change. You cannot take on the entrenched interests in Washington if you choose to defend the broken system. It will not work. And I believe that, if Americans have a choice, and candidate who takes their money -- Democrat or Republican -- will lose this election.

For us to continue down this path all we have to do is suspend all that we believe in. As Democrats, we continue down this path only if we believe the party of the people is no more.

As Americans, we continue down this path only if we fail to heed Lincoln's warning to us all.

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected," he asked, "if it ever reaches us it must spring up amongst us. It can not come from abroad. If destruction be our lot -- we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we must live through all time or die by suicide."

A rather spectacular Saturday

if you're a college football fan:

LSU wins "Saban Bowl" 41-34 over Alabama

The game fully delivered on its buildup, the two teams going at each other like heavyweights throwing nothing but bombs. There were numerous big plays and amazing swings in momentum, but LSU came through when it mattered.

Navy defeats Notre Dame after 44 years and three overtimes

Roger Staubach was quarterback for the Midshipmen in 1963 when they beat Notre Dame 35-14. Since then, the Irish have had their way -- that is until Saturday.

Longhorns beat Cowboys on last-second field goal

Between the first and second quarter, a livid (Texas coach Mack) Brown gathered his players in a huddle and screamed at them. Initially, Brown's outburst didn't seem to have much effect. Less than a minute into the second quarter, (Oklahoma State quarterback Zac) Robinson capped an 88-yard drive with a 7-yard touchdown run, putting Oklahoma State ahead 21-0.

Arkansas' McFadden rushes for 323, passes for TD

With the ball at the South Carolina 23, McFadden dropped a pitchout, then picked up the ball and threw to the end zone for Robert Johnson, who wasn't open. Johnson outjumped defensive back Carlos Thomas and came down with the ball for a touchdown.

And there's more. Allegedly there will also be a pretty good pro game played this afternoon, though we in Houston won't get to see it (without a satellite dish and the NFL Sunday Ticket package).

Sunday Funnies