Does a gender card beat a race card?

That's why I put the 'toon with that caption on top of the last post, because it really signifies the coming maelstrom for Democrats at the national level.

So let's revisit that premise Booman suggested here last night. Yeah, that one: the one that suggests that Edwards' support for the most part goes to Clinton because she isn't black.

Maybe it's accurate, maybe it's not. If it is, I have to say that I thought I was in a political party that was better than that. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

And then again, maybe I am, and maybe I ain't.

That supporting a candidate for president isn't about his fight for the middle class and against the entrenched corporate interests -- that it's not progressive policy or even political viability but for reasons of bigotry -- gives me considerable pause. I already have enough disagreements with Democrats acting like Republicans; if it becomes any more obvious that they're a bunch of racist pigs on top of that, then I just have one question left to ask:

How did I get in here? And how do I get out? And: WTF?

WTF am I doing in a party like that; a party where former Congressmen Nick Lampson and Ciro Rodriguez move in to another district and promptly sell themselves completely out to the Republicans for a measly two years in Congress (because, believe me, that is all they're gonna get)? A party that not only refuses to bring impeachment proceedings against Dick Cheney, but considers those of us who do 'divisive'? A party that wants to give the telephone companies blanket immunity from eavesdropping on my phone calls and e-mail?

WTF am I doing in a party that denies Dennis Kucinich a place on the ballot because he won't swear a loyalty oath? A party that only allows votes for "approved" write-in candidates to count?

Have we gone backwards in time when I wasn't looking? Is this Germany in the late 1930's? (Don't even get me started about the ICE wagons rounding people up and drugging them because they don't have the proper papers. There's plenty of Democrats that agree with the xenophobes and nativists in the Republican party on that one.)

WTF am I doing in a party where a Texas House Democrat (sic) takes thousands of dollars from Swift Boat Bob Perry and fully supports Tom Craddick for speaker, and yet gets the support of so-called progressives? What kind of pretzel have we twisted our principals to look like this time? And WHY TF are two choices for the state house in a 90% Democratic district Completely Corrupt, who lost two years ago -- but has run around the district telling people he's still the rep -- and Completely Crazy?

WTF am I doing in a party with a PAC that tells potential candidates which offices to run for, alternately dangles hundreds of thousands of dollars in front of them and threatens to remove that and all their other sources of funding because they don't toe the line?

Third Thursday, named simply after the day of the month they meet, decided to focus on state House races in Harris County instead.

"We didn't feel like we were able to affect the presidential races and the agenda," said lawyer Dave Matthiesen. "We wanted to get involved in something where we could make a difference."

The group includes former Pennzoil CEO Jim Postl; Bob Cavnar, CEO of Milagro Exploration; former Metro Chairman Arthur Schechter; and Houston Center for Contemporary Craft co-founder Sara Morgan.

These are members of the Democratic Party? The same one I'm in?

No, but they are Democrats.

WTF am doing in here with this bunch of people? I can give my time and money to a lot more things that will give me a lot greater satisfaction than this.

Oh yeah, this post was supposed to be about race and gender, not just race and money and corruption. It's almost time once again to revisit those tired bromides about how tested and ready Mrs. Clinton will be for the coming Republican flames. What about the questions of her fitness for the presidency from her own side? Like the ones I'll be leveling, for example?

What if the reason she loses isn't because she energizes the Republicans but that she demoralizes too many of the real Democrats? Is that going to be our fault, too?

Lots has been written about the fracturing coalitions within the GOP, but if the Democrats -- be it Hillary or Barack as the nominee -- lose the White House it will be of their own doing. Even my little brother the Republican thinks "the Democrats have a lay-down hand, but they keep shootin' themselves in the head".

A few too many mixed Western metaphors , but the point is taken.

Sunday Funnies (daybreak edition)

*sigh*

This was Booman, yesterday afternoon:

Late polling out of Nevada shows an Edwards collapse that is benefiting Clinton. This is obviously the worst possible news for both Obama and Edwards. It looks like the Clintons are using Obama's anti-gambling history against him, which is just one more reason for me to want to puke.

You can learn some about how the caucuses are going to work and lay of the land here. I am not going to predict the outcome of tommorow's contest but I will say that Obama cannot afford to lose and Edwards cannot afford a collapse below the 15% mark. Both of those outcomes are now indicated in the polls. So, my fingers are crossed and I am not at all happy.

Here are the results just now:

Clinton 51
Obama 45
Edwards 4

And back to Booman ...

Clinton lost almost every county in Nevada but she won in Clark County by a big margin and that is where most of the people live. She is going to win the caucuses with somewhere around 49%-52% of the vote. Edwards will finish with an astonishingly low 4% of the vote. Both outcomes are deadly to the prospects for stopping a Clinton nomination. I think Obama's victory in South Carolina is now at risk, particularly if Edwards' supporters start shifting to the other white candidate.

I'm 'this' close to calling the nomination as over. But dynamics can still change in a hurry and perhaps an Obama comeback in South Carolina can still propel him to victories on Feb. 5th.

There is still no official word on how much money we raised for the Edwards campaign yesterday. Obviously it wasn't $7 million.

*heavy sigh*

I'm going to dinner in Kemah. I'll probably have some thoughts on South Carolina and the prospects going forward tomorrow, in between the Sunday Funnies.

Bobby Fischer 1943- 2008

He inspired me, as he did thousands of other kids, with his legendary chess skills, and his world championship win over Boris Spassky at one of the many depths of the Cold War:

Mr. Fischer was the most powerful American player in history, and the most enigmatic. After scaling the heights of fame, he all but dropped out of chess, losing money and friends and living under self-imposed exile in Budapest, Japan, possibly in the Philippines and Switzerland, and finally in Iceland, moving there in 2005 and becoming a citizen.

More on Fischer vs. Spassky in 1972, and its rematch twenty years later:

In 1992, he came out of a long seclusion for a $5 million rematch against his old nemesis, the Russian-born grandmaster Boris Spassky. The match, in Yugoslavia, commemorated the 20th anniversary of the two men’s monumental meeting in Reykjavik and Mr. Fischer’s most glorious triumph.

Mr. Fischer won the rematch handily, but it was a sad reprise of their face-off in the summer of 1972.

In that earlier encounter, Mr. Fischer wrested the world championship from the elegant Mr. Spassky to become the first and, as yet, only American to win the title, one that Soviet-born players had held for more than four decades. It was the cold war fought with chess pieces in an out-of-the-way place.

Mr. Fischer won with such brilliance and dramatic flair that he became an unassailable representative of greatness in the world of competitive games, much as Babe Ruth had been and Michael Jordan would become.

“It was Bobby Fischer who had, single-handedly, made the world recognize that chess on its highest level was as competitive as football, as thrilling as a duel to the death, as aesthetically satisfying as a fine work of art, as intellectually demanding as any form of human activity,” Harold C. Schonberg, who reported on the Reykjavik match for The New York Times, wrote in his 1973 book “Grandmasters of Chess.”

He was ahead of his time in other ways as well ...

Fischer renounced his U.S. citizenship and spent nine months in custody before the dispute was resolved when Iceland — a chess-mad nation of 300,000 — granted him citizenship.

"They talk about the 'axis of evil,'" Fischer said when he arrived in Iceland. "What about the allies of evil ... the United States, England, Japan, Australia? These are the evildoers."

Like his other extravagances, he took it a little too far ...

He praised the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, saying, "I want to see the U.S. wiped out," and described Jews as "thieving, lying bastards." Fischer's mother was Jewish.

Checkmate, Bobby. You'll be missed by this very average chess player.

Today's the Seven Million Dollar Day

You know what to do.

"An offense to justice"

Republican Texas Supreme Court justice gets indicted for evidence tampering in an arson investigation (while Mrs. TSC judge catches the actual arson charge). Republican DA refuses to indict. Assistant foreman of the grand jury returning the indictments -- also a Republican -- goes public with the charge of political fixing.

Sorry, we've run out of popcorn; will chips and salsa be OK?

"Rosenthal resisted these indictments with a vigor I have never seen or heard before. The DAs office called my office last week and said we should not meet, the case was not viable and we should not indict. Obviously, that came from the top."

He continued, "Rosenthal went to the press (at the end of October) ... where he tried to sweep it under the rug. This really pisses me off. I am offended at his actions."

Dorrell said, "Our term ended on November 2 but our investigation of this issue had not been completed. We were held over for three months. This was the only case on our docket. Twelve citizens have put in countless hours on this issue. It is very irritating for someone who was not in the room with us decide not to prosecute.

"If this was a truck driver from Pasadena, he would have already been tried and convicted. Instead, there was a concerted effort by his office to protect this sitting elected Republican from the normal process of justice ."

"It is an offense to justice", Dorrell said.

Everybody caught the Joe Horn reference, right? Now Charlie:

Remember, Rosenthal had no problems taking C.O. Bradford (the Democratic nominee for DA this cycle) to court on flimsy evidence, and while he went out of his way to not prosecute onetime local GOP kingpin Steven Hotze on a drunk driving charge. He has an established history of questionable judgment, and it would seem that it's no better today.

Please note that I am not claiming that Justice Medina is guilty of anything. He very much gets and deserves the presumption of innocence that we all enjoy. My layman's view of the news stories, which I had not followed very closely before now, is that the state's case would be very circumstantial. It's quite possible that despite Mr. Dorrell's protests, Rosenthal is making the correct call to not pursue these charges. If Rosenthal's judgment were remotely trustworthy, there wouldn't be that much to say about this story. But his judgment is anything but trustworthy, and so I and I'm sure many other people are deeply suspicious of Rosenthal's actions here. That's corrosive to the justice system in general, and very unfair to the Medinas, who is owed a real chance to clear his name.

I don't know what's going to happen. Even with Rosenthal's issues, it would be a bad precedent for public opinion to put pressure on a DA to prosecute someone when that DA thinks the evidence is lacking. All that I can really conclude is that Rosenthal is well past his expiration date, and would be doing everybody a huge favor if he'd just get the hell out. That's the kind of public opinion pressure I can get behind.

Kuffner's being even-handed, but note for the record that there might be another axe to grind: that GJ asst. foreman is a very soft Republican, having resigned as a precinct chair to vote for Chris Bell in 2006.

Why he still remains a Republican after all the offense he has taken at their hands, I cannot fathom.

One last thing that goes back to the original complaint of evidence tampering against a sitting Supreme Court judge: the house in Spring -- the one that burned, the one Medina's wife is accused of torching -- wasn't insured, and Medina didn't know it.

Got that, all you homeowners out there?

I presume this would be evidence supporting Justice Medina's presumption of innocence. /sarcasm

Update: Here's this morning's update from the Chron. And Lisa Falkenberg adds:

A couple of weeks ago, when (grand jury foreman Robert) Ryan and Dorrell were trying to set up a date for the grand jury to meet again, the two jurors said (prosecutor Vic) Wisner tried to talk them out of it.

"He seemed very upset," Dorrell told me. "He said, 'Why are you guys meeting? This isn't a viable case.' "

Then Thursday, when Ryan told Wisner what indictments he wanted prepared, Ryan said the prosecutor refused: "He said, 'I will not do it.' And I said, 'Well, get your boss in here.' And he said, 'He knows all about it.' And he slammed the door and left. He came back later and said, 'All right, I'll prepare the indictments.' "

If the indictments are dismissed, Ryan said, grand jurors may try to re-indict. It's unfortunate when a panel must go to such lengths to carry out justice.

It's worse if the district attorney has gone to such lengths to obstruct it.

Yes, we're related

Harvey Kronberg's Quorum Report:

GRAND JURY ASSISTANT FOREMAN ACCUSES ROSENTHAL OF COVERUP

"If this was a truck driver from Pasadena, he would already have been tried and convicted," said Dorrell

Jeffrey Dorrell served as the assistant foreman of the Harris County Grand Jury that indicted Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina and his wife earlier today.

In a just-completed interview with Quorum Report, a furious Dorrell accused District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal of a political cover-up for refusing to pursue the just-returned indictments.

Hey, I'm just as in the dark as you are. Until the story hits the funny papers, you'll just have to buy it from Harvey.

The al-Qaeda wing of the GOP

What do you suppose the Right-Wing Noise machine would be blasting today if Mark Siljander happened to be a Democrat?

A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday on charges of working for an alleged terrorist fundraising ring that sent more than $130,000 to an al-Qaida supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan.

Mark Deli Siljander, a Michigan Republican when he was in the House, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about being hired to lobby senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.

The 42-count indictment, unsealed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo., accuses the Islamic American Relief Agency of paying Siljander $50,000 for the lobbying _ money that turned out to be stolen from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The charges paint "a troubling picture of an American charity organization that engaged in transactions for the benefit of terrorists and conspired with a former United States congressman to convert stolen federal funds into payments for his advocacy," Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein said.

Siljander, who served in the House from 1981-1987, was appointed by President Reagan to serve as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations for one year in 1987.

Siljander was one of the very first conservo-freaks elected to Congress, preceding the post-Reagan wave of ultra-right-wing extremists, led by LeRoy Gingrich, that took control of the House in 1994. The same brand of extremism that is so common today it's almost mainstream.

Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Tom DeLay? All Johnny-Come-Latelies compared to Siljander. No less domestic terrorists, however.

More about this traitor:

Once in Congress, he became one of the most radical wingers, someone who in today's Republican caucus would fit in. For instance, in1984 he unsuccessfully tried to amend a civil rights bill "to define the term ''person'' under the bill to include ''unborn children from the moment of conception.'" But back then, in the early days of the radical religious right's takeover of the GOP, he attracted a lot of attention, too much for some, so in 1986 plutocrat Fred Upton defeated him in a Republican primary, helped by the crazy news that Siljander had issued a tape recording to fundies asking them to "break the back of Satan" by fasting and praying for his victory.

Their prayers weren't answered. He lost, but Reagan cushioned his landing by appointing him a position at the United Nations.

And apparently al-Qaeda in America supports Duncan Hunter. Whooda thunk?

"Incidentally, I met Duncan Hunter in the Members Dining Room in the House about a year ago. I was having lunch with Rep. Hunter's old friend and former Michigan congressman Mark Siljander, and the three of us stood there in the middle of the dining room, along with two of Duncan's San Diego constitutents (one active military and one disabled in Iraq and recently relieved from active duty) and we all held hands and prayed together while other diners gave us curious glances. At that moment I knew that Duncan Hunter was the right man for the White House, and I doubt if he'd seriously considered running for president at that point. A man with the courage of his convictions; what a great asset for a leader."

I know I was moved by this story and reassured that Duncan Hunter is the right man for the Presidency! If we pull together we can help make this great man our next president!

Back to DHinMI for the executive summary:

Let's review. Mark Siljander was one of the original creations of the fundamentalist right wing. Had he won his seat from a less moderate area than Southwest Michigan, he might still be in Congress. Hell, he'd probably be in leadership. So he was shunted aside for a while, but he continued to move in the interconnected world of fundamentalist religion, rightwing politics, and lobbying and financial malfeasance.

In short, Mark Siljander is a archetypal radical rightwing politician. They espouse patriotism and fundamental values, but really, they're just ignorant, intolerant, greedy and don't care about America.

Any questions?

NV voters/debate watchers pick Edwards

Frank Luntz is the wildly gesticulating Republican pollster in this video snapshot:



You can purchase Edwards bumper stickers, signs, shirts and more at the website (but wait until this Friday, when it counts as part of the $7 million drive).

Congratulations Mittens!

You couldn't have done it without us.

Now your Democratic constituents expect you to speak out against Mike Huckaboob's ridiculous assertion that we change the Constitution into the Bible.